Vague Quotes - Page 5

We cannot tell some people what it is believe, partly because they are too stupid to understand, partly because we are too proudly vague to explain.

Robert Frost

Stupid, Believe, People

Robert Frost, Mark Richardson (2007). “The Collected Prose of Robert Frost”, p.110, Harvard University Press

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Introducing a technology is not a neutral act--it is profoundly revolutionary. If you present a new technology to the world you are effectively legislating a change in the way we all live. You are changing society, not some vague democratic process. The individuals who are driven to use that technology by the disparities of wealth and power it creates do not have a real choice in the matter. So the idea that we are giving people more freedom by developing technologies and then simply making them available is a dangerous illusion.

Karl Schroeder

Real, Technology, Ideas

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Socialism may be worthless as a scheme, but it is not meaningless as a symptom. Rousseau's theory of the origin of society, of the social contract, and of a cure for all the social evils by a return to a state of nature, had, as we all know now, no more relation to fact than the dreams of an illiterate drunkard; but they were not without value as a vague and symbolical expression of certain evils from which the France of his day was suffering.

William Hurrell Mallock

Dream, Expression, Evil

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You can't wish for more wishes or for vague generalities like happiness that are impossible to grant. Your wish has to be something specific enough that I can use my wand to make it happen. Oh, and recently there's been a ban on inserting yourself into the Twilight series. The Cullens are tired of different teenage girls pinging into their story every time they turn around.

Janette Rallison

Girl, Teenage, Twilight

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One of the worst features about worrying is that it destroys our ability to concentrate. When we worry, our minds jump here and there and everywhere, and we lose all power of decision. However, when we force ourselves to face the worst and accept it mentally, we then eliminate all those vague imaginings and put ourselves in a position in which we are able to concentrate on our problem.

Dale Carnegie

Inspirational, Change, Acceptance

Dale Carnegie (2016). “How to stop worrying & start living”, p.26, Diamond Pocket Books Pvt Ltd

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A wide and vague impression exists that so-called Eastern religion is more contemplative, innocuous, and humane than the proselytizing monotheisms of the West. Don't believe a word of this: try asking the children of Indochina who were dumped by their parents for inherited deformities that were attributed to sins in a previous 'life.

Christopher Hitchens

Atheist, Children, Believe

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Such are the mass of the supporters of either party. They derive their political opinions originally from some family tradition or some fanciful preference, but they back them with all the passion of sportsmen. In a vague subconscious way they know it is a game, but they happen to enjoy playing the game.

Hilaire Belloc

Party, Passion, Political Opinions

Hilaire Belloc (2008). “The Party System”, p.37, IHS Press

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In his Philosophy of Style, Herbert Spencer gives two sentences to illustrate how the vague and general can be turned into the vivid and particular: In proportion as the manners, customs, and amusements of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulations of its penal code will be severe. In proportion as men delight in battles, bullfights, and combats of gladiators, will they punish by hanging, burning, and the rack.

William Strunk, Jr.

Philosophy, Men, Two

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With my somewhat vague aspiring mind, to be imprisoned in the rude details of a most material life was often irksome.

Edward Carpenter

Rude, Mind, Details

Edward Carpenter (1984). “Selected Writings: Sex”

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Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always seems one too many, his profit looks too easy, and even when you admit that he has a necessary function, you feel that this function is, as it were, a personification of something that in an ethical society would not need to exist. If people could deal with one another honestly, they would not need agents.

Raymond Chandler

Funny, Men, People

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Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.

Eric Hoffer

Eye, Acceptance, Self

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

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My muse is my wife. It's not some vague thing that flutters around the astrosphere or wherever it is. Sometimes as a songwriter you need something to hang a song on, to give it some kind of presence and form. For me, Susie is that.

Nick Cave

Song, Giving, Wife

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It's absolutely of no importance who or what V was under the mask. He isn't a who or a what, he's an idea. The thing is, you couldn't continue it. Now and then the idea of a sequel has been raised, in vague forms, but I think it would be a bad idea. The story's finished.

David Lloyd

Thinking, Ideas, Would Be

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To put meaning in one's life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire-It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

Edgar Lee Masters

Sea, Desire, May

Edgar Lee Masters (2007). “Spoon River Anthology: Literary Touchstone Classic”, p.49, Prestwick House Inc

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America as a setting seems inexhaustibly fascinating to me, and I think there's something about the outsider viewpoint that works for me. Being of Jewish descent in England always carried a vague sense of being foreign, while not being a practicing Jew made it hard to think of myself as fully Jewish either. So living here in a way just clarifies that terminal outsider position - makes it somehow official, which I like.

James Lasdun

Thinking, America, Viewpoints

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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She continued weeping until the heat of her tear water, the sheer velocity of its flow, finally obscured the already vague circumstances of its origins.

Tom Robbins

Water, Tears, Velocity

Tom Robbins (2003). “Jitterbug Perfume”, p.6, Bantam

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Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor...I am Pagliacci.

Alan Moore

Lying, Men, Simple

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I sound contemptuous, but I am not. I am interested--intrigued even--by the way time erases real lives, leaving only vague imprints. Blood and spirit fade away so that only names and dates remain.

Kate Morton

Real, Blood, Names

Kate Morton (2009). “The House at Riverton: A Novel”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

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For although this was a very heroic war, with a parade of every sort of high moral principle, and with the most sonorous language employed upon both sides, it somehow failed to bring about either the reformation or the ruin of humankind: and after the conclusion of the murdering and general breakage, the world went on pretty much as it has done after all other wars, with a vague notion that a deal of time and effort had been unprofitably invested, and a conviction that it would be inglorious to say so.

James Branch Cabell

War, Effort, Ruins

James Branch Cabell (2017). “Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances”, p.155, Wildside Press LLC

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Yet I saw crypts when I looked at him, and I heard the beat of kettledrums. I saw torchlit fields where I had never been, heard vague incantations, felt the heat of raging fires on my face. And they didn't come out of him, these visions. Rather I drew them out on my own. Yet I never had Nicolas, mortal or immortal, been so alluring. Never had Gabrielle held me so in thrall. Dear God, this is love. This is desire. And all my past amours have been but the shadow of this." — Lestat de Lioncourt

Anne Rice

Past, Fire, Vision

Anne Rice (2011). “The Vampire Chronicles Collection: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned”, p.757, Ballantine Books

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...the figure near at hand suffers on such occasions, because it shows up its sorriness without shade; while vague figures afar off are honored, in that their distance makes artistic virtues of their stains. In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire.

Thomas Hardy

Distance, Hands, Suffering

Thomas Hardy (1995). “Thomas Hardy: Three Great Novels”, JG Press

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You can never get rich, or start the creative power into action, by sending out unformed longings and vague desires.

Wallace D. Wattles

Creative, Desire, Action

Wallace D. Wattles, General Press (2016). “The Science of Getting Rich”, p.26, GENERAL PRESS

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My life is music, and in some vague, mysterious and subconscious way, I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, often - in fact, mostly - at the expense of everything else in my life.

Stan Getz

Music, Spring, Perfection

Stan Getz (2017). “Stan Getz - Omnibook: For B-flat Instruments”, p.2, Hal Leonard Corporation

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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

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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.

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