Who inspires you?

[Holhol]

Just a question I've been thinking about lately. I want to know what people inspire you? Any reasoning why? Or do they just... do?

Outside from people I know personally, here are a list of people who inspire me:

• Harvey Milk - For being the first openly gay male politician elected into major office. Very respectable for being able to come out, especially in a time where being gay was considered a disgrace (which some people may still think this, but we've come a long way).
• Marilyn Monroe - Just for being... her. I love reading her quotes, mostly. I've never even saw a movie with her in it, but I'm still fascinated by her.
• Abraham Lincoln - Obvious reason.
• Gerald R. Ford - For taking on the role of presidency after Richard Nixon, where every decision he made was pretty much controversial. He was almost assassinated twice, his wife was an alcoholic. And he still kept going on.
• Temple Grandin - An autistic professor who was a smart and kind enough person to find a way to kill of cattle in a humane way (watch the movie, it's hard to explain ).
• J. Edgar Hoover - For his long and controversial tenure as the director of the FBI. He broke rules - but some rules are just meant to be broken.
• Princess Diana - Hard to explain, really. I'm just fascinated with her.

And I could go on, but I'm lazy.
But who inspires YOU?

[DLA]

Harry Houdini:the father of modern magic, and magic is a hobby of mine, so now you should understand.

All I can think of right now, will probably post more later.

[Zombie]

Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan is my personal hero. He was a genius astronomer but he was also so much more. He was poet of the universe and cosmos itself. He explained the deep beauty in the universe, making it appear to be the wondrous object to ever appear in existence. He is what is pushing to understand more, which is why I want to be a theoretical physicist.

[Pandora]

Liberal politicians and musicians. Woo.

Robert Smith
"Refusing to grow up is like refusing to accept your limitations. That's why I don't think we'll ever grow up."
Robert Smith, the founding lead vocalist and guitarist and occasionally keyboardist/trumpeter/flutist/bassist of the Cure, and only remaining original member inspires me because he is a talented man who doesn't give a damn what anyone thinks, as illustrated by his interesting, somewhat gloomy songwriting styles and peculiar choices in clothes and makeup. He makes his music for himself. He is more interested than making music than making money, and his experimental songs show this. Even though he looks like Elizabeth Taylor in old age, Robert Smith remains one of the most handsome, lovable, humorous, and wonderful men, and is the person I look up to and respect most.

Shirley Manson
"No, I'm not Shirley the girl, I'm the woman on MTV with the big boots."
Shirley Manson, the lead vocalist of the bands Garbage and short-lived Angelfish, had a humble beginning. She was teased ferociously in school for her flaming red hair, which was ironically to become her trademark. Despite dabbling in self-harm as a teenager, Manson became an incredibly successful and prolific musician. I am inspired by her because she is beautiful, extremely talented, and very well-spoken. She is not afraid to stand up for what she believes in, in a very loud way. I can't wait for Garbage to come out with their new album asdgfjklask I WANT TO SEE HER LIVE SO BAD ;_;

Dita Von Teese
"I advocate glamour. Every day. Every minute."
Ms Von Teese doesn't inspire me because she is a burlesque dancer, or because she appears nude more often than not, or because she had the good sense to divorce Marilyn Manson. Dita inspires me because she is an incredibly clever and sharp businesswoman who knows how to market herself. She began as a stripper in Michigan, making barely enough to get by. Now she's an internationally known burlesque dancer and fetish model who makes $20,000 for dancing on a stage half-nude for ten minutes. She is beautiful, she is talented at what she does, and most importantly, she made a huge something out of her nothing beginning.

Tim Burton
“Movies are like an expensive form of therapy for me.”
Tim Burton inspires me simply because he is the most imaginative and wonderful director. He is everything a director should try to live up to. And he remains true to his roots, and true to himself. There is not a moment in any of his films where I doubt that he was extremely involved in making it spectacular. I love him.


Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward."
I only hope to have a president as good as he was in my lifetime.

Martin O'Malley
He better be president, and soon. I'll kill someone if he's not. He's the best governor I could ask for. <3

[Unas]

I won't go into details, but my inspirations are mostly among the following :

• Isaac Asimov, science fiction author, creator of the laws of robotics, writer of the Robots, Empire and Foundation cycles among other things. And R. Daneel Olivaw, a robot from his books, designed to look perfectly like a human.
  Asimov also described psychohistory in his books : the science that aims at describing and predicting the interactions of masses of people.
• Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of most of Nintendo's big licenses and awesome game designer. He is, in his domain, the very symbol of innovation. He never considers something as "good enough", but always searches for new things, better and different - in his case, new ways of playing.
• Xavier Niel, founder of Iliad/Free, one of the big ISPs in France. Basically a symbol for constant innovation as well, as his teams practically invented concepts that made it worldwide in the end. I can add that he managed this constant innovation while at the same time cutting the costs of the market drastically : basically, he made big profit (Iliad is in very good financial shape) while also benefiting to consumers of the whole French market.
• Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google. I mentioned innovation and cost reduction for other companies; Google adds
  openness, by not only providing free services but also opensourcing a great part of their work to benefit everyone.
  Let's add the fact that they made Google one of the companies that treat its employees best - a good example, methinks.
• Though I only started watching Battlestar Galactica recently and I'm only at the half of season 2, I'd mention Commander Bill Adama, who has approximately the same views of political and military decisions as I do.
• Napoleon the Third, President then Emperor of France. Perhaps my ideal in terms of politics : got power and kept it with the people's support (through elections then referendum), and during his time in power improved at the same time the living conditions of the people, the industry and economy of France (which was considered to be something like 40 years late compared to England before his accession to power), and the country's international standing.

[enigma]

Shu Takumi
And no, not just because he made AA and Ghost Trick. Does everyone remember why he made AA? It was a against the court system in Japan. He saw something he felt was flawed and used his own quirky and humorous storytelling as well as his video gaming knowledge to express that in a subtle but creative way.

[Drey Wilkins]

John Fitzgerald Kennedy: One of the youngest presidents in the United States, He saved the world from nuclear Catastrophe with the Cuban Missile Crisis, helped bring the social reforms that ended Racial Segregation to fruition, and began the space-race that eventually resulted in the placing of Neil Armstrong on the moon. Speaking of which:

Neil Armstrong: The first man to set foot on the moon, an extremely inspirational and revolutionary moment for man kind.

[DKJustice1]

My friend Abigail who is determined to live her life interdependently though her condition makes it hard for her to keep balance
and is in a wheel chair. She is happy with who she is and hates it when people talk to the person behind the chair. Not Abigail herself: you would be impressed to she what she can do.

[TrialmanAKASoma Cruz]

Well, Fenrir inspired my current sig. He pleases his Yaoi side, so I decided to please my Yuri side.

I have been inspired by LittleKuriboh, and I tend to find myself with his humour style in my work.

[Gombarry]

John Lennon: I don't know what you think of this guy, but in my opinion he was a great guy. I loved his proclamations of peace and love throughout the world and I love his music during the Beatles era. He is the walrus.

George Harrison: the quiet Beatle. This guy inspires my music the most. I don't bring Indian instruments in my sessions. But he inspires me to always have something tasteful in my music, thus why I started learning how to play a shamisen.

Chris Martin: lead singer of Coldplay. He inspires me because of his abstinence from alcohol and drugs. Which I gladly adopted to my standards as well.

[Broocevelt]

Myself [/totally_not_egotistical]

[energizerspark]

Myself [/totally_not_egotistical]

[Broocevelt]

Actually, it may sound weird but my last post wasn't even a joke post xP
I don't need anyone to motivate me, if I have my goals I'll try to reach them by myself

[Ferdielance]

I assume this refers solely to famous people; I could talk about how my family and teachers have inspired me all day, and you wouldn't know who I was talking about. So, famous inspiring people...

Frederick Douglass: A former American slave who disproved the idea that slaves were intellectually inferior by strength of his brilliant oratory and sharp, uncompromising arguments. While a slave, he fought for every piece of information he could get at a time when it was illegal for slaves to learn to read, and risked his life for knowledge. Some people simply cannot be kept ignorant. He stood against hatred of all kinds, in addition to racism against black people - he also defended the rights of women and Native Americans.

The giants of fruit fly genetics: Ed Lewis, Thomas Hunt Morgan, Christiane Nusslein-Volhard, Seymour Benzer, and so on. They took an easily underestimated, humble little experimental organism and unlocked the secrets of development, aging, and inheritance.

[MrIsh1992]

Chuck Norris: No comment.