Vague Quotes - Page 10

Vague a l'ame - melancholy yearning for the end of the world.

Emile M. Cioran

World, Melancholy, Ends

"A Short History of Decay". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1949.

10 Copy quote

Show source
On vague wording of drone strike criteria: “Are you going to just drop a hellfire missile on Jane Fonda? Are you going to drop a missile on Kent State? That’s gobbledygook.

Rand Paul

Drones, Criteria, States

10 Copy quote
People watch movies - and it's vague ideas, it's vague notions, but people pick up on these things, that they are supposed to think certain ways or that they're not supposed to think, basically, and they don't.

Crispin Glover

Thinking, Ideas, People

Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com. 2003.

7 Copy quote

Show source
The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.

Edsger Dijkstra

Simplicity, Design, Purpose

51 Copy quote
A man of clear ideas errs grievously if he imagines that whatever is seen confusedly does not exist; it belongs to him, when he meets with such a thing, to dispel the midst, and fix the outlines of the vague form which is looming through it.

John Stuart Mill

Persistence, Men, Ideas

John Stuart Mill (2008). “Utilitarianism and On Liberty: Including 'Essay on Bentham' and Selections from the Writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin”, p.65, John Wiley & Sons

8 Copy quote

Show source
I am far from any intention to limit curiosity, or confine the labours of learning to arts of immediate and necessary use. It is only from the various essays of experimental industry, and the vague excursions of mind set upon discovery, that any advancement of knowledge can be expected; and though many must be disappointed in their labours, yet they are not to be charged with having spent their time in vain; their example contributed to inspire emulation, and their miscarriage taught others the way to success.

Samuel Johnson

Art, Miscarriage, Necessary Use

Samuel Johnson (1889). “Select Essays”

8 Copy quote

Show source
I believe that natural history has lost much by the vague general treatment that is so common.

Ernest Thompson Seton

Believe, Science, Belief

Ernest Thompson Seton (2007). “Wild Animals I Have Known”, p.12, Yesterday's Classics

4 Copy quote

Show source
Vague memories hang about the mind like cobwebs.

George Eliot

Memories, Mind, Cobwebs

George Eliot (1863). “Romola: In Two Volumes”, p.105

14 Copy quote

Show source
There are the two main reasons we don't get our needs met. First, we don't know how to express our needs to begin with and second if we do, we forget to put a clear request after it, or we use vague words like appreciate, listen, recognize, know, be real, and stuff like that.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

Real, Communication, Two

9 Copy quote
It’s time to stop being vague. If you wish to be an extraordinary person, if you wish to be wise, then you should explicitly identify the kind of person you aspire to become.

Epictetus

Motivational, Wise, Extraordinary Person

15 Copy quote
I think that the fact that a theory so vague, so insufficiently verifiable, and so far from the criteria otherwise applied in "hard" science, could become a dogma, can be explained only on sociological grounds.

Ludwig von Bertalanffy

Facts, Dogma, Criteria

"Perspectives on general system theory: scientific-philosophical studies".

16 Copy quote

Show source
Now 'pay equity' has everything to do with pay and nothing to do with equity. It’s based on the vague notion of 'equal pay for work of equal value,' which is not the same as equal pay for the same job.

Stephen Harper

Jobs, Equal Pay, Equity

9 Copy quote
The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains the only rule of political ethics; anything else is just a vague chatter and melts away between one’s fingers.

Arthur Koestler

Mean, Political, Principles

ARTHUR KOESTLER (1941). “DARKNESS AT NOON”

15 Copy quote

Show source
Many of the younger generation know my name in a vague way and connect it with grotesque inventions, but don't believe that I ever existed as a person. They think I'm a nonperson, just a name that signifies a tangled web of pipes or wires or strings that suggest machinery. My name to them is like a spiral staircase, veal cutlets, barber's itch — terms that give you an immediate picture of what they mean.

Rube Goldberg

Believe, Mean, Thinking

"Rube Goldberg: Inventions!".

7 Copy quote

Show source
From time to time, from the endless flow of our mental imagery, there emerges unexpectedly something that, vague though it may be, seems to carry the promise of a form, a meaning, and, more important, an irresistible poetic charge.

Leo Lionni

Promise, Important, Flow

24 Copy quote
The fictive is an emormous territory it turns out, its boundaries vague, and there is little certainty about where it begins and ends.

Siri Hustvedt

Littles, Territory, Boundaries

Siri Hustvedt (2011). “The Summer Without Men: A Novel”, p.87, Macmillan

4 Copy quote

Show source
For though we often need to be restored to the small, concrete, limited, and certain, we as often need to be reminded of the large, vague, unlimited, unknown

A. R. Ammons

Needs, Unlimited, Certain

A. R. Ammons (1996). “Set in motion: essays, interviews, and dialogues”, Univ of Michigan Pr

9 Copy quote

Show source
Of course the word chaos is used in rather a vague sense by a lot of writers, but in physics it means a particular phenomenon, namely that in a nonlinear system the outcome is often indefinitely, arbitrarily sensitive to tiny changes in the initial condition

Murray Gell-Mann

Mean, Outcomes, Tiny

29 Copy quote
The reward of the young scientist is the emotional th
rill of being the first person in the history of the world to see something or to understand something. Nothing can compare with that experience The reward of the old scientist is the sense of having seen a vague sketch grow into a masterly landscape.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Emotional, World, Landscape

66 Copy quote
I don't see how it's doing society any good to have so many members walking around with vague memories of algebraic formulas and geometric diagrams and clear memories of hating them.

Paul Lockhart

Memories, Hate, Diagrams

6 Copy quote
After all we speak of people 'taking refuge' in vagueness -the more precise you are, in general the more likely you are to be wrong, whereas you stand a good chance of not being wrong if you make it vague enough.

J. L. Austin

People, Vagueness, Chance

15 Copy quote
People frequently comment on the emptiness in one night stands, but emptiness here has always been just another word for darkness. Blind encounters writing sonnets no one can ever read. Desire and pain communicated in the vague language of sex.
None of which made sense to me until much later when I realized everything I thought I'd retained of my encounters added up to so very little, hardly enduring, just shadows of love outlining nothing at all.

Mark Z. Danielewski

Sex, Pain, Writing

10 Copy quote
Some people are always critical of vague statements. I tend rather to be critical of precise statements; they are the only ones which can correctly be labeled wrong.

Raymond Smullyan

People, Criticism, Critics

Raymond M. Smullyan (2013). “The Tao Is Silent”, p.25, Harper Collins

52 Copy quote

Show source
In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations!

Anton Chekhov

Character, Psychology, Essentials

11 Copy quote
I have a hard time getting motivated to do something that seems like a career move. I've gotten into vague trouble with my agents for turning down work that I thought was exploitative.

Mira Sorvino

Moving, Hard Times, Careers

4 Copy quote