Personal Life
Historian Alwyn W. Turner noted that Livingstone was a "gifted communicator and self-publicist" who was able to stump his opponents using his "mischievous sense of humour". Biographer John Carvel echoed these comments, highlighting that Livingstone had a "talent for public speaking". Biographer Andrew Hosken noted that many of those who had worked with Livingstone had commented on him being an excellent boss, who was "a good delegator, decisive and supportive" as well as being "a friendly and modest colleague."
Although raised into a nominally Christian family, Livingstone renounced religious belief when he was eleven, becoming an atheist. In a 2005 interview he commented that in doing so he had rejected "mumbo-jumbo in favour of rational science." The British Humanist Association identifies him as one of its distinguished supporters. Livingstone is a noted bon vivant, having twice worked as a food critic for London's Evening Standard newspaper and various magazines. He is known for his enthusiasm for gardening and keeping and breeding newts. He was the first person to breed the Western Dwarf Clawed Frog Hymenochirus curtipes in captivity. Livingstone is a big fan of The Godfather film franchise, stating that the actions of the criminal organisations within the movies are very much akin to the world of politics.
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Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“A man’s personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.... I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)