His list is interesting because he is an interesting person. He is also a highly original and highly influential person. Trying to get-to-know what his influences are is a (probably flawed) but understandable exercise.

I think it would be fair to argue that he, himself, was an exceptional character. It's very human to want to try to understand exceptional people. Is that wrong of us?

Where did I argued against his personality? I just considered this particular list being rather poor and provided some suggestions.