What impresses you most?

[Pyrrho]

I am impressed by the seemingly limitless stupidity of humanity.  Oh, you meant favorably impressed.  Like Alex K, I am impressed by brilliant (to use his word choice, not mine) musicians.  The thing is, being an amazing musician does not make one special in any other way.  In fact, spending the necessary time to become a great musician means one is not spending that time doing other things, and often that means that a great specialist is poor at most other things.  I will give an example of what I mean:  Louis Armstrong.  When it comes to playing jazz trumpet, he was a god.  He was famous for being able to play high notes, which, if you know nothing about the trumpet, may not mean much to you.  However, in order to play increasingly high notes, it requires that one hold the trumpet tighter against one's lips, and requires higher air pressure.  He could cleanly play notes higher than most people could play while straining.  (As for the pressure, one can see the callouses on his lips in some pictures of him, that are in the round shape of a trumpet mouthpiece.)  Of course, it is not just that he could play really high notes; he could play music beautifully.  He made music.  But he was not a well-rounded person, and was not overly bright.  You see, he lived to play the trumpet.  It is that kind of devotion (coupled with natural talent, of course) that made him the god he was.  But that single-mindedness meant that he was basically good for one thing only.  Please don't misunderstand this; I am not saying he was a bad guy at all.  I am saying that he was not someone to go to in order to learn about physics or philosophy or to go to for pretty much anything other than for music.  He was a truly great musician.

Of course, there are other things that are impressive, too.  I could make up a list of great people who I admire in some way or other, though many of them have very significant flaws and shortcomings in one way or other.  (Richard Wagner comes to mind with that description.)  Epicurus came up with superb practical advice for how to live one's life, a very long time ago.  His view of the world is also surprisingly modern, more modern than most people of Europe who lived 1500 years after him.