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Muddle Quotes

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Muddle Quotes

“When our thoughts are unsettled and our inner world is in a muddle, we may sharpen our wits and try to recognize the invisible edges of our fractured stance. If we seek to figure out, what our life story is all about, we may be able to put the missing pieces in place and identify what is driving us, what we are actually up to and why we are running like mad dogs, sometimes. (“On a doggy day”)”

SometimesThoughtsEdgesInvisibleDayStanceDriveLife StorySeekTryInner WorldRunMuddleRecognizeIdentifyMad DogsWitsActuallySharpenUnsettledFigure OutDoggyFracturedMissing PiecesPut In PlaceBe Up To Something
Author:Erik Pevernagie
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“There are some good things and some fantastic ones in Auden's early attitude; if the reader calls it a muddle I shall acquiesce, with the remark that the later position might be considered a more rarefied muddle. But poets rather specialize in muddles and I have no doubt which of the muddles was better for Auden's poetry: one was fertile and usable, the other decidedly is not. Auden sometimes seems to be saying with Henry Clay, "I had rather be right than poetry"; but I am not sure, then, that he is either.”

IfsSometimesSeemsMightAttitudeDoubtPositionPoetReaderGood ThingsFantasticNot SureNo DoubtClayRemarksFertileMuddleAuden
Author:Randall Jarrell
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“I think the novel is essentially a comic form (tragedy is for the theatre), not meaning by that full of jokes, but that it is about the absurd detail of human life, the way in which one cannot fully understand what is happening. Life is muddle and jumble and ends inconclusively, and when this is presented with great comic art the sorrows of human life can be truthfully conveyed; one is moved by the spectacle, and feels that something truthful has been told in a magic way.”

ThinkingWayFeelsHumansHas BeensArtEndsFormLife IsNovelMagicSorrowHappeningsJokesTragedyMovedDetailsTheatreAbsurdComicHuman LifeTruthfulBeing TruthfulMuddleComic Art
Author:Iris Murdoch
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“It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror--on thethings that I might have avoided.”

LooksMightFacesEasySoundFateHorrorDisorderAvoidedMuddleRoom With A View
Book:Great Novels of E. M. Forster: Where Angels Fear to Tread, The Longest Journey, A Room with a View, Howards End
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“Someone with a fresh mind, one not conditioned by upbringing and environment, would doubtless look at science and the powerful reductionism that it inspires as overwhelmingly the better mode of understanding the world, and would doubtless scorn religion as sentimental wishful thinking. Would not that same uncluttered mind also see the attempts to reconcile science and religion by disparaging the reduction of the complex to the simple as attempts guided by muddle-headed sentiment and intellectually dishonest emotion?”

ThinkingWorldMindLooksUnderstandingSimplePowerfulEmotionEnvironmentInspireComplexesSentimentsSentimentalScience And ReligionScornUpbringingReductionReconcileWishful ThinkingMuddleReductionismDisparagingUnderstanding The World
Author:Peter Atkins
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“The doctrine (of) maintaining that the language of daily life, with words used in their ordinary meanings, suffices for philosophy . . . I find myself totally unable to accept . . . . Because it makes almost inevitable the perpetuation amongst philosophers of the muddle-headedness they have taken over from common sense.”

PhilosophyUsedLanguageCommonAcceptingTakenOrdinaryPhilosopherDoctrineCommon SenseInevitableDaily LifeMaintainingMuddle
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“Of course, intersectionality theory is a confused muddle. It fights racism and sexism by classifying everyone according to race and sex. It views race and gender privilege as the root of all evil, while ignoring the role played by dogmatic ideologies held by all genders. And it is unfalsifiable - to its adherents, criticism and rejection of the theory actually demonstrate its truth, by showing how deeply we all have internalized our oppression.”

FightingCoursesEvilSexViewsRaceRolesTheoryRacismRootsCriticismPrivilegeGenderOppressionIdeologyRejectionConfusedSexismDogmaticIntersectionalityMuddleClassifyingRace And Gender
Author:Christina Hoff Sommers
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“I don't think we should just 'muddle through' and ignore the question of life's meaning. Or better, perhaps, I don't think it is a question that can be ignored once the business of asking about the worth and significance of what one is doing - one's work, one's pleasures, one's ambitions and so on - has got going. You can't at any point stop the urge to ask Tolstoy's questions, '... and then what?', 'What's the point of that?'.”

ThinkingShouldAsksPleasureAmbitionAskingUrgesSignificanceIgnoredMuddle
Author:David E. Cooper
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“Take an old man's word; there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror - on the things that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I used to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know better now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: beware of muddle.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsMenWorldLooksLittlesWholeHelpingMightFacesYoungUsedEasySoundTeachFateTeachingHorrorOld ManAvoidedBetter NowMuddle
Book:A Room With a View (Diversion Classics)
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“It was one of those strange moments that came to him rarely, but never left. A moment that stamped itself on heart and brain, instantly recallable in every detail, for all of his life. There was no telling what made these moments different from any other, though he knew them when they came. He had seen sights more gruesome and more beautiful by far, and been left with no more than a fleeting muddle of their memory. But these-- the still moments, as he called them to himself-- they came with no warning, to print a random image of the most common things inside his brain, indelible.”

HeartMadeStillsDifferentMomentsBeautifulLeftMemoriesCommonBrainStrangeSightDetailsPrintWarningFleetingIndelibleCommon ThingsMuddleHeart And Brain
Author:Diana Gabaldon
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“I'm sorry, but I do hate this differentiation between the sexes. The modern girl has a thoroughly businesslike attitude to life! That sort of thing. It's not a bit true! Some girls are businesslike and some aren't. Some men are sentimental and muddle-headed, others are clear-headed and logical. There are just different types of brains.”

MenDifferentHateGirlSexBitsBrainAttitudeClearModernTypeSorryLogicalI'm SorrySentimentalDifferentiationMuddle
Author:Agatha Christie
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“People will then often say, 'But surely it's better to remain an Agnostic just in case?' This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I've been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.)”

PeopleIfsThinkingKindFactsTurnsLevelsBehindsCasesAtheismHairConversationWorshipCrossesFingersAtheistEdgesImpressedAgnosticThere Is No GodTheismSplittingThere Being No GodSillinessMuddleBehind Your Back
Book:The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
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“But, as Bacon has well pointed out, truth is more likely to come out of error, if this is clear and definite, than out of confusion, and my experience teaches me that it is better to hold a well-understood and intelligible opinion, even if it should turn out to be wrong, than to be content with a muddle-headed mixture of conflicting views, sometimes miscalled impartiality, and often no better than no opinion at all.”

IfsShouldWellsSometimesScienceTurnsViewsOpinionTeachClearTruth IsUnderstoodErrorsConfusionDefiniteMixturesImpartialityMuddle
Author:William Bayliss
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