Not Meeting Goals Quotes

The Bible is filled with verses on the importance of community. Hebrews 10:25 says, "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another" (NIV 1984). Galatians 6:2 says, "By helping each other with your troubles, you truly obey the law of Christ" (NCV). ~ Rick Warren

Not every collision, not every punctilious trajectory by which billiard-ball complexes arrive at their calculable meeting places lead to reaction ... Men (and women) are not as different from molecules as they think. ~ Roald Hoffmann

Life in LA is not lying in the sun for months. It is having a 4pm meeting and leaving at noon to sit in traffic for four hours. It's not glam. ~ Billy Boyd

No hard figures are available on how much was actually paid out or how many Friends complied with the request of their Yearly Meeting. For those who did pay their slaves, it was common to use the yearly wage of the day. We do know that one Mr. F. Buxton, in an appeal before the British House of Commons to abolish slavery, said that it had cost North Carolina Friends fifty thousand pounds to release their slaves.14 For some southern Friends emancipation of their slaves meant financial bankruptcy; for many, if not most, it meant eventual migration to the North. ~ Richard J. Foster

We must make the intellectual world safe for democracy. But in the conditions of modern mental anarchy, neither that nor any other ideal is safe. just as Protestants appealed from priests to the Bible, and did not realize that the Bible also could be questioned, so republicans appealed from kings to the people, and did not realize that the people also could be defied. There is no end to the dissolution of ideas, the destruction of all tests of truth, that has become possible since men abandoned the attempt to keep a central and civilized Truth, to contain all truths and trace out and refute all errors. Since then, each group has taken one truth at a time and spent the time in turning it into a falsehood. We have had nothing but movements; or in other words, monomanias. But the Church is not a movement but a meeting-place; the trysting-place of all the truths in the world. ~ G.K. Chesterton

if she was over-sure of meeting her, that would be the time she would not come. ~ Joan G. Robinson

Just as there are those who accept every UFO report at face value, there are also those who dismiss the idea of alien visitation out of hand and with great passion. It is, they say, unnecessary to examine the evidence, and "unscientific" even to contemplate the issue. I once helped to organize a public debate at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science between proponent and opponent scientists of the proposition that some UFOs were spaceships; whereupon a distinguished physicist, whose judgment in many other matters I respected, threatened to sic the Vice President of the United States on me if I persisted in this madness. (Nevertheless, the debate was held and published, the issues were a little better clarified, and I did not hear from Spiro T. Agnew.) ~ Carl Sagan

Art, literature, and philosophy are attempts to found the world anew on a human freedom: that of the creator; to foster such an aim, one must first unequivocally posit oneself as a freedom. The restrictions that education and custom impose on a woman limit her grasp of the universe...Indeed, for one to become a creator, it is not enough to be cultivated, that is, to make going to shows and meeting people part of one's life; culture must be apprehended through the free movement of a transcendence; the spirit with all its riches must project itself in an empty sky that is its to fill; but if a thousand fine bonds tie it to the earth, its surge is broken. The girl today can certainly go out alone, stroll in the Tuileries; but I have already said how hostile the street is: eyes everywhere, hands waiting: if she wanders absentmindedly, her thoughts elsewhere, if she lights a cigarette in a cafe, if she goes to the cinema alone, an unpleasant incident can quickly occur; she must inspire respect by the way she dresses and behaves: this concern rivets her to the ground and self. "Her wings are clipped." At eighteen, T.E. Lawrence went on a grand tour through France by bicycle; a young girl would never be permitted to take on such an adventure...Yet such experiences have an inestimable impact: this is how an individual in the headiness of freedom and discovery learns to look at the entire world as his fief...[The girl] may feel alone within the world: she never stands up in front of i ~ Simone De Beauvoir

Well,'said Ernest, 'by some strange coincidence I know this story.'
Boddichek was not good at irony. 'I knew that there was that possibility,' he said, 'but we have a great new way to treat it, and I thought you might want to reread it before taking a meeting.'
'Reread it?' said Mayday. 'We are talking about Cinderella, and the wicked stepmother and the Ugly Sisters and Buttons the page and the Fairy Godmother, "Cinders, you shall go to the ball but be sure you're home by midnight or you'll turn into pumpkin"?'
'Hey, you know it pretty well,' said young Casey with admiration in his voice. 'But I've found a new directionality for this story.'
'Do you mean direction?' asked Mayday.
'I guess I do.'
'Then', snapped Mayday, 'why don't you fucking say so? ~ Jonathan Lynn

There were shoppers everywhere. Counter after counter. Salesgirls, mostly white, with a sprinkling of Japanese as department managers. The din was terrific.

After some confusion Mr. Baynes located the men's clothing department. He stopped at the racks of men's trousers and began to inspect them. Presently a clerk, a young white, came over, greeting him.

Mr. Baynes said, 'I have returned for a pair of dark brown wool slacks which I was looking at yesterday.' Meeting the clerk's gaze he said, 'You're not the man I spoke to. ... ~ Philip K. Dick

It was cool to have Mark [Hamill] ask me to do all these voices for him like he was a fan. I was like, "You're not meeting me, I'm meeting you." ~ Jim Cummings

We'll find a way to have children, Mikhail. You managed to convert me without becoming deranged." There was gentle humor in her voice.
Mikhail's head went up, his dark eyes meeting hers.
Raven laughed softly. "Did you think I wouldn't know your worst fear? I am adept at reading minds, and you, my love, have opened yourself to me often. I knew your fear and loved you all the more for facing it alone."
"You should have said something." He moved over her body, blanketing her, his hips settling into the cradle of hers.
Raven loved the feel of him surrounding her. She put her arms around him, holding him to her, wishing they had weeks--months--to indulge in each other instead of a few more minutes. But she wouldn't hold him there, not when the fate of his people could be held in the balance. She inhaled his scent and took it deep inside her.
"I didn't need to say anything, Mikhail."
"I could have reassured you."
She kissed his throat. "There was no need. Either I was going to be all right or I wasn't. I trust you. You believed I could make it through without tampering with my memories. Because you believed it, I believed in myself."
He swept her hair from her face, smiling down at her. She could see complete, utter love shining down at her.
"The way you love me, Mikhail, is amazing. Thank you. But you'd better go before Gregori believes I'm holding you prisoner and comes looking for you. ~ Christine Feehan

In the spring of 1990 I flew to Aspen, Colorado, to cover a summit meeting between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President George Herbert Walker Bush. This fairly routine political event took on sudden significance when, on the evening before the talks were scheduled to begin, Saddam Hussein announced that the independent state of Kuwait had, by virtue of a massive deployment of military force, become a part of Iraq. We were not to know that this act - and the name Saddam Hussein - would dominate international politics for the next decade and more, but it was still possible to witness something extraordinary: the sight of Mrs. Thatcher publicly inserting quantities of lead into George Bush's pencil. The spattering quill of a Ralph Steadman would be necessary to do justice to such a macabre yet impressive scene. ~ Christopher Hitchens

If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

614246
" ... in an airport in '64, Goldwater said, 'Well, keep punching, Hubert' during a chance meeting there.
By the end of 1977, it became increasingly clear that the Boss (Hubert Humphrey) would not be around much longer. And on the Senate floor one day, Barry Goldwater walked across the aisle and enveloped Hubert Humphrey. Goldwater was so big and Humphrey so frail that Humphrey almost disappeared. The two men stood for a long moment, locked in a hug, and I could see that both men were crying. They made no effort to hide it."
- Joe Biden (Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics) ~ Joe Biden

The office is the laboratory and meeting your users is like going into the field. You can't just stay in the lab. And it's not just asking users what they want, it's about seeing what they're doing. ~ Brian Chesky

I think the reason why people's relationships fail, really, is due to the fact that people are always putting their best feet forward all the time and not letting others actually "meet" them. The "meeting" part tends to happen later on and it shocks and disappoints people who have already bought into the best that was put forward. Why not meet people first as who you really are, then help one another, build up one another, encourage and sculpt each other ... grow and become, together! Why can't people do that? Your best foot needs to be kept right beside you, right beside the other one. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Thus rhetoric, it seems, is a producer of persuasion for belief, not for instruction in the matter of right and wrong ... And so the rhetorician's business is not to instruct a law court or a public meeting in matters of right and wrong, but only to make them believe. ~ Plato

Why should this girl have crossed Stephen's path, or indeed Stephen hers, if it came to that matter? Was not the world large enough for them both? Perhaps not - or perhaps the event of their meeting had already been written upon tablets of stone by some wise if relentless recording finger. ~ Radclyffe Hall

There is something wonderful about a death, how everything shuts down, and all the ways you thought you were vital are not even vaguely important. Your husband can feed the kids, he can work the new oven, he can find the sausages in the fridge, after all. And his important meeting was not important, not in the slightest. And the girls will be picked up from school, and dropped off again in the morning. Your eldest daughter can remember her inhaler, and your youngest will take her gym kit with her, and it is just as you suspected - most of the stuff that you do is just stupid, really stupid, most of the stuff you do is just nagging and whining and picking up for people who are too lazy to love you. ~ Anne Enright

Occasionally at a Center Meeting, not that often, every couple of months, I'll break down and demonstrate a little mystical kundalini; but not that often, simply because it wouldn't be that effective. ~ Frederick Lenz

Later - about halfway through the same meeting - do you know what she does?

She fucking kicks me! In the shin, under the table.

"Hmph," I groan, and my hands fist reflexively.

"You all right, Drew?" my father asks.

I can only nod and squeak, "Something in my throat." I cough dramatically.

See, I'm not about to go crying to Daddy either. But sweet Christ it hurt. You ever been kicked in the shin by a four-inch pointy shoe? For a man, there is only one area that's more painful to be kicked.

And that is a place that dare not speak its name. ~ Emma Chase

This is what Jesus had in mind: folks coming together, forming close-knit communities and meeting each other's needs
no kings, no major welfare systems, no presidents necessary. His is a theology and practice for the people of God, not a set of suggestions for empire. ~ Shane Claiborne

I'm not cheating," Sabella said, her gaze meeting Kira's. Something inside her loosened. Something fell into place, but she was just too damned tipsy to realize what it was. "Am I?"
"Oh dear, trust me." Kira smiled back at her. "The last thing you're doing is cheating. You can take that one to the bank."
Glasses clinked, refilled, and the three women sat back and proceeded to get outrageously tipsy. Well, Sabella thought several hours later as Ian walked in and stared at them in shock, maybe they were a little bit drunk. ~ Lora Leigh

She pushed him away from her. The rain swept over her face as she lifted her emerald eyes filled with laughter to his. "That's it? That's your big apology? I can see you're not going to be a candy-and-flowers man." She set off quickly. "Don't talk to me, you uncivilized maniac. I don't even want to hear the sound of your voice."
Jacques forced back the smile that seemed so ready to curve his hard mouth. Shea had a way of making even dangerous situations seem a game where laughter was always close at hand. She managed to find ways to make his madness, the terrible, unforgivable way he had treated her at their first meeting, seem casual. "Can I put my arm around you?" Even while his eyes scanned, they held a gleam of merriment.
"You're talking. I said don't talk to me." Shea tried sticking her nose in the air, but it felt ridiculous, and she dissolved into undignified giggles.
His arm curved around her slender waist and locked her under his shoulder. "I am sorry. I did not mean to speak when you asked me not to. Turn here. I'm going to have to carry you up."
"Don't talk. You always get your way when you talk." She walked with him a few more yards and stopped, staring up a sheer cliff face that seemed to go up forever. There had been no division between the forest and the rock face to warn her. "Up what? Not that." The dark, malevolent feeling had faded away. Whoever it was no longer was watching them. She could tell.
"I feel another argument coming on." ~ Christine Feehan

I'm not good at meeting people, and I'm not good at small talk. ~ Nick Frost

I'm not stupid, Mr. Potter. What's the real reason you didn't tell me, and what were you actually doing with Mr. Malfoy?"

"Ah. Well..." Harry broke eye contact with her, and looked down at the library table.

"Draco Malfoy told the Aurors under Veritaserum that he wanted to know if he could beat me, so he challenged me to a duel to test it empirically. Those were his exact words according to the transcript."

"Right," Harry said, still not meeting her eyes. "Hermione Granger. Of course she'll remember the exact wording. It doesn't matter if she's chained to her chair, on trial for murder in front of the entire Wizengamot -"

"What were you really doing with Draco Malfoy?"

Harry winced, and said, "Probably not quite what you're thinking, but..."

The horror scaled and scaled within her, and finally broke loose.

"You were doing SCIENCE with him? "

"Well -"

"You were doing SCIENCE with him? You were supposed to be doing science with ME! ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

A pleasant morning. Saw my classmates Gardner, and Wheeler. Wheeler dined, spent the afternoon, and drank Tea with me. Supped at Major Gardiners, and engag'd to keep School at Bristol, provided Worcester People, at their ensuing March meeting, should change this into a moving School, not otherwise. Major Greene this Evening fell into some conversation with me about the Divinity and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ. All the Argument he advanced was, 'that a mere creature, or finite Being, could not make Satisfaction to infinite justice, for any Crimes,' and that 'these things are very mysterious.'
(Thus mystery is made a convenient Cover for absurdity.)
[Diary entry, February 13 1756] ~ John Adams

Sports can do so much. They've given me a framework: meeting new people, confidence, self-esteem, discipline, motivation. All these things I learned, whether I knew I was learning them or not, through sports. ~ Mia Hamm

You could walk from North Tai Ping Zhuang over to the North Entrance of He Ping Street, and you may as well have smoked your way through two packs of Camels. You smoked the taxi driver's smoke as he spun sharply around a corner, you smoked the local party leader's smoke as he tried to establish order at a meeting, you smoked your boyfriend's smoke whether he loved you or not. Chinese-made cigarettes, foreign imports, dodgy rip-offs. The city was in a permanent fog. ~ Xiaolu Guo

She certainly did not hate him. No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him, that could be so called. The respect created by the conviction of his valuable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some time ceased to be repugnant to her feelings; and it was now heightened into somewhat of a friendlier nature, by the testimony so highly in his favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light, which yesterday had produced. But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good will which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude.--Gratitude not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much pride, excited not only astonishment but gratitude--for to love, ardent love, it must be attributed; and as such its impression on her was of a sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not exactly be d ~ Jane Austen

Given what the stigmatized individual may well face upon entering a mixed social situation, he may anticipatorily respond by defensive cowering. This may be illustrated from an early study of some German unemployed during the Depression, the words being those of a 43-year-old mason: How hard and humiliating it is to bear the name of an unemployed man. When I go out, I cast down my eyes because I feel myself wholly inferior. When I go along the street, it seems to me that I can't be compared with an average citizen, that everybody is pointing at me with his finger. I instinctively avoid meeting anyone. Former acquaintances and friends of better times are no longer so cordial. They greet me indifferently when we meet. They no longer offer me a cigarette and their eyes seem to say, "You are not worth it, you don't work."37 ~ Erving Goffman

It is an illusion that we were ever alive,
Lived in the houses of mothers, arranged ourselves
By our own motions in a freedom of air.

Regard the freedom of seventy years ago.
It is no longer air. The houses still stand,
Though they are rigid in rigid emptiness.

Even our shadows, their shadows, no longer remain.
The lives these lived in the mind are at an end.
They never were . . . The sounds of the guitar

Were not and are not. Absurd. The words spoken
Were not and are not. It is not to be believed.
The meeting at noon at the edge of the field seems like

An invention, an embrace between one desperate clod
And another in a fantastic consciousness,
In a queer assertion of humanity:

A theorem proposed between the two -
Two figures in a nature of the sun,
In the sun's design of its own happiness,

As if nothingness contained a métier,
A vital assumption, an impermanence
In its permanent cold, an illusion so desired

That the green leaves came and covered the high rock,
That the lilacs came and bloomed, like a blindness cleaned,
Exclaiming bright sight, as it was satisfied,

In a birth of sight. The blooming and the musk
Were being alive, an incessant being alive,
A particular being, that gross universe. ~ Wallace Stevens

Grace always runs downhill, meeting us at the bottom, not the top. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

You know, a government should be a good thing. The Anglo-Saxons and the Germans rejoice in the phenomenon of government. They think that the recipe for human happiness is that you should make your desires and actions concordant with those of the government. So a German and an American will try to make the government work for him, protect him, and he will be more than happy to murder to preserve that wonderful symbiosis. And if he has some money to invest, he will invest it in the government, buying government bonds. He does this regardless of whether his government happens to be trillions of dollars in debt - that is, practically bankrupt. Despite his rhetoric of private enterprise, a Westerner will invest in his government. And we, Eastern and Central Europeans, and particularly Slavs, we all consider our governments to be absolutely the worst in the world. We are ashamed of our governments, and, as a rule, our government is ashamed of us, trying to improve us statistically, to say that we work more and drink less than we do. We think that there's no greater obstacle to human happiness than the government. So even if we have an institution pregnant with democratic potential, such as workers' self-management, we never even bother to attend a meeting unless absolutely forced. And as for voting, we circle any name without looking at whose it is, out of spite. To a Slav, there is nothing more disgusting than voting. We have an aversion to investing trust in any human being. So h ~ Josip Novakovich

manage the community outside of the CIA. An official observed, "The CIA director managed the CIA; it was the best job in the world. Managing the IC meant going out to the NRO and sitting through a three-hour meeting about satellite specifications. So it just was not done well."3 ~ Michael Allen

Every Monday morning I try to remember to say "Thank you, Lord. I'm not at the Senior Staff Meeting." ~ Michael Longley

Some months before I declared, I asked for a meeting and crossed the border to meet with the president of Mexico. I did not go with a plan. I went, as I said in my announcement address, to ask him his ideas - how we could make the border something other than a locale for a nine-foot fence. ~ Ronald Reagan

How do we stop them?" Edilio asked. He raised his head, and Sam saw the distress on his face. "How do you think we stop them? When your fifteenth birthday rolls around, the easy thing is to take the poof. You gotta fight to resist it. We know that. So how are we going to tell kids this isn't real, this Orsay thing?"
"We just tell them," Astrid said.
"But we don't know if it's real or not," Edilio argued.
Astrid shrugged. She stared at nothing and kept her features very still. "We tell them it's all fake. Kids hate this place, but they don't want to die."
"How do we tell them if we don't know?" Edilio seemed genuinely puzzled.
Howard laughed. "Deely-O, Deely-O, you are such a doof sometimes." He put his feet down and leaned toward Edilio as if sharing a secret with him. "She means: We lie. Astrid means that we lie to everyone and tell them we do know for sure."
Edilio stared at Astrid like he was expecting her to deny it.
"It's for people's own good," Astrid said in a low voice, still looking at nothing.
"You know what's funny?" Howard said, grinning. "I was pretty sure we were coming to this meeting so Astrid could rank on Sam for not telling us the whole truth. And now, it turns out we're really here so Astrid can talk us all into becoming liars. ~ Michael Grant

Now, Potter," said McGonagall, "you and Miss Lovegood had better return to your friends and bring them to the Great Hall--I shall rouse the other Gryffindors."
They parted at the top of the next staircase, Harry and Luna running back toward the concealed entrance to the Room of Requirement. As they ran, they met crowds of students, most wearing traveling cloaks over their pajamas, being shepherded down to the Great Hall by teachers and prefects.
"That was Potter!"
"Harry Potter!"
"It was him, I swear, I just saw him!"
But Harry did not look back, and at last they reached the entrance to the Room of Requirement. Harry leaned against the enchanted wall, which opened to admit them, and he and Luna sped back down the steep staircase.
"Wh--?"
As the room came into view, Harry slipped down a few stairs in shock. It was packed, far more crowded than when he had last been in there. Kingsley and Lupin were looking up at him, as were Oliver Wood, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet, Bill and Fleur, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.
"Harry, what's happening?" said Lupin, meeting him at the foot of the stairs.
"Voldemort's on his way, they're barricading the school--Snape's run for it--What are you doing here? How did you know?"
"We sent messages to the rest of Dumbledore's Army," Fred explained. "You couldn't expect everyone to miss the fun, Harry, and the D.A. let the Order of the Phoenix know, and it all kind of snowballed."
" ~ J.K. Rowling

At the meeting I argued that the state had given us no alternative to violence. I said it was wrong and immoral to subject our people to armed attacks by the state without offering them some kind of alternative. I mentioned again that people on their own had taken up arms. Violence would begin whether we initiated it or not. Would it not be better to guide this violence ourselves, according to principles where we saved lives by attacking symbols of oppression, and not people? If we did not take the lead now, I said, we would soon be latecomers and followers to a movement we did not control. ~ Nelson Mandela

Peeta's awake already, sitting on the side of the bed, looking bewildered as the trio of doctors reassure him, flash lights in his eyes, checks his pules. I'm disappointed that mine was not the first face he saw when he woke up, but he sees it now. His features registrer disbelief and something more intense that I can't quite place. Desire? Desperation? Surely both, for he sweeps the doctors aside, leaps to his feets and moves towards me. I run to meet him, my arms extended to embrace him. His hands are reaching for mine too, to caress my face, I think.
My lips are forming his name when his fingers lock around my throat. ~ Suzanne Collins

retrouvailles, another one of those words that do not translate into English, which means "the happiness of meeting someone you love again after a long time. ~ Martha Hall Kelly

He didn't say much at our first meeting - nor at any of our meetings since, come to think of it - but left him into a room, and everyone in it seems to breathe a sigh of relief. I have never in my life had that effect on anyone; I can't imagine why not. ~ Mary Ann Shaffer

He nodded. "That would work. It's a date. So ... I'm meeting the grandparents? What should I wear?" he teased me. "As long as you're not wearing a body bag, I should think you'll do just fine," I laughed, turning back to his collection of portraits. ~ Amy Plum

I do not see the E.E.C. [European Economic Community] as a great love affair. It's more like nine middle aged couples with failing marriages meeting at a Brussels hotel for a group grope. ~ Kenneth Tynan

The autumn months are my domain:
Mirrored in pools my castles dream
Of wars long past and out of mind
From towers with ivy garlands twined

Weak and with regret the sun
Drowns itself in the sluggish green
Water that marble fountains weep;
Trees open their nests to the wings of sleep.

The wind like a phantom seems to roar,
Returned to die of love once more
At the false meeting of the ways
Where a temple rounds its dome in the haze.

Sometimes a child is heard to laugh
In the house of the priest, far off;
His lamp on the ledge of the window gleams
Much as the Holy Spirit flames.

Then nothing. Only a plane tree sways
Its crown of leaves in the dark that graze
Slowly and with a sound so alight
They barely ripple the silent night.

I am the lord of this domain.
Through halls of hollow, echoing
Armor, I haul the heavy shame
Of not being able to be king. ~ Stuart Merrill