Defects Quotes - Page 11

• The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone. A chronic fear of being slighted made him avoid his equals, made him stand, where his inferiors were concerned, self-consciously on his dignity.

  Aldous Huxley

  Self, Feelings, Outsiders

  Aldous Huxley (1950). “The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world”

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• The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. ... [But] we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings.

  Haruki Murakami

  People, Tragedy, Quality

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• Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.

  Jane Austen

  Party, Doe, Littles

  "Pride and Prejudice". Book by Jane Austen. Chapter 6, 1813.

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• Yet human experience and the practice of communication have shown throughout the ages that definitions are an illusion, like having a speech defect and trying to say love but unable to get the word out, or, better, having a tongue in one's head but unable to feel love.

  Jose Saramago

  Love, Communication, Practice

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• There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome." "And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody." "And yours," he replied with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand them.

  Jane Austen

  Hate, Believe, Evil

  Jane Austen (2006). “The Complete Novels: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.303, Penguin

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• It is human defect — to try to know oneself by the self of another.

  Robert Penn Warren

  Self, Trying, Humans

  "All the King's Men".

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• In the construction of houses, choice of woods is made. Straight un-knotted timber of good appearance is used for the revealed pillars, straight timber with small defects is used for the inner pillars. Timbers of the finest appearance, even if a little weak, is used for the thresholds, lintels, doors, and sliding doors, and so on. Good strong timber, though it be gnarled and knotted, can always be used discreetly in construction.

  Miyamoto Musashi

  Strong, Doors, Choices

  Miyamoto Musashi (2013). “The Book of Five Rings: A Text on Kenjutsu and the Martial Arts in General, Written by the Swordsman Miyamoto Musashi”, p.25, Lulu Press, Inc

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• It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Character, Laughing, Make Me Laugh

  W. Somerset Maugham (2012). “The Moon and Sixpence”, p.104, Courier Corporation

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• A woman must wait for her ovaries to die before she can get her rightful personality back. Post-menstrual is the same as pre-menstrual; I am once again what I was before the age of twelve: a female human being who knows that a month has thirty day, not twenty-five, and who can spend every one of them free of the shackles of that defect of body and mind known as femininity.

  Florence King

  Personality, Waiting, Mind

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• Everyone had some defect, or body or of mind: he thought of all the people he had known (the whole world was like a sick house and there was no rhyme or reason in it), he saw a long procession, deformed in body, warped in mind, some with illness of the flesh, weak hearts or weak lungs, and some with illness of the spirit, languor of will, or craving for liquor. At that moment he felt a holy compassion for them all. …The words of the dying God crossed his memory: Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Memories, Heart, Compassion

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• She was a triumph over ugliness, so often more beguiling than real beauty, if only because it contains paradox. In this case, as opposed to the scrupulous method of good taste and scientific grooming, the trick had been worked by exaggerating defects; she'd made them ornamental by admitting them boldly.

  Truman Capote

  Real, Triumph, Admitting

  Truman Capote (2012). “Breakfast at Tiffany's”, p.38, Vintage

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• If I have not lost my mind I can sometimes hear it preparing to defect

  Patrick White

  Mind, Sometimes, Lost

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• It is for the good of nations, and not for the emolument or aggrandizement of particular individuals, that government ought to be established, and that mankind are at the expense of supporting it. The defects of every government and constitution both as to principle and form, must, on a parity of reasoning, be as open to discussion as the defects of a law, and it is a duty which every man owes to society to point them out.

  Thomas Paine

  Men, Law, Liberty

  Thomas Paine, Bruce Kuklick (2000). “Paine: Political Writings”, p.160, Cambridge University Press

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• We are all of us more or less echoes, repeating involuntarily the virtues, the defects, the movements, and the characters of those among whom we live.

  Joseph Joubert

  Character, Humility, Echoes

  Joseph Joubert (1896). “Pensées of Joubert”

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• Would I still feel this way on leaving the party tonight? Or would I find cunning ways to latch on to minor defects so they'd start to bother me and allow me to snuff the dream till it tapered off and lost its luster and, with its luster gone, remind me once again, as ever again, that happiness is the one thing that in our lives others cannot bring.

  André Aciman

  Breakup, Dream, Party

  André Aciman (2010). “Eight White Nights: A Novel”, p.5, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• Because of some defect in my motor skill, I can never COMPLETELY wrap [gifts]....If I had been an ancient Egyptian in the field of mummies, the lower half of the Pharaoh's body would be covered only by scotch tape.

  Dave Barry

  Christmas, Skills, Scotch

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• The defect of equality is that we desire it only with our superiors.

  Henry Becque

  Equality, Desire, Superiors

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• We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Time, Age, Faults

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• A father may have a child who is ugly and lacking in all the graces, and the love he feels for him puts a blindfold over his eyes so that he does not see his defects but considers them signs of charm and intelligence and recounts them to his friends as if they were clever and witty.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Witty, Children, Clever

  Miguel de Cervantes, Edith Grossman (2009). “Don Quixote”, p.3, Harper Collins

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• I do know the sorrow of being ordinary, and that much of our life is spent doing the crazy mental arithmetic of how, at any given moment, we might improve, or at least disguise or present our defects and screw-ups in either more charming or more intimidating ways.

  Anne Lamott

  Crazy, Sorrow, Ordinary

  Anne Lamott (2008). “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith”, p.37, Penguin

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• And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody." "And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them.

  Jane Austen

  Hate, Propensity

  Jane Austen (2015). “Pride and Prejudice”, p.76, BoD – Books on Demand

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• Don’t fail through defects of temper and over-sensitiveness at moments of trial. One of the great helps to success is to be cheerful; to go to work with a full sense of life; to be determined to put hindrances out of the way; to prevail over them and to get the mastery. Above all things else, be cheerful; there is no beatitude for the despairing.

  Amelia Barr

  Cheerful, Mastery, Trials

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• Again I take a taxi to Clichy address, but feel that I do not want to go on loving Henry more actively than he loves me (having realized that nobody will ever love me in that overabundant, overexpressive, overthoughtful, overhuman way I love people), and so I will wait for him. So I ask taxi driver to drop me at the Galeries Lafayette, where I begin to look for a new hat and to shop for Christmas. Pride? I don't know. A kind of wise retreat. I need people too much. So I bury my gigantic defect, my overflow of love, under trivialities, like a child. I amuse myself with a new hat.

  Anais Nin

  Wise, Children, Pride

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• And there are vampires, too? Werewolves, warlocks, all that stuff?" Clary gnawed her lower lip. "So I hear." "And you kill them, too?" Simon asked, directing the question to Jace, who had put the stele back in his pocket and was examining his flawless nails for defects. "Only when they've been naughty.

  Cassandra Clare

  Naughty, Vampire, Pockets

  Cassandra Clare (2012). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls”, p.117, Simon and Schuster

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• One of these grand defects, as I humbly conceive, is this, that children are habituated to learning without understanding.

  Jonathan Edwards

  Children, Understanding

  Jonathan Edwards (1829). “The Works of President Edwards: With a Memoir of His Life”, p.475

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