To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.
Charles Horton CooleyRead
If we divine a discrepancy between a man's words and his character, the whole impression of him becomes broken and painful; he revolts the imagination by his lack of unity, and even the good in him is hardly accepted.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of consistency between a person's words and their character.
Charles Horton Cooley expresses that when there is a mismatch between what a person says and who they truly are, it creates a fractured perception of that individual. This dissonance not only detracts from their positive attributes but also leads to a painful evaluation by others, as people struggle to reconcile their contradictory nature.
Themes
IntegrityConsistencyCharacterCommunicationPerception
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the value of authenticity in leadership.
More from Charles Horton Cooley
All quotes →We have no higher life that is really apart from other people. It is by imagining them that our personality is built up; to be without the power of imagining them is to be a low-grade idiot.
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The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society.
Charles Horton CooleyRead
Each man must have his I; it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble.
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The thing that moves us to pride or shame is not the mere mechanical reflection of ourselves but the imagined effect of this reflection upon another's mind.
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By recognizing a favorable opinion of yourself, and taking pleasure in it, you in a measure give yourself and your peace of mind into the keeping of another, of whose attitude you can never be certain. You have a new source of doubt and apprehension.
Charles Horton CooleyRead
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