Vague Quotes - Page 2

• Death is not soft-mouthed, vague-footed, nearby. It is in the hall.

  Harold Brodkey

  Halls

  1996 This Wild Darkness: The Story of My Death

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• And this vague little smile is my all purpose expression the meaning of which I will leave to your discretion.

  Ani DiFranco

  Life, Expression, Purpose

  Song: Phase, Album: Evolve, 2003

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The actor is merely a crude empiricist, a practitioner guided by vague instinct.

  Antonin Artaud

  Actors, Instinct, Crude

  Antonin Artaud (1974). “Collected Works”, Calder Publications Limited

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing.

  Aleister Crowley

  Evil, Vagueness, Doe

  "The Confessions of Aleister Crowley". Book by Aleister Crowley. Chapter 33, 1969.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Vague goals produce vague results

  Jack Canfield

  Goal, Results, Produce

  Jack Canfield, Kent Healy (2010). “The Success Principles for Teens: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be”, p.67, Health Communications, Inc.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Charity, till then, had been conscious only of a vague self-disgust and a frightening physical distress; now, of a sudden, there came to her the grave surprise of motherhood.

  Edith Wharton

  Motherhood, Self, Charity

  Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.1841, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• For parlor use, the vague generality is a life saver.

  George Ade

  Life, Communication, Vagueness

  George Ade (1901). “Forty Modern Fables”, p.44, Library of Alexandria

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life is also a mixture of unsolved problems, ambiguous victories and vague defeats-with very few moments of clear peace.

  Hugh Prather

  Victory, Mixtures, Problem

  Hugh Prather (2009). “Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person”, p.42, Bantam

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have found other terms far less vague than the old ones to designate the same complaints. It's a great advance linguistically.

  Jean Anouilh

  Found, Term, Complaints

  Jean Anouilh (1958). “The waltz of the toreadors: a play in three acts. Translated by Lucienne Hill”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Anybody who thinks there is any vague chance of adult exchange with a child is up the spout; and would be much less disappointed if they recognized the chasm unbridgeably dividing them.

  Caitlin Thomas

  Children, Thinking, Adults

  5 Copy quote

• A symbol from the first, of mastery, experiments such as Hippocrates made and substituted for vague speculation stayed the ravages of plague.

  Marianne Moore

  Mastery, Firsts, Made

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.165, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Men and women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking their vague uneasy longings, sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and oftener still for a mighty love.

  George Eliot

  Mistake, Men, Genius

  George Eliot (2016). “Middlemarch: Top Novelist Focus”, p.654, 谷月社

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's a fine line in being too specific so you can't be too flexible, and being too vague in being specific and people not thinking it's meaningful.

  Jim Nussle

  Meaningful, Thinking, People

  The Arena Interview with Seung Min Kim, www.politico.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's one of the biggest problems with the system now. Vague regulations leave the system open to abuse.

  Chris Asplen

  Abuse, Regulation, Problem

  4 Copy quote

• Religion struck me so vague a thing at best, that I could perceive no advantage of any one system over any other.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Advantage, Perceive

  Letter to Maurice W. Moe (16 January 1915), in "Selected Letters I, 1911-1924" edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, (p. 10), 1965.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• A vague uncritical idealism always lends itself to ridicule and too much of it might be a danger to mankind, leading it round in a futile wild-goose chase for imaginary ideals.

  Lin Yutang

  Wild Geese, Might, Too Much

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Progress in science is often built on wrong theories that are later corrected. It is better to be wrong than to be vague.

  Freeman Dyson

  Progress, Theory, Built

  "The Scientist As Rebel". Book by Freeman Dyson, 2006.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm a vague, conjunctured personality, more made up of opinions and academic prepossessions than of human traits and red corpuscles.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Personality, Red, Opinion

  4 Copy quote

• Valuation is vague and arbitrary, when there is no assurance that it will be generally acquiesced in by others.

  Jean-Baptiste Say

  Arbitrary, Assurance, Valuation

  Jean Baptiste Say (1827). “A treatise on political economy: or, The production, distribution and consumption of wealth”, p.236

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Vague and mysterious forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard or misapplied words with little or no meaning have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance and hindrance of true knowledge.

  John Locke

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Long

  20 Copy quote

• The people have only a very vague direct power. They have the power of voting against the administration, again after its decisions have been taken; but they have no way of getting into the question of policy-making, decision-making, except insofar as the vague forces and pressures of public debate and public opinion have their impact on the President. The President still has to decide. He can't go to the people and ask them to decide for him; he has to make the decision. In that sense he was condemned to be a dictator.

  Walter Millis

  Taken, Impact, Policy Making

  4 Copy quote

• The current state of knowledge remains vague when history is not considered, just as history remains vague without substantive knowledge about the current state.

  Ludwik Fleck

  States, Currents, Remains

  Ludwik Fleck (2012). “Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact”, p.54, University of Chicago Press

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's very tempting when you really want to be with someone to settle for much, much less - even a vague pathetic facsimile of less - than you would have ever imagined. Remember always what you set out to get, and please don't settle for less. These guys exist because there are a lot of women out there who allow them to.

  Greg Behrendt

  Guy, Want, Remember

  "He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys". Book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, November 2004.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whether game theory leads to clear-cut solutions, to vague solutions, or to impasses, it does achieve one thing. In bringing techniques of logical and mathematical analysis gives men an opportunity to bring conflicts up from the level of fights, where the intellect is beclouded by passions, to the level of games, where the intellect has a chance to operate.

  Anatol Rapoport

  Passion, Cutting, Fighting

  "The Use and Misuse of Game Theory". Scientific American, (p. 114), December 1962.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I suddenly feel a vague pity for all those writers who have to ply their trade from sleepy American suburbs, writing divorce scenes symbolized by the very slow washing of dishes.

  Teju Cole

  Writing, Divorce, Plies

  Interview with Christopher Bollen, www.interviewmagazine.com. March 21, 2014.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source