Predicaments Quotes - Page 5

• The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility - of being unable to undo what one has done - is the faculty of forgiving.

  Hannah Arendt

  Forgiving, Done, Redemption

  Hannah Arendt (2013). “The Human Condition: Second Edition”, p.237, University of Chicago Press

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• Two things are to blame for our predicament, one a corollary of the other. The first reason is that we did not have enough troops in Samarra. The skill and courage of 150 American soldiers prevented chaos, but was never enough to fully secure a city of 120,000 people or maintain the rule of law [...] Second, because of a lack of troops, American military leaders are forced to make a choice between mission objectives and self-preservation.

  Pete Hegseth

  Military, Self, Law

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• Children are not a zoo of entertainingly exotic creatures, but an array of mirrors in which the human predicament leaps out at us.

  John Updike

  Zoos, Children, Mirrors

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• How could you communicate with the future? It was impossible. Either the future would resemble the present in which case it would not listen to him, or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.

  George Orwell

  Different, Would Be, Impossible

  George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.32, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility──of being unable to undo what one has done──is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. Both faculties depend upon plurality, on the presence and acting of others, for no man can forgive himself and no one can be bound by a promise made only to himself.

  Hannah Arendt

  Men, Forgiving, Promise

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• She sifted, sighed, and stared up at the ceiling, trying to think about anything but Lord Maccoon, her current predicament, or Lord Akeldama's safety. Which meant she could do nothing but reflect on the complex plight of her mama's more recent embroidery project. Thins, in itself, was a worse torture than any her captors could devise.

  Gail Carriger

  Thinking, Safety, Trying

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• When we look into the human heart we see the lust, the greed, the hate, the pride, the anger, and the jealousies that are so destructive. This is at the heart of the human predicament, and the Scriptures call this condition sin.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Hate, Heart, Pride

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• If you have no enemies you are apt to be in the same predicament in regard to friends.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Friendship, Enemy, Regard

  Elbert Hubbard, Bert Hubbard (1923). “Selected writings of Elbert Hubbard: his mintage of wisdom, coined from a life of love, laughter and work”

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• Looking in the mirror, staring back at me isn't so much a face as the expression of a predicament.

  Colin Firth

  Mirrors, Expression, Looking In The Mirror

  "Fictional character: George". "A Single Man", www.imdb.com. 2009.

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• Well, I was lost but now I live here! I have severely improved my predicament!

  Mitch Hedberg

  Sarcastic, Humorous, Comedian

  "Mitch Hedberg: Mitch All Together". Comedy, 2003.

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• They're caught where there's no way out or where you can't see out. What are you going to do about it? I don't have the answer. If I did there would be no insane asylums. But I see a lot of people, a lot of my friends in the same predicament. Many times in my life, I was there myself.

  Ric Ocasek

  People, Insanity, Insane

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• When we stop to count our blessings rather than focusing on our predicament, our attitude will be able to help us cope with our situation more productively.

  Kevin Eikenberry

  Life, Motivational, Attitude

  Kevin Eikenberry (2005). “Vantage Points on Learning and Life”, p.148, Dog Ear Publishing

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• All central beliefs on human matters spring from a personal predicament.

  Isaiah Berlin

  Spring, Matter, Berlin

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• Whoever admits that he is too busy to improve his methods, has acknowledged himself to be at the end of his rope. And that is always the saddest predicament which any one can get into.

  J. Ogden Armour

  Failure, Rope, Busy

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• It is better for you to take responsibility for your life as it is, instead of blaming others, or circumstances, for your predicament. As your eyes open, you'll see that your state of health, happiness, and every circumstance of your life has been, in large part, arranged by you - consciously or unconsciously.

  Dan Millman

  Life, Eye, Responsibility

  Dan Millman (2006). “Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book that Changes Lives”, p.28, H J Kramer

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• At the supreme moment of his dying Jesus so identified himself with men and the depths of their predicament and agony that no man can now sink so low that God has not gone lower.

  Os Guinness

  Jesus, Men, Agony

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• The imperative to develop new technologies and implement them on a heroic scale no longer seems like the childish preoccupation of a few nerds with slide rulers - It's the only way for the human race to escape from its current predicaments - Too bad we've forgotten how to do it

  Neal Stephenson

  Inspirational, Technology, Race

  Neal Stephenson (2012). “Some Remarks”, p.241, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• ...it is in the nature of original contemporary art to present itself as a bad risk. And we the public...should be proud of being in this predicament, because nothing else would seem to us quite true to life; and art, after all, is supposed to be a mirror of life.

  Leo Steinberg

  Art, Mirrors, True Life

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• If you look at Shakespeare's history plays, what the setting of monarchy allows is this extraordinary intensification of emotions and predicament.

  Tom Hooper

  Play, Looks, Emotion

  "Q&A with 'King's Speech' director Tom Hooper". Interview with Walter Addiego, www.sfgate.com. February 4, 2011.

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• Create some psychological space between you and your project by imagining you're doing it for someone else or contemplating what advice you'd give to another person in your predicament.

  Daniel H. Pink

  Space, Giving, Advice

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• In statesmanship there are predicaments from which it is impossible to escape without some wrongdoing.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Impossible, Wrongdoing, Statesmanship

  Napoleon Bonaparte “Napoleon in his own words from the French of Jules Bertaut”, Рипол Классик

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• The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and tortoises).

  Rich Hall

  Humorous, Turtles, Tortoises

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• Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an undeniably low-quality situation: that the value of his predicament is negative. This low quality is not just a vague, woolly-headed, crypto-religious, metaphysical abstraction. It is an experience. It is not a judgment about an experience. It is not a description of experience. The value itself is an experience. As such it is completely predictable. It is verifiable by anyone who cares to do so.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Religious, Intellectual, Quality

  "Lila : An Inquiry Into Morals". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1991.

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• The apartments of the rich are cabinets of curiosities: a conglomeration of classical antiquity, gothic, renaissance; Louis XIII... Something from every century but our own, a predicament that has arisen in no other period... so that we seem to be subsisting on the ruins of the past, as if the end of the world were near.

  Alfred de Musset

  Past, Curiosity, World

  "Confession d'un Enfant du Siécle". Book by Alfred de Musset, 1836.

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• Chess, which exists predominantly in two dimensions, is one of the world's most difficult games. Three-dimensional chess is an invitation to insanity. But human relationships, even of the simplest order, are like a kind of four-dimensional chess, a game whose pieces and positions change subtly and inexorably between moves, whose players stare dumbly while their powerful positions deteriorate into hopeless predicaments and while improbable combinations suddenly become inevitable. To make matters worse, some games are open to any number of players, and all sides are expected to win.

  Robert Grudin

  Powerful, Moving, Winning

  Robert Grudin (1997). “Time and the Art of Living”, p.95, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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