Adequate Means Quotes

At this point, realism is perhaps the least adequate means of understanding or portraying the incredible realities of our existence. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

If you accept a democratic system, this means that you are prepared to put up with those of its workings, legislative or administrative, with which you do not agree as well as with those that meet with your concurrence. This willingness to accept, in principle, the workings of a system based on the will of the majority, even when you yourself are in the minority, is simply the essence of democracy. Without it there could be no system of representative self-government at all. When you attempt to alter the workings of the system by means of violence or civil disobedience, this, it seems to me, can have only one of two implications; either you do not believe in democracy at all and consider that society ought to be governed by enlightened minorities such as the one to which you, of course, belong; or you consider that the present system is so imperfect that it is not truly representative, that it no longer serves adequately as a vehicle for the will of the majority, and that this leaves to the unsatisfied no adequate means of self-expression other than the primitive one of calling attention to themselves and their emotions by mass demonstrations and mass defiance of established authority. ~ George F. Kennan

The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

This old, folkish layer survives in us all, and to speak as I really think, I do not consider religion the most adequate means of keeping it under lock and key. For that, literature alone avails, humanistic science, the ideal of the free and beautiful human being. ~ Thomas Mann

The difficulty involved in the proper and adequate means of describing changes in continuous deformable bodies is the method of differential equations ... They express mathematically the physical concept of contiguous action.
Einstein's Theory of Relativity ~ Max Born

Luck means the hardships and privations which you have not hesitated to endure, the long nights you have devoted to work. Luck means the appointments you have never failed to keep; the trains you have never failed to catch. ~ Max O'Rell

I think it's a pity she doesn't read because it means we shan't ever be able to talk about the books we've both read and recommend them to one another. ~ Stan Barstow

Reason is overrated. Many pundits have argued that a good heart and steadfast moral clarity are superior to triangulations of overeducated policy wonks, like the best and brightest and that dragged us into the quagmire of Vietnam. And wasn't it reason that gave us the means to despoil the planet and threaten our species with weapons of mass destruction? In this way of thinking, it's character and conscience, not cold-hearted calculation, that will save us. Besides, a human being is not a brain on a stick. My fellow psychologists have shown that we're led by our bodies and our emotions and use our puny powers of reason merely to rationalize our gut feelings after the fact ~ Steven Pinker

Death is only relevant to "genetic adaptation" insofar as it relates to the capacity for self-reproduction (what is relevant is not that an individual died, but success in gene propagation while alive). The potentially misleading phrase "genetic adaptation" means that either because or despite an organism's adaptedness to external conditions, genes were or are successful in propagating themselves. Success in reproducing genes, in other words, is the ultimate measure of so-called "genetic adaptation". The possibility of adaptation unto extinction through individualism does not contradict the Darwinian notion of adaptation for survival. On the contrary, it is only a confirmation of it. The question here is what survives, the individual or its genes? The genes, and not the individual organism, provide the measure of survival in biological evolution. This point is illustrated by the modern corporate executive who adapts to the changing economic conditions better than any of his or her competitors, but fails to produce any children. ~ Mitchell Heisman

I want to go out with Mikey ... He's the guy in the Life cereal commercial who hates everything. If Mikey likes you, you know you're good. If Mikey likes you, it means something. ~ Rainbow Rowell

What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because they're dragging you down. They're turning you into Microsoft. They're causing you to turn out products that are adequate but not great. ~ Walter Isaacson

She finally understands what it means to fall into someone, that part of loving someone where you're totally consumed by them. ~ Rebecca Serle

Younger Arabs are much less satisfied with education in the region than their elders, and are more comfortable networking and communicating via digital means. ~ Joe Saddi

The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out. ~ George Carlin

To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry. ~ Gaston Bachelard

Courage doesn't mean we're not afraid anymore, it just means our actions aren't controlled by our doubts. ~ Bob Goff

The case for the humanities is not hard to make, though it can be difficult
to such an extent have we been marginalized, so long have we acceded to that marginalization
not to sound either defensive or naive. The humanities, done right, are the crucible in which our evolving notions of what it means to be fully human are put to the test; they teach us, incrementally, endlessly, not what to do, but how to be. Their method is confrontational, their domain unlimited, their "product" not truth but the reasoned search for truth, their "success" something very much like Frost's momentary stay against confusion. ~ Mark Slouka

Mindful of Schopenhauer's Buddhist affinities, one might venture a summary of the four-booked World as Will and Representation by means of four 'noble truths': the world is my representation; its essence is will, that is to say, suffering; temporary release from suffering is possible through art; permanent release is possible through 'denial of the will', that is to say, death. ~ Julian Young

You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Creating opportunities means looking where others are not. ~ Mark Cuban

I am always inside you, Leonidas. My blood, my body, my mind. And that most certainly means something. Do not forget that. Leo ~ Ella Frank

Sometimes being an adult means doing the right thing, even if it's not what you want. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

Yet it is true - skin can mean a great deal. Mine means that any man may strike me in a public place and never fear the consequences. It means that my friends do not always like to be seen with me in the street. It means that no matter how many books I read, or languages I master, I will never be anything but a curiosity - like a talking pig or a mathematical horse. ~ Susanna Clarke

There is nothing better than music as a means for upliftment of the soul. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

One might think this means that imaginary numbers are just a mathematical game having nothing to do with the real world. From the viewpoint of positivist philosophy, however, one cannot determine what is real. All one can do is find which mathematical models describe the universe we live in. It turns out that a mathematical model involving imaginary time predicts not only effects we have already observed but also effects we have not been able to measure yet nevertheless believe in for other reasons. So what is real and what is imaginary? Is the distinction just in our minds? ~ Stephen Hawking

And theories are no more than fictions which help us to make sense of experience and which are subject to disconfirmation when their explanations are no longer adequate. ~ Chinua Achebe

If today shows no results, that doesn't mean the past wasn't working or the present isn't working. It just means we see only part of the picture. Faith believes God is working in every part of the process. ~ Deb Brammer

A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means - the only complete realist.15 ~ Tad R. Callister

Teacher unions are an interest group that acts in defense of their own interests, which means the union bosses' interests, not the members. ~ Peter Brimelow

You can have all the money in the world. You can be a multi-billionaire, but if you do not have your health it means nothing. Your health is the No. 1 important thing in your life. ~ Suze Orman

The God of the Hebrews is a God that human language, we're not even supposed to speak the holy name. We were told in the Second Commandment we could make no images of this God, and I don't think that means just building idols, I think that means also trying to believe you've captured God in your words, in the Creeds, in the Scriptures. ~ John Shelby Spong

Success on the outside means nothing unless you also have success within. ~ Robin S. Sharma

To devote yourself to someone else's pussy can be a means of devoting yourself to your own. ~ Maggie Nelson

Oh, what's the matter? You look a little pale. I hope you didn't see a doppelganger. Because, you know . . . that means you're gonna die. ~ Akihisa Ikeda

If I start doing more things with my hands, whether that's woodworking or gardening or knitting or baking cookies, I might fall into the condition made famous by the psychologist with the impossible name: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. That condition is "flow." It means becoming completely involved in an activity not for the sake of the outcome but for the sheer joy of it. It means feeling alive when we are fully in the groove of doing something. According to Csikszentmihalyi, the path to greatest happiness lies not with mindless consuming but with challenging ourselves to experience or produce something new, becoming in the process more engaged, connected and alive. ~ Catherine Friend

To love one's neighbour in the immovable depths means to love in others that which is eternal; for one's neighbour, in the truest sense of the term, is that which approaches the nearest to God; in other words, all that is best and purest in man; and it is only by ever lingering near the gates I spoke of, that you can discover the divine in the soul. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck

Codfish aristocracy' is what they call us. Men who've made a fortune in business, but are common-born."
"Why codfish?"
"It used to refer to the rich merchants who settled the American colonies and made their money in the cod trade. Now it means any successful businessman."
"Nouveau riche is another term," Helen added. "It's never used as a compliment, of course. But it should be. Being self-made is something to be admired." As she felt his soundless chuckle, she insisted, "It is."
Rhys turned his head to kiss her. "You've no need to flatter my vanity."
"I'm not flattering you. I think you're remarkable. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I try not to focus on fame; I don't even really know what it means exactly because it's so fleeting. ~ Taylor Momsen

To know the right means of getting something done is virtually to have done it. ~ Mark Caine