Inadequacy Quotes - Page 2

• Failure, then, failure! so the world stamps us at every turn. We strew it with our blunders, our misdeeds, our lost opportunities, with all the memorials of our inadequacy to our vocation. And with what a damning emphasis does it then blot us out! No easy fine, no mere apology or formal expiation, will satisfy the world's demands, but every pound of flesh exacted is soaked with all its blood. The subtlest forms of suffering known to man are connected with the poisonous humiliations incidental to these results.

  William James

  Apology, Opportunity, Men

  William James (2015). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.134, Booklassic

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover either for grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much-cherished aspect of academic freedom.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Freedom, People, Criticism

  "H.L. Mencken: The Baltimore Oracle" by John Kenneth Galbraith, www.washingtonpost.com. September 14, 1980.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.

  Marianne Williamson

  Inspirational, Life, Encouraging

  A Return to Love ch. 7 (1992). Frequently misattributed to Nelson Mandela.

  84 Copy quote

  Show source

• The struggle against atheism is foremost and of necessity a struggle against the inadequacy of our own theism.

  Karl Rahner

  Struggle, Atheism, Theism

  34 Copy quote

• We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy.

  Carl Jung

  Wisdom, Truth, Intelligent

  "Psychological Types, or, The Psychology of Individuation". Book by Carl Jung. Conclusion, p. 628, 1921.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

  Julian Barnes

  Memories, Imperfection, Documentation

  Julian Barnes (2011). “The Sense of an Ending”, p.59, Random House

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• The thing that usually gets me through the writing is that my feelings of wretched inadequacy are irregularly punctuated by brief flashes of omnipotence.

  James L. Brooks

  Writing, Omnipotence, Feelings

  5 Copy quote

• Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Life, Death, Fear

  Bertolt Brecht, Maksim Gorky (1978). “The mother”, Grove/Atlantic

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• I want to be connecting with the subconscious, if I can call it that, because there are not to many words to describe the real deep inner part of a human beingI want to be at that place where everything is blotted out and where creativity happens, and to get there I practice, you know I'm a prolific practicer, I still practice every dayYou have to have the skills, then you want to not think when you're playing, that's when you let whatever deep level of creativity, spirituality, I mean, you know these words are so inadequate these days but you want to get to this place where they exist.

  Sonny Rollins

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Real

  66 Copy quote

• The fulfillment of every desire only reveals its inadequacy.

  Swami Prabhavananda

  Desire, Fulfillment

  12 Copy quote

• Most words evolved as a description of the outside world, hence their inadequacy to describe what is going on inside me.

  Hugh Prather

  World, Description, Outside World

  Hugh Prather, James Baldwin (1983). “Notes to Myself”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Inadequacy of his own strength, learned from experience, impels and urges a man to enlist the help of others.

  Pope Leo XIII

  Men, Helping, Urges

  Catholic Church. Pope (1878-1903 : Leo XIII)., Pope Leo XIII (1987*). “On the Condition of Workers”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Where you see valid achievements or virtue being attacked, it's by someone viewing them as a mirror of their own inadequacy instead of an inspiring beacon for excellence.

  Vanna Bonta

  Mirrors, Achievement, Excellence

  4 Copy quote

• Strengthening the role the United Nations can play...will require serious examination of the need to extend into the international arena the rule of law and the principle of taxation to finance agreed actions which provide the basis for governance at the national level. But this will not come about easily. Resistance to such changes is deeply entrenched. They will come about not through the embrace of full blown world government, but as a careful and pragmatic response to compelling imperatives and the inadequacies of alternatives.

  Maurice Strong

  Law, Play, World Government

  25 Copy quote

• Men as well as women, must strive for a balance of experience. Masculinity, defined as requiring the ability to act physically or mentally but excluding anything too emotional or nurturing, currently denies men this balance. Their ability to care is seen as inappropriate for everyday use, and a lack of desire for power or promotion are seen as signs of inadequacy.

  Eva Cox

  Leadership, Men, Emotional

  6 Copy quote

• The struggle to emerge out of the past, clean of memories; the inadequacy of our hearts to cut life into separate and final portions; the pain of this constant ambivalence and interrelation of emotions; the hunger for frontiers against which we might learn as upon closed doors before we proceed forward; the struggle against diffusion, new beginnings, against finality in acts without finality or end, in our cursedly repercussive being.

  Anais Nin

  Pain, Memories, Struggle

  6 Copy quote

• Nothing destroys a relationship quicker than our fears of inadequacy and loss.

  Bill Crawford

  Loss

  4 Copy quote

• It's difficult to talk about, you know, my inadequacies, my inability to stay sober when I'm a relatively bright man and I've had a lot of great blessings and a lot of great opportunities.

  Daniel Baldwin

  Blessing, Opportunity, Men

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We should seek after spiritual gifts. They can lead us to God. They can shield us from the power of the adversary. They can compensate for our inadequacies and repair our imperfections.

  Dallin H. Oaks

  Spiritual, Imperfection, Shields

  60 Copy quote

• Try and have neutral compassion toward the perpetrator. Step outside the sting of the incident and realize that this person is trying to erase their own inadequacy or unhappiness by transferring it to you. It won't make the incident go away, but it's one thing you can do to reduce the pain.

  Monica Lewinsky

  Pain, Compassion, Going Away

  Source: www.glamour.com

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• I believe that, more than anything else, this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers. Forgiveness, therefore, is key. I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. Again and again throughout the course of my life I will forgive myself.

  Ann Patchett

  Grief, Believe, Book

  33 Copy quote

• At some point you have to believe that the inadequacies of the words you use will be transcended by the faith with which you use them. You have to believe that poetry has some reach into reality itself, or you have to go silent.

  Christian Wiman

  Believe, Reality, Use

  Christian Wiman (2013). “Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet”, p.161, Copper Canyon Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous. Among people of every race, color, and creed, all around the world, socialism has led to hunger in countries that used to have surplus food to export.... Nevertheless, for many of those who deal primarily in ideas, socialism remains an attractive idea -- in fact, seductive. Its every failure is explained away as due to the inadequacies of particular leaders.

  Thomas Sowell

  Country, Reality, Race

  19 Copy quote

• It took years after I’d graduated from Amherst to realize that people were actually far more complicated and interesting than books, that almost everyone else suffered the same secret fears and inadequacies as I, and that feeling alone and inferior was actually the great valent bond between us all. I wish I’d been smart enough to understand that when I was an adolescent.

  David Foster Wallace

  Smart, Book, Years

  6 Copy quote

• The fact that grief takes so long to resolve is not a sign of inadequacy, but betokens depth of soul.

  Donald Woods Winnicott

  Grief, Long, Soul

  199 Copy quote