Perplexity Quotes - Page 3

• It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize; wondering in the first place at obvious perplexities, and then by gradual progression raising questions about the greater matters too.

  Aristotle

  Men, Matter, Firsts

  Metaphysics, bk.1, ch.2, 982 (translated by H Tredennick).

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• Plain question and plain answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.

  Mark Twain

  Answers

  Mark Twain (2006). “The Signet Classic Book of Mark Twain's Short Stories”, p.291, Penguin

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• I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches, copies of copies, until the model is exhausted. I prefer perplexity, doubt, uncertainty, not just because it provides a more 'productive' literary raw material, but because that is the way we humans really are.

  Jose Saramago

  Positive, Hero, Writing

  "Interview with Jose Saramago, Author of Blindness". Political Affairs Magazine Interview, www.politicalaffairs.net. March 2006.

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• Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

  Khalil Gibran

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Knowledge

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• If I can procure three hundred good substantial names of persons, or bodies, or institutions, I cannot fail to do well for my family, although I must abandon my life to its success, and undergo many sad perplexities and perhaps never see again my own beloved America.

  John James Audubon

  Names, America, Three

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• If physics is too difficult for the physicists, the nonphysicist may wonder whether he should try at all to grasp its complexities and ambiguities. It is undeniably an effort, but probably one worth making, for the basic questions are important and the new experimental results are often fascinating. And if the layman runs into serious perplexities, he can be consoled with the thought that the points which baffle him are more than likely the ones for which the professionals have not found satisfactory answers.

  Edward Condon

  Running, Effort, Important

  "Physics, in What is Science?: Twelve Eminent Scientists and Philosophers Explain Their Various Fields to the Layman". Book by James Roy Newman, published by Simon and Schuster, p. 102, 1955.

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• The best antidote against evils of all kinds, against the evil thoughts that haunt the soul, against the needless perplexities which distract the conscience, is to keep hold of the good we have. Impure thoughts will not stand against pure words and prayers and deeds. Little doubts will not avail against great certainties. Fix your affections on things above, and then you will less and less be troubled by the cares, the temptations, the troubles of things on earth.

  Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

  Prayer, Evil, Temptation

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 214), 1895.

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• Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born -a hundred million years -and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.

  Mark Twain

  Death, Grateful, Grief

  Autobiography ch. 49 (1959)

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• Life, with all it's sorrows, cares, perplexities and heart-breaks, is more interesting than bovine placidity, hence more desirable. The more interesting it is, the happier it is.

  William Lyon Phelps

  Heart, Happy Life, Interesting

  William Lyon Phelps (2016). “Happiness”, p.16, Read Books Ltd

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• There are three marks of a superior man: being virtuous, he is free from anxiety; being wise, he is free from perplexity; being brave, he is free from fear.

  Confucius

  Wise, Men, Bravery

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• It is a common error, and the greater and more mischievous for being so common, to believe that repentance best becomes and most concerns dying men. Indeed, what is necessary every hour of our life is necessary in the hour of death too, and as long as one lives he will have need of repentance, and therefore it is necessary in the hour of death too; but he who hath constantly exercised himself in it in his health and vigor, will do it with less pain in his sickness and weakness; and he who hath practiced it all his life, will do it with more ease and less perplexity in the hour of his death.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pain, Believe, Men

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• The success of this Government, and thus the success of our Nation, depends in the last analysis upon the quality.of our career services. The legislation enacted by the Congress, as well as the decisions made by me and by the department and agency heads, must all be implemented by the career men and women in the Federal service. In foreign affairs, national defense, science and technology, and a host of other fields, they face problems of unprecedented importance and perplexity. We are all dependent on their sense of loyalty and responsibility as well as their competence and energy.

  John F. Kennedy

  Loyalty, Responsibility, Technology

  "Special Message to the Congress on Federal Pay Reform". February 20, 1962.

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• The origin of thinking is some perplexity, confusion or doubt.

  John Dewey

  Education, Teacher, Thinking

  John Dewey (2015). “How We Think: Top American Authors”, p.11, 谷月社

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• Architecture begins to matter when it brings delight and sadness and perplexity and awe along with a roof over our heads.

  Paul Goldberger

  Sadness, Delight, Matter

  Paul Goldberger (2014). “Why Architecture Matters”, p.10, Yale University Press

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• In perplexities-when we cannot tell what to do, when we cannot understand what is going on around us, let us be calmed and steadied and made patient by the thought that what is hidden from us is not hidden from Him

  Frances Ridley Havergal

  Encouraging, God, Religious

  Frances Ridley Havergal (1887). “My King, Or, Daily Thoughts for the King's Children”

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• At the bottom no one in life can help anyone else in life; this one experiences over and over in every conflict and every perplexity: that one is alone. That isn't as bad as it may first appear; and again it is the best thing in life that each should have everything in himself; his fate, his future, his whole expanse and world.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Life, Fate, Should Have

  Rainer Maria Rilke (1969). “Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910”, p.149, W. W. Norton & Company

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• I am in the utmost perplexity, yand have wished a hundred times, that if there is a A God, nature would manifest him without ambiguity, and that if there is not, every imaginary sign of his existence might vanish : in short, let nature speak distinctly, or be totally silent, and I shall know what course to take.

  Blaise Pascal

  Nature, Might, Speak

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• In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Math, Ideas, Issues

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.72, Simon and Schuster

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• Get the most out of everything in your life; the happiness and the sadness, the success and the failure...get a good perspective of what life is all about. Let the orchestra of your life play all the notes, the high notes, the low rumblings of the difficulties and perplexities that all we all face.

  Jim Rohn

  Happiness, Sadness, Play

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• Those who obtain riches by labor, care, and watching, know their value. Those who impart them to sustain and extend knowledge, virtue, and religion, know their use. Those who lose them by accident or fraud know their vanity. And those who experience the difficulties and dangers of preserving them know their perplexities.

  Charles Simmons

  Vanity, Use, Care

  Charles Simmons (1852). “Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker”, p.541

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• The answers to the world's perplexities are, in fact, found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ . . . The more we can bring others to see the gospel in action, the more they will be willing to at least tolerate us, then to encourage us, and eventually to cooperate with us.

  Truman G. Madsen

  Jesus, Answers, World

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• If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be, as Poor Richard says, “the greatest prodigality'; since, as he elsewhere tells us, 'Lost time is never found again'; and 'What we call time enough always proves little enough'. Let us then up and be doing, and doing to the purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Time, Purpose, Littles

  "The Autobiography and Other Writings".

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• When I had satisfied myself that no star of that kind had ever shone before, I was led into such perplexity by the unbelievability of the thing that I began to doubt the faith of my own eyes.

  Tycho Brahe

  Stars, Eye, Science

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• Writing is a strong easement for perplexity. My life is a map, spread out with all the rivers and hills showing.

  Emily Carr

  Strong, Writing, Rivers

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• Read the Bible, read the Bible! Let no religious book take its place. Through all my perplexities and distresses, I seldom read any other book, and I as rarely felt the want of any other.

  William Wilberforce

  Religious, Book, Want

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