Devising Means Quotes

Terrorism requires only a few. Obviously, the West must defend itself by whatever means will be effective. But in devising means to fight the terrorists, it would surely be useful to understand the forces that drive them. ~ Bernard Lewis

In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed ... It means facing a system that does not lend its self to your needs and devising means by which you change that system. ~ Ella Baker

Nature has arranged that when you overcome a given inertia the resulting momentum is proportionate. If I were to begin borrowing money I would end by devising means of persuading the Secretary of the Treasury to lend me the gold reserve. ~ Rex Stout

The art of research [is] the art of making difficult problems soluble by devising means of getting at them. ~ Peter Medawar

We must not waste life in devising means. It is better to plan less and do more. ~ William Ellery Channing

If the desire to get somewhere is strong enough in a person, his whole being, conscious and unconscious, is always at work, looking for and devising means to get to the goal. ~ Frederick Philip Grove

Yoga essentially means finding the keys to the nature of the existence. ~ Jaggi Vasudev

Diversion consoles us - in trivial ways - in the face of our miseries or perplexities; yet, paradoxically, it becomes the worst of our miseries becuase it hinders us from ruminating on and understanding our true condition. Thus, Pascal warns, it 'leads us imperceptibly to destruction.' Why? If not for diversion, we would 'be bored, and boredom would drive us to seek some more solid means of escape, but diversion passes our time and brings us imperceptibly to our death.' Through the course of protracted stupefaction, we learn to become oblivious to our eventual oblivion. In so doing, we choke off the possibility of seeking real freedom. ~ Douglas Groothuis

Can I take advantage of you in the limo?" His eyes laughed at me. "By all means, angel mine. ~ Sylvia Day

When you love yourself you will never need closure from any man. That doesn't mean you didn't love him, it simply means you love yourself enough to realize God has a better plan for you that doesn't involve one more conversation that will remind you of that person's lack of respect for you. ~ Shannon L. Alder

One of the most effective means of seduction that Evil has is the challenge to struggle. It is like the struggle with women, whichends in bed. A married man's true deviations from the path of virtue are, rightly understood, never gay. ~ Franz Kafka

Parents sacrifice their lives for their children. Then children become parents and sacrifice their own lives. And so all is sacrificed and nothing is gained. Life, then becomes the pursuit of an unobtainable purpose by absurd means. ~ Tom King

That education should be regulated by law and should be an affair of state is not to be denied, but what should be the character of this public education, and how young persons should be educated, are questions which remain to be considered. As things are, there is disagreement about the subjects. For mankind are by no means agreed about the things to be taught, whether we look to virtue or the best life. Neither is it clear whether education is more concerned with intellectual or with moral virtue. ~ Aristotle.

I don't have the answers. I don't know how this story will end. All I know is that there is a very real God whom my mother adores, and if she, in all her pain and suffering, can still radiate worship, how much more should I? He sees the little sparrow fall. He sees my mum dancing to the rhythms of his grace, and he sees me in all my anger trying to love him in spite of it all. So I will continue to trust, even if it means letting her go. ~ Emily T. Wierenga

[I]t is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or of any number of men, at the entering into society to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights, when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are life, liberty, and property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up an essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right of freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave. ~ Samuel Adams

The screen came up to light again, showing a devastated section of the city grid. No, not decimated. Had that part of the city been decimated, one out of every ten buildings would be destroyed. That's what decimated means. Personally, I think some early-years, respected television personality got decimated and devastated confused at some point, and no one wanted to point it out to him, so everyone started using them interchangeably. But dammit, words mean what they mean, even if everyone thinks they ought to mean something else. ~ Jim Butcher

So why study history? Unlike physics or economics, history is not a means for making accurate predictions. We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine. For example, studying how Europeans came to dominate Africans enables us to realise that there is nothing natural or inevitable about the racial hierarchy, and that the world might well be arranged differently. 2. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Too many church leaders have bought into the myth that to clarify the win means establishing attendance goals and raising a lot of money. ~ Andy Stanley

Doubt, or the absence of faith and naivete, is a vice peculiar to this age, for no one is obedient nowadays; and naivete, which means the dominance of temperament in the manner, is a gift from God, possessed by very few. ~ Charles Baudelaire

If you are a student you should always get a good nights sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book, and then you should stay up all night and let your schoolwork fall by the wayside, a phrase which means 'flunk'. ~ Lemony Snicket

I'm very aware that after you've played Cleopatra, there's not a lot that can top that in this sphere, so it means that I want to almost change the sphere I work in rather completely because I will always be comparing it to Cleopatra. ~ Harriet Walter

The intellectual architecture means focusing on doing great work instead of focusing on agency politics. ~ Jay Chiat

(Quoted in Dennis Okholm's Monk Habits for Everyday People) Settle down in your room at a moment when you have nothing else to do. Say "I am now with myself," and just sit with yourself. After an amazingly short time you will most likely feel bored. This teaches us one very useful thing. It gives us insight into the fact that if after ten minutes of being alone with ourselves we feel like that, it is no wonder that others should feel equally bored! Why is this so? It is so because we have so little to offer to our own selves as food for thought, for emotion and for life. If you watch your life carefully you will discover quite soon that we hardly ever live from within outwards; instead we respond to incitement, to excitement. In other words, we live by reflection, by reaction... We are completely empty, we do not act from within ourselves but accept as our life a life which is actually fed in from the outside; we are used to things happening which compel us to do other things. How seldom can we live simply by means of the depth and the richness we assume that there is within ourselves. ~ Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) Of Sourozh

Shyness means you are in the hallway of a greater presence. You just don't know how to take the conversation another step. It's a lovely indication. ~ David Whyte

My style is not trendy by any means; my inner artists loves to shine through in my wardrobe. ~ Kat Graham

Everywhere the means is erected into the end, and the end itself is forgotten. ~ Henry Hazlitt

If the DHS insists, as bureaucracies are apt to do, that open-source must be certified via a sanctioned, formal process, it will interfere with the informal process of open-source itself. It seems to me the DHS is trying to turn an open-source development project into a Microsoft (or IBM or Oracle) software development project. And we know what that means: more, not fewer, errors
security and otherwise. ~ Mark Hall

Big Government means small citizens: it corrodes the integrity of a people, catastrophically. ~ Mark Steyn

This is the problem with only children, John decides, exhausted. They think they're the center of the universe, and that doesn't mean they feel special, it just means they think everything is their fault. ~ Metisket

Many people today don't want honest answers insofar as honest means unpleasant or disturbing, They want a soft answer that turneth away anxiety. ~ Louis Kronenberger

If the book is second-hand, I leave all its markings intact, the spoor of previous readers, fellow-travellers who have recorded their passage by means of scribbled comments, a name on the fly-leaf, a bus ticket to mark a certain page. ~ Alberto Manguel

On a cohesive team, leaders are not there simply to represent the departments that they lead and manage but rather to solve problems that stand in the way of achieving success for the whole organization. That means they'll readily offer up their departments' resources when it serves the greater good of the team, and they'll take an active interest in the thematic goal regardless of how closely related it is to their functional area. ~ Patrick Lencioni

Organic' ... means that the work is an extension of your blood and body: it has the rhythm of nature. There exists a state of feeling that when you reach it, when you hit it, you can't go wrong. The work carries a body rhythm. You can't do the slick ... the gimmicky or dishonest. ~ Nell Blaine

People minus space equals Poverty ... What is living for? If the answer is a life of dignity, decency and opportunity, then every increase in population means a decrease in all three. The crowd is a threat to every single being. ~ Marya Mannes

If cooking becomes an art form rather than a means of providing a reasonable diet, then something is clearly wrong. ~ Tom Jaine

Acknowledging that we lose is the overarching theme in everything in Stars. To me, that's what punk means. Stars is a punk band because we acknowledge loss. We're not trying to win. We're not trying to project victory. You win alone. I'm not interested in singing for the one winner in the room; I'm interested in singing for all of the losers in the room. ~ Torquil Campbell

I'm so tired of being strong. So tired of trying to do everything myself. Is it wrong to let him comfort me? To be relieved in the false sense of security I find here. These arms will shelter me and keep me safe. Something I thought I would never want now means the world to me. Even if it is all one giant lie. ~ A. Zavarelli

Being transgender guarantees you will upset someone. People get upset with transgender people who choose to inhabit a third gender space rather than "pick a side." Some get upset at transgender people who do not eschew their birth histories. Others get up in arms with those who opted out of surgical options, instead living with their original equipment. Ire is raised at those who transition, then transition again when they decide that their initial change was not the right answer for them. Heck, some get their dander up simply because this or that transgender person simply is not "trying hard enough" to be a particular gender, whatever that means. Some are irked that the Logo program RuPaul's Drag Race shows a version of transgender life different from their own. Meanwhile, all around are those who have decided they aren't comfortable with the lot of us, because we dared to change from one gender expression or identity to some other. ~ Kate Bornstein

Batman doesn't want a baby in order to feel he's 'done everything'. He's just saved Gotham again! If this means that Batman must be a feminist role model above, say, Nicola Horlick, then so be it. ~ Caitlin Moran

For people condemned to death, tradition prescribes an austere ceremony, calculated to emphasize that all passions and anger have died down, and that the act of justice represents only a sad duty towards society which moves even the executioner to pity for the victim. Thus the condemned man is shielded from all external cares, he is granted solitude and, should he want it, spiritual comfort; in short, care is taken that he should feel around him neither hatred nor arbitrariness, only necessity and justice, and by means of punishment, pardon. But to us this was not granted, for we were many and time was short. And in any case, what had we to repent, for what crime did we need pardon? ~ Primo Levi

In the lexicon of the political class, the word "sacrifice" means that the citizens are supposed to mail even more of their income to Washington so that the political class will not have to sacrifice the pleasure of spending it. ~ George F. Will