Blame And Time Quotes & Sayings

[I]t's necessary to exert very great foresight every time you go to blame or praise a man, so that you won't speak incorrectly ... For you shouldn't suppose that, while stones are sacred and pieces of wood, and birds, and snakes, human beings are not. Rather of all these things, the most sacred is the good human being, while the most polluted is the wicked.
Speech attributed to Socrates in Plato, Minos 319a, trans. Thomas L. Pangle, in The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 63. — Plato

Practice acceptance on yourself so you can be kinder with your child. Practice nonjudgmental awareness of your life so you can save your loved ones from the cruelty of your own impossible standards and your hard-hearted disappointment. Practice greater faith and lesser blame. Take this blink of time when you are still stumbling at the gate, still awkward at the tasks, to turn down the sound and tumble freely in a state of grace. Life — Karen Maezen Miller

Why are you Ojo the Unlucky?" asked the tin man. "Because I was born on a Friday." "Friday is not unlucky," declared the Emperor. "It's just one of seven days. Do you suppose all the world becomes unlucky one-seventh of the time?" "It was the thirteenth day of the month," said Ojo. "Thirteen! Ah, that is indeed a lucky number," replied the Tin Woodman. "All my good luck seems to happen on the thirteenth. I suppose most people never notice the good luck that comes to them with the number 13, and yet if the least bit of bad luck falls on that day, they blame it to the number, and not to the proper cause. — L. Frank Baum

Ironically people will thank a deity for "letting" them win a race, but blame a "witch" if they stumble, look for the nearest suspect, and kill them. Why not blame the deity? Why not accept the setback as easily as they accept the victory/ Time people grew up some, I think - and stopped looking for theoretical "somebodies" to blame for their own misfortunes. — Christina Engela

Clearly, Channing had not taught her young charges that the Declaration and Constitution, while two of the noblest documents in the history of humankind, were also, naturally, products of their time that reflected the limitations of their time (which, needless to say, is why the Constitution has been amended so many times since its ratification); no, she had taught them to revile the founding fathers - men whose vision, courage, and sacrifice made possible the freedom these students have known (and taken for granted) all their lives. These young women were incapable of grasping that the very criteria by which they presumed to judge the author of the Declaration and Constitution would not be available to them if not for those men's efforts. To say this, of course, is not to blame these students for their ignorance, but to underscore just how profoundly ill-served they are by courses of this sort. — Bruce Bawer

If God made all our faces, did he laugh when he made me?
Does he make the legs that cannot walk and eyes that cannot see?
Does he curl the hair upon my head 'til it rebels in wild defiance?
Does he close the ears of a deaf man to make him more reliant?
Is the way I look a coincidence or just a twist of fate?
If he made me this way, is it okay, to blame him for the things I hate?
For the flaws that seem to worsen every time I see a mirror,For the ugliness I see in me, for the loathing and the fear.
Does he sculpt us for his pleasure, for a reason I can't see?
If God makes all our faces, did he laugh when he made me? — Amy Harmon

Life bullies us son, but God don't. He had good reasons for fixin' it where if'n you git too sick or too hurt to live, why, you can die, same as a sick chicken. I've knowed a few really sick chickens to git well, and lots a-folks git well thet nobody ever thought to see out a-bed agin cept in a coffin. Still and all, common sense tells you this much: everwhat makes a wheel run over a track will make it run over a boy if'n he's in the way. If'n you'd a got kilt, it'd mean you jest didn't move fast enough, like a rabbit that gits caught by a hound dog ... When it comes to prayin' we got it all over the other animals, but we ain't no different when it comes to livin' and dyin'. If'n you give God the credit when somebody don't die, you go'n blame Him when they do die? Call it His Will? Ever noticed we git well all the time and don't die but once't? Thet has to mean God always wants us to live if'n we can. — Olive Ann Burns

If you turn back time and look, 5100 years ago in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna did the same thing. He has been the first HR manager India knows. When Arjuna was so depressed and was not ready to do his job, Lord Krishna was with him in the battlefield, and told him all sorts of things. First, He warned Arjuna that people would blame him for sure. Then He incited Arjuna's ego and tried to wake him up. And then He offered His disciple different incentives, saying, "If you win, you will have the kingdom. If you lose, you will enjoy Heaven. Come on, fight." In many ways, Lord Krishna lifted Arjuna out of that depression. — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Ask her who means freedom, whose name is love. Do not inquire of your intellect, do not search backwards through world history. Your soul will not blame you for having cared too little about politics, for having exerted yourself too little, hated your enemies too little, or too little fortified your frontiers. But she will perhaps blame you for so often having feared and fled from her demands, for never having had time to give her, your youngest and fairest child, no time to play with her, no time to listen to her song, for often having sold her for money, betrayed her for advancement ... You will be neurotic and a foe to life
so says your soul
if you neglect me, and you will be destroyed if you do not turn to me with a wholly new love and concern. — Hermann Hesse

A bad life doesn't justify bad behavior. It's time to stop playing the blame game and take responsibility for your own actions. You have control of your life from here. — Blaque Diamond

That is why I need you to take into account the elasticity of time, its ability to expand or contract like an accordion regardless of clocks. I am sure this is something you will have experienced frequently in your own lives, depending on which side of the bathroom door you found yourselves. In Andrew's case, time expanded in his mind, creating an eternity out of a few seconds. I am going to describe the scene from that perspective, and therefore ask you not to blame my inept storytelling for the discrepancies you will no doubt perceive between the events and their correlation in time. pg. 61 — Felix J. Palma

Once you take the time to consider the other person's perspective, you will become sympathetic to his feel ins and ideas. You will be able to authentically and honestly say, I don't blame you for feeling as you do. If I were in your position, I would feel just as you do. — Dale Carnegie

We take all these little calculated risks. All the time. Nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand nothing goes wrong. And the one time it does, we blame the person who took the risk, tell them they should have known better than to ever do such a thing. Which — Catherine Ryan Hyde

Actually I am the one to blame. I was the one who had said that maybe I would be married in two years time. But things are different now and there is still time before I get married. As the saying goes, 'Man proposes, God disposes', every time we make a plan God changes it. — Katrina Kaif

We alays blame the outer world for our failures, unhappiness and frustration. It is time to realise that it is health, harmony and wealth of our inner world that determine the degree of our success, joy, peace and bliss. — Vishwas Chavan

The power behind taking responsibility for your actions lies in putting an end to negative thought patterns. You no longer dwell on what went wrong or focus on whom you are going to blame. You don't waste time building roadblocks to your success. Instead, you are set free and can now focus on succeeding. — Lorii Myers

They were nearly to Annie's by now, and they made the rest of the trip in silence, Peter frowning out at the road with a look of deep concentration. Emma didn't blame him; after all, she'd insulted his entire system of beliefs. But how were you every supposed to get anywhere if you always stuck to the same route? He spent so much time charting out the world that he barely had a chance to get lost in it. — Jennifer E. Smith

And lots a-folks git well thet nobody ever thought to see out a-bed agin cept in a coffin. Still and all, common sense tells you this much: everwhat makes a wheel run over a track will make it run over a boy if'n he's in the way. If'n you'd a-got kilt, it'd mean you jest didn't move fast enough, like a rabbit that gits caught by a hound dog. You think God favors the dog over the rabbit, son?" I shook my head. "I don't neither. When it comes to prayin', we got it all over the other animals, but we ain't no different when it comes to livin' and dyin'. If'n you give God the credit when somebody don't die, you go'n blame Him when they do die? Call it His will? Ever noticed we git well all the time and don't die but once't? Thet has to mean God always wants us to live if'n we can. Hit ain't never His will for us to die - cept in the big sense. In the sense He was smart enough not to make life eternal on this here earth, with people — Olive Ann Burns

Empowered Women 101: If he's with you, it's a given that he finds you attractive. Don't talk him out of his attraction by highlighting all your flaws and spending your time cutting down other women's qualities that you are jealous of. A real women focuses on what she has and fixes what she doesn't like. She doesn't blame people for not seeing what she doesn't always see in herself. — Shannon L. Alder

There are times in every person's life when they feel lonely, isolated, like maybe they don't belong. For adoptees, this is often exacerbated by the circumstances. Because you were given up, you have a built-in scapegoat; you can blame everything that you feel on the fact that you were adopted. But, I want you to know that this is a fallacy. Finding your biological parents will not fill in the void that you feel. You will get answers to your questions, but no one can fill in the missing pieces except for you. Before you go on a search, take the time to get to know yourself very well. Heal the hurts you've experienced. Acknowledge the past and how it has affected you. Become a whole person who is seeking roots, not a damaged person who is seeking fulfillment. — Janet Louise Stephenson

This doll-guy situation is an extreme of what I deal with in everyday life, where men believe that what they want I want, and they project that on to me and then blame me, curse me, when I don't respond the way they've fantasized, like it's some personal attack on them, like they're entitled to something. Doll guy and dog guy and rape guy, the dangerous ones, they just go a step further and take it anyway. Then they blame you and the way you look for what they did. What's worse is that a lot of the time, society blames you, too. — Taylor Stevens

I gather you weren't keen on going back to Scotland with your brother at this time of year. I don't say I blame you. Terribly bleak and cutoff in the winter."
"Oh no, Mom," I said, as her words sunk in. "My brother is not going back to Scotland. He and my sister-in-law are going to the Riviera."
The Riviera? I had no idea."
"For my sister-in-law's health. She's feeling rather frail at the moment."
"I don't think that frail would ever be a word to describe your sister-in-law," the Queen said, looking up with a half smile on her lips as a tray of coffee was reeled into the room.
"I managed to have six children without making a fuss. One just got on with it. — Rhys Bowen

I knew by this time what Thea thought of these people and in fact of most people, with their faulty humanity. She couldn't stand them. And what her eccentricity amounted to was that she proposed a different kind of humanity altogether. I guess nothing restrains people from demanding ideal conditions. Very little restrains them from anything. Thea's standard was high, but she wasn't exactly to blame as having arbitrarily set it high. For when she talked to me about some particular person she'd be more frightened than scornful. People with whom she had to struggle scared her, and what I'd call average hypocrisy, just the incidental little whiffs of the social machine, was terribly hard on her. As for greediness or envy, fat self-smelling of appreciation, hates and destructions, fraud, gnawing, she had a very poor tolerance of them, and I'd see her go out in the eyes in a really dangerous way at a gathering. — Saul Bellow

Lleu is a hard lord," said Huw, "He is killing Gronw without anger, without love, without mercy. He is hurt too much by the woman and the spear. Yet what is there when it is done? His pride. No spear. No friend."
Roger started at Huw. "You're not so green as you're grass-looking, are you?" he said. "Now you mention it, I have been thinking - That bloke Gronw was the only one with any real guts at the end."
"But none of them is all to blame," said Huw. "It is only together they are destroying each other."
"That Blod-woman was pretty poor," said Roger, "however you look at it."
"No," said Huw. "She was made for her lord. Nobody is asking her if she wants him. It is bitter twisting to be shut up with a person you are not liking very much. I think she was longing for the time when she was flowers on the mountain, and it is making her cruel, as the rose is growing thorns. — Alan Garner

I know you were mad and scared, and I guess I don't blame you. But you were my dream, too, Mia, for a long time. I thought that if I had you, I could do anything. And then when I had you, I knew I had everything. It took you walking away to make me realize that a dream doesn't change even if you can't have it. It just waits. — Kristen Kehoe

Why shouldn't Mom trust me, Dad" Why are you so determined to make me out to be the bad guy all the time?" I stared at the side of his face, willing him to make eye contact. He didn't. "I've been doing really good late and you don't even care."
"Yet you still managed to get into trouble tonight," he said.
"You have no idea what happened tonight," I said, my voice ratcheting up a notch. "All you know is that, because I was involved, I'm somehow guilty of something. You could at least pretend to care, you know. You could at least try to understand."
Dad gave a sardonic little laugh. "I'll tell you what I understand," he said. "I understand that when you're left to your own devices you get into trouble, that's what I understand. I understand I was trying to have a happy, restful evening with Briley and once again you screwed it up. — Jennifer Brown

You'll forget it all: the cruel power of your superiors, the thoughtless things you wish you'd never said, the stupidities, the unfinished work, the lack of consideration, the betrayals, the injustices, the indifference, those who've blamed you, those who will blame you, your financial troubles, the rush of time, the endless waits, the things and people forever beyond your reach, your loneliness, your shame, your defeats, your wretchedness, your pain, and the catastrophes - all those catastrophes - in just a few minutes you'll forget them all. The prospect comforts you. Patiently you wait. — Orhan Pamuk

For the first time in my life I began to realize that it is not evil and brutality, but nearly always weakness, that is to blame for the worst things that happen in this world. — Stefan Zweig

He never had nothing of his own before, except the kid, and he can't claim but half the credit, there, maybe less. T.J.'s blond like his mamma, and stubborn, too. Won't let nobody hold him except her. Cries every time his daddy picks him up. Every time he looks in those wet blue eyes, he nearly loses it. His own son hates him. Can't blame the kid for having an opinion. — Nadria Tucker

Account of Love gave me several results, and its amazing:
a. When man doesn't make time to talk to woman, woman feels man is not caring her.
b. When woman doesn't make time to talk to man, man need to understand her problem.
c. When man makes mistake he had to give clarifications by speaking truth or even lying.
d. When woman makes mistake mad had to accept all excuses given by woman.
e. When man suffers, most of the time he had to accept whatever happens.
f. When woman suffers, man had to make woman happy by doing anything possible
g. When love ends man need to hide all the tears as he feels he is strong.
h. When love ends woman uses tears to blame the man for all the mistakes. — Nutan Bajracharya

It's a sailors' tradition, miss." O'Shea approached, his thick brogue cutting through Sophia's confusion. "The Sea King himself comes aboard to have a bit of sport with those crossing the Tropic for the first time, like the new boy there." He nodded toward Davy, who stood to the side, looking every bit as confused as Sophia but unwilling to own to it.
Quinn crossed his massive forearms over his chest, stacking them like logs. "And Triton always collects his tax, of course."
"His tax?" Sophia asked.
O'Shea gave her a sly look. "Best be ready with a coin or two, Miss Turner. If you can't pay his tax, old Triton just might sweep ye down to the depths with him and keep ye there forever."
Quinn chuckled, shooting the Irishman a knowing look. "Knowing old Triton, it wouldn't be surprising if he did just that."
O'Shea winked at the crewman. "Could hardly blame him. — Tessa Dare

The next time you face a customer who has every right to be upset, say something like this: 'I don't blame you for feeling as you do. If I were you, I'd feel exactly the same way. What would you like for me to do?' These are magical, healing words, and you'll be surprised at how reasonable people become when they believe you are on their side. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

She's plenty pissed at me. Not as pissed as Rinko but pissed. I can't blame her. I promised her three days and gave her a hundred. This is going to take a time to pass. If it ever does, now that she's moved on to someone else. Still, she went to the hotel with me last night. Was that a welcome home or a good-bye fuck? I guess I'll find out. I'm so fucking good at being patient. I — Richard Kadrey

Laura never again came to the drugstore as long as I continued to work there.
The next time I saw her, she was a wreck of a woman, notorious around black Roxbury, in and out of jail.
She had finished high school, but by then she was already going the wrong way.
Defying her grandmother, she had started going out late and drinking liquor.
This led to dope, and that to selling herself to men. Learning to hate the men who bought her, she also became a Lesbian.
One of the shames I have carried for years is that I blame myself for all of this.
To have treated her as I did for a white woman made the blow doubly heavy.
The only excuse I can offer is that like so many of my black brothers today, I was just deaf, dumb, and blind. — Malcolm X

He laughed, looking down into his empty cup. "Decent people don't expect that kind of twistedness." He put the cup down on the floor. "And if they ever did suspect it, they'd just blame themselves for thinking too mean. You should trust your disquiet the next time. That's what it's there for. A man like that gets where he is by seeming. And then he makes you feel obligated to him. It's an old trick. — Kristen D. Randle

This time I look at him longer, properly, scanning his face for some sign of what he is thinking - some judgment, some hint of blame or guilt that I'm standing there, talking about leaving his people and mine, about abandoning our whole lives. About running away. But he only smiles at me, his fingers sliding from my cheek to twine around a floating lock of hair, making it spiral in midair. — Amie Kaufman

Why is it these days that so many people hate reading? Some people won't even touch a newspaper or magazine. It isn't television that kills reading, or cinema or radio, or even those accursed little things known as video games. People used to read all the time, but when the century shifted subtly, somewhere along the way, people forgot how to imagine. When did it happen? At what point? Who or what is to blame? Maybe it's just because the world has become so cold and scientific and shallow in recent years. — Rebecca McNutt

He shook his head, his eyes so full of sadness that it made her chest ache. You want me when you need me, but the rest of the time I'm not worthy. I doona blame you. I'm not worthy. Not yet anyway. You've been alone for so long that you've gotten used to keeping everyone at a distance, and I'm — Donna Grant

You know, I honestly can't remember a time when you weren't covered in scrapes and bruises. I would blame it on you trying to keep up with the boys if they weren't always struggling to keep up with you. — Tammy Blackwell

Today, what's normal is being redefined: from vaginal birth to surgical birth; from 'My water broke,' to 'Let's break your water;' from 'It's time' to 'It's time for the induction.' As medical anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd writes, 'in the early twenty-first century, we do not know what normal birth is.' Most practicing obstetricians have never witnessed an unplugged birth that wasn't an accident. Women are even beginning to deny normal birth to themselves: if 'normal' means being induced, immobilized by wires and tubes, sped up with drugs, all the while knowing that there's a good chance of surgery, well, might as well just cut to the chase, so to speak. 'Just give me a cesarean,' some are saying. And who can blame them? They want to avoid what they think of as normal birth. — Jennifer Block

Beth's voice broke. "I can't lose you guys." And there it was. She sat here bleeding because she loved me and Isaiah. For the millionth time, I wished the system was a person. One person I could name, know and hold responsible for screwing every single one of us. Right now, Beth's mom's new boyfriend would have to do. — Katie McGarry

Did you really think I might have drawn that picture?" Emma swallowed a self-conscious lump in her throat, then lifted her chin. "I own the notion did cross my mind. But can you blame me? After all, you knew what the piece looked like and you gave me prodigious cause to suspect you in the past." He inhaled deeply. "I suppose you are right. But that was a long time ago. I have no interest in tricking you now. Nor in frightening you, nor any other dishonorable motive, I assure you." The warm tenor of his voice did odd things to Emma's stomach. She blinked, unable to meet his gaze. "Emma, look at me." She forced herself to meet his remarkable green eyes and saw the sincerity burning there. He said, "You have my word, Emma. I did not do this." He had called her Emma. She liked the sound of her name on his lips. Nodding, she said, "I believe you. — Julie Klassen

I just had never occured to me to think that anything inherent to me was to blame for the things that went wrong (or the things that never even happened at all) with the other guys before him. Maybe it was all the time I'd had to decide I was cool and good and worthy without anyone else's help. — Katie Heaney

Honestly? I think all of this would be easier if I could point to one thing, one moment, one person, and say this is why. I could explain it, then. Understand the why of it. Blame it on something other than myself. If I were a victim, maybe it would keep everyone from being so frustrated with me. On a few occasions, I've even considered making up something, just to see the sympathy that flashed in my mom's eyes a second ago, just to have her be patient with me for more than a minute at a time. But I'm not a liar, so instead I get the frustrated, calculating way she's glaring at me now. I've seen it so many times before. It's a look that makes my stomach ache. — Mila Ferrera

The most feared situation is to end up inadvertently in the wrong place at the wrong time and get blamed. Yet this is exactly what happens in a structure that systematically diffuses responsibility. It is because managers fear blame-time that they diffuse responsibility; however such a diffusion inevitably means that someone, somewhere is going to become a scapegoat when things go wrong. — Robert Jackall

Wow," the empty air finally said. "Wow. That puts a pretty different perspective on things, I have to say. I'm going to remember this the next time I feel an impulse to blame myself for something. Neville, the term in the literature for this is 'egocentric bias', it means that you experience everything about your own life but you don't get to experience everything else that happens in the world. There was way, way more going on than you running in front of me. You're going to spend weeks remembering that thing you did there for six seconds, I can tell, but nobody else is going to bother thinking about it. Other people spend a lot less time thinking about your past mistakes than you do, just because you're not the center of their worlds. I guarantee to you that nobody except you has even considered blaming Neville Longbottom for what happened to Hermione. Not for a fraction of a second. You are being, if you will pardon the phrase, a silly-dilly. Now shut up and say goodbye. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Paul Works like a Farmer

When Silas and Timothy arrived in Corinth, Paul was very busy. He was always talking about the Scriptures with the Jews. He assured them that Jesus was the Christ. They argued and snubbed him. Paul shook the dust out of his cloak into their faces. "This means I'm through with you. You must answer to God for refusing the truth. I'm not to blame. Now I'm going to pay attention to the Gentiles."
One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision. "Don't be afraid," he said. "Speak and don't be silent. I'm with you and no one will harm you. Many people in Corinth belong to me."
Paul worked like a farmer among the people of Corinth. He planted the seeds of God's gospel for eighteen months. During that time, Paul wrote two letters to the believers in Thessalonica. He wanted them to live a holy, hard-working life. "Look forward to the day Jesus comes again," he wrote. — Daniel Partner

The Perpetrator's Narrative: The story begins with the harmful act. At the time I had good reasons for doing it. Perhaps I was responding to an immediate provocation. Or I was just reacting to the situation in a way that any reasonable person would. I had a perfect right to do what I did, and it's unfair to blame me for it. The harm was minor, and easily repaired, and I apologized. It's time to get over it, put it behind us, let bygones be bygones. The — Steven Pinker

Are not half our lives spent in reproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of which we were wholly ignorant at the time? — Herman Melville

FORGIVE FAILURE. The corollary to accountability is forgiveness. Things go wrong all the time in relationships, and the healthiest ones move on from them, leaving behind grudges and blame. This is not to say that failure is accepted; rather, that it is acknowledged and understood. — Charlene Li

He who is himself crossed in love is able from time to time to master his passion, for he is not the creature but the creator of his own misery; and if a lover is unable to control his passion, he at least knows that he is himself to blame for his sufferings. But he who is loved without reciprocating that love is lost beyond redemption, for it is not in his power to set a limit to that other's passion, to keep it within bounds, and the strongest will is reduced to impotence in the face of another's desire. — Stefan Zweig

While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud's work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they overlook the fundamental truth of his writing, his grand humility: that we frequently do not know our own motivations in life and are prisoners to what we cannot understand. We can recognize only a small fragment of our own, and an even smaller fragment of anyone else's, impetus. — Andrew Solomon

That is the way with all of your kind ... It is how you are made; you must all strive to claw your way over the backs of your fellow humans during the short time you are permitted in the universe, breeding when you can, so that the strongest strain survive and the weakest die. I would no more blame you for that than I would try to convert some non-sentient carnivore to vegetarianism. You are all on your own side. — Iain M. Banks

Raising tax rates does not raise revenues. In fact, just the opposite happens. The rich just find a way to legally shelter their money and avoid the higher taxes. And who could blame them. But every time we've lowered tax rates, revenues rose. Harding. Coolidge. Hoover. Kennedy. Reagan. Bush. They all got that. — Steve Berry

From the beginning of time, we've had financial crises. People always blame the banks and for good reason. When you look for the root causes, they're almost always failed government policies. — Henry Paulson

The new structure of the U.S. stock market had removed the big Wall Street banks from their historic, lucrative role as intermediary. At the same time it created, for any big bank, some unpleasant risks: that the customer would somehow figure out what was happening to his stock market orders. And that the technology might somehow go wrong. If the markets collapsed, or if another flash crash occurred, the high-frequency traders would not take 85 percent of the blame, or bear 85 percent of the costs of the inevitable lawsuits. The banks would bear the lion's share of the blame and the costs. The relationship of the big Wall Street banks to the high-frequency traders, when you thought about it, was a bit like the relationship of the entire society to the big Wall — Michael Lewis

Its time we woke up," pursued Gerald, still inwardly urged to unfamiliar speech. "Women are pretty much people, seems to me. I know they dress like fools - but who's to blame for that? We invent all those idiotic hats of theirs, and design their crazy fashions, and what's more, if a woman is courageous enough to wear common-sense clothes - and shoes - which of us wants to dance with her? — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Did I ever mention how much I hate cats?"
"Do not blame me, Goodfellow." Grimalkin blinked, managing to sound bored and indignant at the same time. "I was minding my own business long before you and the princess started humping like rabbits."
Puck snorted. Rolling to his stomach, he pushed himself off the bed and pulled me up with him, wrapping me in his arms. — Julie Kagawa

Most people don't realize that since the time of Apollo we've been in a feedback loop: as a nation, we elect representatives who thwart NASA, and then we blame NASA for its lack of vision. — Margaret Lazarus Dean

Many of us humans have a hard time with understanding one simple truth: the surest way to get love is to start giving love to others. Often, when we desperately need some companionship, understanding and warmth from those who are around us, we chose to blame, shout, criticize, accuse, insult and set ultimatums. But in reply, we only encounter with cold walls of estrangement which was diligently built by our own efforts, farcical walls and fences. — Sahara Sanders

Up to a point a person's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow. — Louis L'Amour

I am thinking that I don't want this to happen. I don't want to die. I don't want my friends to die. And to be honest, as the time slows down and my hands are in the air, I am afforded the chance to think one more thought, and I think about her. I blame her for this ridiculous, fatal chase
for putting us at risk, for making me into the kind of jackass who would stay up all night and drive too fast. I would not be dying were it not for her. I would have stayed home, as I have always stayed home, and I would've been safe, and I would have done the one thing I have always wanted to do, which is to grow up. — John Green

If companies want to benefit from the advantages of social norms, they need to do a better job of cultivating those norms. Medical benefits, and in particular comprehensive medical coverage, are among the best ways a company can express its side of the social exchange. But what are many companies doing? They are demanding high deductibles in their insurance plans, and at the same time are reducing the scope of benefits. Simply put, they are undermining the social contract between the company and the employees and replacing it with market norms. As companies tilt the board, and employees slide from social norms to the realm of market norms, can we blame them for jumping ship when a better offer appears? It's really no surprise that "corporate loyalty," in terms of the loyalty of employees to their companies, has become an oxymoron. — Dan Ariely

The starting point of enlightenment, a goal that every person should strive for, is inner leadership. Leadership is far more than something businesspeople do at work. Leadership is all about personal responsibility, self-discovery, and creating value in the world by the people we become. Too many people spend their time blaming others for all that isn't working in their lives. We blame our spouses for our unhappy home lives; we blame our bosses for our distress at work; we blame strangers on the freeway for making us angry; we blame our parents for keeping us small. Blame, blame, blame, blame. But blaming others is nothing more than excusing yourself. Blaming others for the current quality of your life is a sad way to live. In doing so, all you're doing is playing the victim. — Robin S. Sharma

Every one of us can blame somebody for something that has happened in our lives. But don't waste your time. What we need most is a steady stream of love flowing among us. Love that quickly forgives, willingly overlooks, and refuses to take offense. — Charles R. Swindoll

I blame Mother Nature two-faced bitch and Father Time bloody bastard .Yep those misogynistic killjoys have cut off my pocket money and left me grounded.With
those two authoritarian heavyweights ganging up what chance does a woman have I aks you — Kathy Lette

Once upon a time they had some bad luck, and they blame everything on that. — Herta Muller

Hierarchies must rise and conglomerate as they extend over fewer and larger corporations. A seat in a high-rise job is the most coveted and contested product of expanding industry. The lack of schooling, compounded with sex, color, and peculiar persuasions, now keeps most people down. Minorities organized by women, or blacks, or the unorthodox succeed at best in getting some of their members through school and into an expensive job. They claim victory when they get equal pay for equal rank. Paradoxically, these movements strengthen the idea that unequal graded work is necessary and that high-rise hierarchies are necessary to produce what an egalitarian society needs. If properly schooled, the black porter will blame himself for not being a black lawyer. At the same time, schooling generates a new intensity of frustration which ultimately can act as social dynamite. 6 — Ivan Illich

But, sir, isn't death a dreadful thing?" asked Malcolm.
"That depends on whether a man regards it as his fate or as the will of a perfect God. Its obscurity is its dread. But if God be light, then death itself must be full of splendor
a splendor probably too keen for our eyes to receive."
"But there's the dying itself; isn't that fearsome? It's that I would be afraid of."
"I don't see why it should be. It's the lack of a God that makes it dreadful, and you would be greatly to blame for that, Malcolm, if you hadn't found your God by the time you had to die. — George MacDonald

I am not covetous, but as ambitious as ever any of my sex was, is, or can be; which makes, that though I cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second, yet I endeavour to be Margaret the First; and although I have neither power, time, not occasion to conquer the world as Alexander and Caesar did; yet rather than not be mistress of one, since Fortune and Fates would give me none, I have made a world of my own; for which nobody, I hope, will blame me, since it is in everyone's power to do the like. — Margaret Cavendish

It is convenient for the old men to blame Eve. To insist we are damned because a country girl talked to the snake one afternoon long ago. Children must starve in Somalia for that, and old women be abandoned in our greatest cities. It's why we will finally be thrown into the lakes of molten lead. Because she was confused by happiness that first time anyone said she was beautiful. Nevertheless, she must be the issue, so people won't notice that rocks and galaxies, mathematics and rust are also created in His image. — Jack Gilbert

She liked to think. What did she like to think? She was having a dumb day and wanted to blame the fog.
Maybe he falls, he slides, if that is a useful word, from his experience of an objective world, the deepest description of space-time, where he does not feel a sense of future direction - he slides into her experience, everyone's, the standard sun-kissed chronology of events.
Am I the first human to abduct an alien? — Don DeLillo

THEO: You should walk a fucking mile before you judge a situation. You should put yourself in someone else's shoes before you blame, or judge, or pity. It takes a long time to wear down someone's confidence, and it takes much more strength of will to walk away than it does to take another punch. — Con Riley

Whether or not belive in Fate comes down to one thing: who you blame when something goes wrong. Do you think it's your fault - that if you'd tried better, worked harder, it wouldn't have happened? Or do you just chalk it up to circumstance?
I know poeple who'll hear about the people who died, and will say that it was God's will. I know people who'll say it was bad luck. And then there's my personal favorite: They were just in the wrong place at hte wrong time.
Then again, you could say the same thing about me, couldn't you? — Jodi Picoult

At the same time I know that it's not really their fault, at least not completely. I did my part too. I did it on a hundred different days and in a thousand different ways, and I know it. But this makes the anger worse, not better. — Lauren Oliver

I arrived in Dallas two days before the party and planned on leaving the day after. I hated the city as much as I thought I would. All anyone could talk about were the Cowboys and their chances in the playoffs. Charlene was happy. Joe was not, or so it seemed to me, in spite of the fact that he had finally gotten exactly what he thought he wanted from a wife: she gave him an adorable boy, she did everything in their home including laundry, and most important, she did not embarrass him. Whenever I was alone with Joe during the two days I was there, Charlene would send her son into the room with us. The first time I carried him, Charlene made sure to mention how surprised she was that I had motherly instincts. She probably used the pronoun we more in one day than I have in my whole life. I did not blame her. Most plain women stake their claims clumsily. — Rabih Alameddine

He pulled her mirror out of his other pocket. "You left your mirror on my table." He extended it toward her.
"You can keep it," she said quietly. "We have lots of mirrors here."
"I'll keep it, then."
"Good. I'm glad."
He'd never rushed headlong into a battle, but he figured this time, it might be the best approach. "I spent a lot of time studying it. The back is real pretty with all the gold carving. Took me about an hour to gather up the courage to turn it over and look at the other side."
"And what did you see?"
" Aman who loves you more than life itself."
Closing her eyes, she dropped her chin to her chest.
"I wouldn't blame you if you hated me. I haven't held your feelings as precious as I should have."
"I don't hate you," she whispered hoarsely. "I tried to, but I can't."
-Houston and Amelia — Lorraine Heath

What is he doing?" she finally whispered.
Bill appeared behind her and flitted around her shoulders. "Looks like he's sleeping."
"But why? I didn't even know angels need to sleep-"
"Need isn't the right word. They can sleep if they feel like it.Daniel always sleeps for days after you die." Bill tossed his head,seeming to recall something unpleasant. "Okay,not always. Most of the time.Must be pretty taxing,to lose the one thing you love. Can you blame him?"
"S-sort of," Luce stammered. "I'm the one who bursts into flames."
"And he's the one who's left alone. The age-old question.Which is worse? — Lauren Kate

Yes, this is an age of moral crisis. Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil. But it is not man who is now on trial and it is not human nature that will take the blame. It is your moral code that's through, this time. Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality - you who have never known any - but to discover it. — Ayn Rand

This was the first time God had crossed my mind in over a year, and again only in my moment of absolute hopelessness. I'd done the same on the raft and in the prison camps when I'd promised God my life should he let me survive. Had I kept my promise? No. And this time, instead of promises, I had only anger and complaints and blame. But I didn't blame myself; I blamed God. Maybe he was listening, maybe not, but even if, as I sometimes suspected, God watched over me, I couldn't blame him for cutting me loose this time. — Louis Zamperini

Mama and Papa are more to blame (for delinquency) than the kids; parents should stay home and raise their children and spend less time in taverns. — Harry Truman

Well it happened, you know? And There's nothing we can do about it now. You can blame and blame yourself, thinking og thw things you might've done differently, or ask if maybe it was her time, and ask if this has something to do with god, maybe, but sometimes I think things just happen. There's nothing you can do about it-you just gotta deal with it. Sometimes life really sucks. you know? sometimes it just sucks — Sara Shepard

Luckily, he was in the process of moving to France at the time, anyway. But if he had stayed in the States, I don't know how he would have handled that, because it was getting pretty crazy. I mean, a celebrity which he really did not welcome. And I can't blame him. — Terry Zwigoff

But sometimes things happen that no one hopes for. Events that cause everything you've worked towards, the life you've carefully constructed piece by piece, to come tumbling down all around you. No one is to blame, but you're left with a wound you can't heal on your own and can't believe you'll ever learn to accept, so you struggle to escape the pain. Only time can heal wounds as deep as that - a lot of time - and all you can really do is place yourself in its hands and try to consider the passing of each day a victory. You tough it out moment by moment, hour by hour, and after some weeks or months you begin to see signs of recovery. Slowly the wound heals into a scar. — Ryu Murakami

We cannot, therefore, blame the courts, public schools, media, or government for our own theological unfaithfulness. We are the ones - the prophets and priests - who have contributed to this "Ichabod," this departure of God's glory in our time. Only by returning to sound, effective God-centered preaching and teaching can we restore the confidence not only of Christians themselves in God's greatness, but of an unbelieving world that is more apathetic toward our benign, helpless, happy deity than hostile. — Michael S. Horton

Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds. — Louis L'Amour

But this time I'm not to blame; I want you to believe that. I simply slipped into those violets. No, I want to be really truthful. I am a little to blame. The sky, you know, was gold, and the ground all blue, and for a moment he looked like some one in a book. — E. M. Forster

What's missing is leadership in the White House. And the story that Barack Obama does tell, forever shifting blame to the last administration, is getting old. The man assumed office almost four years ago - isn't it about time he assumed responsibility? — Paul Ryan

Ever feel like you're always winding up and never throwing it out? You might blame it on perfectionism or procrastination or preparation. You may even call it prudent. But whatever it is...IT'S NOT WORKING. I call this phenomenon "petrified performance." Where you're busy, busy, busy (on the wrong activities or the right activities for too long), and never accomplishing the idea or task you set out to do. You're stuck. Like a tree that once was lively is now dead and immovable like a stone. What once was a fluid idea is now frozen in time. How do you overcome petrified performance? With practice, silly. Everything you do should be considered a "project" because projects have a beginning and an end with a timeline. No more dreaming. Wake up and put those dreams to work by putting the steps necessary to make them happen on the calendar. Are you willing to practice? That's my prescription. — Richie Norton

I resent you - " Robespierre said. His words were lost. "The People," he shouted, "are everywhere good, and if they obstruct the Revolution - even, for example, at Toulon - we must blame their leaders."
"What are you going on about this for?" Danton asked him.
Fabre launched himself from the wall. "He is trying to enunciate a doctrine," he shrieked. "He thinks the time has come for a bloody sermon."
"If only," Robespierre yelled, "there were more vertu."
"More what?"
"Vertu. Love of one's country. Self-sacrifice. Civic spirit."
"One appreciates your sense of humor, of course." Danton jerked his thumb in the direction of the noise. "The only vertu those bastards understand is the kind I demonstrate every night to my wife. — Hilary Mantel

Michael Jackson has an anti-Semitic streak, and hasn't learned from his past mistakes. It seems every time he has a problem in his life, he blames it on Jews. — Abraham Foxman

Over time I learned that there were a lot of people who would judge you, blame you, and try to make you feel lesser, no matter what you did; that a degree, a good suit, and a career wouldn't always insulate you from scorn. — Rachel Lloyd

But this book is about something else: what goes on in the lives of real people when the industrial economy goes south. It's about reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way possible. It's about a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it. The problems that I saw at the tile warehouse run far deeper than macroeconomic trends and policy. too many young men immune to hard work. Good jobs impossible to fill for any length of time. And a young man [one of Vance's co-workers] with every reason to work - a wife-to-be to support and a baby on the way - carelessly tossing aside a good job with excellent health insurance. More troublingly, when it was all over, he thought something had been done to him. There is a lack of agency here - a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself. This is distinct from the larger economic landscape of modern America. — J.D. Vance

Others Exonerated the plebs and threw the blame upon the patricians: it was owing to their artful canvassing that the plebeians found the road to office blocked; if the plebs might have a breathing-spell from the mingled prayers and menaces of the nobles, they would think of their friends when they went to vote, and to the protection they had already won would add authority. It was resolved in order to do away with canvassing, that the tribunes should propose a law forbidding anyone to whiten his toga, for the purpose of announcing himself a candidate. This may now appear a trivial thing and one scarcely to be considered seriously, but at the time it kindled a furious struggle between the patricians and the plebs. Yet the tribunes prevailed and carried their law: and it was clear that the plebeians in their irritated mood would support the men of their own order. — Livy

In real markets, agents make bad choices. They are often ignorant, misinformed, and irrational. Yet, markets tend to punish agents for making bad choices, and they tend to learn from their mistakes. For instance, if you fail to pay your bills, your credit rating declines and you have a harder time getting loans. If you fail to do research and buy an unreliable car, you suffer from repair bills. In contrast, when people in government make bad choices, the political process almost never punishes them. Studies show that voters are terrible at retrospective voting - they do not know whom to blame for bad government - and so politicians are not punished for making bad choices. — Jason Brennan

Being late was a special kind of modern suffering, with blended elements of rising tension, self-blame, self-pity, misanthropy, and a yearning for what could not be had outside theoretical physics: time reversal. — Ian McEwan

For if we regard space and time as properties that must, as regards their possibility, be found in things in themselves, [ ... ] then we really cannot blame the good Bishop Berkeley for degrading bodies to mere illusion. Nay, even our own existence, which would thus be made dependent on the self-subsistent reality of a non-entity such as time, would, along with this time, be changed into mere illusion - an absurdity of which hitherto no one has been guilty. — Immanuel Kant

Time and again, racist ideas have not been cooked up from the boiling pot of ignorance and hate. Time and again, powerful and brilliant men and women have produced racist ideas in order to justify the racist policies of their era, in order to redirect the blame for their era's racial disparities away from those policies and onto Black people. — Ibram X. Kendi

A warrior is always aware of what is worth fighting for. He does not go into combat over things that do not concern him, and he never wastes his time over provocations. A warrior accepts defeat. He does not treat it as a matter of indifference, nor does he attempt to transform it into a victory. The pain of defeat is bitter to him; he suffers at indifference and becomes
desperate with loneliness. After all this has passed, he licks his wounds
and begins everything anew. A warrior knows that war is made of many
battles; he goes on. Tragedies do happen. We can discover the reason, blame others, imagine how different our lives would be had they not occurred. But none of that is important: they did occur, and so be it. From there onward we must put aside the fear that they awoke in us and begin to rebuild. — Paulo Coelho

All war is fratricide, and there is therefore an infinite chain of blame that winds its circuitous route back and forth across the path and under the feet of every people and every nation, so that a people who are the victims of one time become the victimisers a generation later, and newly liberated nations resort immediately to the means of their former oppressors. — Louis De Bernieres