Adequate Quotes

• People of uncommon abilities generally fall into eccentricities when their sphere of life is not adequate to their abilities.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Fall, People

  54 Copy quote

• I don't want to write any more for the old Man-power instruments and am handicapped by the lack of adequate electrical instruments for which I now conceive my music.

  Edgard Varese

  Writing, Men, Want

  41 Copy quote

• No pen can give an adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery.

  Harriet Ann Jacobs

  Giving, Literature, Slavery

  Harriet Ann Jacobs (1861). “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, p.79

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• It is willingness of people to give of themselves over and above the demands of the job that distinguishes the great from the merely adequate.

  Peter Drucker

  Jobs, People, Giving

  Peter Drucker (2012). “The Practice of Management”, p.132, Routledge

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• We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error, undetected, will flourish and subvert.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Wise, Believe, Men

  "Encouragement of Science". J. Robert Oppenheimer's address at Science Talent Institute (March 6, 1950), as quoted in "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists", Volume 7, No. 1 (pp. 6-8), January 1951.

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• To live effectively is to live with adequate information.

  Norbert Wiener

  Information

  Norbert Wiener (1988). “The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society”, p.18, Da Capo Press

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• My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty... it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

  George Washington

  4th Of July, Two, Political

  George Washington (1836). “The writings of George Washington: being his correspondence, addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and published from the original manuscripts; with a life of the author, notes, and illustrations”, p.301

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• In its happiest efforts, translation is but approximation, and its efforts are not often happy. A translation may be good as translation, but it cannot be an adequate reproduction of the original.

  George Henry Lewes

  Effort, May, Be Good

  George Henry Lewes (1864). “The Life of Goethe”, p.466

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• I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.

  Warren Buffett

  Real, Believe, Men

  8 Copy quote

• Who is ever adequate? We all create situations each other can't live up to, then break our hearts at them because they don't.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Break Up, Heart, Limits

  Elizabeth Bowen (1938). “The death of the heart”, Viking Pr

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• And I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States.

  Charles Dickens

  Believe, United States, Earth

  Charles Dickens (1901). “The Oxford India paper Dickens”

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• I am not against hasty marriages where a mutual flame is fanned by an adequate income.

  Wilkie Collins

  Flames, Income, Mutual

  Wilkie Collins (2015). “Greatest Mystery Novels of Wilkie Collins”, p.786, e-artnow sro

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• Almost certainly, however, the first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind.

  Norman Borlaug

  Justice, Essentials, Food Banks

  Norman Ernest Borlaug (1971). “Mankind and Civilization at Another Crossroad”

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• There is nothing more demoralizing than a small but adequate income.

  Edmund Wilson

  Money, Income, Belief

  Edmund Wilson (1951). “Memoirs of Hecate County”

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• War is just a racket... I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else.

  Smedley Butler

  Peace, War, Believe

  "War Is A Racket". Smedley Butler's speech in the U.S. (1933); later published as a book "War Is a Racket", www.businessinsider.com. 1935.

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• The action carries a sense of incompleteness and frustration, but not of guilt. Victorious living does not mean perfect living in the sense of living without flaw, but it does mean adequate living, and that can be consistent with many mistakes.

  E. Stanley Jones

  Mistake, Mean, Frustration

  8 Copy quote

• It is clear that the pharmaceutical industry is not, by any stretch of the imagination, doing enough to ensure that the poor have access to adequate medical care.

  Paul Farmer

  Organization, Imagination, Care

  56 Copy quote

• More than 100 people have been sent to death row who were later exonerated because they weren't guilty or fairly tried. Most criminal defendants do not get adequate representation because there are not enough public defenders to represent them. There is a lot that is wrong.

  John Grisham

  People, Criminals, Guilty

  11 Copy quote

• There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Badass, Preparation, Luck

  Robert A. Heinlein (2005). “Have Space Suit, Will Travel”, p.12, Simon and Schuster

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• Although we have do not have adequate access to all parts of Darfur we do fortunately have humanitarian personnel, including staff from my own office, in each of the three provincial capitals of Darfur.

  Jan Egeland

  Office, Three, Humanitarian

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• So popular is the naval service the only embarrassment is that men volunteer so rapidly we have to work overtime to give them hardy, adequate housing and proper training.

  Josephus Daniels

  Men, Volunteer, Giving

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• What is genius, anyway, if it isn't the ability to give an adequate response to a great challenge?

  Bette Greene

  Giving, Challenges, Genius

  Bette Greene (2000). “Summer of my German soldier”

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• The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Rights, Weakness, Neutrality

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1852). “The Federalist, on the new constitution, written in 1788, with an appendix, containing the letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the proclamation of neutrality of 1793, also the original articles of confederation and the constitution of the United States”, p.50

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• All the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness, can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.

  Dalai Lama

  Love, Reality, Thinking

  "Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World". Book by 14th Dalai Lama, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 6, 2011.

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• I haven't yet figured out how I was made first captain, because I was not an outstanding student. I was an adequate student.

  William Westmoreland

  Captains, Firsts, Students

  8 Copy quote