Misunderstood Quotes - Page 5

• If you are going to do large-scale invention, you have to be willing to do three things: You must be willing to fail; you have to be willing to think long term; and you have to be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.

  Jeff Bezos

  Perseverance, Thinking, Long

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• I do not wish to be misunderstood upon this subject of slavery in this country. I suppose it may long exist, and perhaps the best way for it to come to an end peaceably is for it to exist for a length of time. But I say that the spread and strengthening and perpetuation of it is an entirely different proposition. There we should in every way resist it as a wrong, treating it as a wrong, with the fixed idea that it must and will come to an end.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, Ideas, Long

  Abraham Lincoln (1989). “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 2: 1859-1865: Library of America #46”, p.17, Library of America

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• Nothing can prepare you for living or working with a sociopathic serial bully. It is the most devastating, draining, misunderstood, and ultimately futile experience imaginable.

  Tim Field

  Bullying, Serials, Draining

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• There are so many things that are misunderstood or not recognized about my father's music because they've been filtered by people who work for magazines like Rolling Stone.

  Dweezil Zappa

  Music, Father, People

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• Brussels sprouts are misunderstood - probably because most people don't know how to cook them properly.

  Todd English

  People, Brussel Sprouts, Cooks

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• Many jazz musicians affect a misunderstood-genius air when they play, which alienates the audience and breaks down the communications of the music. A musician's responsibility is to get as much of his art across as possible. Musicians used to be kept when only the rich could afford art, but now practically everyone can afford radios, stereo equipment, concert tickets, etc. A musician must learn to communicate to survive.

  Gabor Szabo

  Music, Art, Communication

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• There is nothing as dreamy and poetic, nothing as radical, subversive, and psychedelic, as mathematics. It is every bit as mind blowing as cosmology or physics (mathematicians conceived of black holes long before astronomers actually found any), and allows more freedom of expression than poetry, art, or music (which depends heavily on properties of the physical universe). Mathematics is the purest of the arts, as well as the most misunderstood.

  Paul Lockhart

  Art, Expression, Long

  "A Mathematician’s Lament". genius.com. January 1, 2002.

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• Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.

  Norman MacCaig

  Writing, Literature

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• I read some, and then visited with people involved in this curious, exciting and somewhat misunderstood sub-culture. I met with a fang maker, who offered to fit me for an exquisite pair.

  James Patterson

  People, Culture, Pairs

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• Tell me that I misunderstood a joke, but don't tell me that my choice of cravat is wrong.

  David Niven

  Choices, Jokes

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• Jesus Christ can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot. Our weakness lies in always wanting to vindicate ourselves.

  Oswald Chambers

  Jesus, Lying, Weakness

  Oswald Chambers (2011). “The Quotable Oswald Chambers”, p.18, Discovery House

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• I'm so misunderstood!

  Cate Blanchett

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• Romeo is the most misunderstood character in literature, I think. He's hardcore to play because he's displaying the characteristics of Hamlet at the beginning, and, well, then everything else happens.

  Alan Cumming

  Character, Thinking, Play

  "Shakespeare and me: Alan Cumming". Interview with Megan Conner, www.theguardian.com. June 30, 2012.

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• In my experience, sometimes a movie just hits at the wrong time, gets the wrong press, or gets the wrong representation, and it gets misunderstood.

  Willem Dafoe

  Sometimes, Wrong Time, Representation

  " Willem Dafoe Still Baffled By Failure Of ‘John Carter’; New Pixar Stamps Introduc ed" by Drew Taylor, www.indiewire.com. June 5, 2012.

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• The problem with merely writing so that you can be understood is that the wrong people, in advancing their agendas, are only too ready to misunderstand you. Writing so that you cannot be misunderstood anticipates and preempts those who would willfully distort what you are trying to say.

  William A. Dembski

  Writing, People, Trying

  "Peerless: A Radically Decentralized Digital Monetary Framework" by Bill Dembski, billdembski.com. November 23, 2016.

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• These, too, seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words.

  Felix Mendelssohn

  Soul, Genuine, Ambiguous

  Felix Mendelssohn's letter to Marc-Andre Souchay (October 15, 1842) as quoted in "Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy from 1833 to 1847" edited by Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Dr. Carl Mendelssohn Bartholdy (pp. 313-314), 1863.

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• I think the style Plimpton popularized - the dive-in, try-it-yourself journalism - is appealing and useful for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the value of an outsider's view into a little-known or misunderstood subculture. I tried to do the same thing with my book - tap into a pocket of American life that few people have any idea about, and tell the real, unvarnished truth about it in a way that was open-minded and authentic.

  Kevin Roose

  Real, Book, Thinking

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• I think that Scottish people, like Canadians, are often misunderstood and what I like about my Scottish friends and relatives is how quickly it can go from love to anger. It's a great dynamic.

  Mike Myers

  Anger, Thinking, People

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• Forgiveness really is so misunderstood, as well as the power it can release in an individual.

  Jennifer O'Neill

  Forgiveness, Individual, Release

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• Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it's something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about.

  Nicole Krauss

  Writing, Giving, Trying

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• That is a list of the Territories that yielded to Ebon Askavi. They now stand within the shadow of the Keep. They are mine. Anyone who tries to settle in my Territory without my consent will be dealt with. Anyone who harms any of my people will be executed. There will be no excuses and no exceptions. I will say it simply so that the members of this Council and the intruders who thought to take land they had no right to claim can never say they misunderstood." Jaenelle's lips curled into a snarl. "STAY OUT OF MY TERRITORY!

  Anne Bishop

  Land, People, Shadow

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• The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not--Do your duty, but--Do what is not your duty. It is not your duty to go the second mile, to turn the other cheek, but Jesus says if we are His disciples we shall always do these things. There will be no spirit of--"Oh, well, I cannot do any more, I have been so misrepresented and misunderstood". . . Never look for right in the other man, but never cease to be right yourself. We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is--Never look for justice, but never cease to live it.

  Oswald Chambers

  Jesus, Teaching, Men

  Oswald Chambers (1985). “My Utmost for His Highest”

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• He spoke of human solitude, about the intrinsic loneliness of a sophisticated mind, one that is capable of reason and poetry but which grasps at straws when it comes to understanding another, a mind aware of the impossibility of absolute understanding. The difficulty of having a mind that understands that it will always be misunderstood.

  Nicole Krauss

  Loneliness, Understanding, Solitude

  Nicole Krauss (2003). “Man Walks Into a Room”, p.156, Anchor

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• Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Race, Ideas

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• Alcohol is a misunderstood vitamin.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Drinking, Alcohol, Cooking

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