Puzzled Quotes - Page 6

• Our danger is not too few, but too many options ... to be puzzled by innumerable alternatives.

  Richard Livingstone

  Decision, Alternatives, Danger

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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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• When you're teaching a hard concept and the students all have puzzled looks on their faces and then suddenly you can see that 'aha' moment, that they got it, that's just an incredible thing.

  Anant Agarwal

  Teaching, Looks, Faces

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• She suddenly began to jump up and down, screaming at the top of her lungs. "The arks are after me! The arks are after me! Help me, the arks are after me!" .... "The arks! You don't understand, I have the ring and the arks are after me!" .... (and so the police officer is puzzled long enough for Miriam and Seth to escape)

  Ted Dekker

  Long, Police, Ark

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• Since the first human eye saw a leaf in Devonian sandstone and a puzzled finger reached to touch it, sadness has lain over the heart of man. By this tenuous thread of living protoplasm, stretching backward into time, we are linked forever to lost beaches whose sands have long since hardened into stone. The stars that caught our blind amphibian stare have shifted far or vanished in their courses, but still that naked, glistening thread winds onward. No one knows the secret of its beginning or its end. Its forms are phantoms. The thread alone is real; the thread is life.

  Loren Eiseley

  Beach, Stars, Real

  Loren Eiseley (2016). “The Firmament of Time: A Library of America eBook Classic”, p.39, Library of America

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• If you ask a living teacher a question, he will probably answer you. If you are puzzled by what he says, you can save yourself the trouble of thinking by asking him what he means. If, however, you ask a book a question, you must answer it yourself. In this respect a book is like nature or the world. When you question it, it answers you only to the extent that you do the work of thinking an analysis yourself.

  Mortimer Adler

  Teacher, Book, Mean

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

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• Throughout his life, Albert Einstein would retain the intuition and the awe of a child. He never lost his sense of wonder at the magic of nature's phenomena-magnetic fields, gravity, inertia, acceleration, light beams-which grown-ups find so commonplace. He retained the ability to hold two thoughts in his mind simultaneously, to be puzzled when they conflicted, and to marvel when he could smell an underlying unity. "People like you and me never grow old," he wrote a friend later in life. "We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.

  Walter Isaacson

  Children, Light, Later In Life

  Walter Isaacson (2008). “Einstein: His Life and Universe”, p.40, Simon and Schuster

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• My grandfather would have loved to have met you," he told her huskily. "He would have called you 'She Moves Trees Out of His Path.' " She looked lost, but his da laughed. He'd known the old man, too. "He called me 'He Who Must Run into Trees,'" Charles explained, and in a spirit of honesty, a need for his mate to know who he was, he continued, "or sometimes 'Running Eagle.' " " 'Running Eagle'?" Anna puzzled it over, frowning at him. "What's wrong with that?" "Too stupid to fly," murmured his father with a little smile.

  Patricia Briggs

  Running, Honesty, Father

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• Tall, aren't you?" she said. "I didn't mean to be." Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her.

  Raymond Chandler

  Mean, Eye, Thinking

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The Big Sleep: A Novel”, p.5, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• She was always puzzled that people say that darkness falls. To her it seemed instead to rise, massing under trees an shrubs, pouring out from under furniture, only reaching the sky when the spaces near the ground were full.

  Katherine Howe

  Fall, Sky, Space

  Katherine Howe (2010). “The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane”, p.148, Penguin UK

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• Notice this rent in my garment; I am at a loss to explain its presence! I am even more puzzled by the existence of the universe.

  Jack Vance

  Loss, Garments, Existence

  Jack Vance (2000). “Cugel the Clever: (previously titled The Eyes of the Overworld)”, p.235, Macmillan

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• What did you do, memorize a map of the city for fun?” says Christina. “Yes,” says Will, looking puzzled. “Didn’t you?

  Veronica Roth

  Fun, Cities, Maps

  Veronica Roth (2013). “Divergent Trilogy”, p.64, HarperCollins UK

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• Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled; to concentrate; to accept conflict and tension; to be born everyday; to feel a sense of self.

  Erich Fromm

  Creativity, Acceptance, Self

  "Creative Expression: Creativity and Self Exploration". Book by Jennifer Freed, p. 39, 2007.

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• What are the conditions of the creative attitude, of seeing and responding, of being aware and being sensitive to what one is aware of? First of all it requires the capacity to be puzzled. Children still have the capacity to be puzzled.

  Erich Fromm

  Children, Attitude, Creative

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• I think what art is always doing is making us see the world so differently, and I don't mean just colors and light, but re-thinking relationships, spatial relationships, psychological relationships ... those who gravitate to the art world actually want to be puzzled.

  Roselee Goldberg

  Art, Mean, Thinking

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• The fuzzy boundary lines between different readership ages have always puzzled me, so these days I just write what comes, and assume I can fix the mess later with an editor's help.

  Julie Berry

  Writing, Editors, Age

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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• As I grew older - and even when I was younger - it had puzzled me why I continued and continue to be heterosexual.

  Shirley Geok-lin Lim

  Grew

  "Walking with Her Muse: An Interview with Shirley Geok-lin Lim". Contemporary Women's Writing, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1 July 2014, Pages 123 - 135, academic.oup.com. June 22, 2013.

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