Inadequacy Quotes - Page 5

• My mum came from nothing and didn't have many opportunities in her youth, and she blames a lot of her social inadequacies on that.

  Paloma Faith

  Opportunity, Youth, Blame

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• A good mother remembers to serve fruit at breakfast, is always cheerful and never yells, manages not to project her own neuroses and inadequacies onto her children, is an active and beloved community volunteer. She remembers to make play dates, her children's clothes fit, she does art projects with them and enjoys all their games.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Love, Mother, Art

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• Before I was married, I didn't consider my failure to manage even basic hand tools a feminist inadequacy. I thought it had more to do with being Jewish. The Jews I knew growing up didn't do 'do-it-yourself.' When my father needed to hammer something he generally used his shoe, and the only real tool he owned was a pair of needle-nose pliers.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Growing Up, Real, Father

  Ayelet Waldman (2009). “Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace”, p.81, Anchor

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• Our weaknesses are always evident, both to ourselves and others. But our strengths are hidden until we choose to reveal them--and that is when we are truly tested. When all that we have within is exposed, and we may no longer blame our inadequacies for our failure, but must instead depend upon our strengths to succeed ... that is when the measure of a man is taken, my boy.

  James A. Owen

  Taken, Men, Boys

  James A. Owen (2010). “Here, There Be Dragons”, p.191, Simon and Schuster

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• As each wave of technology is released. It must be accompanied by a demand for new skills, new language. Consumers must constantly update their ways of thinking, always questioning their understanding of the world. Going back to old ways, old technology is forbidden. There in no past, no present, only an endless future of inadequacy

  Richard Kadrey

  Past, Technology, Thinking

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• I held out my book. It was precious to me, as were all the things I'd written; even where I despised their inadequacy there was not one I would disown. Each tore its way from my entrails. Each had shortened my life, killed me with its own special little death.

  Tanith Lee

  Book, Special, Littles

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• Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.

  Thomas Hardy

  Strong Women, Self, Practice

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• He (Intellectuals) claims that label to compensate for his own inadequacies. It's as old as that saying: tell me what you boast of and I'll tell you what you lack. Our daily bread. The incompetent always present themselves as experts, the cruel as pious, sinners as excessively devout, usurers as benefactors, the small-minded as patriots, the arrogant as humble, the vulgar as elegant and the feeble-minded as intellectual.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Humble, Intellectual, Experts

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• I had to wrestle daily with both my inadequacy and my uncontrollable jealousy. I didn't want to kill her, but hoped someone else might do the job for me.

  David Sedaris

  Jobs, Want, Might

  David Sedaris (2000). “Me talk pretty one day”

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• That day, I really believed that I had grasped something and that henceforth my life would be changed. But insights cannot be held for ever. Like water, the world ripples across you and for a while you take on its colours. Then it recedes, and leaves you face to face with the void you carry inside yourself, confronting that central inadequacy of soul which you must learn to rub shoulders with and to combat, and which, paradoxically, may be our surest impetus.

  Nicolas Bouvier

  Water, Soul, Would Be

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• What is history? Any thoughts, Webster?' 'History is the lies of the victors,' I replied, a little too quickly. 'Yes, I was rather afraid you'd say that. Well, as long as you remember that it is also the self-delusions of the defeated. ... 'Finn?' '"History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation." (quoting Patrick Lagrange)

  Julian Barnes

  Memories, Lying, Self

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• Sometimes, if she simply remained quiet, and let the inadequacy of his excuses reverberate on the air, he became ashamed and backtracked.

  J. K. Rowling

  Air, Quiet, Sometimes

  J.K. Rowling (2012). “The Casual Vacancy”, p.64, Hachette UK

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• As a youth, I hated myself for not being good enough. All my inadequacies and failures, not being kind enough, generous or understanding enough, would assail me at night. It became a habit to be guilty and self castigating, not liking myself because I was unworthy... I really tortured myself.

  Mira Sorvino

  Self Esteem, Night, Self Respect

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• One should not utter a word about his own inadequacies. In the Oxo it says: 'When a man lets out a single word, the long and short of him will be known.'

  Takeda Nobushige

  War, Men, Long

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• Therefore only through education does one come to be dissatisfied with his own knowledge, and only through teaching others does one come to realize the uncomfortable inadequacy of his knowledge. Being dissatisfied with his own knowledge, one then realizes that the trouble lies with himself, and realizing the uncomfortable inadequacy of his knowledger.

  Confucius

  Educational, Lying, Teaching

  "The wisdom of Confucius".

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• I was trundling around with my inadequacies, and inner pain and loneliness. I yearned, desperately, to be something. I yearned to get out from where I was ... some deep discontent within myself, actually some deep dislike of myself.

  Anthony Hopkins

  Pain, Loneliness, Solitude

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• Some build their sense of personal worth by comparing themselves to others. That approach can lead to feelings of inadequacy or superiority. It is preferable to look directly to our Father for our sense of self-worth.

  Quentin L. Cook

  Father, Self Worth, Feelings

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• Is there a man in the world who suffers as I do from the gross inadequacies of the human race?

  Monty Woolley

  Men, Race, Suffering

  "Fictional character: Sheridan Whiteside". "The Man Who Came to Dinner", www.imdb.com. 1942.

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• The unsatisfied yearning of the artist reaches back to the primordial image in the unconscious which is best fitted to compensate the inadequacy and one-sidedness of the present.

  Carl Jung

  Artist, Conjuring, Yearning

  Carl Gustav Jung (1978). “The Collected Works of C. G. Jung: The spirit in man, art, and literature”

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• The deceit is sometimes unconscious, but not always, since some people, owing to their sectarianism, purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies and the falsity of their beliefs.

  Pierre-Paul Grasse

  Reality, People, Deceit

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• No matter the style, the farther one goes the more obstacles increase, and the more distant appears the object it is desired to attain. Again, the most strenuous labor affords the greatest artists but a disquieting gleam which only reveals their inadequacy, while the self-satisfied ignoramus surrounded by the deepest gloom flatters himself that he has nothing more to learn.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Artist, Self, Ballet

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• The anarch is oriented to facts, not ideas. He fights alone, as a free man, and would never dream of sacrificing himself to having one inadequacy supplant another and a new regime triumph over the old one. In this sense, he is closer to the philistine; the baker whose chief concern is to bake good bread; the peasant, who works his plow while armies march across his fields.

  Ernst Junger

  Dream, Army, Sacrifice

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• Thus, the weight of my criticism is directed against the inadequacy of the theoretical foundations of the laissez-faire doctrine upon which I was brought up and for many years I taught

  John Maynard Keynes

  Years, Criticism, Foundation

  John Maynard Keynes (2006). “General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money”, p.308, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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• There may never be a baby book that offers the conclusive answer to every question, but it's possible to extract some wisdom from the suffering of past generations of parents. Does the book you're reading contradict itself repeatedly, require you to override all your parental instincts, or send you into a panic over your own inadequacy? If so, burn it.

  Libby Copeland

  Baby, Book, Reading

  "The Worst Baby Advice Ever" by Libby Copeland, www.slate.com. November 23, 2012.

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• How many of those who are insecure seek power over others as a compensation for inadequacy and wind up bringing consequences down upon their heads and those around them? How many hide out in their lives, resist the summons to show up, or live fugitive lives, jealous, projecting onto others, and then wonder why nothing ever really feels quite right. How many proffer compliance with the other, buying peace at the price of soul, and wind up with neither?

  James Hollis

  Jealous, Insecure, Wind

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