Complacency Quotes - Page 7

• Often we hate in others the thing which we fear in ourselves; or we hate because the other person raises to our consciousness some fault or inadequacy which we would prefer to have remain unconscious, and therefore without power to disturb our self-complacency.

  Frances G. Wickes

  Hate, Self, Faults

  6 Copy quote

• The very fact that the planet is probably unsustainable with all that we've done to it and are doing to it, it's an appalling piece of evidence. It shows our complacency, our lack of passion or inclination to be authentic and really understand our true values. It's consistently depressing, but nevertheless, we carry on.

  Annie Lennox

  Depressing, Passion, Done

  4 Copy quote

• Pride... is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or the other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.

  Jane Austen

  Real, Believe, Pride

  "Pride and Prejudice". Book by Jane Austen, January 28, 1813.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• It was the slave's continuing desire for recognition that was the motor which propelled history forward, not the idle complacency and unchanging self-identity of the master

  Francis Fukuyama

  Self, Desire, Identity

  Francis Fukuyama (2006). “The End of History and the Last Man”, p.198, Simon and Schuster

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Avoid the tyranny of the reasonable voice...it will guarantee a complacency of never trying anything adventurous.

  J. Michael Straczynski

  Voice, Trying, Guarantees

  18 Copy quote

• The greater emotion with which we conceive a loved object to be affected toward us, the greater will be our complacency.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Life, Emotion, Objects

  Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.122, Commodius Vicus

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• If happiness in self-content is placed, The wise are wretched, and fools only blessed.

  William Congreve

  Wise, Blessed, Self

  William Wycherley, William Congreve, Sir John Vanbrugh, George Farquhar, Leigh Hunt (1840). “The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar: With Biographical and Critical Notices”, p.188

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have spoken about what we can do as citizens, what we can do as a responsive citizenry, and this is where we have to shatter our complacency and become "active souls,"and be prepared to engage in aware - that personal struggle between our grief and our sorrow. But I don't think we have any choice.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Grief, Struggle, Thinking

  Source: www.scottlondon.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think uncertainty is good for things. Certainty breeds complacency and complacency means that you just sit somewhere in your nice little comfortable suburban house in Michigan, looking at CNN and saying, "Oh, those poor immigrant children that are all coming across the border. But we really can't have them here - that isn't what God wants. Let's send them all back to the drug cartels." There's a complacency to it.

  Stephen King

  Children, Nice, Mean

  Interview with Andy Greene, www.rollingstone.com. October 31, 2014.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Affairs can be powerful detonators. They can invigorate a marriage that's flat, jolt people out of years of complacency. Fear of loss rekindles desire, makes people have conversations they haven't had in years, takes them out of their contrived illusion of safety.

  Esther Perel

  Powerful, Loss, Years

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• American life is a powerful solvent. It seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism.

  George Santayana

  Powerful, America, Optimism

  George Santayana (1921). “Character & Opinion in the United States: With Reminiscences of William James and Josiah Royce and Academic Life in America”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Why am I compelled to write? Because the writing saves me from this complacency I fear. Because I have no choice.

  Gloria E. Anzaldúa

  Writing, Choices, Save Me

  16 Copy quote

• The drug war isn't what purports to be. If you look at the whole operation and the tie-in between the American intelligence agencies, these so-called "assets", the spies on the payroll of the CIA, and drug dealers. Don't let members of Congress and the media get away with this complacency and distortion!

  Jerry Brown

  War, Ties, Agency

  5 Copy quote

• It's like when IBM drove a lot of innovation out of the computer industry before the microprocessor came along. Eventually, Microsoft will crumble because of complacency, and maybe some new things will grow. But until that happens, until there's some fundamental technology shift, it's just over.

  Steve Jobs

  Technology, Innovation, Microsoft

  Steve Jobs (0101). “Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs”, p.47, Prabhat Prakashan

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Self-complacency is the companion of ignorance.

  Solomon Schechter

  Ignorance, Self, Companion

  7 Copy quote

• It is through an "intimate cessation of all intellectual operations" that the mind is laid bare. If nor, discourse maintains it in its little complacency. ... The difference between inner experience and philosophy resides principally in this: that in experience, ... what counts is no longer the statement of wind, but the wind.

  Georges Bataille

  Philosophy, Wind, Differences

  Georges Bataille (1988). “Inner Experience”, p.13, SUNY Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• No author, I think, is deserving of much censure for vanity if, taking down one of his ten-year-old books, he exclaims: "Great heavens, did I write as well as that then?" for the implication always is that one does not write any longer so well and few are so envious as to censure the complacencies of an extinct volcano.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• When you stop being nervous is when you should retire. I'm always a little nervous for anything I do because when complacency sets in, that's when I feel it's time to move on to something else.

  Chris Jericho

  Moving, Time To Move On, Littles

  16 Copy quote

• John Updike: our greatest suburban chic-boutique man of letters. A smug and fatal complacency has stunted his growth beyond hope of surgical repair. Not enough passion in his collected works to generate steam in a beer can. Nevertheless, he is considered by some critics to be America's finest *living* author: Hold a chilled mirror to his lips and you will see, presently, a fine and dewy moisture condensing -- like a faery breath! -- upon the glass.

  Edward Abbey

  Passion, Beer, Men

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.35, RosettaBooks

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Since [violence against women] is rooted in discrimination, impunity and complacency, we need to change attitudes and behavior - and we need to change laws and make sure they are enforced just like you are doing in Cuba.

  Ban Ki-moon

  Attitude, Law, Cuba

  4 Copy quote

• It is said that it is far more difficult to hold and maintain leadership (liberty) than it is to attain it. Success is a ruthless competitor for it flatters and nourishes our weaknesses and lulls us into complacency. We bask in the sunshine of accomplishment and lose the spirit of humility which helps us visualize all the factors which have contributed to our success. We are apt to forget that we are only one of a team, that in unity there is strength and that we are strong only as long as each unit in our organization functions with precision.

  Samuel J. Tilden

  Leadership, Strong, Team

  63 Copy quote

• I think there's a tremendous sense of complacency in the LGBT community. AIDS has lost the edge of horror it possessed when it swept through the world in the '80s. Today's generation sees it more as something to live with and something to be much less fearful of. And that comes with a sense of, dare I say, laziness. We need to be really vigilant and open about the fact that these drugs are not to be taken to increase our ability to have recreational sex.

  Zachary Quinto

  Sex, Taken, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

• Many people love in themselves what they hate in others

  E. F. Schumacher

  Hate, People, Behavior

  22 Copy quote

• Our concerns about what we saw in Australia: an economy clearly tied to China has hitched its wagon to the tail of the tiger. In terms of the general complacency, what we heard over and over from investors and clients and potential clients is, 'yes, yes, there are some excesses, but the government will figure out a way.

  James Chanos

  Government, Australia, Tails

  "JIM CHANOS: I Visited Hong Kong And Australia, And This Is What I Saw" by Joe Weisenthal, www.businessinsider.com. November 23, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source