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Shallowness Quotes

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Shallowness Quotes

“Dale was a stockbroker at Stryker & Marshall, one of the biggest brokerage firms in America. He always wore a suit when he went out in public, even when he wasn’t working, because there was always that odd chance he might cross paths with a client, or a possible future client. But regardless of clients, it assisted in reinforcing his pompous mentality that he was superior to others. He flaunted his suits and wore them like they were a piece of himself, an outer shell that created a buffer zone between his vainglorious identity and the peasants that made up most of the population. So naturally he flinched when he heard Jeremy threatening the cleanliness of his suit, his image.”

IdentitySuitsShallownessIdentity PoliticsStockbrokersTruth In FictionDale DickersonShadow Banned BooksExpensive SuitsEgo Clothing
Book:The Beasts of Success
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“It is complicated,’ they say. I am so sick of this response. Many people use it repeatedly to escape depth and confronting reality. They use it to take solace in the fact that they don’t know (or don’t wish to know) the ugly truth of what is happening right in front of their eyes. They reduce crimes, injustice, war, pain, hunger, rape, and everything that must be unpacked, dissected, and confronted to this: ‘It is complicated.’ They say this about COVID-19, too. Oh, how I have grown to hate this response. Every time I hear this statement from someone, it sounds like ‘I am a loser’ to my ears. ‘It is complicated’ is the favorite response of lazy brains that refuse to think and do. Oh, my friends, I insist it is not complicated. If you really want to know, it is not so complicated. However, if you are really looking for reasons and excuses to justify your silence, complicity, and to protect your self-interest, then you are absolutely right – it is complicated!”

InspirationalComplexityEscapeSuperficialityComplicityShallownessJustificationsComplicated Problems
Author:Louis Yako
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“...it's exemplification of our moment in American culture and American cultural journalism. It is an accurate document of the discourse of "takes." This movie, that book, this poem, that painting, this record, that show: Make a smart remark and move on. A take is an opinion that has no aspiration to a belief, an impression taht never hardens into a position. Its lightness is its appeal. It is provisional, evanescent, a move in a game, an accredited shallowness, a bulwark against a pause in the conversation. A take is expected not to be true but to be interesting, and even when it is interesting it makes no troublesome claim upon anybody's attention. Another take will quickly follow, and the silence that is a mark of perplexity, of research and reflection, will be mercifully kept at bay. A take asks for no affiliation. It requires no commitment.”

BeliefOpinionCriticismShallownessOn CriticismAbout Art
Author:Leon Wieseltier
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“Roger Ebert calls snarking “cultural vandalism.” He’s right. Snark makes culture impossible, or rather, it makes the conditions that make culture possible impossible. Earnestness, honesty, vulnerability: These are the targets of snark. “Snark functions as a device to punish human spontaneity, eccentricity, nonconformity, and simple error. Everyone is being snarked into line,” he wrote.”

CultureSincerityShallownessSnarkRoger EbertCultural Problems
Author:Ryan Holiday
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“[The modern age] knows nothing about isolation and nothing about silence. In our quietest and loneliest hour the automatic ice-maker in the refrigerator will cluck and drop an ice cube, the automatic dishwasher will sigh through its changes, a plane will drone over, the nearest freeway will vibrate the air. Red and white lights will pass in the sky, lights will shine along highways and glance off windows. There is always a radio that can be turned to some all-night station, or a television set to turn artificial moonlight into the flickering images of the late show. We can put on a turntable whatever consolation we most respond to, Mozart or Copland or the Grateful Dead.”

PeaceSilenceDarknessTechnologyLonelinessNoiseIsolationStillnessModern SocietyShallowness
Book:Angle of Repose
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“No Throne, No Kingdom (The Sonnet) I need no throne, I need no kingdom, Human hearts are my heavenly abode. I need no badge, I need no scepter, Reason is my partner, warmth my zip code. I need no praise, I need no offering, A life of service is my paradise. I need no reward, I need no award, Nothing can put a price on sacrifice. I know no etiquette, I know no manners, These are all constructs of shallowness. Humanity ought to drive behavior, Humility destroys all narrowness. To forge wholeness and sanity is our mission. Ending all falsity let's be incarnate integration.”

PoemHumanismHumanitarianActivismService Of HumanityActivistInclusionIntegrationSonnetShallowness
Book:When Veins Ignite: Either Integration or Degradation
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“The amateur has a long list of fears. Near the top are two: Solitude and silence. The amateur fears solitude and silence because she needs to avoid, at all costs, the voice inside her head that would point her toward her calling and her destiny. So she seeks distraction. The amateur prizes shallowness and shuns depth. The culture of Twitter and Facebook is paradise for the amateur.”

NeedsLongTwoMotivationalCultureVoiceSilenceDestinyCallingCostSolitudeDepthListsParadisePrizeDistractionSilence IsShallownessTwitter And Facebook
Author:Steven Pressfield
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“The more I read, the less I admire modern theology. the more I study the productions of the new schools of theological teachers, the more I marvel that men and women can be satisfied with such writings. There is a vagueness, a mistiness, a shallowness, an indistinctness, a superficiality, an aimlessness, a hollowness about the literature of the 'broader and kinder systems', as they are called, which to my mind stamps their origin on their face. They are of the earth, earthy.”

MenWritingMindSchoolEarthFacesLiteratureStudyTeacherModernMen And WomenProductionsSatisfiedTheologyAdmireStampsTheologicalKinderSuperficialityShallownessVaguenessHollownessAimlessness
Author:J. C. Ryle
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“It is often said that in today's modern and postmodern world that the forces of darkness are upon us. But I think not; in the Dark and the Deep there are truths that can always heal. It is not the forces of darkness but of shallowness that everywhere threaten the true, and the good, and the beautiful, and that ironically announce themselves as deep and profound. It is an exuberant and fearess shallowness that everywhere is the modern danger, the modern threat, and that everywhere nonetheless calls to us as savior.”

ThinkingWorldSaidTodayBeautifulForceDarkDarknessModernDangerThreatProfoundHealSaviorPostmodernShallowness
Book:Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, Second Edition
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“Beneath all the rhetoric about relevance lies a profoundly disturbing possibility - that people may base their lives upon an illusion, upon a blatant lie. The attractiveness of a belief is all too often inversely proportional to its truth... To allow "relevance" to be given greater weight than truth is a mark of intellectual shallowness and moral irresponsibility.”

PeopleMayLyingBeliefGivenMoralGreaterPossibilityTruth IsIntellectualIllusionWeightMarkRhetoricDisturbingRelevanceAttractivenessIrresponsibilityShallownessBlatant Lies
Author:Alister E. McGrath
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“Society takes upon itself the right to inflict appalling punishment on the individual, but it also has the supreme vice of shallowness, and fails to realize what it has done. When the man's punishment is over, it leaves him to himself; that is to say, it abandons him at the very moment when its highest duty towards him begins.”

MenDoneMomentsIndividualRealizingFailingDutyHighestVicesSupremePunishmentAbandonOver ItShallowness
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis,
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“Unfortunately, I did not feel ready at 27. I felt that that world was too big for me and I might make some total mistakes. I was a little afraid of going on the road. When you're that age, there are so many handsome men around, and for me, love is first. That shallowness had already knocked me really bad, and I didn't need any more of that.”

MenWorldNeedsFeelsFirstsLittlesBigsMightAgeFeltLove IsMistakeReadyHandsomeShallownessHandsome Men
Author:Linda Perhacs
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“There's a way in which all of these grazers at the spirituality buffet are performing a service, because you could argue that grazing leads to a kind of tolerance. People who incorporate teachings from a lot of different traditions into their own belief systems are going to be more tolerant than people who confine themselves within the strict boundaries of one particular religion. Does it contribute to our confusion? I don't know if it contributes to confusion so much as it is evidence of a certain kind of silliness and shallowness.”

PeopleKindDifferentSpiritualityBeliefTeachingEvidenceTraditionArguingToleranceBoundariesConfusionPerformingSillinessShallowness
Author:Wendy Kaminer
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“We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it’s all gone.”

YearsKindPersonsChanceResultsWonderGoneSorryEndlessDay To DayMonotonyShallownessZen Motorcycle Maintenance
Book:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
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“People say sometimes that Beauty is superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”

PeopleWorldMaySometimesWonderMysteryJudgingAppearanceInvisibleVisibleShallowSuperficialShallownessDo Not Judge
Book:The Picture of Dorian Gray (Diversion Classics)
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“I wonder if ever again Americans can have that experience of returning to a home place so intimately known, profoundly felt, deeply loved, and absolutely submitted to? It is not quite true that you can't go home again. I have done it, coming back here. But it gets less likely. We have had too many divorces, we have consumed too much transportation, we have lived too shallowly in too many places.”

IfsDoneHomeFeltKnownWonderToo MuchDivorceComing BackConsumedTransportationShallownessHome Place
Author:Wallace Stegner
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“The fear of speculation, the ostensible rush from the theoretical to the practical, brings about the same shallowness in action that it does in knowledge. It is by studying a strictly theoretical philosophy that we become most acquainted with Ideas, and only Ideas provide action with vigour and ethical meaning.”

DoeIdeasPhilosophyActionEnergyKnowledgeStudyPracticalsSignificanceEthicalSpeculationTheoreticalShallowness
Author:Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
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“A new generation of Christians is being called to help build a world in which God's gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished-not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed. A new age in which love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty. A new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption that deaden our souls and poison our relationships.”

WorldLifeSoulSelfHelpingAgeChristianLife IsJoyLove IsGenerationsPureDignityThreatSeekingDestroyedFaithfulPoisonApathyOur RelationshipRejectedGreedyNew AgeRespectfulNew GenerationAbsorptionShallownessSelf AbsorptionGifts Of Life
Author:Pope Benedict XVI
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