Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Since it is seldom clear whether intellectual activity denotes a superior mode of being or a vital deficiency, opinion swings between considering intellect a privilege and seeing it as a handicap.
With Eric Rohmer - as with Mozart, Austen, James, and Proust - we need to remember that art is seldom about life, or not quite about life. Art is about discovery and design and reasoning with chaos.
Editors and their authors seldom form deep friendships for the same reason that psychiatrists and their patients keep their distance: The relationship requires candor that mixes poorly with intimacy.
I have found from experience that it is often interesting and useful to start from the edges and work inward - another flaw of mine. I seldom approach things directly. I would have made a great moth.
Sometimes people ask, 'Does writing make you happy?' But I think that's beside the point. It makes you agitated, and continually in a state where you're off balance. You seldom feel serene or settled.
Rich men's houses are seldom beautiful, rarely comfortable, and never original. It is a constant source of surprise to people of moderate means to observe how little a big fortune contributes to Beauty.
Women have seldom sufficient employment to silence their feelings; a round of little cares, or vain pursuits frittering away all strength of mind and organs, they become naturally only objects of sense.
Now, occultism is not like mystic faculty, and it very seldom works in harmony either with business aptitude in the things of ordinary life or with a knowledge of the canons of evidence in its own sphere.
I seldom reraise before the flop no matter what my hand is. By so doing, I'm able to disguise the strength of my hand and can trap unsuspecting opponents who interpret my smooth call as a sign of weakness.
Look at our society. Everyone wants to be thin, but nobody wants to diet. Everyone wants to live long, but few will exercise. Everybody wants money, yet seldom will anyone budget or control their spending.
I thought I was very pretty without hair. Naked, more honest somehow. No glamor, just bald old me. I seldom wore wigs or hats. But some people must have thought I was an exhibitionist or a religious fanatic.
Leaders talk about gender equality but it is not seen during selection of candidates. They will talk about winnability and a woman candidate seldom fulfils the criteria unless she is from a political family.
Incidents of racial bias and implicit bias happen to African-Americans of every social class daily in America. White people seldom notice or dwell on these as they encounter the quotidian events of their day.
People of substance may sin without being exposed for their stolen pleasure; but servants and the poorer sort of women have seldom an opportunity of concealing a big belly, or at least the consequences of it.
If I need to cheer myself up, I will put on some fabulous '40s musical on video. But I'm very lucky; I seldom get depressed. Without question, I'm a 'glass half full' person. In fact, it's three-quarters full!
For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.
I ever will profess myself the greatest friend to those whose actions best correspond with their doctrine; which, I am sorry to say, is too seldom the case amongst those nations who pretend most to civilization.
Now it is evident that a little insight into the customs of every people is necessary to insure a kindly communication; this, joined with patience and kindness, will seldom fail with the natives of the interior.
Laws fixed, certain, and uniform, are said to be the distinguishing traits of civilized from savage communities. In these last, seldom are any laws, unless it be the arbitrary and uncertain will of the strongest.
It has become an accepted tenet that kids will rarely listen to their parents but seldom fail to imitate them. Communicating the message has never been a good substitute for 'showing up' and embodying the message.
Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery. Though shared by each of us and known to all, seldom rates a second thought. That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time.
America's popular heroes have seldom been its great thinkers, and even less its scientists. The success of TV's 'Big Bang Theory,' which seems to give the lie to this claim, is more the exception that proves the rule.
Man is not made better by being degraded; he is seldom restrained from crime by harsh measures, except the principle of fear predominates in his character, and then he is never made radically better for its influence.
I would wake up at night and think, 'What the hell have I gotten myself into? You don't want to do that!' But you gotta do something, and with art, there's freedom - which is actually very seldom practiced by artists.
To be a minister means above all to become powerless, or in more precise terms, to speak with our powerlessness to the condition of powerlessness which is so keenly felt but so seldom expressed by the people of our age.
There are times when new players replace injured players in the national squad. Since the new players don't have enough experience and match practice at the international level, they seldom play under a lot of pressure.
One seldom expects the country's president to adequately note the passing of a rocker, but Jimmy Carter's assessment of Elvis Presley's appeal - 'energy, rebelliousness and good humor' - is remarkably close to the mark.
My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.
Like most musicians, I'm good at becoming immersed in the music that I am currently working on. We seldom lift up our heads to contemplate even the music we will be doing in the future, let alone what we've done in the past.
Back in the really olden days, dinner was seldom a ceremonial event for U.S. families. Only the very wealthy had a separate dining room. For most, meals were informal, a kind of rolling refueling; often only the men sat down.
The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right.
A sensitive person is seldom happy with the world the way it is. And since you cannot change it, you think, 'Might as well numb the anguish.' If you're using something to escape reality, then it's something you need to address.
You have to remember that I was a bright but simple fellow from Canada who seldom, if ever, met another writer, and then only a so-called literary type that occasionally sold a story and meanwhile worked in an office for a living.
Kids enjoy laughing and are seldom bored when they find something funny. They also ask questions, often to adults, because they understand that the more words they can comprehend about a funny story or a joke, the more they'll enjoy it.
As far as 'Birdsong' is concerned, I think the television program made a very honorable attempt at it, but the truth of the matter is that adaptations of long, ambitious books very seldom transfer well to the screen, and why would they?
Technology writers are seldom subject to frenzied, Beatlemania-esque paroxysms of public attention. June 29, 2007, was the exception. I was in the wrong place - Apple's Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan - with the right device. The iPhone.
I think of those giants who made the Indian National Congress. Seldom has the world seen a nobler galaxy of women and men, so selfless in their devotion to the cause of freedom, so exalted in thought, so brave in action, so pure in spirit.
I think its really matured a lot. I like the fact that there is now more to do there than gamble, since I don't do a lot of that. The people are great. I seldom have time for vacations and when I do I prefer the beach instead of the desert.
The owner of a company with supertight margins - say, a restaurant, retailer, or producer of commodity goods - would be a fool not to keep a close eye on the numbers. But when I make big decisions, numbers are seldom, if ever, the tiebreaker.
When you have friends in the industry, you're always expected to talk about work. Seldom do you talk about stuff outside work with friends in the industry. Therefore, I don't have many actor friends, but I find lot of brotherly warmth from a few.
For my part, I confess I seldom listen to the players: one has so much to do, in looking about and finding out one's acquaintance, that, really, one has no time to mind the stage. One merely comes to meet one's friends, and show that one's alive.
For 20 years, my mother, my sister and I had seldom spoken of my father. If he happened to come up in conversation, pain and embarrassment entered the room and stayed until he disappeared back into the silence with which we all felt more at ease.
I have always believed that national character... depends more on the female part of society than is generally imagined. Precepts from the lips of a beloved mother... sink deep in the heart, and make an impression which is seldom entirely effaced.
Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance - these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible.
I like to decide the night before Thanksgiving that I'm gonna do it, and I'll see what riff raff is around. Then I get that last-minute surge of energy. But if I had two weeks to plan, sometimes I wish I wasn't doing it. But very seldom does that happen.
Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.
The international community spends much more time and resources managing crises than preventing them. But TV cameras are seldom there when a conflict is avoided, so it is difficult for governments and international organizations to make prevention a priority.
In today's world, everyone's so clued into their iPhones, and communication is going by the wayside as far as one-on-one is concerned. It's very seldom that I walk into a room and parents make their children say hello and have a social grace with one another.
Historically, the U.S.'s big launchers fly seldom enough that their costs are dominated by annual upkeep of facilities and staff, not by the actual cost of each launch. The expensive part is maintaining the launch capability, not actually conducting launches.
Coaches don't sleep for a reason. They don't sleep because it's a danger zone every night. Very seldom do you ever get two or three days off... The lifestyle of coaching in the NBA is a tremendous challenge that gives you tremendous highs but also tremendous lows.