Attempting Quotes - Page 13

• Change the attitude toward errors. Think of an object's user as attempting to do a task, getting there by imperfect approximations. Don't think of the user as making errors; think of the actions as approximations of what is desired.

  Donald A. Norman

  Attitude, Thinking, Errors

  "The Design of Everyday Things". Book by Don Norman, ch. 5, p. 131, 1988.

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• Stupidity is a factor to be reckoned with in human affairs. The true leader always expects to encounter it, and prepares to endure it patiently so long as it is normal stupidity. He knows that his ideas will be distorted, his orders carelessly executed; and that there will be jealousy among his assistants. He takes these inevitable phenomena into account, and instead of attempting to find men without faults, who are non-existent, he tries to make use of the best men at his disposal - as they are, and not as they ought to be.

  Andre Maurois

  Men, Order, Ideas

  "The Art of Living". Book by Andre Maurois, 1939.

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• We [the U.S.] think nothing... of attempting to inflict upon other peoples forms of government ill-tailored to their needs.

  Ralph Peters

  Thinking, Government, Needs

  "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World". Book by Ralph Peters, May 2002.

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• Demons wait at crossroads attempting to influence our decisions.

  April Smith

  Decision, Waiting, Influence

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• In terms of style, too, I think I've been working with a somewhat limited -- although intentionally limited -- set of tools. So I'm attempting to be a bit looser as I start stories off. To digress. To make interesting mistakes.

  Kelly Link

  Mistake, Thinking, Interesting

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• A woman questions the man who loves exactly as a judge questions a criminal. This being so, a flash of the eye, a mere word, an inflection of the voice or a moment's hesitation suffice to expose the fact, betrayal or crime he is attempting to conceal.

  Honore de Balzac

  Betrayal, Eye, Men

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• When you find me attempting to break into your house to take your plate, under any pretence whatsoever, but most of all under pretence of purity of religion and Christian charity shoot me for a robber and a hypocrite, as in that case I shall certainly be.

  Edmund Burke

  Christian, Hypocrite, House

  Edmund Burke, Harvey C. Mansfield (1984). “Selected Letters of Edmund Burke”, p.277, University of Chicago Press

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• A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write. The regard of the public is not to be kept but by tribute, and the remembrance of past service will quickly languish unless successive performances frequently revive it. Yet in every new attempt there is new hazard, and there are few who do not, at some unlucky time, injure their own characters by attempting to enlarge them.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Character, Successful

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.39

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• The Zen Master was constantly attempting to break up concepts that people had about what it was like to be a spiritual teacher. We have a traditional image. Each Zen master was a complete character.

  Frederick Lenz

  Spiritual, Teacher, Character

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• Attempting mischievous and salutary irritation of his peers ... Keynes may only succeed in becoming an academic idol of our worst cranks and charlatans - not to mention the possibilities of the book as the economic bible of a fascist movement.

  Henry Calvert Simons

  Book, Irritation, Idols

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• What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country ... he knows that ... the Democrat party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim. ... This guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder -- but something lesser.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Country, Stupid, Party

  "Anderson Cooper Trashes Think Progress By Comparing Their Site To Michelle Malkin's". crooksandliars.com. January 15, 2011.

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• Bankers are lynxes. To expect any gratitude from them is equivalent to attempting to move the wolves of the Ukraine to pity in the middle of winter.

  Honore de Balzac

  Gratitude, Moving, Winter

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• Now, however, I see the folly of attempting to hitch one's wagon to a star with a harness that does not belong to it.

  Helen Keller

  Stars, Wagons, Doe

  Helen Keller (2016). “The Story of My Life”, p.163, Om Books International

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• Politics resemble religion; attempting to divest either of ceremony is the most certain mode of bringing either into contempt.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Politics, Certain, Ceremony

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• Christianity has no ceremonial. It has forms, for forms are essential to order; but it disdains the folly of attempting to reinforce the religion of the heart by the antics of the mind.

  George Croly

  Heart, Order, Mind

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• I would like to extend to you our deep appreciation and thanks for the position the United States has taken in support of the democratization process that has taken place in Tunisia, in Egypt, and what is attempting to take place in Libya.

  Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani

  Appreciation, Taken, Egypt

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• If it were only that people have diversities of taste, that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after one model. But different persons also require different conditions for their spiritual development, and can no more exist healthily in the same moral, than all the varieties of plants can in the same physical, atmosphere and climate.

  John Stuart Mill

  Spiritual, People, Diversity

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.203, Hackett Publishing

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• I want to be a compassionate soul, finding worth and beauty in the worlds around me and within me, attempting to sing a transcendent tune with my temporal position in this life.

  Jon Foreman

  Soul, Tunes, World

  Source: www.timothywillard.com

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• Our children, Edward, Agnes, and little Mary, promise well; their education, for the time being, is chiefly committed to me; and they shall want no good thing that a mother's care can give.
  Our modest income is amply sufficient for our requirements; and by practising the economy we learnt in harder times, and never attempting to imitate our richer neighbours, we manage not only to enjoy comfort and contentment ourselves, but to have every year something to lay by for our children, and something to give to those who need it.
  And now I think I have said sufficient.

  Anne Bronte

  Mother, Children, Book

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.743, Penguin

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• To approach a city, or even a city neighborhood, as if it were a larger architectural problem, capable of being given order by converting it into a disciplined work of art, is to make the mistake of attempting to substitute art for life. The results of such profound confusion between art and life are neither life nor art. They are taxidermy.

  Jane Jacobs

  Art, Mistake, Order

  Jane Jacobs (2016). “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, p.373, Vintage

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• the difficult art I was attempting had, indeed a powerful fascination, before which the past faded, the future receded, and the whole of experience narrowed down to this stretch of glancing, glimmering water, and the fly I was trying to cast across it.

  Mary Stewart

  Art, Powerful, Past

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• My pessimism (which, by the way, is far from absolute) originated with my despair in the lack of perfection to be found in human nature. I was attempting in my successive books to show the inevitable handicap of the human condition.

  Stanislaw Lem

  Book, Perfection, Despair

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• Despotic rules are attempting to deprive women of their rights.

  Yousef Saanei

  Rights

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• There are also many instances where people hostile to the Soviet state are attempting by means of deceit and provocation to poison the minds of our citizens and compel them to believe in monstrous lies.

  Filipp Golikov

  Lying, Believe, Mean

  "Behind the Iron Curtain". Book by George Moorad, 1946.

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• The first time I thought about attempting a body suspension was after watching a documentary on rites-of-passage ceremonies from other cultures. I was completely intrigued by what these people put their bodies through.

  Criss Angel

  Other Cultures, People, Firsts

  Criss Angel (2009). “Mindfreak: Secret Revelations”, p.19, Harper Collins

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