Fail To Recognize Quotes

Don't grieve when people fail to recognize your ability. Grieve for your lack of ability instead. ~ Confucius

We already have so much abundance. We truly do. We need not search too far. It is within. The reason we fail to recognize this is because we haven't quite mastered the art of being. For abundance to prevail, we must have LOVE, gratitude, acceptance and compassion. ~ John Welwood

That is one of the tricks of opportunity. It has a sly habit of slipping in by the back door, and often it comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat. Perhaps this is why so many fail to recognize opportunity. ~ Napoleon Hill

We are an adaptable species and this adaptability has enabled us to survive. However, adaptability can also constitute a threat; we may become habituated to certain dangers and fail to recognize them until it's too late. Nuclear armaments are the most conspicuous example; as you read this you are in effect wearing a military uniform and sitting in a very exposed trench. You exist at the whim of people whose power does not derive from your own consent and who regard you as expendable, disposable. You merely failed to notice the moment at which you were conscripted. A "normal" life consists in living as if this most salient of facts was not a fact at all. ~ Christopher Hitchens

It's easy to assume people are conforming when we witness them all choosing the same option, but when we choose that very option ourselves, we have no shortage of perfectly good reasons for why we just happen to be doing the same thing as those other people; they mindlessly conform, but we mindfully choose. This doesn't mean that we're all conformists in denial. It means that we regularly fail to recognize that others' thoughts and behaviors are just as complex and varied as our own. Rather than being alone in a crowd of sheep, we're all individuals in sheep's clothing. ~ Sheena Iyengar

The ocean makes up roughly 70% of the planet; living on land, we fail to recognize the importance of our ocean and the marine life that inhabit it. Ocean acidification is making phytoplankton toxic, which is bad news for the organisms that depend on them as a source of food and oxygen. Phytoplankton generates a large portion of the world's O2. If they're out of balance, the rest of life on Earth is going to be out of balance. ~ Joseph P. Kauffman

The problem here is that most people who get caught cheating apologize and give the 'It will never happen again' spiel and that's that, as if penises fell into various orifices completely by accident. Many cheatees accept this response at face value, and don't question the values and fucks given by their partner (pun totally intended); they don't ask themselves whether those values and fucks make their partner a good person to stay with. They're so concerned with holding on to their relationship that they fail to recognize that it's become a black hole consuming their self respect.

If people cheat, it's because something other than the relationship is more important to them. It may be power over others. It may be validation through sex. It may be giving in to their own impulses. Whatever it is, it's clear that the cheater's values are not aligned in a way to support a healthy relationship. And if the cheater doesn't admit this or come to terms with it, if he just gives the old 'I don't know what I was thinking; I was stressed out and drunk and she was there' response, then he lacks the serious self-awareness necessary to solve any relationship problems. ~ Mark Manson

You are blinded," said Dumbledore, his voice rising now, the aura of power around him palpable, his eyes blazing once more, "by the love of the office you hold, Cornelius! You place too much importance, and you always have done, on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow up to be! ~ J.K. Rowling

In revolutionary times, those who accord themselves, with an extraordinary arrogance, the facile credit for having inflamed anarchy in their contemporaries fail to recognize that what appears to be a sad triumph is in fact due to a spontaneous disposition, determined by the social situation as a whole. - AUGUSTE COMTE, ~ Michel Houellebecq

That night there was no conversation, no prayers or stories around the fire, as if the proximity of Jerusalem demanded respectful silence, each man searching his heart and asking, Who is this person who resembles me yet whom I fail to recognize. This is not what they actually said, for people do not start talking to themselves like that, nor was this even in their conscious thoughts, but there can be no doubt that as we sit staring into the flames of a camp fire, our silence can be expressed only with words like these, which say everything. ~ Jose Saramago

Sometimes we are so caught up in the disappointment of plans gone astray that we fail to recognize the potentially new options that might now exist. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

He could focus my attention on how perfectly sublime life can be at times. Such moments are ephemeral, and without his guidance I might have missed many of them, working so hard to get somewhere that I would fail to recognize when I had arrived. ~ Kevin Hearne

It is hard to provide proof of love. And yet love undeniably does exist. It is only that humans fail to recognize it when and where it does.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, the world was overflowing in love...and now I live at last in the midst of that flow... ~ Kiyo Ueda

Many experts lose the creativity and imagination of the less informed. They are so intimately familiar with known patterns that they may fail to recognize or respect the importance of the new wrinkle. The process of applying expertise is, after all, the editing out of unimportant details in favor of those known to be relevant. Zen master, Shunryu Suzuki said, The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. ~ Gavin De Becker

Those citizens are distracted by the toys technology has supplied, and fail to recognize the ways in which what they most deeply want is made vulnerable by the coming disruptions of human relations on an over-heated planet. ~ Philip Kitcher

Please be careful of becoming so immersed and engrossed in pixels, texting, ear buds, Twittering, online social networking, and potentially addictive uses of media and the Internet that you fail to recognize the importance of your physical body and miss the richness of person-to-person communication. Beware of the digital displays and data in many forms of computer-mediated interaction that can displace the full range of physical capacity and experience. ~ David A. Bednar

Our Heavenly Healer often has to hurt us in order to heal us. We sometimes fail to recognize His mighty love in this, yet we are firmly held always in the Everlasting Arms. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

Well, some people create their own opportunities; others go where opportunities are the greatest; others fail to recognize opportunity when they are face to face with it. ~ Walter Chrysler

Many people fail to recognize opportunity because it comes disguised as work. ~ Suzanne Woods Fisher

Far too many husbands fail to recognize that what your wife wants and needs most from you is your concern for her soul. ~ Dennis Rainey

There can be no doubt that the chief fault we have developed, through the long course of human evolution, is a certain basic passivity. When provoked by challenges, human beings are magnificent. When life is quiet and even, we take the path of least resistance, and then wonder why we feel bored. A man who is determined and active doesn't pay much attention to 'luck'. If things go badly, he takes a deep breath and redoubles his effort. And he quickly discovers that his moments of deepest happiness often come after such efforts. The man who has become accustomed to a passive existence becomes preoccupied with 'luck'; it may become an obsession. When things go well, he is delighted and good humored; when they go badly, he becomes gloomy and petulant. He is unhappy - or dissatisfied - most of the time, for even when he has no cause for complaint, he feels that gratitude would be premature; things might go wrong at any moment; you can't really trust the world... Gambling is one basic response to this passivity, revealing the obsession with luck, the desire to make things happen.

The absurdity about this attitude is that we fail to recognize the active part we play in making life a pleasure. When my will is active, my whole mental and physical being works better, just as my digestion works better if I take exercise between meals. I gain an increasing feeling of control over my life, instead of the feeling of helplessness (what Sartre calls 'contingency') that comes from ~ Colin Wilson

Hoever dewlls on beauty tends to become beautiful; there will be a grace and charm to expressing itself through that person which no one can fail to recognize and appreciate. ~ Ernest Holmes

We wish to be loved as we ourselves would love. Any other way makes as uncomfortable. We respond with doubt and suspicion. We misinterpret the signs. We do not understand the language. We accuse. We assert that the other person does not love us. But perhaps he merely loves us in some idiosyncratic way that we fail to recognize. ~ Jan-Philipp Sendker

You place too much importance, and you always have done, on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be! Your ~ J.K. Rowling

When it comes to ourselves, we often have a blind spot. That is, we fail to see ourselves as others see us. We fail to recognize our most obvious traits: our strengths, weaknesses, mannerisms. ~ Mark Link

In every lifetime, sometimes more than once, a circumstance occurs that opens the heart to its fullest measure, where significant, meaningful change is possible, where failures and shortcomings can be absolved, and a person can be reborn. Some are healed or renewed by the experience, while others fail to recognize the opportunity and it passes by. ~ Michael Bowe

We always fail to recognize when we are at fault, but we are always eager to blame others. ~ Debasish Mridha

Many times we recognize our weakness, but we fail to recognize what God can accomplish through it. It's a giving up point for far too many people who claim to know the all-powerful God. "I just can't" is a foolish statement for those who know God; it should not be in our vocabulary. "I can't" should be replaced by "I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:13). Weakness should cause us to surrender to Christ in a way we never have before, to cry out to the One who has also known weakness, who has been tempted in every way, who knows the pull to give up, to move on, to pursue His own way. ~ Francis Chan

At the very moment when the world seems to break up we still take it seriously and perform reasonable acts and undertakings, the condemned man still drinks his glass of rum. To call it everyday and condemn it as inauthentic is to fail to recognize the sincerity of hunger and thirst ~ Emmanuel Levinas

Any teachings that fail to recognize Jesus Christ as the author of life, is absolutely antichrist.John 1:1-13. ~ Felix Wantang

If the members of a class do not understand
if those directly addressed fail to listen, or listening, fail to recognize a power in the voice
surely the fault lies with the speaker, who, having attempted to secure their attention and enlighten their understandings, has failed in the attempt. ~ George Henry Lewes

The indictment knocked me on the head. First of all, I hand no idea at all about 90 per cent of the accusations in it. The crimes are horrible beyond belief, if they are true. Secondly, I don't see how they can fail to recognize a soldier's obligation to obey orders. That's the code I've live by all my life. ~ Alfred Jodl

And we neglect the glorious gospel when we fail to recognize his preeminence. How frequently we forget that everything is for him and about him. We forget that he is to be first, in our honor and in our worship. Whenever the gospel slips from our conscious thought, our religion becomes all about our performance, and then we think everything that happens or will ever happen isa bout us. When I forget the incarnation, sinless life, death, resurrection, and ascension, I quickly believe that I'm supposed to be the unrivaled supreme, and matchless one. It's at this point that I'm particularly in need of an intravenous dose of gospel truth. He is preeminent. ~ Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

Too often, and in too many ways, we remain timid when we should be bold, fearful when we are called to be unafraid, and beholden to the principalities and powers when both the prophets of scripture and the prophets of today exhort us to rethink our allegiances. We have become the church of the Empire, the very thing Jesus urged both Jews and Gentiles of his own time to rise up against. We go through great theological contortions to prod the gospel into a justification for our comfort and complacency, and fail to recognize the vast spiritual pit that we dig for ourselves in the process. ~ Rick Ufford-Chase

We were friends and have become estranged. But this was right, and we do not want to conceal and obscure it from ourselves as if we had reason to feel ashamed. We are two ships each of which has its goal and course; our paths may cross and we may celebrate a feast together, as we did - and then the good ships rested so quietly in one harbor and one sunshine that it may have looked as if they had reached their goal and as if they had one goal. But then the mighty force of our tasks drove us apart again into different seas and sunny zones, and perhaps we shall never see each other again; perhaps we shall meet again but fail to recognize each other: our exposure to different seas and suns has changed us. ~ Roland Barthes

The Muslims have got Islam as a legacy, hence they fail to recognize its value ~ Marmaduke Pickthall

Similarly problematic is baseline resetting. With chronic sleep restriction over months or years, an individual will actually acclimate to their impaired performance, lower alertness, and reduced energy levels. That low-level exhaustion becomes their accepted norm, or baseline. Individuals fail to recognize how their perennial state of sleep deficiency has come to compromise their mental aptitude and physical vitality, including the slow accumulation of ill health. ~ Matthew Walker

Treat kindly every miserable truth that knocks begging at your door, otherwise you will some day fail to recognize Truth Himself when He comes in rags. ~ Austin O'Malley

Let us not confuse objectives with methods. Too many so-called leaders of the nation fail to see the forest because of the trees. Too many of them fail to recognize the vital necessity of planning for definite objectives. True leadership calls for the setting forth of the objectives and the rallying of public opinion in support of these objectives. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Opportunity can't reward you with its many gifts if you fail to recognize it and act on it. What most people don't seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made from the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding of one. Let the good times roll! ~ Ernie J Zelinski

If we fail to recognize there is a unified whole to Scripture, we will have only a pile of pieces. Simplistic slogans, formulas and catchphrases will not suffice in conveying the richness of the Scriptures. ~ Michael S. Horton

Countless people pray far more than they know. Often they have such a "stained-glass" image of prayer that they fail to recognize what they are experiencing as prayer and so condemn themselves for not praying. ~ Richard J. Foster

If we look to our responsibility to the generations yet unborn who will come after us, how can we fail to recognize that peace and freedom are inextricably bound up one with another and that the threat to one is a threat to both ~ Winston Churchill

You do not need to do many different exercises to get strong - you need to get strong on a very few important exercises, movements that train the whole body as a system, not as a collection of separate body parts. The problem with the programs advocated by all the national exercise organizations is that they fail to recognize this basic principle: the body best adapts as a whole organism to stress applied to the whole organism. The more stress that can be applied to as much of the body at one time as possible, the more effective and productive the adaptation will be. ~ Mark Rippetoe

One of the open secrets of life on earth is that the answer to life's burning question has been inscribed in one's soul all along. The soul is a kind of ancient vessel that holds the exact knowledge we seek and need to find our way in life. Each life is a pilgrimage intended to arrive at the center of the pilgrim's soul. From that vantage point, the issue is not whether we managed to choose the right god or the only way to live righteously; such notions fail to recognize the inborn intimacy each soul already has with the divine. ~ Michael Meade

But many of us fail to recognize that the best moments are the ones happening right now. ~ Jeff Goins

The greatest real thrill that life offers is to create, to construct, to develop something useful. Too often we fail to recognize and pay tribute to the creative spirit. It is that spirit that creates our jobs. ~ Alfred P. Sloan

The vain arrogance of the literati and the Bohemian artists dismisses the activities of the businessmen as unintellectual money-making. The truth is that the entrepreneurs and promoters display more intellectual faculties and intuition than the average writer and painter. The inferiority of many self-styled intellectuals manifests itself precisely in the fact that they fail to recognize what capacity and reasoning power are required to develop and to operate successfully a business enterprise. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

By idolizing those whom we honor, we do a disservice both to them and to ourselves ... We fail to recognize that we could go and do likewise. - CHARLES V. WILLIE ~ James W. Loewen

There are times in life that we ascribe qualities or traits to other people that are inaccurate or fail to recognize other aspects of their being because we are emotionally invested in that person fulfilling a specific role in our life. When we claim that the other person changed it is not so much that they altered their core composition, but we now must admit to ourselves that our original perception of them was imprecise. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Commissions add up, taxes are a big drag, margin ain't cheap. A good accountant costs money as well. The math on this one is obvious, yet investors often fail to recognize it: Keep your costs low and your turnover lower, and you will win in the end. ~ Barry Ritholtz

they think of themselves as being totally devoted to the work of God. But they are so consumed with themselves that when God himself comes, they never notice. They are not paying attention. They fail to recognize the presence of the very God they claim to serve so faithfully. What other word than blind can you use to describe them? ~ John Ortberg

Star friendship. - We were friends and have become estranged. But this was right, and we do not want to conceal and obscure it from ourselves as if we had reason to feel ashamed. We are two ships each of which has its goal and course; our paths may cross and we may celebrate a feast together, as we did - and then the good ships rested so quietly in one harbor and one sunshine that it may have looked as if they had reached their goal and as if they had one goal. But then the almighty force of our tasks drove us apart again into different seas and sunny zones, and perhaps we shall never see one another again, - perhaps we shall meet again but fail to recognize each other: our exposure to different seas and suns has changed us! That we have to become estranged is the law above us: by the same token we should also become more venerable for each other! And thus the memory of our former friendship should become more sacred! There is probably a tremendous but invisible stellar orbit in which our very different ways and goals may be included as small parts of this path, - let us rise up to this thought! But our life is too short and our power of vision too small for us to be more than friends in the sense of this sublime possibility. - Let us then believe in our star friendship even if we should be compelled to be earth enemies. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

This is the squalid, or moving, part of the story, and the scene changes. The people change, too. I'm still around, but from here on in, for reasons I'm not at liberty to disclose, I've disguised myself so cunningly that even the cleverest reader will fail to recognize me. ~ J.D. Salinger

The curious measure, of course, is that we fail to recognize the most obvious notion in all of this: that we ourselves are the best magicians we know. What our bodies do, what our minds accomplish, and the context we can give to things, how we make it all fit together, this is something. ~ Alberto Alvaro Rios

Everything that happens to us, everything that we say or hear, everything that we see with our own eyes or we articulate with our tongue, everything that enters through our ears, everything we are witness to (and for which we are therefore partially responsible) must find a recipient outside ourselves and we choose that recipient according to what happens, or what we are told or even according to what we ourselves say. Each thing must be told to someone - though not necessarily to the same person - and each thing will undergo a selection process, the way someone out shopping might scrutinize, set aside, and assess presents for the season to come. Everything must be told at least once, although ... it must be told when the time is right, or, which comes to the same thing, at the right moment, and sometimes, if you fail to recognize that right moment or deliberately let it pass, there will never again be another. ~ Javier Marias

Poet, forger of ideals, dreamer among the possibilities of life, prophet of the millenium, do you get impatient with the prosaic life around you
the dulness, and the earthliness, and the brutishness of men? Fret not. Go forward into the realm which stretches before you; climb the highest mountain you can reach, and plant a cross there. The nations will come up to it some day. Work for immortality if you will; then wait for it. If your own age fail to recognize you, a coming age will not. ~ J.G. Holland

Philosophers, for example, often fail to recognize that their remarks about the universe apply also to themselves and their remarks. If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so. ~ Alan W. Watts

I'd been awake for thirty-six hours and driving for ten. Restless weeks, sleepless nights, and the decision stole into me like a thief. I never planned to go back to North Carolina- I'd buried it- but I blinked and found my hands on the wheel, Manhattan a sinking island to the north. I wore a week-old beard and three day denim, felt stretched by an edginess that bordered on pain, but no one here would fail to recognize me. That's what home was all about, for good or bad. ~ John Hart

When people fail to recognize your work just don't give up yet. Because it's not always about the recognition, sometimes it's about the "passion" that we hold onto..!!! ~ Gowtham Gurunath

The black magic that evil-minded people of all religions practice for their ugly and inhuman motives. The modern world ignores that and even do not believe in it; however, it exists, and it sufficiently works too.

When I was an assistant editor, in an evening newspaper, I edited and published such stories. As a believer, I believe that. However, not that can affect everyone; otherwise, every human would have been under the attack of it.

No one can explain and define black magic and such practices. The scientists today fail to recognize such a phenomenon; therefore, routes are open for black magic to proceeds its practices without hindrances.

One can search online websites, and YouTube; it will realize a large number of the victims of that the evil practice by evil-minded peoples of various societies. The magic, black magic, or evil power exists, and it works too.

Evil power causes, effects, and appears, as diseases and psychological issues since no one can realize, trace, and prove that horror practice; it is the secret and privilege of the evil-minded people that law fails to catch and punish them, for such crime.

I exemplify here, the two events briefly, one a very authentic that I suffered from it and another, a person, who also became a victim of it.

The first, when I landed on the soil of the Netherlands, I thought, I was in the safest place; however, within one year, I faced the incident, which was a ~ Ehsan Sehgal

A man is not in any difficulty in making a reply according to his faith ... to those who try to defame our Holy Scripture ... when they produce from any of their books a theory contrary to Scripture ... either we shall have some ability to demonstrate that it is absolutely false, or at least we ourselves will hold it so without any shadow of a doubt ... let us choose [the doctrine] which appears as certainly the meaning intended by the author ... For it is one thing to fail to recognize the primary meaning of the writer, and another to depart from the norms of religious belief. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

We perceive the world in a particular way and confidently expect it to conform to its appearance. But we fail to recognize that certain aspects of the 'reality' that appear to us are nothing but figments of our own imagination. In this confusion a conflict ensues between the world as it is and the world as we believe it to be. And the more we insist on our infallibility, the more frustrated we become as the actual world again and again stubbornly refuses to live up to our expectations. ~ Stephen Batchelor

They fail to recognize the broad biological principle that organic material is constantly being recycled. Everything has a time of being - a birth, a life span, and a death. ~ Dixie Lee Ray

He was sure that it made no difference to her on which day he appeared: for her, every day was the same, and when each day is the same as the next, it's because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day the sun rises. ~ Paulo Coelho

The good man does not grieve
that other people do not recognize his merits.
His only anxiety is lest he should fail to recognize theirs. ~ Confucius

We often fail to recognize our greatest godsend simply because it comes bundled in suffering. ~ Jessica Dotta

Anyone who is kind to man knows the fragmentariness of most men, and wants to arrange a society of power in which men fall naturally into a collective wholeness, since they cannot have an individual wholeness. In this collective wholeness they will be fulfilled. But if they make efforts at individual fulfilment, they must fail for they are by nature fragmentary. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Leave an imprint.
You're young now. But when you get older and look back at your life, you'll ask yourself a whole bunch of questions. Did I make a difference? Did I contribute something? Did my being here matter? Dud I do something that left an imprint?
I'm not asking you to end hunger or repair the ozone. But I am asking you to think about your purpose
to recognize that your life isn't infinite, and that you should use your limited time here to do something that matters. ~ Daniel H. Pink

One of kindness and integrity. I know I fail constantly, but I'm working towards being a reliable and worthy contributor to the world. ~ Caitlin Stasey

This is for all those devils that disturbed my soul.
This is for the darkness that dimmed my mornings.
This is for all those twisted hearts that killed the flowers used to bloom in my chest.
Thank you!
Because of you I could see the light once again, recognize the good things when I got my eyes on it, and appreciate the right ones when they finally arrived... ~ Samiha Totanji

Wherever You Are, Be There
One of the major reasons why we fail to find happiness or to create unique lifestyle is because we have not yet mastered the art of being. ~ Jim Rohn

THE ONLY REAL FAILURE IS TO FAIL OTHERS. ~ Philip K. Dick

Let us return to Jesus' prayer that, through the unity of the disciples, the world may recognize him as the one sent by the Father. This recognizing and believing is not something merely intellectual; it is about being touched by God's love and therefore changed; it is about the gift of true life. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

I decided to grow my hair out during college, and it's kind of stuck ever since. Even when I thought about cutting it or trimming it, common sense kicks in, and I don't think the fans would recognize me; people wouldn't know who I am. It would almost be like Santa Claus losing his powers. ~ Clay Matthews III

Those who fail to learn from the brutal stompings visited on them in the past are doomed to be brutally stomped in the future. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

We are here to take chances, and fail, and keep trying. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath. ~ John Roberts

Was it really my own, that image glimpsed in a flash? Am I really like that, from the outside, when - all the while living - I do not think of myself? For others, then, I am that stranger whom I surprised in a mirror; I am he and not the I whom I know; I am that one there whom I myself at first, upon becoming aware of him, did not recognize. I am that stranger whom I am unable to see living except like that, in a thoughtless second. A stranger whom others alone can see and know, not I. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Our duty is very simple and plain. We want to serve the community, and in our own humble way to serve the Empire. We believe in the righteousness of the cause, which it is our privilege to espouse. We have an abiding faith in the mercy of the Almighty God, and we have firm faith in the British Constitution. That being so, we should fail in our duty if we wrote anything with a view to hurt. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

No human reality would therefore have been engendered if, thanks to a propensity that can be considered
fortunate for Hegel's system, there had not existed, from the beginning of time, two kinds of
consciousness, one of which has not the courage to renounce life and is therefore willing to recognize the
other kind of consciousness without being recognized itself in return. It consents, in short, to being
considered as an object. This type of consciousness, which, to preserve its animal existence, renounces
independent life, is the consciousness of a slave. The type of consciousness which by being recognized
achieves independence is that of the master. They are distinguished one from the other at the moment
when they clash and when one submits to the other. The dilemma at this stage is not to be free or to die,
but to kill or to enslave. This dilemma will resound throughout the course of history, though at this
moment its absurdity has not yet been resolved. ~ Albert Camus

May my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young
and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile ~ E. E. Cummings

Famous pivot stories are often failures but you don't need to fail before you pivot. All a pivot is is a change is strategy without a change in vision. Whenever entrepreneurs see a new way to achieve their vision - a way to be more successful - they have to remain nimble enough to take it. ~ Eric Ries

The mind was designed not to defend what we want, but to discover what is ultimately true, which should shape our wants and satisfy them more deeply with God. The purpose of the mind is not to rationalize subjective preferences, but to recognize objective reality and to help the heart revel in God. ~ John Piper

Olympianism is the characteristic belief system of today's secularist, and it has itself many of the features of a religion. For one thing, the fusion of political conviction and moral superiority into a single package resembles the way in which religions (outside liberal states) constitute comprehensive ways of life supplying all that is necessary (in the eyes of believers) for salvation. Again, the religions with which we are familiar are monotheistic and refer everything to a single center. In traditional religions, this is usually God; with Olympianism, it is society, understood ultimately as including the whole of humanity. And Olympianism, like many religions, is keen to proselytize. Its characteristic mode of missionary activity is journalism and the media.

If Olympianism has the character of a religion, as I am suggesting, there would be no mystery about its hostility to Christianity. Real religions (by contrast with test-tube religions such as ecumenism) don't much like each other; they are, after all, competitors. Olympianism, however, is in the interesting position of being a kind of religion which does not recognize itself as such, and indeed claims a cognitive superiority to religion in general. But there is a deeper reason why the spread of Olympianism may be measured by the degree of Christophobia. It is that Olympianism is an imperial project which can only be hindered by the association between Christianity and the West. ~ Kenneth Minogue

The whole idea of mindfulness is all about having a second-level monitoring of your thoughts and being able to recognize them as being negative or harmful before they become a part of your being, before they become some kind of action like writing an angry letter to someone or speaking too strongly to someone. ~ Pankaj Mishra

Financial sense is knowing that certain men will promise to do certain things, and fail. ~ E.W. Howe

if we were lucky enough to be living a good life, we should recognize this gift and thank God for it by looking out for others who need our help in breaking out of the cycle of poverty. ~ John Wood

Your patience would fail you if I should continue to relate all the disrespectful speeches and treatment which your servants have been obliged to listen to and patiently to bear. ~ Peter Stuyvesant

Let us recognize that extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere. Let us recall that poverty is a denial of human rights. For the first time in history, in this age of unprecedented wealth and technical prowess, we have the power to save humanity from this shameful scourge. Let us summon the will to do it. ~ Kofi Annan

The important issue for us is bringing (people) who recognize the Palestinian people's rights and work on ending the occupation (to the Palestinian territories) and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ~ Mohammed Dahlan

Companies that fail to communicate a sense of WHY force us to make decisions with only empirical evidence. This is why those decisions take more time, feel difficult or leave us uncertain. ~ Simon Sinek

No matter how perfect our circumstances, most of us, as Adam Phillips observed, "learn to live somewhere between the lives we have and the lives we would like." The hard part is to make peace with that misty zone and to recognize that no life - no life worth living anyway - is free of constraints. ~ Jennifer Senior

I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him. [- Nick Carroway] ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Who is She? She is your power, your Feminine source. Big Mama. The Goddess. The Great Mystery. The web-weaver. The life force. The first time, the twentieth time you may not recognize her. Or pretend not to hear. As she fills your body with ripples of terror and delight.

But when she calls you will know you've been called. Then it is up to you to decide if you will answer. ~ Lucy H. Pearce

They [anarchists and radical environmentalists] point out that the state and its philosophers, having retrospectively sold us a social contract we never saw nor signed, seem anyway to have reneged on their side of the bargain which was to protect our lives and liberties. The new institutionally guaranteed 'freedoms', to democracy, free speech, individual liberty, so dearly brought, constantly fail to live up to expectation. What does it mean to have political freedom when the parties on offer are ideologically identical clones? What kind of intellectual freedom is it that brands all those who dare to think differently dangerous extremists? What kind of individuality expects us all to conform within such narrow limits? What freedoms are even possible when the very air we breathe is poisoned and the food we eat contaminated with the so-called 'by-products' of progress? In such circumstances, it is surely not surprising that some might choose the dream of pre-contractual state of natural innocence to the increasingly nightmarish 'reality' of Locke's post-contractual culture. ~ Mick Smith

The ultimate function of art is to make men do what they want to do, as it is to make them recognize what they know. ~ Maurice Blondel

I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine. ~ Leo Tolstoy

How many other old enemies were in this crowd? Percy began to realize that every battle he'd ever won had only been a temporary victory. No matter how strong or lucky he was, no matter how many monsters he destroyed, Percy would eventually fail. He was only one mortal. He would get too old, too weak, or too slow. He would die. And these monsters ... they lasted forever. They just kept coming back. Maybe it would take them months or years to re-form, maybe even centuries. But they would be reborn.
Seeing them assembled in Tartarus, Percy felt as hopeless as the spirits in the River Cocytus. So what if he was a hero? So what if he did something brave? Evil was always here, regenerating, bubbling under the surface. Percy was no more than a minor annoyance to these immortal beings. They just had to outwait him. Someday, Percy's sons or daughters might have to face them all over again. ~ Rick Riordan

Stormy Llewellyn, a woman of unconventional views, believes instead that our passage through this world is intended to toughen us for the next life. She says that our honesty, integrity, courage, and determined resistance to evil are evaluated at the end of our days here, and that if we come up to muster, we will be conscripted into an army of souls engaged in some great mission in the next world. Those who fail the test simply cease to exist. ~ Dean Koontz