Foibles Quotes

I particularly admire are Mark Twain and Jerome K. Jerome who wrote in a certain tone of voice which was humane and understanding of humanity, but always ready to annotate its little foibles. I think I'd lay my cards down on that, and say that it's that that I'm trying to do. ~ Terry Pratchett

One does not lash hat lies at a distance. The foibles that we ridicule must at least be a little bit our own. Only then will the work be a part of our own flesh. The garden must be weeded. ~ Paul Klee

We are always harshest upon those foibles we see in others that we know bedevil our own natures - the ones that most gravely misbecome our self image - for blame is always easier than shame. ~ Maria Popova

Increasingly, life seems fractured, as if his past had been lived by someone else. It isn't just that the place he now resides in and the people around him are poles apart, it's like he himself is an entirely different person. The overriding obsessions and foibles of the man he'd once been now feel utterly ludicrous to the current resident of his mind and body. The only bridge is rage; when angered he can taste his old self. But in California, the way he is currently living his life, few things can vex him to that extent. But that's over there. ~ Irvine Welsh

I learned that famous writers are people with foibles like anyone else and this helped me realize reaching their level of notoriety wasn't impossible. ~ Kirby Wright

Or perhaps it is a matter of those despised parts of our natures that are normally frittered away as harmless foibles giving rise in times of war to monsters. ~ Kanan Makiya

The lesson, I suppose, is that none of us have much control over how we will be remembered. Every life is an amalgam, and it is impossible to know what moments, what foibles, what charms will come to define us once we're gone. All we can do is live our lives fully, be authentically ourselves, and trust that the right things about us, the best and most fitting things, will echo in the memories of us that endure. ~ Alice McDermott

Texts on a lifeless strings of facts, but the keys to unlocking the character of human beings, people with likes and dislikes, diocese and foibles, errors and convictions. Words have texture and shape, and it is their almost tactile quality that leads readers to sculpt images of the writers who use them. These images are then interrogated, mocked, congratulated, or dismissed, depending on the context of the reading and the disposition of the reader. ~ Sam Wineburg

Whether it's personal foibles or a bureaucrat's ego, the stubborn defence of stupidity is unforgivable. ~ Stewart Stafford

I'm not a xenophobe - I think immigration is a good thing for most countries - but they transmute the foibles of their native tongues into English in a way that's difficult to figure out. ~ Conrad Black

Anybody who is really walking with the Lord is embracing the foibles and the beauties and the differences of humanity, regardless of race, color, creed, economic stature and sexual proclivity, whatever. You embrace the beauty of humanity and not be exacting and belittling about the differences. ~ Marcia Gay Harden

I think the negative traits are what makes us love other human beings, the foibles and the flaws. ~ Denise Mina

In some ways, no one is tougher on one another than sisters. Like parents, they're hyperaware of another's past foibles and faults; but, without the infinite parental capacity for love and forgiveness, they judge one another far more harshly for them.
I swear there are times when they really might kill one another. Until, of course, one of them is in trouble or threatened by an outside agent, in which case they band together into an unbreakable front.
Internally fractured yet externally united. The world over, it's the very definition of sisterhood. ~ Brad Parks

Being human doesn't mean you're weak, it just means you're subject to the same little quirks and foibles as the rest of us - for which you should be grateful. ~ Patricia Ryan

I think we have to face right in the center of the hurricane, if you will, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s foibles and faults. I think that we do no good to ourselves and do no honor to him by pretending that he did not fail, that he did not wrestle greatly and, at times, surrender to his own sins and his own faults and failures. ~ Michael Eric Dyson

We're your friends. Our job is to tease you mercilessly about your foibles, rag you about your upright, honorable nature, and point out to you when you're being a complete dolt. ~ Laura Lee Guhrke

And if we never agree, can't we agree to disagree? If God can tolerate my mistakes, can't I tolerate the mistakes of others? If God can overlook my errors, can't I overlook the errors of others? If God allows me with my foibles and failures to call him Father, shouldn't I extend the same grace to others? One thing's for sure. When we get to heaven, we'll be surprised at some of the folks we see. And some of them will be surprised when they see us. ~ Max Lucado

If they cannot forgive me my foibles, then they are not such good people, no?"...

"But they do forgive your foibles. They would welcome your company, too. But if you joined them, you would not understand what they were talking about. You would not have had the experiences that bind them together. You would be an outsider, not because of any act of theirs, but because you have not passed along the road that teaches you to be one of them. You will feel like an exile from the beautiful garden, but it will be you who exiled yourself. And yet you will blame them, and call them judgmental and unforgiving, even as it is your own pain and bitter memory that condemns you, your own ignorance of virtue that makes you a stranger in the land that should have been your home. ~ Orson Scott Card

A man's foibles are what makes him lovable. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I like to go after the foibles, basically of beliefs that are held without question. If people still want to believe in their stuff after that, that's great - as long as they just have a chance to step back and look at it for a second. Sometimes, you don't even realize what you've been thinking for 20 years. ~ Elayne Boosler

We can imagine the books we'd like to read, even if they have not yet been written, and we can imagine libraries full of books we would like to possess, even if they are well beyond our reach, because we enjoy dreaming up a library that reflects every one of our interests and every one of our foibles
a library that, in its variety and complexity, fully reflects the reader we are. ~ Alberto Manguel

I asked, "Why were you crying?"
But she didn't answer, because I hadn't said it out loud.
The truth was that I was too grateful for her presence here at all to push my luck by asking questions that might frighten her away. So I babbled to her about my classes and the foibles of Paul and Doritos as alarm clocks, and I was completely flippant and funny and even as she began to laugh, I was dying with wanting. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

The art of flatterers is to take advantage of the foibles of the great, to foster their errors, and never to give advice which may annoy. ~ Moliere

It is helpful to remember that the most strong-willed children tend to be the ones who identify the most strongly with their parents. So instead of viewing their seemingly constant challenges as defiance or attempts to thwart authority, work to parent from a place of understanding that your strong-willed child is actually on a discovery mission and is doing endless 'research' on you by testing and retesting and digging and chiseling to discover all of your quirks and foibles and ups and downs and strengths and weaknesses. ~ L.R. Knost

Flaws weren't pariah; foibles were badges of character. Not something to be brushed away in Photoshop. ~ Peter Tieryas

Onomatomania (n.) Vexation at having difficulty in finding the right word. Finding a word that so perfectly describes a rather large portion of my everyday existence is one of the things that makes reading the dictionary feel like an intensely personal endeavor. The book is no longer merely a list of words; suddenly it is a catalog of the foibles of the human condition, and it is speaking directly to me. Of course, as soon as I learned this word I promptly forgot what it was, but this just provided me with the frustration of not being able to think of it, and then the satisfaction of once again finding it. also ~ Ammon Shea

It's what non-car people don't get. They see all cars as just a ton and a half, two tons of wires, glass, metal, and rubber, and that's all they see. People like you or I know we have an unshakable belief that cars are living entities ... You can develop a relationship with a car and that's what non-car people don't get ... When something has foibles and won't handle properly, that gives it a particularly human quality because it makes mistakes, and that's how you can build a relationship with a car that other people won't get. ~ Jeremy Clarkson

Flying is hypnotic and all pilots are victims to the spell. Their world is like a magic island in which the factors of life and death assume their proper values. Thinking becomes clear because there are no earthly foibles or embellishments to confuse it. ~ Ernest K. Gann

The Carousel of Progress was a physical representation of Walt's personal philosophy that people, despite their foibles, were basically decent, and that life was good in any era and would only keep getting better. ~ Jim Korkis

If you have a friend that will reprove your faults and foibles, consider you enjoy a blessing which the king upon the throne cannot have. ~ James Burgh

We can stop picking on ourselves for picking on ourselvesWe can cherish ourselves and our lives. We can nuture ourselves and love ourselves. We can accept our wonderful selves, with all our faults, foibles, strong points, weak points, feelings, thoughts, and everything else. It's the best thing we've got going for us. It's who we are, and who we were meant to be. And it's not a mistake. We are the greatest thing that will ever happen to us. Believe it. It makes life much easier. ~ Melody Beattie

Reading about other peoples' foibles and mistakes was so much easier than living through her own. ~ Julia Kent

Positiveness is a most absurd foible. If you are in the right, it lessens your triumph; if in the wrong, it adds shame to your defeat. ~ Laurence Sterne

When we start letting people into our gated community, we lavish attention on them since they're one of the few. We go out of our way to make our newly minted friend feel special. But if we notice that they're not returning our attention with the same amount of care, we feel taken for granted.

Next comes the small conversations like, I know you didn't mean to do this on purpose, but you hurt my feelings doing these things and not doing these as stipulated in Addendum 1, 3, 4a and 666. Those small conversations become more frequent.

We feel better being so generous in our forgiveness of our friends' little foibles, but our friends are wondering how many more Addendums there are. Friends start treading lightly so the don't break another Rule that's part of our value system. They can only be themselves as long it doesn't break our rules. Is it any wonder our friends choose to move on to less restrictive relationships? ~ Corin

They were "galvanized iron bake ovens," said Carl LaRue, commenting on Fordlandia's foibles years later. "It is incredible that anyone should build a house like that in the tropics." Another visitor described them as "midget hells, where one lies awake and sweats the first half of the night, and frequently between midnight and dawn undergoes a fierce siege of heat-provoking nightmares." They seemed to be "designed by Detroit architects who probably couldn't envision a land without snow."19 Ford managers, said the priest, "never really ~ Greg Grandin

Of all the fads and foibles in the long history of human credulity, scientism in all its varied guises - from fanciful cosmology to evolutionary epistemology and ethics - seems among the more dangerous, both because it pretends to be something very different from what it really is and because it has been accorded widespread and uncritical adherence. Continued insistence on the universal competence of science will serve only to undermine the credibility of science as a whole. The ultimate outcome will be an increase of radical skepticism that questions the ability of science to address even the questions legitimately within its sphere of competence. One longs for a new Enlightenment to puncture the pretensions of this latest superstition.
[The folly of scientism] ~ Austin L. Hughes

A library represents the mind of its collector, his fancies and foibles, his strength and weakness, his prejudices and preferences. Particularly is this the case if, to the character of a collector, he adds - or tries to add - the qualities of a student who wishes to know the books and the lives of the men who wrote them. The friendships of his life, the phases of his growth, the vagaries of his mind, all are represented. ~ William Osler

He was the first one to realize you can live alongside someone, day in, day out, habituate yourself to their foibles, even find those foibles endearing, then suddenly the day arrives when you realize that you never knew them at all. That they were stringing you along without any concern that you might value their friendship, their company. ~ Jay Spencer Green

We have been stuffed full of praise for mediocrity and had our foibles diagnosed away with hyphenated jargon and pop psychology. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Like Aurelia, he is a lover of humanity in all its quirks and foibles, quick to delight and slow to judge. ~ Tracy Rees

I like humor: the sort of gentle humor that points out human foibles. ~ Ed Greenwood

This reference to the Scots side of her ancestry is the first of two visual explorations into Tori Amos's diverse cultural past. As is the case for many of us, Tori's ancestry is a mix of races and religions, philosophies and professions, fortunes and foibles. What to some may seem like a family tree grown wild and untamed is actually a mighty oak that has weathered life's many storms and can still put out a rare and beautiful blossom like Tori. ~ Kevyn Aucoin

What is so funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously. Laughter is the same and healthy response to the innocent foibles of men; and even to some which are not innocent. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

A doctor, like anyone else who has to deal with human beings, each of them unique, cannot be a scientist; he is either, like the surgeon, a craftsman, or, like the physician and the psychologist, an artist. This means that in order to be a good doctor a man must also have a good character, that is to say, whatever weaknesses and foibles he may have, he must love his fellow human beings in the concrete and desire their good before his own. ~ W. H. Auden

I think there's a difference when you make fun of yourself and your own behavior, and when you dishonor or disrespect Christ. If you're making a mockery of Christ is one thing. But if you're just joking about human foibles and weaknesses, I think that's perfectly acceptable. ~ Patricia Heaton

The C.E.O. of Google doesn't look like a Dick Cheney World Domination sort whom we should worry about as Google ogles our houses, our oceans, our foibles, our movements and our tastes. ~ Maureen Dowd

Moskin has brought together with care and lucidity an inside history of American diplomacy written through the eyes of the many diplomats who conceived and carried it out over 225 years. You experience the challenges, successes, and foibles. Over time, the Foreign Service evolved into a professional cadre serving the public and presidents, often at the peril of their lives. Anyone interested in understanding our diplomacy, what makes it tick, and how it strives to serve the public interest should read this masterful history. ~ Thomas R. Pickering

This, it occurred to me, this was the undisciplined human community that, fired by its dull collective wit, now drove the armed nation towards it knew-not-what sort of epic martial cataclysm: a massive flailing organism with all the rectitude and foresight of an untrained puppy.

--In the private letters of Albert Sloane, by permission of the Sloane family. ~ George Saunders

Don't expect to drop into matrimonial harmony with the end of the honeymoon; you have not thoroughly learned to know each other's foibles by that time. ~ Blanche Ebbutt

Dr. John, throughout his whole life, was a man of luck - a man of success. And why? Because he had the eye to see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to well-timed action, the nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no tyrant-passion dragged him back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way. ~ Charlotte Bronte

While it is certainly the biographer's business to describe the foibles, passions and idiosyncrasies which make his subject a person, his work will be very meagre if these individual traits are not also seen as part of a universal drama - for each man's life is also the story of Everyman. ~ Iris Origo

Scan not a friend with a microscopic glass, you know his faults, now let the foibles pass. ~ George Harrison

I'm interested in this humbler approach, one that is more accepting of human foibles, and indeed sees dignity and peace as emerging more from that acceptance than from any method of transcending the human condition. ~ Thomas Moore

Love has a way of blinding even the sharpest minds. We don't look because we don't want to see. But once love is stripped away, we see the real person clearly. There revealed to us, with all their flaws, their foibles, and their secrets. ~ Lionel

I went to the theatre with the author of a successful play. He insisted on explaining everything. He told me what to watch, the details of the direction, the errors of the property man, the foibles of the star. He anticipated all of my surprises and ruined the evening. Never again! And mark you, the greatest author of all made no such mistake. ~ Christopher Morley

His (the Christian God) type of gods aren't gods who echo how mortals behave. They're gods who are held up as example of perfection to be emulated. There's not gods of the people. They're remote and inaccessible, and they demand blind, unthinking obedience from their followers. They're dictators. We Aesir and Vanir, by contrast, are mirrors. Other gods rule. We reflect and magnify. We are you, only more so. We share your flaws and foibles. We are as humanlike as we are divine, and I think we're all the better for that. ~ James Lovegrove

A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer. ~ Joseph Conrad

Having wallowed in a delightful orgy of anti-French sentiment, having deplored and applauded the villains themselves, having relished the foibles of bankers, railwaymen, diplomats, and police, the public was now ready to see its faith restored in the basic soundness of banks, railroads, government, and police. ~ Michael Crichton

If, while hurrying ostensibly to the temple of truth, we hand the reins over to our personal interests which look aside at very different guiding stars, for instance at the tastes and foibles of our contemporaries, at the established religion, but in particular at the hints and suggestions of those at the head of affairs, then how shall we ever reach the high, precipitous, bare rock whereon stands the temple of truth? ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

A good book is the very essence of a good man. His virtues survive in it, while the foibles and faults of his actual life are forgotten. All the goodly company of the excellent and great sit around my table, or look down on me from yonder shelves, waiting patiently to answer my questions and enrich me with their wisdom. A precious book is a foretaste of immortality. ~ Theodore L. Cuyler

My mother had a habit of hanging onto - even treasuring - the foibles of my distant infantile state. ~ Alice Munro

Toward the end of the summer, they went to London, although the city was still somewhat deserted, the Little Season having not yet begun. Elizabeth agreed because she thought it would be convenient for him to be nearer the men with whom he invested large sums of money in complex ventures, and because Alex would be there. Ian went because he wanted Elizabeth to enjoy the position of prestige in society she was entitled to-and because he enjoyed showing her off in the setting where she sparkled like the jewels he lavished on her. He knew she regarded him as a combination of loving benefactor and wise teacher, but in that last regard, Ian knew she was wrong, for Elizabeth was teaching him, too. By her own example, she taught him to be patient with servants; she taught him to relax; and she taught him that next to lovemaking, laughter was undoubtedly life's most pleasant diversion. At her insistence, he even learned to look tolerantly upon the foolish foibles of many of the ton's members. ~ Judith McNaught

Our foibles are really what make us lovable. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

You do form a cadre of people that you trust and who are good at their jobs and who know you and what your quirks and foibles are. It makes making movies very collegial and a lot more fun. ~ Joe Dante

Love – I believe that dreaming is stronger than reality. Desire is more potent than apathy. Hopes are more powerful than despair. Joy always triumphs over sorrow. Laughter is the ultimate cure for mankind's foibles. And I believe that love is stronger than hate and is the greatest gift of all. How do I know? I have been fortunate to experience them all. ~ Barry Allen Steven Lycka

The foibles of my body are pretty much out there in the work I do. ~ Philip Seymour Hoffman

Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought, ~ Walt Whitman

We are human, we are irrational, we have foibles, and the power of the mind over the body is greater than anything you have previously imagined. ~ Ben Goldacre

When you write you in a way write out of what you think of as your best self, the part of you that is lacking in foibles and weaknesses and egotism and vanities and so on. You're just trying to really say something as truthful as you can out of the best that you have in you. ~ Salman Rushdie

Most men call fretting a minor fault, a foible, and not a vice. There is no vice except drunkenness which can so utterly destroy the peace, the happiness of a hoe. ~ Helen Hunt Jackson

Acedia is not a relic of the fourth century or a hang-up of some weird Christian monks, but a force we ignore at our peril. Whenever we focus on the foibles of celebrities to the detriment of learning more about the real world- the emergence of fundamentalist religious and nationalist movements, the economic factors endangering our reefs and rain forests, the social and ecological damage caused by factory farming - acedia is at work. Wherever we run to escape it, acedia is there, propelling us to 'the next best thing,' another paradise to revel in and wantonly destroy. It also sends us backward, prettying the past with the gloss of nostalgia. Acedia has come so far with us that it easily attached to our hectic and overburdened schedules. We appear to be anything but slothful, yet that is exactly what we are, as we do more and care less, and feel pressured to do still more. ~ Kathleen Norris

The avoidance of little evils, little sins, little inconsistencies, little weaknesses, little follies, little indiscretions and imprudences, little foibles, little indulgences of self and of the flesh, little acts of indolence or indecision, or slovenliness or cowardice, little equivocations or aberrations from high integrity, little touches of shabbiness or meanness ... little indifferences to the feelings or wishes of others, little outbreaks of temper, or crossness, or selfishness, or vanity - the avoidance of such little things as these goes far to make up at least the negative beauty of a holy life. ~ Horatius Bonar

People have always been fascinated by the foibles of the wealthy and privileged. ~ Kevin Kwan

Unless you make allowances for your friends foibles, you betray your own. ~ Publilius Syrus

The significance of that 'absolute commandment', know thyself - whether we look at it in itself or under the historical circumstances of its first utterance - is not to promote mere self-knowledge in respect of the particular capacities, character, propensities, and foibles of the single self. The knowledge it commands means that of man's genuine reality - of what is essentially and ultimately true and real - of spirit as the true and essential bein ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

If ... you are looking for a large dose of truth with some all too human foibles and faults and long nights of coffee drenched brains and frequent trips to the bathroom then this book is for you. ~ Leviak B. Kelly

I pray as part of my mindfulness practice and try to recount my day, all my triumphs and foibles, before I go to sleep at night. These practices keep me calm for the most part. ~ Emily Saliers

I'm always interested in people being able to share stories that allow us to see the landscape of human foibles, challenges, and ultimately triumph. ~ Oprah Winfrey

I just make what I like - warm and human stories, ones about historic characters and events, and about animals. If there is a secret, I guess it's that I never make the pictures too childish, but always try to get in a little satire of adult foibles. ~ Walt Disney

I mean, you may cause others a spot of bother by your weaknesses, perhaps, but coping with you may possibly increase their strength and sympathy. But if you sin deliberately, even if it seems only against yourself
well
you won't be the only one to suffer. You may even be the one who suffers least. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

(Riley:)...I just wasn't up to coping with the whims and foibles of men right now. Chocolate, coffee and ice cream were far more reliable when it came to providing a good time, and at least they> would never disappoint me. ~ Keri Arthur

As intellectual as we think we are, you still trip, we still have human foibles, sexuality, all the different things to still make you aware of your humanity. ~ Robin Williams

There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity
like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule
that's what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel
it's vulgar. ~ Molly Ivins