Tendencies Quotes - Page 32

• What is troubling us is the tendency to believe that the mind is like a little man within.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Spiritual, Believe, Men

  15 Copy quote

• My friends tell me that I have a tendency to point out problems without offering solutions, but they never tell me what I should do about it.

  Daniel Gilbert

  Offering, Problem, Should

  Daniel Gilbert (2006). “Stumbling on Happiness”, p.223, Vintage

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• When there is a tendency to compartmentalize the spiritual and make it resident in a certain type of life only, the spiritual is apt gradually to be lost.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Life, Spiritual, Lost

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.151, Macmillan

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most serious point in the case is the disposition of the child." What on earth has that to do with it?" I ejaculated. My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining insight as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid. I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Children, Real, Character

  Arthur Conan Doyle (2012). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes: with an introduction from Robert Ryan”, p.844, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Vegas, Two, Drug

  Hunter S. Thompson (2011). “The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time”, p.531, Simon and Schuster

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist?

  Lynne Truss

  Use, World, Ends

  4 Copy quote

• When persons manifest the least kindness and love to me, O what power it has over my mind, while the opposite course has a tendency to harrow up all the harsh feelings and depress the human mind.

  Joseph Smith, Jr.

  Love, Depressing, Kindness

  "History of the Church". Book by Joseph Smith, Jr., 5:23 - 24, June 9, 1842.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• The mutual-aid tendency in man has so remote an origin, and is so deeply interwoven with all the past evolution of the human race, that is has been maintained by mankind up to the present time, notwithstanding all vicissitudes of history.

  Peter Kropotkin

  Past, Men, Race

  Peter Kropotkin (2016). “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution”, p.342, Peter Kropotkin

  60 Copy quote

  Show source

• If there is one tendency of the day which more than any other is unhealthy and undesirable, it is the tendency to deify mere "smartness," unaccompanied by a sense of moral accountability. We shall never make our republic what it should be until as a people we thoroughly understand and put in practice the doctrine that success is abhorrent if attained by the sacrifice of the fundamental principles of morality.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Sacrifice, Practice, People

  Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses”, p.20, Courier Corporation

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• When we dislike someone, or feel threatened by someone, the natural tendency is to focus on something we dislike about the person, something that irritates us. Unfortunately, when we do this--instead of seeing the deeper beauty of the person and giving them energy--we take energy away and actually do them harm. All they know is that they suddenly feel less beautiful and less confident, and it is because we sapped their energy.

  James Redfield

  Beautiful, Dislike Someone, Giving

  James Redfield (1993). “The celestine prophecy: an adventure”, Atticus Press & Company (AL)

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Apparently, before we are born, each of us experiences a vision of what our life can be, complete with reflections on our parents and our tendencies to engage in particular control dramas, even how we might work through these dramas with these parents and go on to be prepared for what we want to accomplish.

  James Redfield

  Drama, Reflection, Parent

  James Redfield (2013). “The Tenth Insight”, p.80, Random House

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will. I must concede you the Devil. God doesn't really need to punish us, Miss Barton. We're so busy punishing ourselves.

  Agatha Christie

  Men, Evil, Missing

  AGATHA CHRISTIE (1980). “MISS MARPLE MEETS MURDER”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lying on the floor, with the carved panels of the ceiling flickering dimly above, I found myself thinking that I had always heretofore assumed that the tendency of eigh­teenth-century ladies to swoon was due to tight stays; now I rather thought it might be due to the idiocy of eighteenth-century men.

  Diana Gabaldon

  Lying, Men, Thinking

  Diana Gabaldon (2015). “The Outlander Series 8-Book Bundle: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone, Written in My Own Heart's Blood”, p.1036, Dell

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Conversations are efforts toward good relations. They are an elementary form of reciprocity. They are the exercise of our love for each other. They are the enemies of our loneliness, our doubt, our anxiety, our tendencies to abdicate. To continue to be in good conversation over our enormous and terrifying problems is to be calling out to each other in the night. If we attend with imagination and devotion to our conversations, we will find what we need; and someone among us will act—it does not matter whom—and we will survive.

  Barry Lopez

  Loneliness, Exercise, Night

  FaceBook post by Barry Lopez from Jul 30, 2014

  49 Copy quote

  Show source

• The source of my difficulties has always been the same: an inability to accept what to others seems natural, and an irresistible tendency to voice opinions no one wants to hear . . .

  Isabel Allende

  Voice, Inability, Want

  Isabel Allende (2003). “My invented country: a memoir”, HarperPerennial

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• I laughed. It was just like Owen to make excuses for someone else’s shortcomings. Even fictional characters. Owen found my tendency to speak my mind “refreshingly honest,” and hailed Marc’s temper as “a deep protective instinct.” He said Ethan “thoroughly enjoyed life,” and that Parker “really knew how to have a good time.” According to Owen, we were all doing just fine, and all was right with the world.

  Rachel Vincent

  Character, Mind, World

  Rachel Vincent (2016). “Rogue”, p.230, MIRA

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everybody has noticed the way cats stop and loiter in a half-open door. Hasn't everyone said to a cat: For heavens sake why don't you come in? With opportunity half-open in front of them, there are men who have a similar tendency to remain undecided between two solutions, at the risk of being crushed by fate abruptly closing the opportunity. The overprudent, cats as they are, and because they are cats, sometimes run more danger than the bold

  Victor Hugo

  Running, Cat, Fate

  Victor Hugo (1987). “Les Misérables”, Signet Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• He well knew his mind's natural tendency to be endlessly on a thousand subjects at once, to flit from this to that and to the next thing to no particular purpose--indeed, he called it his "butterfly mind.

  Eric Metaxas

  Butterfly, Mind, Purpose

  17 Copy quote

• If the story had been about anyone else, it would been dismissed as laaf, that Afghan tendency to exaggerate ---sadly, almost a national affliction; if someone bragged that his son was a doctor, chances were the kid had once passed a biology test in high school.

  Khaled Hosseini

  School, Kids, Son

  Khaled Hosseini (2011). “The Kite Runner: Rejacketed”, p.11, A&C Black

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You have sexual tendencies that are not normal, and you should be ashamed of them.

  Scott Dikkers

  Normal, Should, Ashamed

  Scott Dikkers (2009). “You Are Worthless: Depressing Nuggets of Wisdom Sure to Ruin Your Day”, p.152, Andrews McMeel Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Kat laughed. 'Who wants to live forever?' Kish put his hand up. 'For the record, I do.' Sin scowled at him. 'Then why do you irritate me so often?' Suicidal tendencies are inherent in my species?

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Suicidal, Hands, Forever

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2007). “Devil May Cry: A Dark-Hunter Novel”, p.314, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In suffocating the voice of conscience, passion carries with itself a restlessness of the body and the senses: it is the restlessness of the "external man." When the internal man has been reduced to silence, then passion, once it has been given freedom of action, so to speak, exhibits itself as an insistent tendency to satisfy the senses and the body.

  Pope John Paul II

  Passion, Men, Voice

  4 Copy quote

• I come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation. In some this tendency produces hives, in others literature, in me both.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Irritation, Literature, Emotion

  Flannery O'Connor (2012). “Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons”, p.112, Fantagraphics Books

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults.

  Thomas Szasz

  Children, Parent, Today

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1990). “The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary”, Open Court Publishing Company

  18 Copy quote

  Show source