Charybdis Quotes

• Anxiety and Ennui are the Scylla and Charybdis on which the bark of human happiness is most often wrecked.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Anxiety, Scylla, Bark

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1909). “The Map of Life”

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• He knows enough, the mariner, who knows
  Where lurk the shelves, and where the whirlpools boil,
  What signs portend the storm: to subtler minds
  He leaves to scan, from what mysterious cause
  Charybdis rages in the Ionian wave;
  Whence those impetuous currents in the main
  Which neither oar nor sail can stem; and why
  The roughening deep expects the storm, as sure
  As red Orion mounts the shrouded heaven.

  John Armstrong

  Sea, Heaven, Mind

  John Armstrong, John Dyer (1858). “The Poetical Works of Armstrong, Dyer, and Green: With Memoirs, and Critical Dissertations”, p.37

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• In our work, we are always between Scylla and Charybdis; we may fail to abstract enough, and miss important physics, or we may abstract too much and end up with fictitious objects in our models turning into real monsters that devour us.

  Murray Gell-Mann

  Real, Missing, Important

  Murray Gell-Mann, Harald Fritzsch (2010). “Murray Gell-Mann: Selected Papers”, p.239, World Scientific

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• The petitioner's problem is to avoid Scylla without being drawn into Charybdis.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Scylla, Problem

  "Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. v. Northwestern Public Service Co., 341 U.S. 246, 250". Judicial opinion, 1951.

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• He talks about the Scylla of Atheism and the Charybdis of Christianity - a state of mind which, by the way, is not conducive to bold navigation.

  Norman Douglas

  Mind, Atheism, Scylla

  Norman Douglas (2014). “South Wind”, p.166, Courier Corporation

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• The rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer; and the vessel of the state is driven between the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and despotism.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Scylla, Anarchy, Rich

  'A Defence of Poetry' (written 1821, published 1840)

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• For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it. Although he hated Margaret at times, when he thought of that gentle familiar attitude and all the attendant circumstances, he had a restless desire to renew her picture in his mind - a longing for the very atmosphere she breathed. He was in the Charybdis of passion, and must perforce circle and circle ever nearer round the fatal centre.

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Pain, Attitude, Passion

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell (Illustrated)”, p.1151, Delphi Classics

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• Man's world' and 'woman's place' have confronted each other since Scylla first faced Charybdis. ... if women have only a place, clearly the rest of the world must belong to someone else and, therefore, in default of God, to men.

  Elizabeth Janeway

  Men, World, Scylla

  Elizabeth Janeway (1971). “Man's world, woman's place: a study in social mythology”

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• Making mathematics accessible to the educated layman, while keeping high scientific standards, has always been considered a treacherous navigation between the Scylla of professional contempt and the Charybdis of public misunderstanding.

  Gian-Carlo Rota

  Scylla, Navigation, Mathematics

  Mark Kac, Gian-Carlo Rota, Jacob T. Schwartz (2009). “Discrete Thoughts: Essays on Mathematics, Science and Philosophy”, p.155, Springer Science & Business Media

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• This is what the Church is said to want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons, to guide it through the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and no.

  John Henry Newman

  Party, Men, Judging

  'Apologia pro Vita Sua' (1864) 'History of My Religious Opinions from 1833 to 1839'

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