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Ambiguous Quotes

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Ambiguous Quotes

“Zen is to religion what a Japanese "rock garden" is to a garden. Zen knows no god, no afterlife, no good and no evil, as the rock-garden knows no flowers, herbs or shrubs. It has no doctrine or holy writ: its teaching is transmitted mainly in the form of parables as ambiguous as the pebbles in the rock-garden which symbolise now a mountain, now a fleeting tiger. When a disciple asks "What is Zen?", the master's traditional answer is "Three pounds of flax" or "A decaying noodle" or "A toilet stick" or a whack on the pupil's head.”

KnowsFormThreeEvilAsksAnswersTeachingRocksFlowerMastersHolyMountainGardenSticksDoctrineTraditionalPoundsAfterlifeDiscipleTigersFleetingToiletsHerbsPupilsAmbiguousPebblesParablesNoodlesShrubsFlax
Author:Arthur Koestler
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“I think that at the end of the day I'm drawn to a certain level of ambiguous storytelling that requires hard thought and work in the same way that the New York Times crossword puzzle does: Sometimes you just want to put it down or throw it out the window, but there's a real rewarding sense if you feel like you've cracked it.”

IfsThinkingWayWantFeelsDoeRealEndsSometimesHardCertainLevelsNew YorkLike YouWindowStorytellingThe End Of The DayPuzzlesNew York TimesCrackedAmbiguousCrosswords
Author:Damon Lindelof
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“The first principle, when you don't know anything about the subject of a thesis, is to let the candidate talk, nodding now and then with an ambiguous smile. He thinks you know, and are counting his mistakes, and it unnerves him... the second principle of conducting an oral, ... is to pretend ignorance, and ask for explanations of very simple points. Of course your ignorance is real, but the examinee thinks you are being subtle, and that he is making an ass of himself, and this rattles him.”

ThinkingKnowsFirstsRealCoursesAsksSimpleMistakePrinciplesSubjectsIgnoranceAssExplanationCandidatesSubtleNow And ThenCountingAmbiguousConductingThesisNodding
Author:Robertson Davies
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“There is probably no one, however rigid his virtue, who is not liable to find himself, by the complexity of circumstances, living at close quarters with the very vice which he himself has been most outspoken in condemning -- without altogether recognizing it beneath the disguise of ambiguous behavior which it assumes in his presence.”

Has BeensVirtueCircumstancesBehaviorAssumingVicesComplexityQuartersDisguiseRecognizingLiableAmbiguousCondemningOutspoken
Book:In Search of Lost Time: Swann's way
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“I think men get nervous when women start counting the number of female senators, and whites become edgy when they hear the next Supreme Court seat will probably go to a Latino. This isn't always because they object to sharing the spoils, by the way; it just reminds us that the melting pot may not be working, and we haven't yet achieved the ambiguous national dream of becoming a nation of indistinguishable beige atheists.”

ThinkingMenWayMayDreamNextNationsNumbersHavensObjectsBecomingFemaleCourtAtheistSupremeNervousSeatsPotSenatorsSupreme CourtSpoilCountingLatinoMeltingAmbiguousEdgyMelting Pot
Author:Dahlia Lithwick
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“The reinvention of American culture as purely the self catapulted Las Vegas to prominence. The city took sin and made it choice -- a sometimes ambiguous choice, but choice nonetheless. Combined with a visionary approach to experience that melded Hollywood and Americans' taste for comfort and self-deception, Las Vegas grew into the last American frontier city, as foreign at times as Prague but as quintessential as Peoria. In Las Vegas, you can choose your fantasy; in the rest of America, you don't always get to pick.”

MadeSelfSometimesLastsAmericaChoicesCultureSinCitiesFantasyGrewComfortTasteApproachPicksHollywoodMade ItDeceptionFrontiersAmerican CultureVegasLas VegasVisionariesSelf DeceptionAmbiguousReinventionQuintessentialProminencePraguePeoria
Author:Hal Rothman
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“Because of the confusion surrounding the term "agnosticism," it would seem better to use the very similar term "rationalism" in its place when referring to the original Huxleyan meaning of the term. The use of "rationalist" for "agnostic" would also seem to be less ambiguous.”

UseSeemsTermAtheismOriginalsPositive AtheismConfusionAgnosticAgnosticismReferringAmbiguousRationalism
Book:An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism
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“Labels not only free us from the obligation to think creatively; they numb our sensibilities, our power to feel. During the Vietnam War, the phrase body count entered our vocabulary. It is an ambiguous phrase, inorganic, even faintly sporty. It distanced us from the painful reality of corpses, of dead, mutilated people.”

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Book:News from the World: Stories and Essays
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“Since the journey is a metaphor - the most ambiguous and seductive of metaphors, we tell ourselves - it can also be born of immobility. There is no need to drag our bodies around so much, all dressed up. It's hot, there are flies, diseases. It is enough to close our eyes, seated on a chair in the shade, to float on the waves of imagination. Isn't that what books are there for?”

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Book:The Silent Duchess
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“The emperor of the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards the end of the preceding year: and, as the distressful situation of the Goths required an instant and peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favourite resource of feeble and timid minds; who consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.”

YearsMindEndsUseDecisionEffortSituationHistoryHappenedBrotherAuthorityResourcesEastInstantFavouriteEldersPrudenceDeprivedEmperorAdmirableRoman EmpireAmbiguousGoth
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“What drivel it all is!... A string of words called religion. Another string of words called philosophy. Half a dozen other stringscalled political ideals. And all the words either ambiguous or meaningless. And people getting so excited about them they'll murder their neighbours for using a word they don't happen to like. A word that probably doesn't mean as much as a good belch. Just a noise without even the excuse of gas on the stomach.”

PeopleMeanPhilosophyHappensPoliticalBeliefHalfViolenceIdealsMurderExcuseExcitedNoiseIdeologyGasStringsStomachMeaninglessDozenNeighbourAmbiguousDrivel
Book:After Many a Summer
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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.”

FeelsMindRealSpeakProcessClearInvolvedReflectionShadowPhilosophicalObviousPassingPassingsAnalysisDefiniteVaguePreciseAmbiguousReal Truth
Book:Russell's Logical atomism
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“The material which a scientist actually has at his disposal, his laws, his experimental results, his mathematical techniques, his epistemological prejudices, his attitude towards the absurd consequences of the theories which he accepts, is indeterminate in many ways, ambiguous, and never fully separated from the historical background . This material is always contaminated by principles which he does not know and which, if known, would be extremely hard to test.”

IfsKnowsWayDoeHardWould BeLawResultsAttitudeKnownAcceptingPrinciplesMaterialsTheoryConsequenceTestsScientistPrejudiceHistoricalTechniqueBackgroundsAbsurdMathematicalAmbiguous
Book:Against Method
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“The ambiguous, gray areas of authority and responsibility between parents and teachers exacerbate the distrust between them. The distrust is further complicated by the fact that it is rarely articulated, but usually remains smoldering and silent.”

FactsParentResponsibilityTeacherAuthorityAreasRemainsSilentComplicatedGrayDistrustAmbiguousParents And TeachersGray AreaAuthority And Responsibility
Book:Worlds apart: relationships between families and schools
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“The language of commerce has been engineered to describe the overt purpose of a thing, but cannot encompass fringe benefits or peripheral pleasures. It weighs the obvious against what in its terms are incomprehensible. When I drive from here to there, speed, privacy, control, and safety are easy to claim. When I walk, what happens is more vague, more ambiguous-and in many circumstances much richer. I am out in the world. It's exercise, though not so quantifiably as on a treadmill in a gym with a digital readout.”

WorldHas BeensHappensPurposeLanguageEasyTermWalksPleasureCircumstancesExerciseBenefitsClaimsSafetyEnvironmentalObviousSpeedPrivacyDigitalGymSustainabilityCommerceVagueFringeAmbiguousTreadmills
Author:Rebecca Solnit
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“Wave particle duality is a core feature of our world. Or rather, we should say, it is a core feature of our mathematical descriptions of our world. But what is critical to note here is that, however ambiguous our images, the universe itself remains whole and is manifestly not fracturing into schizophrenic shards. It is this tantalizing wholeness and the thing itself that drives physicists onward like an eternally beckoning light that seems so teasingly near. It is always out of reach.”

WorldShouldWholeLightSeemsUniverseRemainsNotesWaveCriticalCoreMathematicalFeaturesDescriptionOur WorldWholenessPhysicistParticlesDualityAmbiguousSchizophrenicBeckoningTantalizing
Author:Margaret Wertheim
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“Indira Gandhi had been this very powerful, dominating, ambiguous mother figure. Ambiguous because she was tyrannical, she had imposed...she had suspended Indian democracy for a few years but she also was the woman who had defeated Pakistan in war at a time when most male politicians in India had secretly feared fighting that war, so that here in India even today Indira Gandhi is called by Indian nationalists the only man ever to have governed India.”

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Author:Aravind Adiga
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“In a sense, journalism can be both helpful and detrimental to a writer of fiction because the kind of writing you need to do as a journalist is so different. It has to be clear, unambiguous, concise, and as a writer often you are trying to do things that are more ambiguous. I find that writing fiction is often an antidote to reading and writing too much journalism.”

NeedsWritingTryingKindDifferentReadingFictionClearToo MuchJournalismJournalistHelpfulAntidoteAmbiguousWriting FictionReading And WritingDetrimentalConcise
Author:Aravind Adiga
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“Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature”

WellsReasonDoneBeliefSinChristianityDoubtLandElementsMiracleCastsCirclesSupposed To BeImpulseSwimSwimmingGlancesAmbiguousPurpose And Meaning
Book:Nietzsche: Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality
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