Confusion Quotes - Page 30

• A person who is trained to consider his actions, to undertake them deliberately, is in so far forth disciplined. Add to this ability a power to endure in an intelligently chosen course in the face of distraction, confusion, and difficulty, and you have the essence of discipline.

  John Dewey

  Essence, Discipline, Faces

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.98, 谷月社

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• There is no appeal from the ways of the world, which must continue on its own terms or take us all down with it into chaos and confusion.

  Mark Van Doren

  Society, World, Way

  Mark Van Doren (1961). “The Happy Critic and Other Essays”

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• Oh, blank confusion! true epitome Of what the mighty City is herself, To thousands upon thousands of her sons, Living amid the same perpetual whirl Of trivial objects, melted and reduced To one identity.

  William Wordsworth

  Son, Cities, Identity

  William Wordsworth (1994). “The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth”, p.698, Wordsworth Editions

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• In history as it comes to be written, there is usually some Spirit of the Age which historians can define, but the shape of things is seldom so clear to those who live them. To most thoughtful men it has generally seemed that theirs was an Age of Confusion.

  Joseph Wood Krutch

  Thoughtful, Men, Age

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• It is the artist's function not to copy but to synthesise: to eliminate from that gross confusion of actuality which is his raw material whatever is accidental, idle, irrelevant, and select for perpetuation that only which is appropriate and immortal.

  William Ernest Henley

  Artist, Raw Materials, Select

  William Ernest Henley (1921). “The Works of William Ernest Henley: Views and reviews”

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• I think that when you're writing fiction what you're doing is reflecting life as you see it, and putting down how you think and how other people think, and the sort of confusions that you don't normally like to admit to.

  Helen Fielding

  Writing, Thinking, People

  "Dumped Bridget, wrote spy novel". Interview with John Walsh, www.theguardian.com. November 7, 2003.

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• Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny.

  Blaise Pascal

  Unity, Doe, Tyranny

  Blaise Pascal (2013). “Pensées”, p.261, Courier Corporation

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• I remember, as a child, the confusion of not knowing what this place was where I was supposed to spend the night: it's a disquieting experience for a child. And what I would do was quickly unpack my books and go back to a book I knew well and make sure the same text and the same illustrations were there.

  Alberto Manguel

  Children, Book, Night

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• Life and death are nothing but the mind. Years, months, days, and hours are nothing but the mind. Dreams, illusions, and mirages are nothing but the mind. The bubbles of water and the flames of fire are nothing but the mind. The flowers of the spring and the moon of the autumn are nothing but the mind. Confusions and dangers are nothing but the mind.

  Dogen

  Dream, Spring, Flower

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• The whole motley confusion of acts, omissions, regrets and hopes which is the life of each one of us finds in death, not meaning or explanation, but an end.

  Octavio Paz

  Regret, Omission, Life And Death

  Octavio Paz (1985). “The Labyrinth of Solitude: And the Other Mexico ; Return to the Labyrinth of Solitude ; Mexico and the United States ; The Philanthropic Ogre”, p.54, Grove Press

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• Politics is the practical exercise of the art of self-government, and somebody must attend to it if we are to have self-government; somebody must study it, and learn the art, and exercise patience and sympathy and skill to bring the multitude of opinions and wishes of self-governing people into such order that some prevailing opinion may be expressed and peaceably accepted. Otherwise, confusion will result either in dictatorship or anarchy. The principal ground of reproach against any American citizen should be that he is not a politician. Everyone ought to be, as Lincoln was.

  Elihu Root

  Art, Exercise, Self

  "Men and Policies: Addresses". Book by Elihu Root, ed. Robert Bacon and James B. Scott, p. 75, "Lincoln as a Leader of Men", 1924.

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• People who have never had an ideal may hope to find one; they are in a better state than the people who allow the circumstances of life to break their ideal. To fall beneath one's ideal is to lose one's track in life; then confusion rises in the mind, and that light which one should hold high becomes covered and obscured, so that it cannot shine out to light one's path.

  Hazrat Inayat Khan

  Fall, Light, People

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• You get a sense of reference there. You feel part of something that's got order and balance and harmony to it. All the distraction and noise, all the confusion of misplaced, misdirected energy just don't happen there.

  Harrison Ford

  Order, Land, Balance And Harmony

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• I watch the confusion of friends all numb with love moving like stray dogs to the anthem of night long conversations of pulsing rhythms and random voltage voices in spite of themselves graceful as these raindrops creeping spermlike across the car window.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Friendship, Dog, Moving

  Song: You Pay Your Money and You Take Your Chance, Album: Inner City Front

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• As soon as one point alone is removed from the sphere of dogmatic certainty, the discussion will not simply result in a new and better formulation which will have greater consistency but may easily lead to endless debates and general confusion.

  Adolf Hitler

  Media, May, Spheres

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• [The] whirlwind fife-and-drum of the storm bends the salt marsh grass, disturbs stars in the sky and the star on the steeple; it is a privilege to see so much confusion.

  Marianne Moore

  Stars, Loss, Sky

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.5, Penguin

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• The elements were "seeking" each other in rage and confusion, and in the fury of the conflict boastful man was utterly humiliated, sucked down, drowned.

  Elizabeth Goudge

  Loss, Men, Conflict

  Elizabeth Goudge (1944). “Green Dolphin Street”

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• There is nothing waste, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusions, save in appearance.

  Gottfried Leibniz

  Waste, Chaos, Appearance

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• Newton's health, and confusion to mathematics.

  Benjamin Haydon

  Newton, Mathematics

  Benjamin Robert Haydon (1853). “Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, historical painter”, p.340

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• There is, perhaps, one universal truth about all forms of human cognition: the ability to deal with knowledge is hugely exceeded by the potential knowledge contained in man's environment. To cope with this diversity, man's perception, his memory, and his thought processes early become governed by strategies for protecting his limited capacities from the confusion of overloading. We tend to perceive things schematically, for example, rather than in detail, or we represent a class of diverse things by some sort of averaged "typical instance.

  Jerome Bruner

  Memories, Men, Class

  Jerome Seymour Bruner (1979). “On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand”, p.65, Harvard University Press

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• It is the same with understanding as with eyes; to a certain size and make, just so much light is necessary, and no more. Whatever is beyond brings darkness and confusion.

  Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury

  Eye, Light, Understanding

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• Learning to say prayers in a foreign language...is not in itself the way to fulfill our highest human potential; there is nothing of transcending value to be gained from substituting one set of cultural conventions for another. People whose practice remains on this superficial level end up with nothing but confusion, not knowing who they are or what they should do.

  Thubten Yeshe

  Prayer, Learning, Practice

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• Meaning drives us from despair to wonder, from confusion to clarity, from hesitance to confidence. And the only place to find meaning is in the importance of small things.

  Christina Baldwin

  Inspirational, Despair, Clarity

  Christina Baldwin (1991). “Life's Companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Quest”, Bantam

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• In meditation what you are trying to do is simply get rid of your own junk. You are trying to move all the confusion out of your mind, all the heaviness, all the emotional upsets, all the impressions that you have picked up since your last meditation.

  Frederick Lenz

  Moving, Buddhism, Emotional

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• I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist. One often feels helpless in the face of the confusion of these times, such a mass of apparently uncontrollable events and experiences to live through, attempt to understand, and if at all possible, give order to; but one must not withdraw from the task if he has some small things to offer - he does so at the risk of diminishing his humanity.

  Bernard Malamud

  Order, Giving, Humanity

  "The Fixer". Book by Bernard Malamud, Part Five, 1966.

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