Omission Quotes

• Tomorrow night is nothing but one long sleepless wrestle with yesterday's omissions and regrets.

  William Faulkner

  Love, Dream, Regret

  William Faulkner (2016). “The Sound and the Fury (Third International Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)”, p.203, W. W. Norton & Company

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• A concealed truth, that's all a lie is. Either by omission or commission we never do more than obscure. The truth stays in the undergrowth, waiting to be discovered.

  Josephine Hart

  Lying, Waiting, Obscure

  Josephine Hart (1991). “Damage: a novel”, Alfred A. Knopf

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• Three conditions are necessary for Penance: contrition, which is sorrow for sin, together with a purpose of amendment; confession of sins without any omission; and satisfaction by means of good works.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Mean, Catholic, Sorrow

  Saint Thomas (Aquinas) (2000). “The Aquinas Catechism: A Simple Explanation of the Catholic Faith by the Church's Greatest Theologian”, p.86, Sophia Institute Press

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• A man does not sin by commission only, but often by omission.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Men, Religion, Doe

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• Omission to do what is necessary Seals a commission to a blank of danger; And danger, like an ague, subtly taints Even then when we sit idly in the sun.

  William Shakespeare

  Sun, Danger, Blank

  William Shakespeare, Bowdler (1823). “The family Shakspeare”, p.179

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• Let none find fault with others; let none see the omissions and commissions of others. But let one see one's own acts, done and undone.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Done, Faults

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• Deception by an omission of the truth is as bad as a lie.

  Jennifer Chiaverini

  Lying, Deception, Truth Is

  Jennifer Chiaverini (2012). “The Sugar Camp Quilt: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel”, p.26, Simon and Schuster

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• Spin' is a polite word for deception. Spinners mislead by means that range from subtle omissions to outright lies. Spin paints a false picture of reality by bending facts, mischaracterizing the words of others, ignoring or denying crucial evidence, or just 'spinning a yarn' - by making things up.

  Kathleen Hall Jamieson

  Lying, Mean, Reality

  Brooks Jackson, Kathleen Hall Jamieson (2007). “unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation”, p.7, Random House

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• Most of us fall short much more by omission than by commission. While the world perishes we go our way: purposeless, passionless, day after day.

  Peace Pilgrim

  Life, Peace, Fall

  Peace Pilgrim (1992). “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”, p.131, Friends of Peace PIlgrim

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• The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or de-emphasis of important data. The definition of 'important', of course, depends on one's values.

  Howard Zinn

  Honesty, Lying, Data

  Howard Zinn (1993). “Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian”, p.30, South End Press

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• Omission is a sin only if, in the process of deceiving, you forget the truth. Lying is a sin only if, in the process, the lie becomes the only truth.

  Julianna Baggott

  Lying, Sin, Forget

  Julianna Baggott (2001). “Girl Talk”, p.232, Simon and Schuster

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• The omission of good is no less reprehensible than the commission of evil.

  Plutarch

  Evil, Wickedness

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• Omissions are not accidents.

  Marianne Moore

  Accidents

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

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• Because everybody lies. It's part of living in society. Don't get me wrong-I think it's necessary. The last thing anyone wants is to live in a society where total honesty prevails. Can you imagine the conversations? You're short and fat, one person might say, and the other might answer, I know. But you smell bad. It just wouldn't work. So people lie by omission all the time. People will tell you most of the story...and I've learned that the part they neglect to tell you is often the most important part. People hide the truth because they're afraid." -Jo

  Nicholas Sparks

  Honesty, Lying, Thinking

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• Pardon, we beseech Thee, all our offences of omission and commission; and grant that in all our thoughts, words, and actions, we may conform to Thy known will manifested in our consciences, and in the revelations of Jesus Christ our Saviour.

  Timothy Pickering

  Jesus, May, Action

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• The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not.

  Abraham Verghese

  World, Action, Turns

  "Cutting for Stone". Book by Abraham Verghese, 2009.

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• The soul of wit may become the very body of untruth. However elegant and memorable, brevity can never, in the nature of things, do justice to all the facts of a complex situations. On such a theme one can be brief only by omission and simplification. Omission and simplification help us to understand - but help is, in many cases, to understand the wrong thing; for our comprehension may be only of the abbreviator's neatly formulated notions, not of the vast, ramifying reality from which these notions have been so arbitrarily abstracted.

  Aldous Huxley

  Real, Memorable, Justice

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• You have to be down here in the States to realize just how tightly controlled the corporate media is and how much they practise Soviet-style censorship through creative omission.

  Jello Biafra

  Media, Creative, Style

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• In reference works, as in sin, omission is as bad as willful misbehavior.

  Elizabeth McCracken

  Nonfiction, Sin

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• I think if you don't say something it's lying by omission. I personally think it's immoral.

  Viggo Mortensen

  Lying, Thinking, Immoral

  "Viggo Mortensen Loves Politics". Interview with Nina Siegal, www.alternet.org. October 17, 2005.

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• Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission.

  Theodore Bikel

  Grateful, People, Temptation

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• It is the sin of omission, the second kind of sin,
  That lays eggs under your skin.

  Ogden Nash

  Eggs, Skins, Kind

  Ogden Nash (1941). “The Face is Familiar: The Selected Verse of Ogden Nash”, Garden City, N. Y : Garden City publishing Company, Incorporated

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• Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.

  Mark Twain

  Art, Book, Beer

  "Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World". Volume II,

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• In a brave new world, a post-September 11 world, anyone is going to make certain mistakes. The mistakes that have been made on homeland security, on protecting our Nation from another terrorist attack, are mistakes of omission. We are simply not doing enough.

  Charles Schumer

  Mistake, Brave New World, September 11

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• So much blood has been shed by the Church because of an omission from the Gospel: “Ye shall be indifferent as to what your neighbor's religion is.” Not merely tolerant of it, but indifferent to it. Divinity is claimed for many religions; but no religion is great enough or divine enough to add that new law to its code.

  Mark Twain

  Religious, Blood, Law

  "Complete Works of Mark Twain".

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