Paralysis Quotes - Page 4

• Imagining the world without us is a recipe for despair and paralysis. I actually think it's more helpful to imagine the world before us, to look back at those unstable ecosystems of the Triassic and realize that were in another phase of unstable ecosystems. Knowing that, demystifying our situation as it were, makes it easier to think about solutions. We are not looking into the unknown. The only thing unknown about the situation is how we're going to fix it, and when.

  Annalee Newitz

  Thinking, Ecosystems, Knowing

  Source: therumpus.net

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• In trying to explain our political paralysis, analysts cite President Obama's tactical missteps, the obstinacy of congressional Republicans, rising partisanship in Washington, and the Senate filibuster, which has devolved into a super-majority threshold for important legislation. These are large factors to be sure, but that list neglects what may be the biggest culprit of all: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.

  Jacob Weisberg

  Ignorance, Political, Important

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• OPTION PARALYSIS: The tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none.

  Douglas Coupland

  Choices, Tendencies, Unlimited

  "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture". Book by Douglas Coupland, page 139, 1991.

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• If you don't know you're in a state of grace, then you're vulnerable to the paralysis of the accusations of the enemy.

  R. C. Sproul

  Grace, Enemy, Vulnerable

  Twitter post from Nov 22, 2016

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• I can't stand whining. I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they're not happy with the choices they've made. You live in a time when there are endless choices ... Money certainly helps, and having that kind of financial privilege goes a long way, but you don't even have to have money for it. But you have to work on yourself ... Do something!

  Hillary Clinton

  Fall, Long, People

  "Is This Really Goodbye?" by Ayelet Waldman, www.marieclaire.com. October 18, 2012.

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• I suppose the daily disciplines are just a reflection of the qualities of my inner world - a mixture of paralysis and terror and a lighter, freer, kind of rebellious woman. So those are just constantly pushing against each other, and that's played out in every area of my life.

  Miranda July

  Reflection, Discipline, Quality

  Interview with Ross Simonini, www.believermag.com. 2015.

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• The worst part about zombies raging unchecked is the slow paralysis that they induce in people who aren't quite zombies yet. The rest of us un-zombies turn our heads, hoping the ghouls will just go away.

  Andrei Codrescu

  Ghouls, People, Zombie

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• I've always felt some kind of connection to people who are kind of over-smart. People who over-think things to the point of some sort of paralysis, and I think that certainly can be me on any given day.

  Noah Baumbach

  Smart, Thinking, People

  "Noah Baumbach Talks 'Kicking And Screaming' On The Eve Of BAMcinemaFest 17th Anniversary Screening" by Rodrigo Perez, www.indiewire.com. June 29, 2012.

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• Birth control has almost completely and totally disappeared from the global health agenda, and the victims of this paralysis are the people of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

  Melinda Gates

  People, Birth Control, Agendas

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• I don't paint women, I paint pictures. . . What I am after above all is expression. If in a portrait I put eyes, a nose, a mouth, there isn't much use; on the contrary it paralyses the imagination of the spectator, and obliges us to see the person in a certain way.

  Henri Matisse

  Eye, Expression, Imagination

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• You perceive now, my friends, what your general or abstract duty is as teachers. Although you have to generate in your pupils a large stock of ideas, any one of which may be inhibitory, yet you must also see to it that no habitual hesitancy or paralysis of the will ensues, and that the pupil still retains his power of vigorous action.

  William James

  Teacher, Philosophy, Educational

  William James (1983). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.108, Harvard University Press

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• Muses are fickle, and many a writer, peering into the voice, has escaped paralysis by ascribing the creative responsibility to a talisman: a lucky charm, a brand of paper, but most often a writing instrument. Am I writing well? Thank my pen. Am I writing badly? Don't blame me blame my pen. By such displacements does the fearful imagination defend itself.

  Anne Fadiman

  Responsibility, Writing, Voice

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• People who have been made to suffer by certain things cannot be reminded of them without a horror which paralyses every other pleasure, even that to be found in reading a story.

  Stendhal

  Reading, People, Suffering

  Stendhal (2016). “The Red and the Black”, p.192, Tyché

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• Shaming is one of the deepest tools of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy because shame produces trauma and trauma often produces paralysis.

  Bell Hooks

  White, Tools, Shame

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• I became entirely given over to extreme dread. The fear was so powerful that it seemed to make my personality completely evaporate... 'Whitley' ceased to exist. What was left was a body and a state of raw fear so great that it swept about me like a thick, suffocating curtain, turning paralysis into a condition that seemed close to death...I died and a wild animal appeared in my place.

  Whitley Strieber

  Powerful, Animal, Personality

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• Life too near paralyses art.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Art

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1969). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VII: 1838-1842”, p.273, Harvard University Press

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• Paralysis of leadership is due in part to the unseen grip of the special interests.

  John W. Gardner

  Special, Unseen, Politics

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• The message that 'love' will solve all of our problems is repeated incessantly in contemporary culture - like a philosophical tom tom. It would be closer to the truth to say that love is a contagious and virulent disease which leaves a victim in a state of near imbecility, paralysis, profound melancholia, and sometimes culminates in death.

  Quentin Crisp

  Love, Philosophical, Profound

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• What you're seeing is a loss of confidence in institutions and their legitimacy because they are not seen as delivering. It's hardly a surprise that it's producing a degree of paralysis. Politics becomes very reactive and it's hard to deal with the bigger issues.

  Jonathan Wood

  Loss, Issues, Democracy

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• We can inspire others through witness so that one grows together in communicating. BUt the worst thing of all is religious proselytism, which paralyses: 'I am talking with you in order to persuade you.' No. Each person dialogues, starting with his and her own identity. The church grows by attracting, not proselytizing.

  Pope Francis

  Religious, Happy Life, Order

  "GMA Hosts Thrilled By Pope's 'Fantastic' Call Not to Proselytize, Ignore Context" by Kyle Drennen, newsbusters.org. August 4, 2014.

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• The prospect Smiler was a manic farmer. Few men I think can have been as unfortunate as he; for on the one hand he was a melancholic with a loathing for mankind, on the other, some paralysis had twisted his mouth into a permanent and radiant smile. So everyone he met, being warmed by his smile, would shout him a happy greeting. And beaming upon them with his sunny face he would curse them all to hell.

  Laurie Lee

  Men, Thinking, Hands

  Laurie Lee (2011). “Cider With Rosie”, p.36, Random House

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• Where mass opinion dominates the government, there is a morbid derangement of the true functions of power. The derangement brings about the enfeeblement, verging on paralysis, of the capacity to govern. This breakdown in the constitutional order is the cause of the precipitate and catastrophic decline of Western society. It may, if it cannot be arrested and reversed, bring about the fall of the West.

  Walter Lippmann

  Fall, Government, Order

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.241, Harvard University Press

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• Paralysis seems to happen on the steepest slope of the survival arc—where almost all hope is lost, when escape seems impossible, and when the situation is unfamiliar to the extreme.

  Amanda Ripley

  Survival, Impossible, Lost

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• Anyone who would attempt the task of felling a virgin forest with a penknife would probably feel the same paralysis of despair that the reformer feels when confronted with existing school systems.

  Ellen Key

  Education, School, Despair

  Ellen Key (2016). “The century of the child”, p.99, Ellen Key

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• The great paralysis of our heart is unbelief.

  Oswald Chambers

  Christian, Heart, Unbelief

  Oswald Chambers, Harry Verploegh (1990). “The Oswald Chambers Devotional Reader: 52 Weekly Themes”, Oliver-Nelson Books

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