Vague Quotes - Page 9

• The difference between Carter and [Ted] Kennedy: Carter has this vague religion which he believes in strongly, while Kennedy has this strong religion which he believes in vaguely.

  Eugene McCarthy

  Strong, Believe, Differences

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• Amid the welter of vague political abstractions ... where meanings shift so quickly and so subtly, not only following changes of thought, but often manipulated artificially by political practitioners so as to obscure, expand, or distort ... a certain broad consistency in its relations to other kindred terms is the nearest approach to definition which such a term as Imperialism admits. Nationalism, internationalism, colonialism, its three closest congeners, are equally elusive, equally shifty, and the changeful overlapping of all four demands the closest vigilance.

  J. Allan Hobson

  Political, Consistency, Definitions

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• Worry is different from fear. If fear is like a raging fever, worry is a low-grade temperature. It nags at us, simmers in our souls, hovers in the back of our minds like a faint memory. We may fear certain realities, like death; we worry about vague possibilities. Worry distracts us more than paralyzes us. It is like a leaky faucet we never get around to fixing.

  Gerald Lawson Sittser

  Memories, Reality, Worry

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• There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment.

  Eric Hoffer

  Men, Doubt, Ruthlessness

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• In his 1930 book, Dirac took for granted that measurements could be made, but was very vague about what was actually involved.

  Willis Lamb

  Book, Measurement, Granted

  "Quantum Measurements and Chaos". Book by E. R. Pike and S. Sarkar, eds., pp. 183-193, 1987.

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• My university education had been a shallow and superficial enterprise. The central driving forces of the economy I lived in were either ignored or left vague, to the point of meaningless.

  Herbert Schiller

  Driving, Ignored, Economy

  "Living In The Number One Country". Book by Herbert Schiller, 2000.

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• All our suffering is associated with this pre-occupation. All loss and gain, pleasure and pain arise because we identify so closely with this vague feeling of selfness that we have. We are so emotionally involved with and attached to this "self" that we take it for granted.

  Francisco Varela

  Pain, Loss, Self

  "The Embodied Mind". Book by Francisco Varela, p. 63, 1991.

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• If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

  Jerry Seinfeld

  Funny, Humor, Be Kind

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• The fish is swift, small-needing, vague yet clear, A cold, sweet, silver life, wrapped in round waves.

  Leigh Hunt

  Sweet, Rivers, Lakes

  Leigh Hunt, David Jesson-Dibley (2003). “Selected Writings”, p.58, Psychology Press

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• Children of God should not make a general confession by acknowledging their innumerable sins in a vague manner, because such confession does not provide conscience opportunity to do its perfect work. They ought to allow the Holy Spirit through their conscience to point out their sins one by one. Christians must accept its reproach and be willing, according to the mind of the Spirit, to eliminate everything which is contrary to God.

  Watchman Nee

  Christian, Children, Opportunity

  Watchman Nee (2009). “The Spiritual Man”, p.496, Christian Fellowship Publishers

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• I think it is more like a ghost that has been following us both. Something vague that we're not seeing, something more like a feeling.

  Conor Oberst

  Thinking, Feelings, Ghost

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• Between lips and lips there are cities of great ash and moist summit, drops of when and how, vague comings and goings: between lips and lips as along a shore of sand and glass the wind passes.

  Pablo Neruda

  Glasses, Wind, Cities

  Pablo Neruda (1990). “Selected Poems”, p.129, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A person talks in such generalities that everyone can understand him and it's considered to be some deep philosophy. However, I would like to be very rather more special and I would like to be understood in an honest way, rather than in a vague way.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Philosophy, Special, Way

  "The Character of Physical Law". Richard P. Feynman's Messenger Lectures at Cornell University (November 1964), later quoted in his book "The Character of Physical Law" (Chapter 1 "The Law of Gravitation", p. 13), www.youtube.com. 1965.

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• Astrology ... makes vague predictions that can always be adapted after the fact to fit observations, as we'll see. Astrologers don't seek causes at all, for a good reason: There isn't any cause to astrology. If you look for some underlying reason, some connection between the stars and planets and our lives, you won't find any. For astrology to sell, buyers must not seek out the fundamental principles behind it, because if they do they'll see that there is none.

  Phil Plait

  Stars, Astrology, Connections

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• Our top story, in 'Threat Matrix Reloaded' news ... Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Muller held a press conference today to announce that Al Qaeda is planning attacks somewhere inside the United States at sometime in the future. So go about your normal lives, but with a vague sense of foreboding.

  Craig Kilborn

  Directors, United States, News

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• If you're a young artist, wondering what to call yourself, consider 'multimedia artist.' It's so vague. Then, no one can say, 'Hey, how come you're a jazz person, and you're making a pop opera?

  Laurie Anderson

  Artist, Hey, Opera

  "Laurie Anderson on scuplting sounds with Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel and her unique duet machine", daily.redbullmusicacademy.com.

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• I know that's a vague answer, but you just have to really pedal yourself around town and attempt to not get too discouraged. There is also a different kind of challenge for women, as they graduate into their 30s. It's hard. There isn't as much work. You're suddenly the aunt, or something. So, it's a process.

  Anna Faris

  Aunt, Challenges, Different

  Source: collider.com

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• People tend to be clueless about prices. Contrary to economic theory, we don't really decide between A and B by consulting our invisible price tags and purchasing the one that yields the higher utility, he says. We make do with guesstimates and a vague recollection of what things are “supposed to cost.”

  William Poundstone

  Clueless, Price Tag, Yield

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• The process of philosophizing, to my mind, consists mainly in passing from those obvious, vague, ambiguous things, that we feel quite sure of, to something precise, clear, definite, which by reflection and analysis we find is involved in the vague thing that we start from, and is, so to speak, the real truth of which that vague thing is a sort of shadow.

  Bertrand Russell

  Real, Philosophical, Reflection

  Bertrand Russell (1972). “Russell's Logical atomism”

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• It has been the struggle between privileged men who have managed to get hold of the levers of power and the people in general withtheir vague and changing aspirations for equality, for justice, for some kind of gentler brotherhood and peace, which has kept that balance of forces we call our system of government in equilibrium.

  John Dos Passos

  Struggle, Power, Men

  John Dos Passos (2010). “The Ground We Stand on: The History of a Political Creed”, p.21, Transaction Publishers

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• One man in one mood will attack Industrial Capitalism for its destruction of beauty; another for its incompetence; another for the vileness of the men who chiefly prosper under it; another for its mere confusion and noise; another for its false values; it was until recently most fiercely attacked for its impoverishment of the workers, its margin of unemployment and the rest - indeed so fiercely that it was compelled to seek palliatives for the evil. With a mass of men it was attacked from a vague but strong sense of injustice; it allowed a few rich to exploit mankind.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Strong, Men, Evil

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• Jefferson found in the religion phrases of the First Amendment no vague or fuzzy language to be bent or shaped or twisted as suited any Supreme Court Justice or White House incumbent. That amendment had built a wall, with the ecclesiastical estate on one side and the civil estate on the other.

  Edwin Gaustad

  Wall, White, Justice

  Edwin Scott Gaustad (1993). “Neither King Nor Prelate: Religion and the New Nation, 1776-1826”, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

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• My dance is a sacred poem in which each movement is a word and whose every word is underlined by music. The temple in which I dance can be vague or faithfully reproduced, for I am the temple.

  Mata Hari

  Dance, Movement, Sacred

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• I don't want to be one of those easily forgotten people, so important at the time, so special, so influential, and so treasured, yet years later just a vague face and a distant memory.

  Cecelia Ahern

  Memories, Years, People

  Cecelia Ahern (2005). “Rosie Dunne”, Wheeler Pub Incorporated

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• Public opinion, - a tyrant, sitting in the dark, wrapt up in mystification and vague terrors of obscurity; deriving power no one knows from whom ... - but irresistible in its power to quell thought, to repress action, to silence conviction.

  Harriet Martineau

  Dark, Tyrants, Silence

  Harriet Martineau (1837). “Society in America”, p.138

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