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I get information from a lot of different places.  I am really not one for extolling the virtues of one person and proclaiming them or holding them up as the answer to everything (with one exception but I have not proved him wrong).
There are those that quote someone like everything that is needed is contained in what they say.  I have no problem adhering to something, but I do not hold to anything that is uncorroborated.  I just find I like to hear the same thing from a number of people.
But there is a bottom line for me.  It is having something ring true.  If it does, I hold on to it.  If it does not, I discard it.  For me it does not matter where it comes from.  I hold to or discard based on what I feel inside.  I know there have been quotes I have quoted from ones who have turned out to be suspect at best or proved to be majorly floored.
Yet for me it is less about who says what then what is said.  There are places I stay away from and will not go.  Yet if I happen upon something said I agree with I hold to it.  Not to them, but to what was said.
For me the real test is to not know who is saying what.  If what is said rings true, I am in.  Judgement is based on what rather than who.  I personally am glad no one dismisses me based on something I may have said that proved to be wrong.  I am giving it my best shot.  I try and fail sometimes.  But thankfully that does not make me a failure.  It does make me try to get it right.
This morning I was listening to something and it occurred to me that the best I could do was not know who was speaking.  If what was said was right, I felt I could go with it.  It seems to me I need to avoid labelling and acting like one thing wrong makes something totally wrong.  I reckon I would end up an isolated individual if I based everything on that.
I feel now I had a wrong attitude about music at one stage.  There were performers I dismissed as though they were inadequate in some way.  But lately I have been really enjoying what they have to say and how they say it.  I have come to the conclusion that I was just not in a position to receive earlier and now I am.  I was the poorer, but now I am the richer.
It sure can be hard.  I get disappointed, I get inspired.  But that is them.  For sure there are lessons that can be learned from all experiences, but my life is not about them.  It is about me.