A Quote by A. J. Jacobs

The Bible improved my ethical IQ. I started to act like a good person. I tried not to gossip, and lie, and covet, and just by pretending I was a good person, I think I actually became a little bit better of a person. I'm not Gandhi or Angelina Jolie, but it was a baby step.
I don't want to be Angelina Jolie. Not that Angelina Jolie is not the most talented, beautiful, successful, amazing, admirable person who does good things for the world, but I don't want to be a movie star like that.
I think a bit of mystery is good, and I used to feel like an eccentric person pretending to be normal. But I am actually just a normal person seeming eccentric, by what I'm putting myself through.
[My early performance work] started by being the activity of a person, any person, like any other - but once that person became photographed it became a specialized person, the object of a personality cult.
All Angelina Jolie wants to do is do good for people. And she was saying to me: If I could just make one person happy, Joan, I'll die satisfied. I said: Easy! Just give Jennifer Aniston back her husband.
And like I said, I didn't know him very well, but my ears perked up whenever I heard his name. I guess I wanted to hear something - anything - juicy. Not because I wanted to spread gossip. I just couldn't believe someone could be that good. If he was actually that good... wonderful. Great! But it became a personal game of mine. How long could I go on hearing nothing but good things about Clay Jensen? Normally, when a person has a stellar image, another person's waiting in the wings to tear them apart. They're waiting for that one fatal flaw to expose itself. But not with Clay.
Angelina Jolie is just an extremely talented, generous, nice person to be around and to work with.
It's powerfully important for me as a pro-choice person and person who supports Planned Parenthood to have Rob accept me as not a baby-killing horrible person. That's actually a massive step away from his original position, and he's taking a lot of heat in his world just for being my friend, just for hanging around with me.
I think I'm a sober person. I think the press tries to make you into something a little bit different. In my case, a little bit of a wild man. I'm not. I'm actually not. I'm a very sober person.
Am I a good person? Deep down, do I even really want to be a good person, or do I only want to seem like a good person so that people (including myself) will approve of me? Is there a difference? How do I ever actually know whether I'm bullshitting myself, morally speaking?
Give a truly good person power, and they’re still a good person. Give a bad person power, and they’re still a bad person. The question is always about the person in between. The one that isn’t evil, or good, but just ordinary. You don’t always know what an ordinary person is like on the inside.
I see my shows like Gandhi, and I've got little baby Gandhis, and they are changing the world. I know that I'm a bit delusional about that, but I do think of them like Gandhi. They are not celebrities: they are like Gandhi and Mother Teresa.
Character is just another term for "good person." A person of character lives a worthy life guided by moral principles. A person of character is a good parent, a good friend, a good employee and a good citizen.
So many people say, "I'm a good person!" Like, why are you a good person? To be a good person you have to actively be good.
The person with just one good idea is a thousand times better off than the person with no good ideas.
People assume when they come into a church and see a person up there speaking, 'That person must be a good person.' My challenge through the years has been believing that: 'I guess I must be a really good person.' I struggle with it. It just helps me to keep that confessional posture.
When you think you're a really good person, you're actually capable of doing some real harm to people, either knowingly or unknowingly. It's the big little lie that we all live in.
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