Tolerable Quotes - Page 4

• You will find as you grow older that the first thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in is to recognize the inevitable selfishness of humanity. You demand unselfishness from others, which is a preposterous claim that they should sacrifice their desires to yours. Why should they? When you are reconciled to the fact that each is for himself in the world you will ask less from your fellows. They will not disappoint you, and you will look upon them more charitably. Men seek but one thing in life -- their pleasure.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Sacrifice, Men, Things In Life

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• I'm infatuated with you, I cannot deny it. Physically speaking, you're a very attractive man. But I don't like you, the vast majority of the time. So far as I can gather, you behave abominably in public and are only marginally better in private. I only find you remotely tolerable when you're kissing me.

  Tessa Dare

  Kissing, Men, Majority

  Tessa Dare (2010). “One Dance with a Duke”, p.85, Ballantine Books

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• The world is only tolerable because of the empty places in it...when the world's filled up, we'll have to get hold of a star. Any star. Venus, or Mars. Get hold of it and leave it empty. Man needs an empty space somewhere for his spirit to rest in.

  Doris Lessing

  Stars, Men, Filled Up

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• What I have achieved by industry and practice, anyone else with tolerable natural gift and ability can also achieve.

  Johann Sebastian Bach

  Practice, Natural Gifts, Achieve

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• If you strip away self-effacement, charm and the spirit of mischief-qualities that make determination and ambition tolerable- you're left with a right ar**hole.

  Russell Brand

  Determination, Ambition, Self

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• People keep themselves at a tolerable height above an infernal abyss toward which they gravitate only by putting out all their strength and lovingly helping one another. They are tied together by ropes, and it's bad enough when the ropes around an individual loosen and he drops somewhat lower than the others into empty space; ghastly when the ropes break and he falls. That's why we should cling to the others.

  Franz Kafka

  Fall, Space, People

  Franz Kafka (2013). “Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors”, Schocken

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• It's a sad comment on humans that none of them are tolerable to one who can read their minds

  Charlaine Harris

  Mind, Comment, Humans

  Charlaine Harris (2006). “Definitely Dead: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel”, p.173, Penguin

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• He didn't like it all that much when he first came - all the rubbish and the rush - but it was growing on him, it wasn't half bad. Coming to the city was like entering a tunnel, he said, and finding to your surprise that the light at the end didn't matter; sometimes in fact the tunnel made the light tolerable.

  Colum McCann

  Tunnels, Light, Cities

  Colum McCann (2009). “Let The Great World Spin”, p.136, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Having stumbled upon a tolerable career, for the first time in my life I was actually living above the poverty line. My hunger to climb had been blunted, in short, by a bunch of small satisfactions that added up to something like happiness.

  Jon Krakauer

  Careers, Lines, Satisfaction

  Jon Krakauer (2011). “Into Thin Air: A personal account of the Everest disaster”, p.28, Pan Macmillan

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• No amount of love can cure madness or unblacken one's dark moods. Love can help, it can make the pain more tolerable, but, always, one is beholden to medication that may or may not always work and may or may not be bearable

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Depression, Pain, Dark

  FaceBook post by Kay Redfield Jamison from Jan 11, 2012

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• Sarcasm and compassion are two of the qualities that make life on Earth tolerable.

  Nick Hornby

  Sarcasm, Compassion, Two

  Nick Hornby (2003). “Songbook”, p.123, Penguin

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• It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Kindness, Thinking, Looks

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• Pam said, "Sookie, I brought you something, too. I never thought I'd want to spend time with a human, but you're more tolerable than most.

  Charlaine Harris

  Want, Said, Spend Time

  Charlaine Harris (2012). “Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel”, p.189, Penguin

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• It is not tolerable, it is not possible, that from so much death, so much sacrifice and ruin, so much heroism, a greater and better humanity shall not emerge.

  Charles de Gaulle

  Sacrifice, Humanity, Heroism

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• I felt a rush of trust--felt that life might be not just tolerable but beautiful, if I could only remember to find the bare Present.

  David James

  Beautiful, Might, Remember

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• It is very important to be aware that you may never be satistied with your analytic career if you feel that you are restricted to what is narrowly called a ‘scientific’ approach. You will have to be able to have a chance of feeling that the interpretation you give is a beautiful one, or that you get a beautiful response from the patient. This aesthetic element of beauty makes a very difficult situation tolerable.

  Wilfred Bion

  Beautiful, Difficult Situations, Careers

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• A dog, I will maintain, is a very tolerable judge of beauty, as appears from the fact that any liberally educated dog does, in a general way, prefer a woman to a man.

  Francis Thompson

  Dog, Men, Judging

  Francis Thompson (1913*). “Prose [works].”

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• While legislation can stimulate and encourage, the real creative ability which builds up and develops the country, and in general makes human existence more tolerable and life more complete, has to be supplied by the genius of the people themselves. The Government can supply no substitute for enterprise.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Country, Real, Government

  Calvin Coolidge (1925). “America's Need for Education: And Other Educational Addresses”

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• There is one universal truth, applicable to all countries, cultures and communities: violence against women is never acceptable, never excusable, never tolerable.

  Ban Ki-moon

  Country, Community, Domestic Violence

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• The worst superstition is to consider our own tolerable.

  Doris Lessing

  Superstitions, Worst

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• The good society is marked by a high degree of order, justice, and freedom. Among these, order has primacy: for justice cannot be enforced until a tolerable civil social order is attained, nor can freedom be anything better than violence until order gives us laws.

  Russell Kirk

  Order, Law, Giving

  Russell Kirk (2014). “The Roots of American Order”, p.22, Open Road Media

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• Many people put up with things that are unpleasant but tolerable, rather than changing them; their situation needs to become unbearable before they take action

  Brendan Brazier

  People, Needs, Unbearable

  Brendan Brazier (2007). “The Thrive Diet, 10th Anniversary Edition: The Plant-Based Whole Foods Way to Staying Healthy for Life”, p.37, Penguin Canada

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• Without Easter, Good Friday would have no meaning. Without Easter, there would be no hope that suffering and abandonment might be tolerable. But with Easter, a way out becomes visible for human sorrows, an absolute future: more than a hope, a divine expectation.

  Hans Urs von Balthasar

  God, Friday, Spiritual

  Hans Von Balthasar, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Adrienne von Speyr (2010). “To the Heart of the Mystery of Redemption”, p.39, Ignatius Press

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• I’m a bit of an expert on anger, having suffered from it all through my youth, when I was both brunt and font. It’s certainly the most miserable state to be in but it’s also tremendously gratifying, really—rage feels justified. And it’s an excellent substitute for action. Why would you want to sacrifice rage to go about the long, difficult, dreary business of making something more tolerable?

  Deborah Eisenberg

  Sacrifice, Long, Experts

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• Many, if not most, of the difficulties we experience in dealing with government agencies arise from the agencies being part of a fragmented and open political system…The central feature of the American constitutional system—the separation of powers—exacerbates many of these problems. The governments of the US were not designed to be efficient or powerful, but to be tolerable and malleable. Those who designed these arrangements always assumed that the federal government would exercise few and limited powers.

  James Q. Wilson

  Powerful, Exercise, Agency

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