Clarifying Quotes

• All decision-making is a values-clarifying exercise.

  Tony Robbins

  Exercise, Decision, Values

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• Logic issues in tautologies, mathematics in identities, philosophy in definitions; all trivial, but all part of the vital work of clarifying and organising our thought.

  Frank P. Ramsey

  Philosophy, Hard Work, Science

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• Matisse makes a drawing, then he makes a copy of it. He copies it five times, ten times, always clarifying the line. He’s convinced that the last, the most stripped down, is the best, the purest, the definitive one; and in fact, most of the time, it was the first. In drawing, nothing is better than the first attempt.

  Pablo Picasso

  Drawing, Lasts, Firsts

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• A scientist's aim in a discussion with his colleagues is not to persuade, but to clarify.

  Leo Szilard

  Scientist, Aim, Colleagues

  Leo Szilard (1961). “The Voice of the Dolphins and Other Stories”, p.54, Stanford University Press

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• When we focus on clarifying what is being observed, felt, and needed rather than on diagnosing and judging, we discover the depth of our own compassion.

  Marshall B. Rosenberg

  Compassion, Judging, Focus

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• Like other revolutionaries I can thank God for the reactionaries. They clarify the issue.

  Robin G. Collingwood

  Issues, Thank You God, Thank God

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• I tried to fit it in with some previous broad conceptual understanding of some part of mathematics that would clarify the particular problem I was thinking about.

  Andrew Wiles

  Thinking, Understanding, Problem

  "Andrew Wiles on Solving Fermat". NOVA Interview, www.pbs.org. November 1, 2000.

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• I use my hands like a sculptor, to mold and shape the sound I want, to clarify.

  Leonard Slatkin

  Hands, Mold, Sound

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• Words are powerful. When I make mistakes I just try to come back and clarify what I meant.

  Soulja Boy

  Powerful, Mistake, Trying

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• It's better for me to go up against someone's passion with my passion and then clarifying something that he wrote. Then I know how to work around certain things.

  Penny Marshall

  Passion, Certain, Know How

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• During periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight.

  Fritjof Capra

  Truth, Knowledge, Giving

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• Trials and tribulations tend to squeeze the artificiality out of us, leaving the essence of what we really are and clarifying what we really yearn for.

  Neal A. Maxwell

  Essence, Leaving, Trials

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• So if we look at progress, or evolution, or we look at accomplishment in our life, the key is to be continually moving on, expanding and growing, clarifying, developing and maturing. The opposite would be getting stuck, staying stuck, so there's no maturing, no developing, no accomplishing, no movement.

  Dennis Merzel

  Moving, Keys, Opposites

  Dennis Genpo Merzel (2007). “Big Mind, Big Heart: Finding Your Way”, Big Mind Pub

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• Reducing every issue to an argument can become stale but it's often a very good way of clarifying issues.

  Evan Davis

  Issues, Way, Argument

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• Not the least of the problems in clarifying one's consciousness is developing the stoic determination to criticize one's own softness or sentimentality toward oneself. Ego, self-solicitous about its own tenderness, is the ultimate policeman over its own false consciousness, dementedly uprooting every healthy seedling of insight into the truth. As Kierkegaard remarked, most people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, but the real trick and task of life is to learn to be just the very opposite.

  Kenny Smith

  Life, Determination, Truth

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• Before my encounter with Thomist philosophy through Maritain, I had almost reached the same conclusions through the logical development of my work, intuition and thought, but what a great sense of joy I felt upon discovering, in Maritain, the confirmation of certain thought patterns, certain ways of clarifying these to myself and to others.

  Gino Severini

  Philosophy, Joy, Intuition

  "The Life of a Painter: The Autobiography of Gino Severini". Book by Gino Severini, 1995.

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• Universities are very clarifying places of power, because everyone is focused on trying to figure out exactly what to do with their lives.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Trying, Figures

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• The first undeniable reality is that every living thing dies, and the second undeniable reality is that we suffer throughout our lives because we don't understand death. The truth derived from these two points is the importance of clarifying the matter of birth and death. The third undeniable reality is that all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in my head simply arise haphazardly, by chance. And the conclusion we can derive from that is not to hold on to all that comes up in our head. That is what we are doing when we sit zazen.

  Kosho Uchiyama

  Death, Truth, Reality

  Kosho Uchiyama, Tom Wright, Jisho Warner (2004). “Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice”, p.11, Simon and Schuster

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• When I was overweight and unhappy, I thought about being smaller, I thought about fitting into different clothes and feeling comfortable in any environment or social situation. But I didn't do anything about it. I was letting myself fall victim to not planning, not clarifying steps to reach my goals. Don't go on just wanting something. Start consciously planning where you want to be.

  Ali Vincent

  Fall, Health, Clothes

  Ali VIncent (2010). “Believe It, Be It: How Being the Biggest Loser Won Me Back My Life”, p.144, Rodale

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• Somebody said the prospect of eminent death has a wonderful clarifying effect on the mind. And I don't know if that's true, but I do think it probably causes some changes, some evolution in the way a person works. But on a day-by-day basis, I just still enjoy doing what I'm doing.

  Stephen King

  Thinking, Mind, Way

  "Stephen King On Growing Up, Believing In God And Getting Scared". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. October 31, 2014.

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• If there were a reason for preferring the Christian religion to natural religion, it would be because the former offers us, on the nature of God and man, enlightenment that the latter lacks. Now, this is not at all the case; for Christianity, instead of clarifying, gives rise to an infinite multitude of obscurities and difficulties.

  Denis Diderot

  Christian, Men, Giving

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• Having first rate people on the team is more important than designing hierarchies and clarifying who reports to whom.

  Warren Buffett

  Team, People, Design

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• Nothing will serve you better than a strong work ethic. Nothing. And it's something that you can't teach. You have to be thrown into it, where you're going to sink or swim. It's amazing how self-correcting and how clarifying a good, hard, shitty job can be. Because at the end of the day, any profession I've seen anybody in, when you peer behind the curtains of Oh, wouldn't that be a great job? Wow, what an amazing thing, a philanthropic endeavor! it really just comes down to It's a f**king grind.

  Robert Downey, Jr.

  Strong, Kings, Jobs

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• The discipline of personal mastery...starts with clarifying the things that really matter to us (and) living our lives in the service of our highest aspirations.

  Peter Senge

  Personal Mastery, Discipline, Matter

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• Since Moses was in Egypt land, Gods people have been struggling for justice while singing freedom songs. Theology can be clarifying. A good sermon has its place. But nothing is more essential for the life of faith in a community than liturgy that invites us to sing the freedom songs that are sung around the throne of God. Brother Ken Sehested is a song leader in that great cloud of witnesses. Receive his words as gift-and keep singing.

  Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

  Song, Brother, Struggle

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