Mistaken Quotes - Page 4

• The life of the spirit is the expression of Infinity and, as such, knows no artificial limits. True spirituality is not to be mistaken for an exclusive enthusiasm for some fad. It is not concerned with any "ism." When people seek spirituality apart from life, as if it had nothing to do with the material world, their search is futile.

  Meher Baba

  Expression, People, Isms

  "Discourses, Volume I". Book by Meher Baba, 1967.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Humility with energy is often mistaken for pride.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Humility, Pride, Energy

  4 Copy quote

• If I have taken the word, by any reason, it has been because I think it is grave to kill men, under the pretext that they are mistaken on the interpretation of some point, for we know that even the chosen ones are not exempt from sometimes being wrong.

  Michael Servetus

  Taken, Men, Thinking

  11 Copy quote

• An English village could never be mistaken for an American one: the outline against the sky differs; a thatched cottage makes a very wavy line on the blue above.

  Maria Mitchell

  Blue, Sky, Cottages

  Maria Mitchell (1896). “Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• And honestly, if anyone thinks they can get an accurate picture of anyplace on the planet by reading news reports, they're sadly mistaken.

  Bruce Schneier

  Reading, Thinking, News

  "Should Terrorism be Reported in the News?". Cryptogram newsletter, www.schneier.com. May 15, 2005.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Contrary to popular belief, I'm not promiscuous. There does seem to be a mistaken belief out there that I am sexually available somehow — which is not to say that I'm not open-minded about sex.

  Scarlett Johansson

  Sex, Doe, Belief

  "Johansson: 'I'm Not Promiscuous'" by wenn.com, October 11, 2006.

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• With all his sincerity and devotion, the authentic, absolute atheist is after all only an abortive saint, and at the same time, a mistaken revolutionist.

  Jacques Maritain

  Atheist, Saint, Sincerity

  Jacques Maritain (1966). “A Maritain Reader: Selected Writings”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Those who expect radical changes in policy and direction are mistaken and lost. The government of the fourth republic will build on what was undertaken by previous governments and will continue with all good things.

  Jakaya Kikwete

  Government, Republic, Radical Change

  "Tanzania's New President Sworn in". news.bbc.co.uk. December 21, 2005.

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• The fact is that in too many parts of our country, we still have discrimination. And affirmative action is not just something that applies to people of color. Some people have a mistaken view of it in America. It also is with respect to women, it's with respect to other efforts to try to reach out and be inclusive in our country.

  John F. Kerry

  Country, Views, Color

  "Text Of Bush-Kerry Debate III (3)". www.cbsnews.com. October 13, 2004.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The goals of the feminist movement have not been achieved, and those who claim we're living in a post-feminist era are either sadly mistaken or tired of thinking about the whole subject.

  Margaret Atwood

  Tired, Thinking, Goal

  Margaret Atwood (1987). “The edible woman ; Surfacing ; Lady oracle”, Treasure Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The truth of the thoughts that are here set forth seems to me unassailable and definitive. I therefore believe myself to have found, on all essential points, the final solution of the problems. And if I am not mistaken in this belief, then the second thing in which the value of this work consists is that it shows how little is achieved when these problems are solved.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Believe, Essentials, Finals

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (1961). “Tractatus logico-philosophicus: The German text Logisch-philosophische abhandlung”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• None are too wise to be mistaken, but few are so wisely just as to acknowledge and correct their mistakes, and especially the mistakes of prejudice.

  Isaac Barrow

  Wise, Mistake, Prejudice

  7 Copy quote

• Reason, in a strict sense, as meaning the judgment of truth and falsehood, can never, of itself, be any motive to the will, and can have no influence but so far as it touches some passion or affection. Abstract relations of ideas are the object of curiosity, not of volition. And matters of fact, where they are neither good nor evil, where they neither excite desire nor aversion, are totally indifferent, and whether known or unknown, whether mistaken or rightly apprehended, cannot be regarded as any motive to action.

  David Hume

  Truth, Passion, Ideas

  David Hume, Tom L. Beauchamp (2007). “A Dissertation on the Passions: The Natural History of Religion : a Critical Edition”, p.24, Oxford University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• If woman alone had suffered under these mistaken traditions [of women's subordination], if she could have borne the evil by herself, it would have been less pitiful, but her brother man, in the laws he created and ignorantly worshipped, has suffered with her. He has lost her highest help; he has crippled the intelligence he needed; he has belittled the very source of his own being and dwarfed the image of his Maker.

  Clara Barton

  Brother, Men, Law

  65 Copy quote

• One might get the impression that I recommend a new methodology which replaces induction by counterinduction and uses a multiplicity of theories, metaphysical views, fairy tales, instead of the customary pair theory/observation. This impression would certainly be mistaken. My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is rather to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits.

  Paul Feyerabend

  Science, Views, Use

  Paul Feyerabend (1993). “Against Method”, p.23, Verso

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The 'survival of the fittest' is beneficently inevitable; the capitalist is powerless against labor, unless the State . . . steps in, and helps him catch and fleece his victims. The old plea of despotism, that liberty is unsafe, reappears now in the mistaken notion that competition is hostile to labor.

  Ezra Heywood

  Competition, Survival, Liberty

  Ezra Hervey Heywood (1985). “The Collected Works of Ezra H. Heywood”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Benjamin Franklin refused to have one of his children vaccinated against smallpox. The four-year-old boy died, and Franklin wrote later of how mistaken he was to expose him to the needless risk.

  Michael Specter

  Children, Boys, Years

  Source: www.newyorker.com

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Bravery and Stupidity can often be mistaken for the other.

  Marc Marcel

  Often Is, Bravery, Stupidity

  5 Copy quote

• Postal inspectors have been given advanced warning that Publishers Clearinghouse is sending packets of laundry detergent that could be mistaken for anthrax. Oh, good timing. What genius came up with this promotion? What's next - a ticking alarm clock? Let's put that in a box.

  Jay Leno

  Genius, Warning, Next

  5 Copy quote

• A man must be a born fool who voluntarily engages in controversy with Mr. Adams on a question of fact. I doubt whether he was ever mistaken in his life.

  Henry Clay

  Men, Doubt, Fool

  8 Copy quote

• A bad short story or novel or poem leaves one comparatively calm because it does not exist, unless it gets a fake prestige throughbeing mistaken for good work. It is essentially negative, it is something that has not come through. But over bad criticism one has a sense of real calamity.

  Rebecca West

  Real, Fake, Criticism

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.161, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are often infinitely mistaken, and take the falsest measures, when we envy the happiness of rich and great men; we know not the inward canker that eats out all their joy and delight, and makes them really much more miserable than ourselves.

  Joseph Hall

  Men, Envy, Joy

  7 Copy quote

• If any man think it a small matter, or of mean concernment, to bridle his tongue, he is much mistaken; for it is a point to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.

  Plutarch

  Mean, Men, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

• Justice consists in seeing that no harm is done to men. Whenever a man cries inwardly: 'Why am I being hurt?' harm is being done to him. He is often mistaken when he tries to define the harm, and why and by whom it is being inflicted on him. But the cry itself is infallible.

  Simone Weil

  Hurt, Men, Compassion

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.30, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have this mistaken notion that everybody in the world has to go to college. The colleges are already crowded with people who never in this world will absorb more than a rudimentary education, and we dilute everything to meet this low standard.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  College, People, World

  Katherine Anne Porter, Joan Givner (1987). “Katherine Anne Porter: Conversations”, p.103, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  5 Copy quote

  Show source