Confuses Quotes

I suspect, however, that the thing that confuses you about Ian is that he's half Scot. In many ways he's more Scot than English, which accounts for what you're calling a ruthless streak. He'll do what he pleases, when he pleases, and the devil fly with the consequences. He always has. He doesn't care what anyone thinks of him or of what he does."
Pausing, Jordan glanced meaningfully at the couple who'd paused to look at a shrubbery on the front lawn. Ian was listening to Elizabeth intently, an expression of tenderness on his rugged face. "The other night, however, he cared very much what people thought of your lovely friend. In fact, I don't like to think what he might have done had anyone actually dared to openly insult her in front of him. You're right when you aren't deceived by Ian's civilized veneer. Beneath that he's a Scot, and he has a temper to go with it, though he usually keeps it in check."
"I don't think you're reassuring me," Alex said shakily.
"I should be. He's committed himself completely to her. That commitment is so deep that he even reconciled with his grandfather and then appeared with him in public, which I know was because of Elizabeth."
"What on earth makes you think that?"
"For one thing, when I saw Ian at the Blackmore he had no plans for the evening until he discovered what Elizabeth was going to do at the Willingtons'. The next I knew, he was walking into that ball with his grandfather at his side. And that, my love, is wha ~ Judith McNaught

Whenever you need to win a situation - talk about jazz, Johanna. It confuses people. ~ Caitlin Moran

Then why do they hate me?
No, they don't. They are just confused. Something different always confuses others. It makes them feel uncomfortable. ~ E. Mellyberry

I really enjoy writing lyrics, I enjoy harmonies and I enjoy hearing the organic side of production because I have to do so much non- organic for a living for other artists, it's just a break for me, for my ears and it confuses people that think my music is supposed to sound like the stuff I do for my day job, but that's just people that don't know me. ~ Butch Walker

That's the big difference between [the BookWorld] and [the RealWorld]," said Plum. "When things happen after a randomly pointless event, all that follows is simply unintended consequences, not a coherent narrative thrust that propels the story forward."
I rolled the idea of unintended consequences around in my head. "Nope, I said finally, "you've got me on that one."
"It confuses me, too," admitted Plum, "but that's the RealWorld for you. A brutal and beautiful place, run for the most part on passion, fads, incentives, and mathematics. A lot of mathematics. ~ Jasper Fforde

It confuses me that Christian living is not simpler. The gospel, the very good news, is simple. ~ Donald Miller

I'm lucky enough to occasionally be able to do something I love - write poems - and unlucky enough that what I love confuses and overwhelms me. ~ Mary Ruefle

Truth and integrity must be so rare these days that it confuses people when they hear it. ~ Donna Lynn Hope

Language is the most beautiful and destructive thing because it allows you to express yourself, but it totally confuses everything. ~ Nate Lowman

To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified. It's quite simple, really. It's an ethical view, so no surprise it confuses utilitarians. ~ Stephan Kinsella

Dude, it's not like you tied me to the bed and forced yourself on me. I don't know if you remember, but I came like a motherfucker that night." Aw shit. I don't know why I said that. And the flash of heat that travels down to my dick is equally perplexing. Thinking about that night is something I rarely let myself do. It was easily the hottest sexual experience eighteen-year-old Jamie Canning had ever had. But remembering it always confuses me, because I associate it with getting banished from the friendship I valued most. ~ Sarina Bowen

In products of the human mind, simplicity marks the end of a process of refining, while complexity marks a primitive stage. Michelangelo 's definition of art as the purgation of superfluities suggests that the creative effort consists largely in the elimination of that which complicates and confuses a pattern ~ Eric Hoffer

Our culture today confuses great attention with great success, assuming them to be the same thing, but they are not. You are great, already. Whether you realize it or not. Whether anybody else realizes it or not. And it's not because you launched an iPhone app, or finished school a year early, or bought yourself a sweet ass boat. These things do not define greatness. You are already great because in the face of endless confusion and certain death, you continue to choose what to give a fuck about and what not to. ~ Mark Manson

I wonder what Lena is doing now. I always wonder what Lena is doing. Rachel, too: both my girls, my beautiful, big-eyed girls. But I worry about Rachel less. Rachel was always harder than Lena, somehow. More defiant, more stubborn, less feeling . Even as a girl, she frightened me - fierce and fiery-eyed, with a temper like my father's once was.
But Lena . . . little darling Lena, with her tangle of dark hair and her flushed, chubby cheeks. She used to rescue spiders from the pavement to keep them from getting squashed; quiet, thoughtful Lena, with the sweetest lisp to break your heart. To break my heart: my wild, uncured, erratic, incomprehensible heart. I wonder whether her front teeth still overlap; whether she still confuses the words pretzel and pencil occasionally; whether the wispy brown hair grew straight and long, or began to curl.
I wonder whether she believes the lies they told her. ~ Lauren Oliver

I wished there had been obvious signs of destruction on all of us kids: bruises or burn marks, something that indicated how violent our house was, but words and neglect don't leave visible marks. And that confuses even the person who knows better. (169) ~ Monica Holloway

We are learning all the time - about the world and about ourselves. We learn without knowing that we are learning and we learn without effort every moment of the day. We learn what is interesting to us ... and we learn from what makes sense to us, because there is nothing to learn from what confuses us except that it is confusing. ~ Frank Smith

Definitely that kind of owner, he thought. Self-made man proud of his handiwork. Confuses bluffness and honesty with merely being rude. I wouldn't mind betting a dollar that he thinks he can tell a man's character by testing the firmness of his handshake and looking deeply into his eyes. ~ Terry Pratchett

The minute a thing is long and complicated, it confuses. Whoever wrote the Ten Commandments made 'em short. They may not always be kept, but they are understood. ~ Will Rogers

I try to ignore the fact that he's sprawled out next to me in all his birthday suit glory right now which totally confuses the hell out of me. What am I supposed to be doing? Should I grab onto it with both hands like a fire hose? ~ Addison Moore

In public narcissists are charming, kind and caring. This confuses the victim because you believe that role too. When the mask falls the victim is shocked by the evil they see. ~ Tracy Malone

Sometimes they almost made me feel glad that I had a few extra years to play my depression out with therapy and other means, because I think its useful in youth- unless suicide or drug abuse are the alternatives- to have some faith in the mind to cure itself, to not rush to doctors or diagnosis's ... I sometimes worry that part of what creates depression in young people is their own, and their parents, and the whole worlds impatience with allowing the phases of life to run their course. We will very likely soon be living in a society that confuses disease with normal life if the panic and rush to judgment and labeling do not slow down a bit. Somewhere between the unbelievable tardiness that the medical profession was guilty of in administering proper treatment to me and the eagerness to with which practitioners prescribe Ritalin for 8 year old boys and Paxil for 14 year old girls, there is a sane course of action. ~ Elizabeth Wurtzel

There are two kinds of peacemakers in the modern world; and they are both, though in various ways, a nuisance. The first peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that he agrees with everybody. He confuses everybody. The second peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that everybody agrees with him. He enrages everybody. Between the two of them they produce a hundred times more disputes and distractions than we poor pugnacious people would ever have thought of in our lives. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Keep your prayer simple. Whatever confuses or complicates prayer is probably best forgotten. ~ Mark Link

Be brave. Write what's true for you. Write what you think. What about what confuses you and compels you. Write about the crazy, hard, and beautiful. Write what scares you. Write what makes you laugh and write what makes you weep. What what makes you feel ashamed or proud. Writing is risk and revelation. There's no need to show up at the party if you're only going to stand around with your hands in your pockets and stare at the drapes. ~ Cheryl Strayed

I have fallen behind time, and am too old to catch it again. Even the noise it makes a long way ahead confuses me. ~ Chareles Dickens

Depending on the budget. I think I prefer 3D to 2D now. Also, because of 3D I have to use a digital camera, which is the way it's going anyway. That still confuses me, a digital camera versus film. ~ Ang Lee

The New Right, in many cases, is doing nothing less than placing a heretical claim on Christian faith that distorts, confuses, and destroys the opportunity for a biblical understanding of Jesus Christ and of his gospel for millions of people. ~ Mark Hatfield

Economically, the key flaw in the high-wage argument is that it confuses wage rates with labor costs - and labor costs with total costs. Wage rates are measured per hour of work. Labor costs are measured per unit of output. Total costs include not only the cost of labor but also the cost of capital, raw materials, transportation, and other things needed to produce output and bring the finished product to market. ~ Anonymous

You'd challenge me and lose. You know it, I know it, but you'd still do it. Sometimes your sense of honor confuses the hell out of me. ~ Seanan McGuire

He who confuses political liberty with freedom and political equality with similarity has never thought for five minutes about either. ~ George Bernard Shaw

In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create. ~ Raoul Vaneigem

We will likely soon be living in a society that confuses disease with normal life if the panic and rush to judgement and labeling do not slow down a bit. ~ Elizabeth Wurtzel

So do all animals react that way to you? I know you said rats steer clear."
"Most do. They see a human, but they smell someting else. It confuses them. Canines are the worst, though." He paused. "No, cats are the worst. I really don't like cats."
I laughed. ~ Kelley Armstrong

Like and dislike, good or bad, God and devil, this and that,
Creates dualities and confuses mind to discriminate and make choices.
In Oneness, they all merge into surrender and acceptance. ~ Gian Kumar

Life sometimes confuses us by making us discover in someone we hate a quality or qualities we love. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I'll leave a note in the lobby that says, "Moved. 315." You had a meeting with me at 3:00 in room 315. The number 315 confuses you, so you wonder, "Did the room get moved, or the time?" Both did. You're to meet me at 3:33 in room 333. ~ Jarod Kintz

I am certain that a novelist is someone who attributes a different reality-value to the characters and events of his story than to those of 'real' life. A novelist is someone who confuses his own life with that of his characters. ~ Alain Robbe-Grillet

The Bible tells us clearly what our parameters are and how to protect them, but often our family, or other past relationships, confuses us about our parameters. ~ Henry Cloud

Be aware of anxiety. Next to sin, thee is nothing that so troubles the mind, stains the heart, distresses the soul, and confuses the judgment. ~ William Bernard Ullathorne

There must be sophistry in all this; but the condition of a slave confuses all principles of morality, and, in fact, renders the practice of them impossible. ~ Harriet Ann Jacobs

Simulations directly relate to the process of and complications in photography. They also overtly create layers of fantasies, myths and interventions ... The simulation confuses the idea of a truth. I've always been interested in this kind of theater and illusion at the foundation of belief. ~ Taryn Simon

It seemed now as if, touched by human penitence and all its toil, divine goodness had parted the curtain and displayed behind it, single, distinct, the hare erect; the wave falling; the boat rocking, which did we deserve them, should be ours always. But alas, divine goodness, twitching the cord, draws the curtain; it does not please him; he covers his treasures in a drench of hail, and so breaks them, so confuses them that it seems impossible that their calm should ever return or that we should ever compose from their fragments a perfect whole or read in the littered pieces the clear words of truth. For our penitence deserves a glimpse only; our toil respite only. ~ Virginia Woolf

Mitt Romney's only bottom line is the one at the end of his own bank statement. The problem is that he confuses his own narrow, self-interest - and that of people like him - with the national interest. He thinks as long as we do right by the Mitt Romneys of the world, America will be just fine. ~ Chuck Schumer

We have created youth ministry that confuses extroversion with faithfulness. We have effectively communicated to young people that sincerely following Jesus is synonymous with being 'fired up' for Jesus, with being excited for Jesus, as if discipleship were synonymous with fostering an exuberant, perky, cheerful, hurray-for-Jesus disposition like what we might find in the glee club or at a pep rally. ~ James K.A. Smith

The pursuit of personal happiness and the production of healthy children are two radically contrasting projects, which love maliciously confuses us into thinking of as one for a requisite number of years. We should not be surprised by marriages between people who would never have been friends ~ Alain De Botton

Being nice to someone who did you foul in the past is kinda like a mature way of getting revenge because it sometimes confuses the hell out of them & brings them to the realization that they no longer can manipulate your emotions with their actions ... something they thought they'd always be able to do. ~ David Reeves

My music confuses people because they think I will sound a certain way because I look a certain way with the dreads. ~ Valerie June

My son, who's on the spectrum is a very rigid thinker. He needs clear-cut definitions of right and wrong. Anything hazy or gray confuses him. For instance, if I try to get him to see that a friend behaved badly, he'll often get upset with me because a friend is a 'good guy' by definition, in his book. ~ Claire Scovell LaZebnik

I see love, like art, as an obsession. Maybe that's an overly romantic view of human existence, but I'm an overly romantic human being. If love, like rock and roll, doesn't consume me 24-7, it's not love. It can be respect, appreciation, admiration, wonderment, it can be a world of glory and a lifetime of peace, but I can't call it love. Love burns me and confuses me. Love's a light that can't be extinguished. ~ Scott Weiland

Wear pink!' her mother had said. 'It confuses the enemy. ~ Donita K. Paul

The middles cleave to euphemisms not just because they're an aid in avoiding facts. They like them also because they assist their social yearnings towards pomposity. This is possible because most euphemisms permit the speaker to multiply syllables, and the middle class confuses sheer numerousness with weight and value. ~ Paul Fussell

Then he will do this most perfectly who approaches the object with
thought alone, without associating any sight with his thought, or dragging 66
in any sense perception with his reasoning, but who, using pure thought
alone, tries to track down each reality pure and by itself, freeing himself
as far as possible from eyes and ears, and in a word, from the whole body,
because the body confuses the soul and does not allow it to acquire truth
and wisdom whenever it is associated with it. Will not that man reach
reality, Simmias, if anyone does? ~ Plato

Can you like someone who confuses the hell out of you?"
"All the fucking time. ~ David Levithan

As Schopenhauer noted a hundred and fifty years ago, 'It would be a good thing to buy books if one could also buy the time to read them; but one usually confuses the purchase of books with the acquisition of their contents. ~ Andy Miller

I think it would be a lot easier if I said, 'I feel like a dude,' but I was raised by a southern mom, so I know how to put on lipstick and walk in heels and rock that look. It's exactly that juxtaposition that confuses people. ~ Saskia De Brauw

If you're a man and you have big tits, don't wear a tight T-shirt, okay? It confuses the children! ~ Dennis Miller

Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence. ~ J. William Fulbright

The idea that every time you do a film you're supposed to be tortured confuses me. I mean, guys who say, 'Oh, it's really tough, my character is really suffering' -come on. For us, even in the rotten ones we've had a good time. I don't think you have to suffer. ~ George Clooney

Growing up in a household where something is terribly wrong, you feel the weight of that mysterious something even though it's unspoken. It eats at you. Confuses you. It leaves you wondering if your view of the world will ever make sense. ~ Diane Chamberlain

Pierre Eliot Trudeau's gift of an official policy of multiculturalism appeared in our midst in a period of rapid influx of third world immigrants into Canada, as well as in a moment of growing intensity of the old English-French rivalry....In this context the proclamation of multiculturalism could be seen as a diffusing or muting device for francophone national aspirations, as much as a way of coping with the non-European immigrants' arrival. It also sidelined the claims of Canada's aboriginal population, which had displayed a propensity toward armed struggles for land claims, as exemplified by the American Indian Movement (AIM). The reduction of these groups' demands into cultural demands was obviously helpful to the nationhood of Canada with its hegemonic anglo-Canadian national culture....It is not an accident that Bissoondath, who confuses between antiracism and multiculturalism, should fall for a political discourse of assimilation which keeps the so-called immigrants in place through a constantly deferred promise....As the focus shifts from processes of exclusion and marginalization to ethnic identities and their lack of adaptiveness, it is forgotten that these officially multicultural ethnicities, so embraced or rejected, are themselves the constructs of colonial - orientalist and racist - discourses. ~ Himani Bannerji

When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique. He is universal by virtue of the inseparability of his organism from the cosmos. He is unique in that he is just this organism and not any stereotype of role, class, or identity assumed for the convenience of social communication. ~ Alan Watts

It's your world, but I make my way in it. At fifteen, no, I couldn't stand up to you. The age of illusions, when we know nothing, we hope for everything; we're wandering in a mist ... And the half of the world that's never had any use for us, suddenly is besieging us. You need us, you adore us, you're suffering for us. You want everything--except to know what we think. You look deep in our eyes--and put your hand up our dress. You call us, "Pretty thing." That confuses us. The most beautiful woman, the highest ranked, lives half dazzled by constant attention, half stifled by obvious contempt. We think all we're good for is pleasing you--till one day, long acquaintance with you dispels the last mist. In a clear light, we suddenly see you as you are--and generally we start preferring ourselves. At thirty, I could finally say no--or really say yes. That's when you begin backing away from us. Now I'm full-grown. I pursue my happiness the same as any man. ~ Pierre-Augustin Caron De Beaumarchais

There are few things more difficult than to appraise the work of a man suddenly dead in his youth; to disentangle promise from achievement; to save him from that sentimentalizing which confuses the tragedy of the interruption with the merit of the work actually performed. ~ Ezra Pound

4. Full Circle

Today I like the traffic jam.
The engine noises heard in detail.
My whole life, a river of thresholds, stitches itself together
and gazes at me
from everywhere.
I like these places where time kinks and looks back over its shoulder
at itself. It confuses them, who are used to being blurs.
But I'm alright here with my terror. I'm in no hurry.
I get paid by the hour.
I let anybody merge in front of me.
I know there's nowhere to hide. ~ Richard Cronshey

First, we cannot overload the human brain. This divinely created brain has fourteen billion cells. If used to the maximum, this human computer inside our heads could contain all the knowledge of humanity from the beginning of the world to the present and still have room left over. Second, not only can we not overload our brain - we also know that our brain retains everything. I often use saying that "The brain acquires everything that we encounter." The difficulty does not come with the input of information, but getting it out. Sometimes we "file" information randomly of little importance, and it confuses us. ~ Ben Carson

The Warrior of the Light knows that it is impossible to live in a state of complete relaxation.
He has learned from the archer that, in order to shoot his arrow any distance, he must hold the bow taut. He has learned from the stars that only an inner explosion allows them to shine. The Warrior notices that when a horse is about to jump over a fence, it tenses all its muscles.
But he never confuses tension with anxiety. ~ Paulo Coelho

At the very beginning of meditation, attempts to focus attention on the intended meditation object cannot easily be separated from the coarse content of the mind, mostly elaborate thinking. The beginner easily confuses attention with thinking. Since attention is confounded with thinking in these early stages, they are referred to as contemplation (bsam gtan), not as formal meditation (sgom ba). Nevertheless the attempt to isolate the act of focusing attention from the background of elaborate thinking does produce a certain benefit with practice. From the perspective of mind, the benefit is that the mind stays on its intended object, at least somewhat. From the perspective of the mind's events, thinking becomes less elaborate - that is, it becomes a bit calmer. ~ Daniel P. Brown

His herding instinct is so strong that he confuses tractors on a baseball field for sheep. He was hospitalized twice. Once by a line drive and once for attacking a tractor tread. ~ Tom Hayden

He bent his head, bringing his lips near her ear. "Talk of the future confuses you, I know. But I think about it all the time."
His hands moved slowly down her bare arms. "When the time is right, when it's our time, I want to undress you – slowly – in front of the fire. Slowly, one item at a time. I want to roll down your stockings and unlace your corset. I want to slowly take the pins out of your hair and catch the weight of it in my hands. Then I want to learn the feel of every inch of you. ~ Maggie Osborne

Man's primary will to know struggles against the selfsatisfied formalism of empty learning which drugs man into
the illusory calm of fulfillment. It fights against empty intellectualism,
against nihilism which has ceased wanting anything and thus has ceased wanting to know. It battles against mediocrity which never takes stock of itself and which confuses knowledge with the mere learning of facts and <> The only satisfaction which man derives from a radical commitment to knowledge is the hope of advancing the frontier of knowledge to a point beyond which he cannot advance except by transcending knowledge itself. ~ Karl Jaspers

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

What probably confuses people is they know a lot about me, but it quite pleases me that there's more they don't know. ~ Bjork

I suggest that the real objective of Socialism is not happiness. Happiness hitherto has been a by-product, and for all we know it may always remain so. The real objective of Socialism is human brotherhood. This is widely felt to be the case, though it is not usually said, or not said loudly enough. Men use up their lives in heart-breaking political struggles, or get themselves killed in civil wars, or tortured in the secret prisons of the Gestapo, not in order to establish some central-heated, air-conditioned, strip-lighted Paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one another instead of swindling and murdering one another. And they want that world as a first step. Where they go from there is not so certain, and the attempt to foresee it in detail merely confuses the issue. ~ George Orwell

There's no law against a sentence existing in two places at once, unlike humans, who are no longer allowed to bilocate because it confuses the cops too much. ~ Patricia Lockwood

Lately there have been complaints that the use of the magnitude scale is confusing, or at least the reporting of magnitudes in the newspapers 'confuses the public. ~ Charles Francis Richter

It's hard for Americans to differentiate between talent and notoriety; TV confuses people. ~ Chuck Klosterman

Pretend" often confuses the adult, but it is the child's real and serious world, the stage upon which any identity is possible and secret thoughts can be safely revealed. ~ Vivian Gussin Paley

They treat each other the way Mozart's father treated him. They say to each other, "Whatever is here, even when it feels a little dark, even when it confuses me, I have chosen it as divine. ~ Heather Havrilesky

I'm a classic example of what can happen if you follow your inner voice. I was cursed with interests and some talent in many different areas. It confuses people. ~ Dirk Benedict

Every day of your life, you have information that enters your head, and that information informs your understanding of things, or shifts it, or changes it, or deepens it, or confuses you. Every day, every moment of every day - it's like this thing that happens. ~ Charlie Kaufman

The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible in-between. But there is still time to seize that one last fragile moment. ~ J. Michael Straczynski

Are you auditioning for Romeo?" He shakes his head. "No way. I'd have to have my balls removed to play that pussy." "Hey, that's no way to talk about one of the greatest romantic heroes of all time." "He's not a hero, Taylor, he's a limp, fickle dick who confuses lust with love and kills himself over a chick he's just met. ~ Leisa Rayven

Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The most I can hope for is to die in a pose that confuses future archaeologists. ~ Yahtzee Croshaw

Wine is like women. It tempts you; it comforts you; it confuses you and can even turn on you when you least expect it. It can be your friend one day and your enemy the next. ~ Alton Brown

Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need. ~ Tom Robbins

When a doting person gets down on all fours and plays with the dog's rubber mouse, it only confuses the puppy and gives him a sense of insecurity. He gets the impression that the world is unstable and wonders whether he is supposed to walk on his hind legs and smoke cigars. ~ Corey Ford

Smile when someone looks at you because it confuses peoples ... ~ Vickar Kahn

To be moved confuses the soul. One cannot convey these kinds of memories any more than the events of a dream ...
... if I have complained too long, it is because my memory, no longer having any fixed abode, has to carry its luggage with it. ~ Jean Cocteau

Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere ~ Patrick Rothfuss

Virginia 's tax system needs to be fixed. The time to act is now. Do not send me any more studies. Do not send me another piecemeal approach that confuses tinkering with real reform. ~ Mark Warner

Our senses will not admit anything extreme. Too much noise confuses us, too much light dazzles us, too great distance or nearness prevents vision, too great prolixity or brevity weakens an argument, too much pleasure gives pain, too much accordance annoys. ~ Blaise Pascal

The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling. ~ Thomas Sowell

Obedience to the word in humility of mind never confuses. ~ John Nelson Darby

Libertarian opponents of anarchy are attacking a straw man. Their arguments are usually utilitarian in nature and amount to "but anarchy won't work" or "we need the (things provided by the) state." But these attacks are confused at best, if not disingenuous. To be an anarchist does not mean you think anarchy will "work" (whatever that means); nor that you predict it will or "can" be achieved. It is possible to be a pessimistic anarchist, after all. To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified. It's quite simple, really. It's an ethical view, so no surprise it confuses utilitarians.

Accordingly, anyone who is not an anarchist must maintain either: (a) aggression is justified; or (b) states (in particular, minimal states) do not necessarily employ aggression. ~ N. Stephan Kinsella

L.A. fashion is like lip injections. That confuses me. That's become not just a thing. It's become fashion, part of your outfit. But hey, to each his own. ~ Kenny Wormald

I know it's cheaper to fund an op-ed columnist than a team of reporters, but I think it confuses the mission of what these great journalistic brands are about, ~ Nate Silver

The opposite of fear is faith' is an adage I heard often when I quit drinking. The thinking is that fear is paralyzing or even regressive, causing you to retreat in defense, while faith inspires forward progress. So why, I always wondered, does fear feature so prominently in our discussions and practice of faith? We talk about fear of God as a good thing - and being God-fearing as a desirable state. I know I'm not the first to say this, and smarter people have given it more thorough examination and more eloquent expression, but that just makes no sense to me. It's counterintuitive and, I think, confuses fear with respect. As a way of motivating people, cultivating fear is easier than investing the time and effort necessary to engender respect. Respect requires greater knowledge, and in my experience, the more you know, the less you fear.

In the year or so between my Parkinson's diagnosis and my quitting drinking, I had considered getting sober but feared life without the perceived buffer of alcohol. What I came to realize after a few months of disciplined sobriety was that my fear had nothing to do with alcohol or a lack thereof. It had to do with a lack of self-understanding. As I gained more intimate knowledge of myself, why I did the things I did, what my resentments were, and how I could address them, my fear began to subside. ~ Michael J Fox

Feminism is rooted in racial rights and gender rights, and all of those things intersect, and to say that that's not something you can stand behind - it confuses me. I think it's a really great word. ~ Mackenzie Davis

If Molly had not been so entirely loyal to her friend, she might have
thought this constant brilliancy a little tiresome when brought into
every-day life; it was not the sunshiny rest of a placid lake, it was
rather the glitter of the pieces of a broken mirror, which confuses
and bewilders. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell