Quotes on Certain

For it is humanly certain that most of us remember very little of what we have read. To open almost any book a second time is to be reminded that we had forgotten well-nigh everything that the writer told us. Parting from the narrator and his narrative, we retain only a fading impression; and he, as it were, takes the book away from us and tucks it under his arm.

At a certain age, you have to live near good medical care — if, that is, you're going to continue. You always have the option of not continuing, which, I fear, is sometimes nobler.

Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.

Most people are searching for a path to success that is both easy and certain. Most paths are neither.

Pertaining to a certain order of architecture, otherwise known as Normal American. Most of the public buildings of the United States are of the Ramshackle order, though some of our earlier architects preferred the Ironic. Recent additions to the White House in Washington are Theo-Doric, the ecclesiastic order of the Dorians. They are exceedingly fine and cost one hundred dollars a brick.

The intellectual is different from the ordinary man, but only in certain sections of his personality, and even then not all the time.

I would feel dead if I didn't have the ability periodically to put my world in order with a poem. I think to be inarticulate is a great suffering, and is especially so to anyone who has a certain knack for poetry.

The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The rigidity of a certain type of Christian thought has seriously impaired this capacity, which nonviolence must recover.

Willpower should be understood to be the strength of the mind, which makes it capable of meeting success or failure with equanimity. It is not synonymous with certain success. Why should one's attempts always be attended by success? Success breeds arrogance and man's spiritual progress is thus arrested. Failure, on the other hand, is beneficial, inasmuch as it opens his eyes to his limitations and prepares him to surrender himself. Self surrender is synonymous with eternal happiness.

In accordance with the prarabdha of each, the One whose function it is to ordain makes each to act. What will not happen will never happen, whatever effort one may put forth. And what will happen will not fail to happen, however much one may seek to prevent it. This is certain. The part of wisdom therefore is to stay quiet.

Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It's about feeling the way you feel.

To desire to write poems that endure-we undertake such a goal certain of two things: that in all likelihood we will fail, and if we succeed we will never know it

People thrive on positive reinforcement. They can take only a certain amount of criticism and you may lose them altogether if you criticize them in a personal way... you can make a point without being personal. Don't insult or belittle your people. Instead of getting more out of them you will get less

All humanity inspires me. Every passer-by is my unconscious sitter; and as strange as it may seem, I really draw folk as I see them. Surely it is not my fault that they fall into certain lines and angles.

With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.

To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art.

It is certain that the most natural and human government is that of consent, for that binds freely, ... when men hold their liberty by true obedience to rules of their own making.

In drama, I think, the audience is a willing participant. It's suspending a certain kind of disbelief to try to get something out of a story.

I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say? I felt like de Kooning, who was asked to comment on a certain abstract painting, and answered in the negative. He was then told it was the work of a celebrated monkey. 'That's different. For a monkey, it's terrific'.

I will gladly give lessons as a favor, particularly when I see that my student has talent, inclination, and anxiety to learn; but to be obliged to go to a house at a certain hour, or to have to wait at home for a pupil, is what I cannot do, no matter how much money it may bring me in. . . I am a composer and was born to be a Kapellmeister. I neither can nor ought to bury the talent for composition with which God in his goodness has so richly endowed me. . .

What we are confronted with now is a growing perception that if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it.