Muddled Quotes

Truth and dreams are always getting muddled.
Mina ~ David Almond

It [feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Now Miss Mapp's social dictatorship among the ladies of Tilling had long been paramount, but every now and then signs of rebellious upheavals showed themselves. By virtue of her commanding personality these had never assumed really serious proportions, for Diva, who was generally the leader in these uprisings, had not the same moral massiveness. But now when Elizabeth was so exceedingly superior, the fumes of Bolshevism mounted swiftly to Diva's head. Moreover, the sight of this puzzling male impersonator, old, wrinkled, and moustached, had kindled to a greater heat her desire to know her and learn what it felt like to be Romeo on the music-hall stage and, after years of that delirious existence, to subside into a bath-chair and Suntrap and Tilling. What a wonderful life! . . . And behind all this there was a vague notion that Elizabeth had got her information in some clandestine manner and had muddled it. For all her clear-headedness and force Elizabeth did sometimes make a muddle and it would be sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to catch her out. So in a state of brooding resentment Diva went home to lunch and concentrated on how to get even with Elizabeth. ~ E.F. Benson

Well. I guess it's… it's the moment, you know, when you wake up first in the morning. You open your eyes and your thoughts are muddled. You're still partly asleep and you're warm and don't want to move, but you know you have to get up anyway. So you stretch and it feels good, but your arm hits something next to you and you look over and… there he is. Still asleep. And it's the first clear thought you have, and you think, Hello. Hello there. Hi. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're next to me. And then for some reason, he must feel you watching him, because he wakes up too, you know? And he's blinking and looks all soft and beautiful and then he sees you and he smiles. Like all it takes for him to be the happiest he's ever been is to see you there. Next to him. That's… that's what's so great about it. That's what it feels like ~ T.J. Klune

There are only three motives for all crimes. Tibbs: money, power, and love. Sometimes those things get muddled together, of course, and you could argue that hunger is a bloody good motivator as well, but one might lump that in with love of self or love of others or love of food, and---well, never mind all that. Pass the pickled radishes. - Inspector Percival Pensive, The Case of the Gilded Guardian ~ Jessica Lawson

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to make the sail set properly you must pull the boom down. That'll take those cross wrinkles out." "Is that what those blocks (pulleys) are for hooked to a ring in the kelson close to where the mast is stepped? But they are all muddled up." "Isn't there another ring under the boom, close to the mast?" asked Queen Elizabeth. "Got it," said Captain John. "One block hooks to the ring under the boom, and one to the ring in the bottom of the boat, then it's as easy as anything to haul the boom down. How's that?" "The crinkles in the sail go up and down now, and not across," said Mate Susan. "That's right," said Queen Elizabeth. "The wind will flatten them out as soon as we start sailing. ~ Arthur Ransome

Good intentions often get muddled with very complex execution. The last time the government tried to make taxes easier, it created a 1040 EZ form with a 52-page help booklet. ~ Brad D. Smith

Here, too, I recognized-easily, from firsthand experience, since this kind of thing happened at my age-the heat of the moment, the very instant you knew you should be feeling something but, for various reasons, partly due to inexperience, partly to a desynchronized, muddled teenage constitution, this emotion, however hard you tried to express it, stayed uncomfortably stuck in your heart, only half there and only half felt, just like my love for that girl across the street, the feeling I was trying to coax out of myself the way you might squeeze a toothpaste tube you'd decided to roll from the bottom up but that, distracted, and in a rush, you finally ended up pressing any which way. ~ Jean-Christophe Valtat

Gagarin's death was shameful not just because of the loss of a national hero in muddled circumstances, but because of the dangerous flaws revealed in the Soviet military technology of his time. Obviously their radar systems were not capable of simultaneous mapping of aircraft heights and positions, nor of positively identifying one target from another. The implications of this were highly alarming. ~ Jamie Doran

There's a chilling grimness behind his gaze, and I let myself acknowledge what I've been denying: In his own way, Morpheus is my knight, too. He just has more muddled motivations than Jeb - not always unselfish and honorable, but vigilant. I have to give him that.
-Unhinged, pg 252 ~ A.G. Howard

You reached into my chest with your words. When you spoke, my heart danced. Love muddled thoughts based in reason. Interest withered like a flower in dry heat then your words wrapped themselves around my heart and yanked it from my body. Now I stand bewildered by the sight of my heart beating on the cold concrete floor. ~ Sonya Watson

You're not Dostoevsky,' said the citizeness, who was getting muddled by Koroviev. Well, who knows, who knows,' he replied.
'Dostoevsky's dead,' said the citizeness, but somehow not very confidently.
'I protest!' Behemoth exclaimed hotly. 'Dostoevsky is immortal! ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

What must I say to God when I meet Him? What shall I say to Him for my sins?'

'I shouldn't mention the word,' I said. 'He'll be the best judge of your life. If you've got to say anything I should say, "You sent us forth into the world incomplete and therefore weak. With my own life, in these circumstances, and according to my own nature, I did what I could to secure happiness. But I did not even know what happiness was, or where to look for it, and it was whilst I was in search of it that I dare say I got a little muddled."' -- Hindoo Holiday ~ J.R. Ackerley

A design style is defined by a set of microdecisions. A clear style reflects a consistent set. A clear style may not be a good style; a muddled one never is. ~ Fred Brooks

Persistence is a pretty important part of making it in this business, which, in retrospect, is the easy part. Maintaining a profile is the difficult part of the job. Somehow or another, I muddled through that system and somehow am around to still enjoy playing for people. ~ Chris Squire

A counsellor at the treatment centre where I got clean, herself a woman in recovery, surprised me when she said, 'How clever of you to find drugs. Well done, you found a way to keep yourself alive.' This made me feel quite tearful. I suppose because this woman, Jackie, didn't judge me or tell me I was stupid or tubthumpingly declare that 'drugs kill'. No, she told me that I had done well by finding something that made being me bearable… To be acknowledged as a person who was in pain and fighting to survive in my own muddled-up and misguided way made me feel optimistic and understood. It is an example of the compassion addicts need from one another in order to change. ~ Russell Brand

Okay, so maybe they aren't the greatest generation by anyone's standard, but they are surely the best of the bottom third percentile of their own somewhat muddled and suspect generation. ~ Ben Fountain

Slowly, her slim hand smoothed over the swell of his buttock, lingering there. A shocked laugh choked his throat, the sound muddled by a stifled groan that her intrigued touch elicited. The saucy little sneak thief was copping a feel. He felt inclined to turn around and let her get a handful. ~ Kristen Callihan

Whether one is twenty, forty, or sixty; whether one has succeeded, failed or just muddled along; whether yesterday was full of sun or storm, or one of those dull days with no weather at all, life begins each morning! ~ Leigh Mitchell Hodges

When everything gets muddled up inside my head, there's nothing better than making pies. ~ Jennifer Gennari

Fashion designers only occasionally tread outside the realm of clothes as pure commodity. When they do, the results are often a muddled, self-conscious message. ~ Robin Givhan

No one has ever made me feel like this, no one. So much regret, so much loss, and so much desire all swirled together in my muddled brain. In my muddled heart. ~ Melissa Brown

He had not stopped desiring her for a single instant. He found her in the dark bedrooms of captured towns, especially in the most abject ones, and he would make her materialize in the smell of dry blood on the bandages of the wounded, in the instantaneous terror of the danger of death, at all times and in all places. He had fled from her in an attempt to wipe out her memory, not only through distance but by means of a muddled fury that his companions at arms took to be boldness, but the more her image wallowed in the dunghill of the war, the more the war resembled Amaranta. That was how he suffered in exile, looking for a way of killing her with his own death ... ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I'm gonna give you some unsolicited advice, okay?" Dan peered at me, as though making sure I knew to take his words seriously. "But it's good advice, even though I'm tired as hell, so it might not make much sense."
"Sure. Go for it." Even in my muddled state, I couldn't help but smile at my friend.
"You like that guy, you tell him flat out. You just lay what you want and everything out there. Don't waste time not saying things that need to be said. He'll always be in your mind, wrecking the possibility of things with other people, because your heart can't move on until it knows for sure a door is closed."
I managed a reassuring smile. "Thanks for the ad - "
"But then, if the door opens, make sure it's the right door, not a different door. Because then you'll be in the room, but it's not the right room. And then you're stuck in the room, you've committed to the room, and you'd be an asshole for trying a new door in the same house when you're already in a room. And then your fucking heart won't stop looking for a window. ~ Penny Reid

You can begin a story in the middle and create confusion by striking out boldly, backward and forward. You can be modern, put aside all mention of time and distance and, when the whole thing is done, proclaim, or let someone else proclaim, that you have finally, at the last moment, solved the space-time problem. Or you can declare at the very start that it is impossible to write a novel nowadays, but then, behind your own back so to speak, give birth to a whopper, a novel to end all novels. I have also been told that it makes a good impression, an impression of modesty so to speak, if you begin by saying that a novel can't have a hero anymore because there are no more individualists, because individuality is a thing of the past, because man- each men and all men together- is alone in his loneliness and no one is entitled to individual loneliness, and all men lumped together make up a "lonely mass" without names and without heroes. (...) I shall begin far away from me, for no one ought to tell the story of his life who hasn't the patience to say a word or two at least half of his grandparents before plunging into his own existence. And so to you personally, dear reader, who are no doubt leading a muddled life outside this institution, to you my friends and weekly visitors, I introduce Oskar's maternal grandmother ~ Gunter Grass

Physics is very muddled again at the moment; it is much too hard for me anyway, and I wish I were a movie comedian or something like that and had never heard anything about physics! ~ Wolfgang Pauli

You are honest enough by nature to be able to see and judge your own self clearly - and that is a great thing. Never lose that honesty, Bobby - always be honest with yourself, know your own motives for what they are, good or bad, make your own decisions firmly and justly - and you will be a fine, strong character, of some real use in this muddled world of ours! ~ Enid Blyton

I don't know if we ever have enough distance to "see" our own trajectory. We're in the muddled middle of it. Who knows what will last, what poems will take hold of the imaginations of the future. ~ Dorianne Laux

Muddled minds read him, and found themselves moving with delight in a world of clarity. ~ Jocelyn Gibb

It's rare that the sequel to a good movie lives up to expectations. Such is the case with Die Hard 2 , the somewhat-muddled but still entertaining return of Bruce Willis' John McClane. Fortunately, the original Die Hard was good enough that there's room for the second installment to be enjoyable while still not matching the pace or possessing the flair of its predecessor. ~ James Berardinelli

Because one has the animal instinct to seek out the people that suits one - you see people that go on life's journeys and get muddled along the way. If you look at their lives they've always gone with the wrong people ... can you say it's the wrong people - I don't know ... ~ Charlotte Rampling

Now the basic impulse behind existentialism is optimistic, very much like the impulse behind all science. Existentialism is romanticism, and romanticism is the feeling that man is not the mere he has always taken himself for. Romanticism began as a tremendous surge of optimism about the stature of man. its aim like that of science was to raise man above the muddled feelings and impulses of his everyday humanity, and to make him a god-like observer of human existence. ~ Colin Wilson

Dad always said that he had enough trouble sorting the fiction out of so-called facts, without reading fiction. He always said that science was already too muddled without trying to make it jibe with religion. He said those things, but he also said that science itself could be a religion, that a broad mind was always in danger of becoming narrow. ~ Jim Thompson

You must know that I do not love and that I love you,
because everything alive has its two sides;
a word is one wing of silence,
fire has its cold half.
I love you in order to begin to love you,
to start infinity again
and never to stop loving you:
that's why I do not love you yet.
I love you, and I do not love you, as if I held
keys in my hand: to a future of joy-
a wretched, muddled fate-
My love has two lives, in order to love you.
-Sonnet XLIV ~ Pablo Neruda

At first he found it amusing. He coined a law intended to have the humor of a Parkinson's law that "The number of rational hypotheses
that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite." It pleased him never to run out of hypotheses. Even when his experimental work
seemed dead-end in every conceivable way, he knew that if he just sat down and muddled about it long enough, sure enough, another
hypothesis would come along. And it always did. It was only months after he had coined the law that he began to have some doubts
about the humor or benefits of it.
If true, that law is not a minor flaw in scientific reasoning. The law is completely nihilistic. It is a catastrophic logical disproof of the
general validity of all scientific method!
If the purpose of scientific method is to select from among a multitude of hypotheses, and if the number of hypotheses grows faster
than experimental method can handle, then it is clear that all hypotheses can never be tested. If all hypotheses cannot be tested, then the
results of any experiment are inconclusive and the entire scientific method falls short of its goal of establishing proven knowledge ~ Robert M. Pirsig

In this game he had acquired a great deal of muddled knowledge, more than one approximation and less than one certitude. And absence of energy, a curiosity that was too sharp to be crushed immediately, a lack of order in his ideas, a weakening of his spiritual boundaries, which were promptly twisted, an excessive passion for running along forked roads and wearying of the path as soon as he had started on it, mental indigestion demanding varied dishes, quickly tiring of the foods he desired, digesting almost all, but badly, was his state. ~ Joris-Karl Huysmans

To overlook those years (muddled, complicated times) is to fall into the trap of only celebrating success. We can learn as much, if not more, from failure, from promising paths that turn into dead ends. The vision, understanding, patience, and wisdom that informed Steve's last decade were forged in the trials of these intervening years. The failures, stinging reversals, miscommunications, bad judgment calls, emphases on wrong values-the whole Pandora's box of immaturity- were necessary prerequisites to the clarity, moderation, reflection, and steadiness he would display in later years. ~ Brent Schlender

There was a moment, however, when the King and I were looking directly into each other's eyes, and in that instant I had a revelation that takes much longer to explain than to experience. Here am I, I reflected, being decorated as a hero, and in the eyes of everybody here I am indeed a hero; but I know that my heroic act was rather a dirty job I did when I was dreadfully frightened; I could just as easily have muddled it and been ingloriously killed. But it doesn't much matter, because people seem to need heroes; so long as I don't lose sight of the truth, it might as well be me as anyone else. And here before me stands a marvellously groomed little man who is pinning a hero's medal on me because some of his forebears were Alfred the Great, and Charles the First, and even King Arthur, for anything I know to the contrary. But I shouldn't be surprised if inside he feels as puzzled about the fate that brings him here as I. ~ Robertson Davies

I think we have muddled the terms of marriage, civil partnership, registry office, church etc. I would have liked that to have been clarified. I didn't really like the legislation that was the problem but I absolutely support gay marriage. ~ Andrea Leadsom

How can we appraise a proposal if the terms hurled at our ears can mean anything or nothing, and change their significance with the inflection of the voice? Welfare state, national socialism, radical, liberal, conservative, reactionary and a regiment of others ... these terms in today's usage, are generally compounds of confusion and prejudice. If our attitudes are muddled, our language is often to blame. A good tonic for clearer thinking is a dose of precise, legal definition. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

The saying goes, 'the longer wars drag out, the more motivation gets muddled with the blood.' Secrets get bigger. Rumors start. It's already begun, my friend, it's already begun. ~ J.K. Brown

There was always something yet unseen. The ground itself was daily renewed, kicked up and muddled by passing travelers, such that it was impossible to repeat the same journey twice. Alif thought of all the times he had left the duplex in Baqara District bent on some mundane errand: the courtyard gate closing behind him with a rattle, rattling again when he returned the same way; to him, ordinary and frustrating, to the world, a process full of tiny variations, all existing, as Sheikh Bilal had said, simultaneously and without contradiction. He had been given eternity in modest increments, and had thought nothing of it. ~ G. Willow Wilson

Woods are not like other spaces. To begin with, they are cubic. Their trees surround you, loom over you, press in from all sides. Woods choke off views & leave you muddled & without bearings. They make you feel small & confused & vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs. Stand in a desert or prairie & you know you are in a big space. Stand in the woods and you only sense it. They are vast, featureless nowhere. And they are alive. ~ Bill Bryson

Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up. ~ Dag Hammarskjold

There's something about a beautiful, nearly flawless flower, emerging from muddled water. ~ E.K. Blair

It was hard work being old. It was like being a baby, in reverse. Every day for an infant means some new little thing learned; every day for the old means some little thing lost. Names slip away, dates mean nothing, sequences become muddled, and faces blurred. Both infancy and age are tiring times. ~ Elizabeth Taylor

There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer: no disease that love will not heal: no door that enough love will not open ... It makes no difference how deep set the trouble: how hopeless the outlook: how muddled the tangle: how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world ... ~ Emmet Fox

Tao is obscured when men understand only one pair of opposites, or concentrate only on a partial aspect of being. Then clear expression also becomes muddled by mere wordplay, affirming this one aspect and denying all the rest. The pivot of Tao passes through the center where all affirmations and denials converge. He who grasps the pivot is at the still-point from which all movements and oppositions can be seen in their right relationship ... Abandoning all thought of imposing a limit or taking sides, he rests in direct intuition. ~ Zhuangzi

The certainty about the uncertain (in view to life) is that it will remain uncertain till the time its certain. ~ Mayank Sharma

At each epoch of history the world was in a hopeless state, and at each epoch of history the world muddled through; at each epoch the world was lost, and at each epoch it was saved. ~ Jacques Maritain

Argentina. The word itself had lost little of its power to startle and had, due to my ignorance of the physical place it occupied on the globe, assumed a peculiar life of its own. There was the harsh Ar at the beginning, which called up gold, idols, lost cities in the jungle, which in turn led to the hushed and sinister chamber of Gen, with the bright, interrogative Tina at the end - all nonsense, of course, but then it seemed in some muddled way that name itself, one of the few concrete facts available to me, might itself be a cryptogram or clue. ~ Donna Tartt

You have certain ideas about what should happen... expectations. And if life is not moving that way, something is wrong. Nothing is going wrong! Life is going on its own, on,!y you have some fixed ideas. So drop those fixed ideas. Life is never going to follow you... you have to follow life. So if it is muddled, be muddled. What can you do? ~ Osho

Maps were so much easier than words. Words had a way of getting muddled, or meaning two things at once. ~ Lesley Howarth

At 50, you probably get muddled?
I'm the same, that's how I know?
If you ever get lost, don't worry?
Just change where you want to go ~ John Walter Bratton

She sat staring at the heavy curtains that shut out the gentle twilit garden, thinking how few things in life were un-muddled, firmly outlined as they were surely intended to be? One could organize, direct, plan each hour in advance and still the muddle persisted. Nothing in life was really water-tight, nothing secret, nothing secure. ~ Joan Lindsay

It often occurs that pride and selfishness are muddled with strength and independence. They are neither equal nor similar; in fact, they are polar opposites. A coward may be so cowardly that he masks his weakness with some false personification of power. He is afraid to love and to be loved because love tends to strip bare all emotional barricades. Without love, strength and independence are prone to losing every bit of their worth; they become nothing more than a fearful, intimidated, empty tent lost somewhere in the desert of self. ~ Criss Jami

The fact that you use the term "cunt" in the same breath as "sexist", shows that you display the same muddled, fucked-up thinking oan this issue as you do oan everything else. ~ Irvine Welsh

My mind didn't clear. It had been clear before. Instead it muddled, suddenly ablaze with rioting factions of insecurities and dreams, a cacophonous battleground of conflicting moral codes and dogma. I was, therefore, back to normal. ~ David Wong

Even if the being is not entirely purified, varieties of inspirations and powers may come down from above but this may lead to serious errors. Inspirations from above mixing with the impurities from below get all muddled up and the sadhak takes this for an absolute command. Many a sadhak has thus fallen into danger. Therefore, one must particularly lay stress on the purification of the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo

Mathematics without natural history is sterile, but natural history without mathematics is muddled. ~ John Maynard Smith

In a world muddled with madness, I made a conscious effort to stay sane. ~ Angela Colleen Prendergast

New love is grand. Savor all the crazy, muddled might of it. ~ Eli Easton

The moral conscience that so many thoughtless people have offended against and many more have rejected, is something that exists and has always existed. It was not an invention of the philosophers of the Quartenary, when the soul was little more than a muddled proposition. With the passing of time, as well as then social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the colour of blood and in the salt of tears, and, as if that were not enough, we made our eyes into a kind of mirror turned inwards, with the result that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny. Add to this general observation, the particular circumstance that in simple spirits, the remorse caused by committing some evil act often becomes confused with ancestral fears of every kind, and the result will be that the punishment of the prevaricator ends up being, without mercy or pity, twice what he deserved. ~ Jose Saramago

The papers are full of murders
strange murders. It is all nonsense that there are as many brains as there are men; mankind has only one intellect, and it is beginning to get muddled. ~ Leonid Andreyev

Was love ever easy for anyone? If less complicated, would this make it less appreciated? Perhaps love was difficult for good reason. Perhaps everything on God's green earth was the result of a flawless plan, even that which seemed most muddled. ~ Roy L. Pickering Jr.

It is this compulsion to look backwards at a time of crisis because one's got no idea of what lies ahead. There is a notion of security that somehow it must resemble the past. It's never going to. Just because we muddled through in the past doesn't mean we can automatically muddle through in the future. ~ Antony Beevor

Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance. ~ Kate Atkinson

A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
what history
takes years and years to do.

A man doesn't have time.
When he loses he seeks, when he finds
he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves
he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned, his soul
is very professional.
Only his body remains forever
an amateur. It tries and it misses,
gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,
drunk and blind in its pleasures
and its pains.

He will die as figs die in autumn,
Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
the leaves growing dry on the ground,
the bare branches pointing to the place
where there's time for everything.
~ Yehuda Amichai

Listen! This is where it began but I keep getting muddled ... The fact of the matter is that I now want to recall everything, every trifle, every little detail. I still want to collect my thoughts and - I can't, and now there are these little details, these little details ... ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I realized that the world did not exist for my benefit. It followed that the ratio of pleasant and unpleasant things around me would not change. It wasn't up to me. It was clear that the best thing to do was to adopt a sort of muddled cheerfulness. ~ Banana Yoshimoto

This is a forum for readers. Authors walk these halls at their own risk. I've been to the Coliseum in Rome. GR is just that. Books are gladiators. Readers are ravenous citizens awaiting their next bite of entertainment, all Caesars with thumbs readied for judgement. Even champions fall prey to sword now and then. And you know what they say about the pen and the sword…the analogy is a bit muddled, but it's in there somewhere. ~ Willow Madison

He remembered suddenly, at this moment, as he looked at the squares of moonlight lying on the floor, the time when he had first realized that pain is a thing that we must face and come to terms with if life is to be lived with dignity an not merely muddled through like an evil dream ... In some vague way he had understood that dark things are necessary; without them the silver moonlight would just stream away into nothingness, but with them it can be held and arranged into beautiful squares. (David Eliot, Chapter 4) ~ Elizabeth Goudge

A candidate for office can have no greater advantage than muddled syntax; no greater liability than a command of language. ~ Marya Mannes

Most people, in committing a suicidal act, are just as muddled as when they do anything important under emotional stress. Carefully planned acts of suicide are as rare as carefully planned acts of homicide. ~ Erwin Stengel

In this instance, he was wise enough to be suspicious of his own desire to seem wise, and to refuse to indulge in it….my father understood that advice - even wise advice - actually does nothing for the advisee, changes nothing inside, and can actually cause confusion when the advisee is made to feel the wide gap between the comparative simplicity of the advice and the totally muddled complications of his own situation and path. ~ David Foster Wallace

That dismisses once and for all every clamorous desire for something more. One who wants more than what Christ has established does not want Christian brotherhood. He is looking for some extraordinary social experience which he has not found elsewhere; he is bringing muddled and impure desires into Christian brotherhood. Just at this point Christian brotherhood is threatened most often at the very start by the greatest danger of all, the danger of being poisoned at its root, the danger of confusing Christian brotherhood with some wishful idea of religious fellowship, of confounding the natural desire of the devout heart for community with the spiritual reality of Christian brotherhood. In Christian brotherhood everything depends upon its being clear right from the beginning, first, that Christian brotherhood is not an ideal, but a divine reality. Second, that Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a psychic reality. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Only fools think that men and women love differently. Fools and pedagogues. I tell you, the love of men for women is just as heartbreaking, just as muddled, just as bewildering, and in the end, just as unfinished. ~ Edna O'Brien

He did not say, 'Define me envy', and then, when the man defined it, 'You define it ill, for the terms of the definition do not correspond to the subject defined.' Such phrases are technical and therefore tiresome to the lay mind, and hard to follow, yet you and I cannot get away from them. We are quite unable to rouse the ordinary man's attention in a way which will enable him to follow his own impressions and so arrive at admitting or rejecting this or that. And therefore those of us who are at all cautious naturally give the subject up, when we become aware of this incapacity; while the mass of men, who venture at random into this sort of enterprise, muddle others and get muddled themselves, and end by abusing their opponents and getting abused in return, and so leave the field. But the first quality of all in Socrates, and the most characteristic, was that he never lost his temper in argument, never uttered anything abusive, never anything insolent, but bore with abuse from others and quieted strife. ~ Epictetus

HE had fled from her in an attempt to wipe out her memory, not only through distance but by means of a muddled fury that his companions a arms took to be boldness, but the more her image wallowed in the dung hill of war, the more the was resembled Amarant. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps. Anyhow, it was her gift. Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She muddled Armenians and Turks; loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense: and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not know.
All the same, that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was!-that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all; how, every instant ... ~ Virginia Woolf

If Makar Denisych was just a clerk or a junior manager, then no one would have dared talk to him in such a condescending, casual tone, but he is a 'writer', and a talentless mediocrity!
People like Mr Bubentsov do not understand anything about art and are not very interested in it, but whenever they happen to come across talentless mediocrities they are pitiless and implacable, They are ready to forgive anyone, but not Makar, that eccentric loser with manuscripts lying in his trunk. The gardener damaged the old rubber plant, and ruined lots of expensive plants, and the general does nothing and goes on spending money like water; Mr Bubentsov only got down to work once a month when he was a magistrate, then stammered, muddled up the laws, and spoke a lot of rubbish, but all this is forgiven and not noticed; but there is no way that anyone can pass by the talentless Makar, who writes passable poetry and stories, without saying something offensive. No one cares that the general's sister-in-law slaps the maids' cheeks, and swears like a trooper when she is playing cards, that the priest's wife never pays up when she loses, and the landowner Flyugin stole a a dog from the landower Sivobrazov, but the fact that Our Province returned a bad story to Makar recently is know to the whole district and has provoked mockery, long conversations and indignation, while Makar Denisych is already being referred to as old Makarka.
If someone does not write the way required, they never ~ Anton Chekhov

AND WHAT THE YOUNG WRITERS ALL FAILED TO REALIZE IS THAT THE WAY YOU BEST CONNECT TO THE READER IS NOT BY CRAFTING THE MOST LYRICAL AND DAZZLING ARRAY OF WORDS, NOT BY BEING UNCLEAR AND HINTING AT YOUR MUDDLED MEANING THROUGH PLEASANT-SOUNDING VAGUERY, BUT BY COMMUNICATING A SEQUENCE OF MEANINGFUL IDEAS IN A WAY THE READER CAN ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND. ~ Film Crit Hulk!

The acrid odor of overloaded circuitry permeated the air, the horrid smell witness that at least one of his senses was working as sights and sounds became one with the unknown. Eventually he collapsed to the floor, wondering if he'd wake up in mortality. Then the muddled spectra went black, the silence that followed only possible in the deepest sectors of space. Or death. ~ Marcha A. Fox

A number of my fellow religious studies majors- muddled agnostics who didn't know which way was up, who were in the thrall of reason, that fools good for the bright- reminded me of the three toed sloth; and the three toed sloth, such a beautiful example of the miracle of life, reminded me of God. ~ Yann Martel

I alone have the mind of a fool, and am all muddled and vague. The people are so smart and bright. While I am just dull and confused. ~ Laozi

I was the muddled concoction of my father's contradictions. The same man who warned me that "life is a bowl-a shit" was the channel to my bliss. The infection and the cure. He was, at once, the drought that left me parched and gasping, and the rain that nurtured the single blade of grass, pushing itself up from between the jagged cracks in the sidewalk, and into the sun. ~ Sam Harris

The reciprocal relationship of epistemology and science is of noteworthy kind. They are dependent upon each other. Epistemology without contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology is - insofar as it is thinkable at all - primitive and muddled. However, no sooner has the epistemologist, who is seeking a clear system, fought his way through to such a system, than he is inclined to interpret the thought-content of science in the sense of his system and to reject whatever does not fit into his system. The scientist, however, cannot afford to carry his striving for epistemological systematic that far. He accepts gratefully the epistemological conceptual analysis; but the external conditions, which are set for him by the facts of experience, do not permit him to let himself be too much restricted in the construction of his conceptual world by the adherence to an epistemological system. He therefore must appear to the systematic epistemologist as a type of unscrupulous opportunist: he appears as realist insofar as he seeks to describe a world independent of the acts of perception; as idealist insofar as he looks upon the concepts and theories as free inventions of the human spirit (not logically derivable from what is empirically given); as positivist insofar as he considers his concepts and theories justified only to the extent to which they furnish a logical representation of relations among sensory experiences. He may even appear as Platonist or Pyt ~ Albert Einstein

Textbooks in American history stand in sharp contrast to other teaching materials. Why are history textbooks so bad? Nationalism is one of the culprits. Textbooks are often muddled by the conflicting desires to promote inquiry and to indoctrinate blind patriotism. "Take a look in your history book, and you'll see why we should be proud" goes an anthem often sung by high school glee clubs. But we need not even look inside. ~ James W. Loewen

Was that what she meant? Why she cried? Because he was an animal afraid to leave its cage, no words to say what he thought, no thoughts but muddled mad stupid thoughts? ~ Laura Kinsale

Sometimes I think my whole professional life has been based on this hunch I had, early on, that many people feel just as muddled as I do, and might be happy to tag along with me on this search for clarity, for precision. I love that aspect of writing. Nothing makes me happier than to hear a reader say: that's just what I've always felt, but you said it clearly. ~ Zadie Smith

If you are in the mountains alone for some time, many days at minimum, & it helps if you are fasting. The forest grows tired of its weariness towards you; it resumes its inner life and allows you to see it. Near dusk the faces in tree bark cease hiding, and stare out at you. The welcoming ones and also the malevolent, open in their curiosity. In your camp at night you are able to pick out a distinct word now and then from the muddled voices in creek water, sometimes an entire sentence of deep import. The ghosts of animals reveal themselves to you without prejudice to your humanity. You see them receding before you as you walk the trail their shapes beautiful and sad. ~ Charles Frazier

As they talked, West reflected privately that he knew exactly why people confided in Tom Severin, who never muddled an issue with moralizing or judgements, and never tried to change your opinions or talk you out of wanting something. Severin was never shocked by anything. And although he could be frequently disloyal or dishonorable, he was never dishonest.
"I'll tell you what your problem is," Severin eventually said. "It's feelings."
West paused with a crystal glass of brandy close to his lips. "Do you mean that unlike you, I have them?"
"I have feelings too, but I never let them turn into obstacles. If I were in your situation, for example, I would marry the woman I wanted and not worry about what was best for her. And if the children you raise turn out badly, that's their business, isn't it? They'll decide for themselves whether or not they want to be good. Personally, I've always seen more advantage in being bad. Everyone knows the meek won't really inherit the earth. That's why I don't hire meek people."
"I hope you're never going to be a father," West said sincerely.
"Oh, I will," Severin said. "I have to leave my fortune to someone, after all. I'd rather it be my own offspring- it's the next best thing to leaving it to myself. ~ Lisa Kleypas

People don't know that they do that to people when they do the things they shouldn't. Hurtful things are roots,they spread ,branch out, creep under the surface touching other parts of the lives of those they hurt. It's never one mistake, it's never one moment, it becomes a series of moments, each moment growing roots and spurting in different directions. And over time, they become muddled like an old twisted tree, strangling itself and tying itself up in knots. ~ Cecelia Ahern

Being a developmental psychologist didn't make me any better at dealing with my own children, no. I muddled through, and, believe me, fretted and worried with the best of them. ~ Alison Gopnik

Well, that's the thing about knots, isn't it? If you don't know the trick, it's a muddled predicament. But in fact each loop of every knot is carefully placed, one end twisting into the other in a way you might not have expected. I find them rather beautiful, really. ~ Lisa Graff

Somewhere, floating in a muddled abstraction beyond your existence as a generally good person, are the Externalities. Fuck 'em and God Bless 'em. ~ Jeremy Robert Johnson

Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones
bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. ~ C.S. Lewis

These last few days I've felt Godless. I've felt cleaner, less muddled, less blind. I still believe in a God. But he's so remote, so cold, so mathematical. I see that we have to live as if there is no God. Prayer and worship and singing hymns-all silly and useless. ~ John Fowles

The past week and a half has slipped away so quickly, I can't remember individual days: Everything blurs together, turns the muddled gray of a confused dream. ~ Lauren Oliver