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Confusion Quotes

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Confusion Quotes

“The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was the work of a wayward imagination brought to the end of its tether by political disgust and personal confusion. Fifty years on, I don't associate the book with anything that ever happened to me, save for one wordless encounter at London airport when a worn-out, middle-aged military kind of man in a stained raincoat slammed a handful of mixed foreign change on to the bar and in gritty Irish accents ordered himself as much Scotch as it would buy. In that moment, Alec Leamas was born. Or so my memory, not always a reliable informant, tells me.”

MenYearsKindBookEndsMomentsPoliticalBornImaginationMemoriesHappenedMiddleMilitaryColdLondonBarsConfusionEncountersFiftyThat MomentDisgustingWornAccentsAssociatesSpyAirportsHandfulMiddle AgedWorn OutScotchInformantsIrish Accent
Author:John le Carre
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“There is, perhaps, one universal truth about all forms of human cognition: the ability to deal with knowledge is hugely exceeded by the potential knowledge contained in man's environment. To cope with this diversity, man's perception, his memory, and his thought processes early become governed by strategies for protecting his limited capacities from the confusion of overloading. We tend to perceive things schematically, for example, rather than in detail, or we represent a class of diverse things by some sort of averaged "typical instance.”

MenHumansFormProcessMemoriesAbilityDealsClassEnvironmentExampleDiversityPerceptionCapacityUniversalStrategyDetailsConfusionInstancePerceiveDiverseTypicalCognitionThought ProcessUniversal Truth
Book:On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand
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“[T]his free and easy old-bachelor sort of life is quite full of fun and jollity. Pease and myself room together; and everything like order and neatness is banished from our presence as a nuisance--old letters and old boots and shoes, duds clean and duds dirty, books and newspapers, tooth-brushes, shoe-brushes, and clothes-brushes, all heaped together on chairs, settees, etc., in dusty and "most admired confusion." Now, what is there imaginable in clean, tidy private life equal to this?”

BookTogetherLife IsOrderFunEasyRoomsEqualClothesLettersCleanShoesNewspapersTeethConfusionDirtyEtcChairsBootsBrushesPrivate LifeBachelorsTidyNuisanceNeatnessOld Letters
Author:Rutherford B. Hayes
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“Learning to say prayers in a foreign language...is not in itself the way to fulfill our highest human potential; there is nothing of transcending value to be gained from substituting one set of cultural conventions for another. People whose practice remains on this superficial level end up with nothing but confusion, not knowing who they are or what they should do.”

PeopleWayShouldHumansEndsValuesLanguagePrayerLevelsPracticeKnowingLearningHighestRemainsConfusionConventionsNot KnowingSuperficialHuman PotentialForeign LanguageTranscending
Author:Thubten Yeshe
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“So, I installed a CCTV system to tape what's going on inside my mind. Thousands of hours of drama, confusion, discussion, huge special effects and futuristic scenarios. Also a lot of chatter, drama and suspense. Is like to go to the movies for free, every day. The CCTV technology used is the SSM-X45. Whose initials stand for: Sit down, Shut up and Meditate (X45 is just to sound more hi-tech)”

MindUsedSoundHoursTechnologyMeditationSpecialEffectsHugeDramaConfusionSuspenseDiscussionMovieTapeShut UpInitialsScenariosChatterSpecial EffectsFuturistic
Author:Marcelo Goianira
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“I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist. One often feels helpless in the face of the confusion of these times, such a mass of apparently uncontrollable events and experiences to live through, attempt to understand, and if at all possible, give order to; but one must not withdraw from the task if he has some small things to offer - he does so at the risk of diminishing his humanity.”

IfsGivingFeelsDoeFacesHumanityOrderRiskEventsOffersMassTasksConfusionHelplessOptimistSmall ThingsPessimistUncontrollable
Author:Bernard Malamud
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“The confusion between temperament and character has had serious consequences for ethical theory. Preferences with regard to differences in temperament are mere matters of subjective taste. But differences in character are ethically of the most fundamental importance.”

MatterCharacterDifferencesSeriousTheoryTasteConsequenceImportanceRegardFundamentalsMereConfusionEthicalPreferenceSubjectiveTemperament
Book:Man for Himself: An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics
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“It is therefore absurd to approach the subject of health piecemeal with a departmentalized band of specialists. A medical doctor uninterested in nutrition, in agriculture, in the wholesomeness of mind and spirit is as absurd as a farmer who is uninterested in health. Our fragmentation of this subject cannot be our cure, because it is our disease. The body cannot be whole alone. Persons cannot be whole alone. It is wrong to think that bodily health is compatible with spiritual confusion or cultural disorder, or with polluted air and water or impoverished soil.”

ThinkingMindPersonsWholeBodySpiritualSpiritWaterAirSubjectsBandDiseaseApproachDoctorsEnvironmentalMedicalAbsurdConfusionCuresSoilDisorderFarmersSustainabilityNutritionAgricultureSpecialistsCompatibleFragmentationAir And WaterUninterestedMedical DoctorWholesomeness
Book:The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
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“A billion homo sapiens are added every 11 years to the planet. The hypertrophy of a single species pushes other life-forms out of bed and into extinction. The decline of biological diversity is real and severe. The alarming loss of soil fertility, forest cover, and coral reef viability and the release of fossilized CO2 that nature put away 300 million years ago in its march toward greater diversity - all these "losses" and many others are the result of one life-form annihilating other life-forms in its immoral confusion of "dominion" with "domination."”

YearsRealFormLossResultsMillionsGreaterPlanetsBedDiversityYears AgoSpeciesEnvironmentalBillionsForestsConfusionReleaseSoilMarchDeclineSevereDominationImmoralExtinctionStewardshipDominionHomo SapiensFertilityCo2ReefsCoral Reefs
Author:Leonard Sweet
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“To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.”

MindHeartTwoFriendshipStrengthFriendsGoodnessCapableProofConfusionLastingSteadyRomantic LoveReal FriendsLasting LoveStrength Of MindLong LastingLasting Friendship
Book:The Collected Works of William Hazlitt: Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft. Liber amoris. Characteristics
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“God's favorites, especially God's favorites, are not immune from the bewildering times when God seems silent. Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either. Faith demands uncertainty, confusion. The Bible includes many proofs of God's concern - some quite spectacular - but no guarantess. A guarantee would, after all, preclude faith.”

SeemsFaithOpportunityReligiousDoubtDemandConcernSilentProofConfusionUncertaintyGuaranteesSpectacularImmuneProof Of God
Author:Paul Tournier
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“The Holy Spirit acts mystically through the spiritual father, and then when you go out from your spiritual father, the soul feels her renewal. But if you leave your spiritual father in a state of confusion, this means that you did not confess purely and did not forgive your brother all of his sins from your heart.”

IfsInspirationalFeelsHeartMeanSoulStatesChristianSpiritualSpiritFatherReligiousSinBrotherHolyForgivingConfusionHoly SpiritOrthodoxRenewalYour Brother
Author:Silouan the Athonite
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“What's somewhat puzzling is that Churchill himself knew what the reaction would be to any sort of aerial attack on cities, because in 1938 he said that in a future war British cities would be attacked by bombing, and that the response would be that all men would want to join the fight because they would be so incensed by this cowardly manner of attack. Which is a very natural response: when something drops on you from the air and blows up a bunch of buildings and kills people in their sleep, the reaction is going to be rage, confusion, and a search for something to destroy in retaliation.”

PeopleMenWantSaidWarWould BeFightingNaturalSleepCitiesAirBuildingResponseBlowBritishRageReactionsBunchConfusionBombingCowardlyRetaliationPuzzling
Author:Nicholson Baker
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“The equivocations, the confusions, the contradictions. There's no way we can live through or comprehend something so big that happened so long ago. We've lost true history. But if we are willing to tolerate the contradictions, and if we suffer through events rather than ticking them off, we may at least get closer to understanding what happened than if we grip the handrail of a carefully polished and reassuringly heroic narrative.”

IfsWayMayLongBigsSufferingLostUnderstandingHappenedEventsWillingConfusionNarrativeContradictionHeroicTolerateLong AgoPolished
Author:Nicholson Baker
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“We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.”

HardWould BeFormNationsSituationProgressPlansWonderfulTeamChangedCreatingIllusionMethodConfusionEmploymentTeamworkLater In LifeInefficiencyNew SituationsReorganizationProgress And ChangeDemoralizationIllusion Of Time
Author:Charlton Ogburn
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“To say that you have taught when students haven't learned is to say you have sold when no one has bought. But how can you know that students have learned without spending hours correcting tests and papers? . . . check students understanding while you are teaching (not at 10 o'clock at night when you're correcting papers) so you don't move on with unlearned material that can accumulate like a snowball and eventually engulf the student in confusion and despair.”

KnowsMovingNightUnderstandingHoursTeachingHavensStudentsTaughtMaterialsDespairPaperTestsEducationalSpendingChecksConfusionClockPapersCorrectingSnowball
Author:Madeline Hunter
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“Our great mistake in education is ... the worship of book-learning-the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the memory instead of cultivating the mind. ... We ought to follow exactly the opposite course with children-to give them a wholesome variety of mental food, and endeavour to cultivate their tastes, rather than to fill their minds with dry facts.”

GivingMindChildrenBookFactsScienceCoursesMemoriesMistakeEducationOughtTasteWorshipOppositesConfusionVarietyDryInstructionStrainEndeavourCultivatingGreat MistakesBook Learning
Author:John Lubbock
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