Perplexity Quotes - Page 2

• Either still I find Some imperfection in the chosen theme, Or see of absolute accomplishment Much wanting, so much wanting, in myself, That I recoil and droop, and seek repose In listlessness from vain perplexity, Unprofitably travelling towards the grave.

  William Wordsworth

  Accomplishment, Imperfection, Vain

  'The Prelude' (1850) bk. 1, l. 265

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• I am not here to merely argue about the perplexities regarding theism or philosophy, but to be a light to the world and to reach out to those who long to be a part of that light.

  Criss Jami

  Philosophy, Light, Long

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.71, Criss Jami

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• Men love to trust God (as they profess) for what they have in their hands, in possession, or what lies in an easy view; place their desires afar off, carry their accomplishment behind the clouds out of their sight, interpose difficulties and perplexities -- their hearts are instantly sick. They cannot wait for God; they do not trust Him, nor ever did. Would you have the presence of God with you? Learn to wait quietly for the salvation you expect from Him.

  Owen Wilson

  Lying, Heart, Men

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• All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.

  John Adams

  Nature, Money, Ignorance

  John Adams' Letter to Thomas Jefferson, founders.archives.gov. August 23, 1787.

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• If any person had told the Parliament which met in terror and perplexity after the crash of 1720 that in 1830 the wealth of England would surpass all their wildest dreams, that the annual revenue would equal the principal of that debt which they considered an intolerable burden, that for one man of

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Dream, Men, Progress

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• Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.

  Hannah Arendt

  Hypocrite, Evil, Hypocrisy

  'On Revolution' (1963) ch. 2

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• Prayer is sort of like an unlocked door with a giant, red-lettered sign on it that says: "Welcome. Feel Free to Take What You Need." Inside is the storehouse of all that God is. He invites us to share it all. He doesn't intend for us to stay on the outside and struggle all alone with the perplexities of life, and He not only invites us to come in, but to stay in. . . . It is an on-going process, not just an occasional religious-sounding speech we make to a nebulous divinity "out there somewhere." Prayer is meant to be a part of our lives, like breathing and thinking and talking.

  Gloria Gaither

  Religious, Prayer, Struggle

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• We were wise indeed, could we discern truly the signs of our own time; and by knowledge of its wants and advantages, wisely adjust our own position in it. Let us, instead of gazing idly into the obscure distance, look calmly around us, for a little, on the perplexed scene where we stand. Perhaps, on a more serious inspection, something of its perplexity will disappear, some of its distinctive characters and deeper tendencies more clearly reveal themselves; whereby our own relations to it, our own true aims and endeavors in it, may also become clearer.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Wise, Distance, Character

  Thomas Carlyle (2014). “The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.13, Lulu.com

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• I confess myself utterly at a loss in suggesting particular reforms in our ways of teaching. No discretion that can be lodged with a school-committee, with the overseers or visitors of an academy, of a college, can at all avail to reach these difficulties and perplexities, but they solve themselves when we leave institutions and address individuals.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Teaching, School, Loss

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2750, Delphi Classics

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• What is true for the emotions may also be true for the intellect. Some of our perplexities may come from a mismatch between the purposes for which our cognitive faculties evolved and the purposes to which we put them today.

  Steven Pinker

  Purpose, May, Today

  Steven Pinker (2003). “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature”, p.295, Penguin

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• When I have a difficult subject before me - when I find the road narrow, and can see no other way of teaching a well established truth except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools - I prefer to address myself to the one man, and to take no notice whatever of the condemnation of the multitude; I prefer to extricate that intelligent man from his embarrassment and show him the cause of his perplexity, so that he may attain perfection and be at peace.

  Maimonides

  Teaching, Men, Intelligent

  Moses Maimonides (2012). “The Guide for the Perplexed”, p.9, Courier Corporation

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• The small perplexities of small minds eddy and boil about you. Confident from the experience that has led you out of these same dangers, you attack each problem as it appears, unafraid.

  Alice Foote MacDougall

  Business, Mind, Problem

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• I feel anxious for the fate of our monarchy, or democracy, or whatever is to take place. I soon get lost in a labyrinth of perplexities; but, whatever occurs, may justice and righteousness be the stability of our times, and order arise out of confusion. Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.

  Abigail Adams

  Perseverance, Fate, Order

  Abigail Adams, John Adams, L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Mary-Jo Kline (1975). “The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784”, p.113, UPNE

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• So if God should place me in serious perplexity, must He not give me much guidance; in places of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? No fear that HIs resources will prove unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me.

  Hudson Taylor

  Giving, Grace, Trials

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• Painters, especially American painters since the Second World War, have been much more troubled, beset by formal perplexity, than American writers. Theyve been a laboratory for everybody.

  Donald Barthelme

  War, World, Formal

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• As an anti-hunger advocate, I found the perplexity of the obesity problem and the hunger problem existing side-by-side in our increasingly global food system begged further investigation.

  Ellen Gustafson

  Sides, Problem, Obesity

  "Solving the world's hunger and obesity crises together" by Ellen Gustafson, www.cnn.com. August 10, 2010.

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• Did the gods once mingle with humankind, or is Homer a visionary madman, or, what is worse, a mere poet, a maker-up of beautiful falsities, an elegant liar? I shall grapple with that perplexity, only to emerge as I went in, in a cloud of unknowing, if perhaps a little the wiser.

  Eva Brann

  Beautiful, Liars, Clouds

  Eva Brann “Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad”, Paul Dry Books

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• Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born -a hundred million years -and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.

  Mark Twain

  Death, Grateful, Grief

  Autobiography ch. 49 (1959)

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• It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize; wondering in the first place at obvious perplexities, and then by gradual progression raising questions about the greater matters too.

  Aristotle

  Men, Matter, Firsts

  Metaphysics, bk.1, ch.2, 982 (translated by H Tredennick).

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• Architecture begins to matter when it brings delight and sadness and perplexity and awe along with a roof over our heads.

  Paul Goldberger

  Sadness, Delight, Matter

  Paul Goldberger (2014). “Why Architecture Matters”, p.10, Yale University Press

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• It is a common error, and the greater and more mischievous for being so common, to believe that repentance best becomes and most concerns dying men. Indeed, what is necessary every hour of our life is necessary in the hour of death too, and as long as one lives he will have need of repentance, and therefore it is necessary in the hour of death too; but he who hath constantly exercised himself in it in his health and vigor, will do it with less pain in his sickness and weakness; and he who hath practiced it all his life, will do it with more ease and less perplexity in the hour of his death.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pain, Believe, Men

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• If physics is too difficult for the physicists, the nonphysicist may wonder whether he should try at all to grasp its complexities and ambiguities. It is undeniably an effort, but probably one worth making, for the basic questions are important and the new experimental results are often fascinating. And if the layman runs into serious perplexities, he can be consoled with the thought that the points which baffle him are more than likely the ones for which the professionals have not found satisfactory answers.

  Edward Condon

  Running, Effort, Important

  "Physics, in What is Science?: Twelve Eminent Scientists and Philosophers Explain Their Various Fields to the Layman". Book by James Roy Newman, published by Simon and Schuster, p. 102, 1955.

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• The Church is a system, - but whether it is as much founded on the teaching of our Lord, who was divine, as on the teaching of St. Paul, who was not divine, is a question to me of much perplexity.

  Marie Corelli

  Teaching, Church, Lord

  Marie Corelli (2015). “The Master Christian”, p.58, The Floating Press

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• Music... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Music, Character, Joy

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• This it is that gives a majesty so pure and touching to the historic figure of Christ; self-abandonment to God, uttermost surrender, without reserve or stipulation, to the guidance of the Holy Spirit from the Soul of souls; pause in no darkness; hesitation in no perplexity, recoil in no extremity of anguish, but a gentle unfaltering hold of the invisible Hand, of the Only Holy and All Good--these are the features that have made Jesus of Nazareth the dearest and most sacred image to the heart of so many ages.

  James Martineau

  Jesus, Heart, Invisible Hand

  James Martineau (1905). “A Martineau year book: Extracts from sermons”

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