Embarrassment Quotes - Page 4

• Compare the emotional vocabulary available to a leader (confidence, satisfaction, indignation) with the emotions not permitted (regret, embarrassment, dread, angst, mortification, anger, surprise, wonder, doubt), and it becomes apparent why perfectly normal people, upon entering public life, transform into cartoons - because they are not free to express what a normal person would feel in their situation.

  John MacLachlan Gray

  Regret, Emotional, Vocabulary

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• Tobacco smoke is the one element in which, by our European manners, men can sit silent together without embarrassment, and where no man is bound to speak one word more than he has actually and veritably got to say. Nay, rather every man is admonished and enjoined by the laws of honor, and even of personal ease, to stop short of that point; and at all events to hold his peace and take to his pipe again the instant he has spoken his meaning, if he chance to have any.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Men, Law, Smoking

  Thomas Carlyle, Henry Duff Traill (1903). “The Works of Thomas Carlyle: History of Friedrich II of Prussia, called Frederick the Great”

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• I HATED the Salinger story. It took me days to go through it, gingerly, a page at a time, and blushing with embarrassment for him every ridiculous sentence of the way. How can they let him do it?

  Elizabeth Bishop

  Stories, Pages, Way

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• Those who see what's obvious aren't necessarily brighter than others. They're just more likely to observe that the emperor is naked. Like children, they see what's actually there. Their perceptions are less clouded by belief systems, taboos, habits of thought. One responsibility of management--an important one--is to call attention to the invisible obvious, pointing it out as a child does (sometimes to the embarrassment of adults). Doing so also requires supporting employees who take that risk, too, and other risks as well.

  Richard Farson

  Children, Responsibility, Risk

  Richard Farson, Ralph Keyes (2003). “Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins”, p.76, Simon and Schuster

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• The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing.”“The better we get at getting better, the faster we will get better.”“In 20 or 30 years, you’ll be able to hold in your hand as much computing knowledge as exists now in the whole city, or even the whole world.”“The rate at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the embarrassment they can tolerate.”“The key thing about all the world’s big problems is that they have to be dealt with collectively. If we don’t get collectively smarter, we’re doomed.

  Douglas Engelbart

  Writing, Keys, Hands

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• Our daily life is mostly, made of cases in which we lose money and/or time and/or energy and/or appetite, cheerfulness and good health because of the improbable action of some preposterous creature who has nothing to gain and indeed gains nothing from causing us embarrassment, difficulties or harm. Nobody knows, understands or can possibly explain why that preposterous creature does what he does. In fact there is no explanation - or better there is only one explanation: the person in question is stupid.

  Carlo M. Cipolla

  Stupid, Energy, Doe

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• I'm saying what a lot of people would want to say but are too embarrassed.

  Alanis Morissette

  People, Want, Embarrassed

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• I made a pact with myself that I'd rather have less money than be embarrassed.

  Gwyneth Paltrow

  Made, Embarrassed, Pact

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• It's this expandable capacity to represent reasons that we have that gives us a soul. But what's it made of? It's made of neurons. It's made of lots of tiny robots. And we can actually explain the structure and operation of that kind of soul, whereas an eternal, immortal, immaterial soul is just a metaphysical rug under which you sweep your embarrassment for not having any explanation.

  Daniel Dennett

  Giving, Soul, Robots

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• There is no alarm clock like embarrassment.

  Maryrose Wood

  Alarms, Clock, Alarm Clocks

  Maryrose Wood (2010). “The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling”, p.3, Harper Collins

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• This is an embarrassment of riches, and boy, am I happy to be embarrassed.

  Julia Louis-Dreyfus

  Boys, Riches, Embarrassed

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• In terms of you happiness, in terms of the matters that make you proud or sad, nothing-I repeat, nothing-will have so profound an effect on you as the way your children turn out. You will either rejoice and boast of their accomplishments or you will weep, head in hands, bereft and forlorn, if they become a disappointment or an embarrassment to you.

  Gordon B. Hinckley

  Children, Disappointment, Parenting

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• I was an embarrassment to the department when they did research assessment exercises. A message would go round the department: 'Please give a list of your recent publications.' And I would send back a statement: 'None.'

  Peter Higgs

  Exercise, Assessment, Giving

  "Peter Higgs interview: 'I have this kind of underlying incompetence'" by Decca Aitkenhead, www.theguardian.com. December 6, 2013.

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• I've always felt, as a writer, that radicals are fascinating because they're relations, they have a place in the American family. They're the relatives everyone wishes would go away. They're the embarrassments to decorum and good taste.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Wish, Going Away, Radicalism

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• It's so embarrassing to receive an award for doing what you should be doing.

  Arthur Hiller

  Awards, Embarrassing, Should

  "Arthur Hiller, Director of 'Love Story,' Dies at 92" by Mike Barnes, www.hollywoodreporter.com. August 17, 2016.

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• In so strong a light, nevertheless, do they appear to the Secretary, that, on their due observance, at the present critical juncture, materially depend, in his judgment, the individual and aggregate prosperity of the citizens of the United States; their relief from the embarrassments they now experience; their character as a people; the cause of good government.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Strong, Character, Light

  United States. Dept. of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton (1828). “Reports of the secretary of the Treasury of the United States”, p.4

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• Something peculiar has happened. As I write, none of the Republican candidates for Senate has become a public embarrassment. On the contrary: For the first time in a decade, it is the Democratic candidates, not the Republican ones, who are fodder for late-night comics. That the Democrats are committing gaffes and causing scandals at a higher rate than Republicans not only may be decisive in the battle for the Senate. It could signal a change in our politics at large.

  Matthew Continetti

  Writing, Night, Battle

  "The Macaca Democrats" by Matthew Continetti, www.realclearpolitics.com. October 17, 2014.

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• Embarrassment, or the risk of it, accompanies all your important choices.

  Roy H. Williams

  Important Choices, Risk, Accompany

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• Mixing pop and politics he asks me what the use is / I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses.

  Billy Bragg

  Mixing, Usual, Use

  Song: Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

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• Ultimately, Monsieur, we must go to God per infamiam et bonam famam [whether spoken of well or ill], and His Divine Goodness is merciful to us when it pleases Him to allow us to encounter blame and public contempt. I am sure you have borne patiently the embarrassment you experienced because of what has happened. If the glory of the world is nothing but smoke, the contrary is a solid good, when it is accepted in the right way. I hope that great good will come to us from this humiliation.

  Vincent de Paul

  Faith, World, Way

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• Im going to become the best-remembered artist of my generation by staying away from the party as often as possible. That way, people will remember me, not because I was great, but because I didnt cause them any later embarrassment.

  Julian Cope

  Party, Artist, People

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• I deeply regret those situations that have blemished the image of the University of Oklahoma, and I hope that I can rectify the embarrassment I have brought the university.

  Brian Bosworth

  Regret, Oklahoma, Rectify

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• Unless people feel that they are accepted and that they have a right to express their feelings without fear of embarrassment or ridicule, all they will do is react and rebel and struggle for their identity.

  Stephen Covey

  Motivational, Struggle, People

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• Embarrassment is a partner in the creative act.

  Charles Jeffries

  Creative, Theatre, Partners

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• There aren't any embarrassing questions — just embarrassing answers.

  Carl T. Rowan

  Embarrassing Questions, Answers, Embarrassing

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