Puzzled Quotes - Page 5

• I am amiable. Vague. Puzzled. Messy-haired.

  Neil Gaiman

  Messy, Amiable, Vague

  Source: www.teenink.com

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• Seest thou how pale the sated guest rises from supper, where the appetite is puzzled with varieties? The body, too, burdened with I yesterday's excess, weighs down the soul, and fixes to the earth this particle of the divine essence.

  Horace

  Essence, Yesterday, Soul

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• The pride of ancestry is a superstructure of the most imposing height, but resting on the most flimsy foundation. It is ridiculous enough to observe the hauteur with which the old nobility look down on the new. The reason of this puzzled me a little, until I began to reflect that most titles are respectable only because they are old; if new, they would be despised, because all those who now admire the grandeur of the stream would see nothing but the impurity of the source.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Pride, Foundation, Titles

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”

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• The ways of heaven are dark and intricate,
  Puzzled in mazes, and perplex'd with errors;
  Our understanding traces them in vain,
  Lost and bewilder'd in the fruitless search;
  Nor sees with how much art the windings run,
  Nor where the regular confusion ends.

  Joseph Addison

  Running, Art, Dark

  Joseph Addison (1868). “The Works of Joseph Addison”, p.481

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• It has always puzzled me, in my business, that people think they have to answer questions, no matter how disagreeable or dangerous, just because they were asked. Of course, we journalists would be out of business if they didn't.

  Judith Martin

  Thinking, People, Would Be

  Judith Martin (1986). “Style and substance: a comedy of manners”, Scribner

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• Strangers with puzzled looks were amazingly cooperative in letting me into their rooms with my photographic gear. They let me take down the curtains, wash the windows, and rearrange the furniture. Often, too, they expressed their desire to share their view with others, as if it were a non-depletable treasure. I liked the idea that my photographic vantage points were not solely determined by myself. They were predetermined by others, sometimes years earlier, and patiently waited for me to discover them.

  John Pfahl

  Views, Years, Ideas

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• It is good to pray for the repair of mistakes, but praying earlier would keep us from making so many. When puzzled, go to prayer and listen.

  J. C. Macaulay

  Prayer, Mistake, Praying

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• I am still puzzled why those in the United States who truly believe in liberty should not only have allowed the left to appropriate this almost indispensable term but should even have assisted by beginning to use it themselves as a term of opprobrium. This seems to be particularly regrettable because of the consequent tendency of many true liberals to describe themselves as conservatives.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Believe, Liberty, United States

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• Recently, someone asked me if I believed in astrology. He seemed somewhat puzzled when I explained that the reason I don't is that I'm a Gemini.

  Raymond Smullyan

  Astrology, Reason, Ifs

  Raymond Smullyan (1983). “Five Thousand B.C. and Other Philosophical Fantasies”, p.31, Macmillan

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• For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize... They were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end.

  Aristotle

  Philosophical, Ignorance, Knowledge

  "Metaphysics". Book by Aristotle (982b10), later published in "The Basic Works of Aristotle" edited by Richard McKeon (p. 692), 1941.

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• But mark, madam, we live amongst riddles and mysteries--the most obvious things, which come in our way, have dark sides, which thequickest sight cannot penetrate into; and even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny of nature's works.

  Laurence Sterne

  Knowledge, Loss, Dark

  Laurence Sterne (1847). “Works, Containing the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent: A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, Sermons, Letters and C”, p.185

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• Ironic and jittery, we are puzzled by the old heroes with their fighting, boasting, and cocksure lovemaking.

  Mason Cooley

  Hero, Fighting, Ironic

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• The law rarely hesitates in declaring its own meaning; but the Judges are frequently puzzled to find out the meaning of others.

  William Blackstone

  Law, Judging, Declaring

  Sir William Blackstone, John Fletcher Hargrave, George Sweet, Sir Richard Couch, William Newland Welsby (1852). “Commentaries on the Laws of England: In Four Books : with an Analysis of the Work”, p.303

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• If, at any time, it comes into my head, that a present is due from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity is gone.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Opportunity, Giving, Gone

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1481, Delphi Classics

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• There is required for the composition of a great commander not only massive common sense and reasoning power, not only imagination, but also an element of legerdemain, an original and sinister touch, which leaves the enemy puzzled as well as beaten.

  Winston Churchill

  Common Sense, Imagination, Enemy

  Winston Churchill (2005). “The World Crisis, 1911-1918”, p.293, Simon and Schuster

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• What did Isabelle want?" Jace asked. Alec hesitated. "Isabelle says the Queen of the Seelie Court has requested an audience with us." "Sure," said Magnus. "And Madonna wants me as a backup dancer on her next world tour." Alec looked puzzled. "Who's Madonna?" "Who's the Queen of the Seelie Court?" said Clary. "She is the Queen of Faerie," said Magnus. "Well, the local one, anyway." Jace put his head in his hands. "Tell Isabelle no." "But she thinks it's a good idea," Alec protested. "Then tell her no twice.

  Cassandra Clare

  Queens, Thinking, Hands

  Cassandra Clare (2010). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (3 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass”, p.543, Simon and Schuster

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• Howard Dean is not the first politician to distort facts in his own interests. But many activists in the party he now leads are puzzled over what he thinks he is accomplishing politically. Is it good politics to contend that Iraq was better off under Saddam Hussein than even a flawed Islamic republic.

  Robert Novak

  Party, Islamic, Thinking

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• Fashion is the great governor of this world; it presides, not only in matters of dress and amusement, but in law, physic, politics, religion, and all other things of the gravest kind; indeed, the wisest of men would be puzzled to give any better reason why particular forms in all these have been at certain times universally received, and at others universally rejected, than that they were in or out of fashion.

  Henry Fielding

  Fashion, Men, Law

  Henry Fielding, Thomas Roscoe (1851). “The Works of Henry Fielding: Complete in One Volume”, p.664

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• One night, a group of moths gathered on a shelf watching a burning candle. Puzzled by the nature of the light, they sent one of their members to go and check on it. The scouting moth circled the candle several times and came back with a description: The light was bright. Then a second moth went to examine it. He, too, came back with an observation: The light was hot. Finally a third moth volunteered to go. When he approached the candle he didn't stop like his friends had done, but flew straight into the flame. He was consumed there and then, and only he understood the nature of the light.

  Elif Safak

  Night, Light, Flames

  "Black Milk: On the Conflicting Demands of Writing, Creativity, and Motherhood". Book by Elif Shafak, 2007.

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• When asked by a grumpily puzzled professor what "rules" he followed, Debussy is said to have retorted, mon plaisir "whatever I please" and he further claimed that more was to be gained by watching the sun rise than by listening to the Pastoral Symphony. Although such remarks were intended to shock, they contain a core of Debussyan verity.

  Claude Debussy

  Past, Symphony, Listening

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• Though I was satisfied that I was on the verge of perhaps a magnificent find, probably one of the missing tombs that I had been seeking for many years, I was much puzzled by the smallness of the opening in comparison with those of other royal tombs in the valley.

  Howard Carter

  Years, Missing, Valleys

  Howard Carter's Diary, November 5, 1922.

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• I am puzzled that Conway Morris apparently doesn't grasp the equally strong (and inevitable) personal preferences embedded in his own view of life.

  Simon Conway Morris

  Strong, Views, Embedded

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• People seem to have acquired the idea that they have the inalienable right to stroll through life without either having sweated, picked up anything heavy, worked hard, or eaten less than they wanted at every meal. This approach is, of course, wrong. And it has resulted in a lot of expensive, unattractive, and entirely preventable problems amongst people who seem puzzled about why things aren't going well.

  Mark Rippetoe

  Ideas, People, Meals

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• Great men should think of opportunity and not of time. That is the excuse of feeble and puzzled spirits.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Opportunity, Men, Thinking

  Benjamin Disraeli (1881). “Collected Edition of the Novels and Tales by the Right Honorable B. Disraeli: Endymion”

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• [L]et my reader who is puzzled by my awkward explanations close his eyes for no more than two minutes, and see if he does not find himself suddenly not a compact human being at all, but only a consciousness on a sea of sound and touch . . .

  Shirley Jackson

  Eye, Sea, Two

  Shirley Jackson (1966). “The Magic of Shirley Jackson”, p.361, Macmillan

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