Crutch It Quotes & Sayings

Some people think the first tools were weapons, but that's all upside down. First of all, people figure out the tools. It's the crutch before the club every time. — Neil Gaiman

It is often said that the Church is a crutch. Of course it's a crutch. What makes you think you don't limp? — William Sloane Coffin

Jesus' pattern prayer, which is both crutch, road, and walking lesson for the spiritually lame like ourselves, tells us to start with God: for lesson one is to grasp that God matters infinitely more than we do. So "thy" is the keyword of the opening three petitions, and the first request of all is "hallowed (holy, sanctified) be thy name" - which is the biggest and most basic request of the whole prayer. Understand it and make it your own, and you have unlocked the secret of both prayer and life. — J.I. Packer

We all use texting as a crutch because it's so easy and it doesn't really stop our day for the most part but I think to assure a woman you want to go out, to see that you're serious, you take the extra effort to pick up the phone and make a phone call. — Michael B. Jordan

Government cripples you, then hands you a crutch and says, 'See, if it wasn't for us, you couldn't walk.' — Harry Browne

The Gospel isn't a life management program. It shouldn't merely be the crutch we fall on when life gets ugly. It should be the legs we walk on, the air we breathe. — Mary E. DeMuth

I've never quite felt totally comfortable up on stage. I've gotten more comfortable, but drinking wine is a crutch that gives me a little courage. It helps me lose a little bit of the self-consciousness and the awareness of how awkward it is standing on a stage with lights and a bunch of people looking at you while you sing love songs. — Matt Berninger

Not only do I believe that it is possible to maintain moral standards without the crutch of religion - but I would argue that it is the only way to achieve true goodness and express real altruism. Free from the constraints of organized religion, a human being is able to express decency from one's self - as opposed to attempting to appease whatever higher power he or she may believe in. — David G. McAfee

Faith is an admirable trait. It's good to have faith in another person. But when faith is used as a substitute for reality, then it becomes a crutch for refusing to deal with that reality. — Peter David

You think you're no good, so you can't do good things. Jesus, Codi, how long are you going to keep limping around on that crutch? It's the other way around, it's what you *do* that makes you who you are. — Barbara Kingsolver

Dwarfs were not a naturally religious species, but in a world where pit props could crack without warning and pockets of fire damp could suddenly explode they'd seen the need for gods as the sort of supernatural equivalent of a hard hat. Besides, when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, "Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!" or "Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch! — Terry Pratchett

Many times, I thought the sat-phone was just a hindrance because it can become a crutch. You can call someone in Australia or Europe and talk about what you're going through, but it doesn't actually help. Sat-phones and GPS can't show you where the grass or the wells are. — Tim Cope

And you can use that bad experience as a crutch to hobble around on for the rest of your life, or you can get over it. — Carolyn Brown

Racial humor was about 35% of my act when I first started. But I realized that it was a crutch. What brought it home was when another comedian said to me, 'If you changed color tomorrow, you wouldn't have any material.' He meant it as a put-down, but I took it as a challenge. — Bill Cosby

Peter was the current someone she used to keep from relying on herself, the crutch to hold on to, to promise herself that if she only had him to love, she would have it all come together. Why did she keep throwing men up as smoke screens between herself and herself? — Barbara Howar

History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it. — Robert A. Heinlein

Uncle Jeff insisted that I also take a tray of unseasoned barbecue, so I could see for myself that what's going on here at the Skylight Inn does not in any way, shape, or form depend for it's flavor or quality on "sauce." That is a word he pronounces with an upturned lip and a slight sneer, suggesting that the use of barbecue sauce was at best a culinary crutch deserving of pity and at worst a moral failing. — Michael Pollan

After twenty years of unbelief, doubt had become a habit. Doubting was easy, routine; it was my natural, instinctive reaction. Somewhere along the line I had stopped considering any other options. Doubt was my default. So choosing the blessing, the miracle, over coincidence had to be a conscious choice. I had to dismiss doubt as the crutch that it was, dismiss my gut instinct and embrace the more challenging alternative. — Michelle DeRusha

We write because the blank piece of paper and the pen are there. We write because this is our addiction and we are proud of it. Our habit, our drug, our crutch. Whatever you wish to call it. We write because since an early age we felt it deep in our souls and in our bones. The poem must be written, the story must be told and the new myths and Gods are waiting for you to bring them forth from out of the darkness and to bring them into the light of being. You are a creator, so create. You are the writer. So write. — R.M. Engelhardt

But like my brother, I too have a crutch. Mine is not metal. It is flesh and fire and bronze eyes. If only I could cast him away. If only I was strong enough to let the prince go and do what he would with his vengeance. To die or live as he saw fit. But I need him. And I can't find the strength to let him go. — Victoria Aveyard

He reaches for the sword. I step back, not wanting to hand it over.
'What are you going to do, fight me for her?' he asks. He sounds like he's close to laughing.
'What are you going to do with it?'
He sighs, seeming tired. 'Use it as a crutch, what do you think? — Susan Ee

Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of 'like' has spread through the idiom of the young. And it's true that in some cases the term has become simultaneously a crutch and a tic, driving out the rest of the vocabulary as candy expels vegetables. — Christopher Hitchens

When you sample something, you're using the crutch of borrowing chords and melodies from a song that's already great, that's already stood the test of time, that's already special. When you're trying to do it all from scratch, you're writing something brand new that has to stand on its own. — G-Eazy

Magick need not be a crutch, but it is hard to argue that anything you lean on in lieu of building your own strength weakens resolve. — Thomm Quackenbush

A perfect man would never act from a sense of duty; he'd always want the right thing more than the wrong one. Duty is only a substitute for love (of God and of other people) like a crutch which is a substitute for a leg. Most of us need the crutch at times; but of course it is idiotic to use the crutch when our own legs (our own loves, tastes, habits etc.) can do the journey on their own. — C.S. Lewis

Sometimes, when things fall apart, it's because you spent so much time being scared that it was too perfect and it slips through your fingers. When you try to hold love too tightly, it leaves you without warning. You have to revel in the ease of it, because even when the hard times come you can overtake them, and fear is just a crutch and the sibling of doubt. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

Sometimes people claim they don't need a crutch like Jesus, but he's not a crutch, he's a teacher. If you want to be a writer, you read the classics. If you want to make great music you listen to music that's been made by great musicians who have gone before. If you're studying to be a painter, it's a good idea to study the great masters. If Picasso came into your room while you were learning to draw and said 'Hi, I have a couple of hours would you like some hints?' would you say no? So it is with spiritual masters: Jesus, Buddha or any other enlightened being. They're geniuses in the way they used their minds and hearts just as Beethoven was a genius with music, or Shakespeare a genius with words. Why not learn from them, follow their lead, study what they were doing right. — Marianne Williamson

I talk to golfers, I talk to my grand kids about their game, and tell them to develop a system, Now, when they're young. And if they develop that system, it will be the crutch they need to be good. To know that system and make it work for you, know what it is and make it work. — Arnold Palmer

On occasion, it occurs to adults that they are allowed to do all the things that being a child prevented them from doing. But those desires change when you're not looking. There was a time when your favorite color transferred from purple to blue to whatever shade it is when you realize having a favorite color is a trite personality crutch, an unstable cultivation of quirk and a possible cry for help. You just don't notice the time of your own metamorphosis. Until you do. Every once in a while time dissolves and you remember what you liked as a kid. You jump on your hotel bed, order dessert first, decide to put every piece of jewelry you own on your body and leave the house. Why? Because you can. Because you're the boss. Because ... Ooooh. Shiny. — Sloane Crosley

The men who were well enough to stand had moved across the carriage to cheer the Italians as they went past. A crutch waved out of the window; bandaged forearms made the Red Salute. It was like an allegorical picture of war; the trainload of fresh men gliding proudly up the line, the maimed men sliding slowly down, and all the while the guns on the open trucks making one's heart leap as guns always do, and reviving that pernicious feeling, so difficult to get rid of, that war *is* glorious after all. — George Orwell

People talk about Christianity being a crutch, like they're really laying the wood to our backsides, like that's really supposed to hurt us. But that statement has never bothered us. We're like, "Absolutely." We need that crutch. Couldn't make it without that crutch. Because get this: leaning on the crutch of Christianity sure beats hobbling around without help on a busted femur, which is the only choice we were ever going to get unless God had come charging in here at the right time, while we were weak, and propped us up by the living power of Jesus' death and resurrection. — Matt Chandler

Religious people tend to encounter, among those who are not, a cemented certainty that belief in God is a crutch for the weak and the fearful ... Now the belief in God may turn out at the last trump to be a mistake. Meantime, let us be quite clear, it is not merely the comfort of the simple
though it is that too, much to its glory
it is a formidable intellectual position with which most of the first-class minds of the human race, century in and century out, have concurred, each in his own way ... speaking of crutches
Freud can be a crutch, Marx can be a crutch, rationalism can be a crutch, and atheism can be two canes and a pair of iron braces. We none of us have all the answers, nor are we likely to have. But in the country of the halt, the man who is surest he has no limp may be the worst-crippled. — Herman Wouk

Some say Christianity is just a crutch. But let's turn the question on its edge for a moment. Is atheism an emotional crutch, wishful thinking? The ax cuts both ways. Perhaps atheists are rejecting God because they've had a bad relationship with their father. Instead of inventing God, have atheists invented non-God? Have they invented atheism to escape some of the frightening implications of God's existence? Think about it. — Greg Koukl

Does that change things?" asked the old man. "Maybe
Anansi's just some guy from a story, made up back in Africa in
the dawn days of the world by some boy with blackfly on his leg,
pushing his crutch in the dirt, making up some goofy story
about a man made of tar. Does that change anything? People respond
to the stories. They tell them themselves. The stories
spread, and as people tell them, the stories change the tellers.
Because now the folk who never had any thought in their head
but how to run from lions and keep far enough away from rivers
that the crocodiles don't get an easy meal, now they're starting to
dream about a whole new place to live. The world may be the
same, but the wallpaper's changed. Yes? People still have the
same story, the one where they get born and they do stuff and
they die, but now the story means something different to what it
meant before. — Neil Gaiman

An argument is made that there are just too many question marks about the near future; wouldn't it be better to wait until things clear up a bit? You know the prose: "Maintain buying reserves until current uncertainties are resolved," etc. Before reaching for that crutch, face up to two unpleasant facts: The future is never clear and you pay a very high price for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values. — Warren Buffett

I don't intend to use beer as a crutch and drink until I pass out. So advice, keep an eye on that so you can get in there and get yourself drunk sex before it turns unpretty and drunk sex ends with me puking and / or passing out during the act. — Kristen Ashley

The president had shifted to the 'we' mode now, something he invariably did when a potentially unpopular decision was at hand. For the easy ones, it was always 'I.' When he needed a crutch, and especially when he would need someone to blame, he opened up the decisionmaking process and included Critz. — John Grisham

Walk with me." Abban held up his crutch.
"It is a long way to the palace, Par'chin," he said.
"I'll walk slowly," Arlen said, knowing the crutch had nothing to do with the refusal.
"You don't want to be seen with me outside the market, my friend," Abban warned. "That alone may cost you the respect you've earned in the Maze."
"Then I'll earn more," Arlen said. "What good is respect, if I can't walk with my friend? — Peter V. Brett

Will I
help him make something of his life?
Who will help me? Why does everyone
presume that I, as damaged merchandise,
forfeit any claim to happiness? That I
expect nothing, have no ambitions or
longings of my own? When was it
agreed that my lot would be to gladly
serve as a prop and a crutch for others
who are whole? — Julie Berry

Getting in control of a eating addiction isn't like kicking smoking or drugs or alcohol. Those are addictions that you give up completely, and once you get through the withdrawal you win the war by abstaining. Your battle is so tricky. You're always going to need food. You're going to have to get to a point where you coexist with it and it's not the crutch you fall back on. — Stephanie Evanovich

It is definitely somewhat a crutch of feeling that you have to please others in order to be accepted. — Angie Stone

I don't use the big video screens that a lot of other artists use because personally, I think it's kind of a crutch. I think sometimes it's like watching television as opposed to really getting involved with what is happening onstage and the people in your section. — Eric Church

As i discovered, the path to sobriety is a precarious, complex journey. you obviously want to purge yourself of something that has been so destructive and has had such a grip on you. but in the deep recesses of your mind, you wonder if you will mourn the loss of this old friend that has been by your side for years. i know this sounds sick, but you actually find yourself wondering if your life is going to become quite boring without this crutch. of course, the yearning for true health far outweighs everything else. you know things are going to be better for you, for your loved ones, and for everyone you encounter. you will no longer have to hide things and live a lie. yes, that initial high of drugs and booze can be very, very attractive, but it's not worth the wrecked and trashed feeling you have the next morning. nor is it worth the cumulative toll it exacts from you. — Lou Gramm

[Religious belief is] outmoded and ridiculous. [Belief in gods was a] worn out but once useful crutch in mankind's journey towards truth. We consider the time has come for that crutch to be abandoned.
It is a vacuous answer ... To say that 'God made the world' is simply a more or less sophisticated way of saying that we don't understand how the universe originated. A god, in so far as it is anything, is an admission of ignorance.
Religion utterly failed to provide an explanation of the biosphere other than that 'God made it all'. Then Darwin thundered over the horizon and in a few decades of observation and thought ... arrived at an answer.
I regard teaching religion as purveying lies. I came here today to de-corrupt you all. — Peter Atkins

He [God] just seems so man-made to me. There are so many theories, and not everyone can be right. It's human nature to need a religious crutch, and I don't begrudge anyone that. I just don't need one. — Janeane Garofalo

Or a mother might look at her child's cheek and ask him: "What's that, a pimple?" and see the flesh puff out a little, split, open, and at the bottom of the split an eye, a laughing eye might appear. Or they might feel things gently brushing against their bodies, like the caresses of reeds to swimmers in a river. And they will realize that their clothing has become living things. And someone else might feel something scratching in his mouth. He goes to the mirror, opens his mouth: and his tongue is an enormous, live centipede, rubbing its legs together and scraping his palate. He'd like to spit it out, but the centipede is a part of him and he will have to tear it out with his own hands. And a crowd of things will appear for which people will have to find new names, stone eye, great three cornered arm, toe crutch, spider jaw. — Jean-Paul Sartre

Everyone uses noise as a crutch sometimes - I've totally done it. But when you make a good-sounding record there's nothing there but you. — Ty Segall

When have handouts ever worked? In the United States, we learned that welfare for our own citizens not only turned into a debilitating crutch, it created a more or less permanent underclass. — Linda Chavez

And one asks oneself where are one's dreams. And one shakes one's head and says how rapidly the years fly by! And again one asks oneself what has one done with one's years. Where have you buried your best days? Have you lived or not? Look, one says to oneself, look how cold the world is growing. Some more years will pass, and after them will come gloomy solitude; then will come old age trembling on its crutch, and after it misery and desolation. Your fantastic world will grow pale, your dreams will fade and die and will fall like yellow leaves from the trees. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And so I ask myself: 'Where are your dreams?' And I shake my head and mutter: 'How the years go by!' And I ask myself again: 'What have you done with those years? Where have you buried your best moments? Have you really lived? Look,' I say to myself, 'how cold it is becoming all over the world!' And more years will pass and behind them will creep grim isolation. Tottering senility will come hobbling, leaning on a crutch, and behind these will come unrelieved boredom and despair. The world of fancies will fade, dreams will wilt and die and fall like autumn leaves from the trees ... — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I am confident that those who believe in belief are wrong. That is, we no more need to preserve the myth of God in order to preserve a just and stable society than we needed to cling to the Gold Standard to keep our currency sound. It was a useful crutch, but we've outgrown it. Denmark, according to a recent study, is the sanest, healthiest, happiest, most crime-free nation in the world, and by and large the Danes simply ignore the God issue. We should certainly hope that those who believe in belief are wrong, because belief is waning fast, and the props are beginning to buckle. — Daniel Dennett

Now that you've gone looking for him, he won't be breaking his word. Not technically. You're fair game."
I lace my fingers through hers, trying to ground her. "You're freaking me out. Who are you talking about?"
"He'll come for you. He'll step through your dreams. Or the looking glass ... stay away from the glass, Allie! Do you understand?"
"Mirrors?" I ask, incredulous. "You want me to stay away from mirrors?"
She scrambles to her feet, and I struggle to balance on my crutch. "Broken glass severs more than skin. It will sever your identity. — A.G. Howard

It's not like you're being fake, it's just the way you color it, like a guitar player uses pedals or different effects. That's why I get so mad about people who are down on vocal reverb. It's not a crutch, people, it's an aesthetic choice! — Kelly Hogan

Logic is immaturity weaving its nets of gossamer wherewith it aims to catch the behemoth of knowledge. Logic is a crutch for the cripple, but a burden for the swift of foot and a greater burden still for the wise. — Mikhail Naimy

Getting a new version of the answer every day, Artyom was unable to compel himself to believe what was true, because the next day another, no less precise and comprehensive one, might arise. Whom should he believe? And in what? ... Any faith served man only as a crutch supporting him. ... He understood why man needs this support. Without it, life would have become empty, like an abandoned tunnel. — Dmitry Glukhovsky

As actors, we were fighting that tooth and nail because of fear, because language is a crutch and dialogue is a crutch, and it's so easy to just have a great writer write you a line. — Charlize Theron

The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, "See if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk". — Harry Browne

Lived through an extraordinary experience, yet I was fortunate enough to learn from it and walk away a better person. I can't change my past, and it does not grant me the right to use it as a crutch, nor am I destined to become a prisoner because of it. For years I have lived by the philosophy: that which does not kill you can only make you stronger. I simply had to learn to pick myself up at an earlier age. — Dave Pelzer

Our sacred beliefs have been made pencils / names of cities / gas stations / My knee is wounded so badly that I limp constantly / Anger is my crutch / I hold myself upright with it / My knee is wounded / see / How I Am Still Walking. — Chrystos

Religion is no longer considered the source of serious truth claims that could potentially conflict with public agendas. The private realm has been reduced to an "innocuous 'play area'", says Peter Berger, where religion is acceptable for people who need that kind of crutch- but where it won't upset any important applecarts in the larger world of politics and economics. — Nancy Pearcey

I really took filmmaking very seriously ... It was an honor and then a crutch also, because at a young age, I was like, I guess I'm a serious filmmaker. I never set out to be a serious filmmaker. I just set out to make movies. — John Singleton

comfort can sometimes be a crutch when it comes to figuring out your life. Goals are achieved through discomfort and hard work. They aren't achieved when you hide out in a place where you're nice and cozy. I — Colleen Hoover

In hyperbolic tones he listed the catastrophes that in his view were approaching: one, the decline of the revolutionary subject par excellence, the working class; two, the definitive dispersion of the political patrimony of socialists and Communists, who were already perverted by their daily quarrel over which was playing the role of capital's crutch; three, the end of every hypothesis of change, what was there was there and we would have to adapt to it. — Elena Ferrante

To be blunt, the belief in "authority" serves as a mental crutch for people seeking to escape the responsibility involved with being a thinking human being. It is an attempt to pass off the responsibility for decision-making to someone else: those claiming to have "authority. — Larken Rose

Will the wind ever remember the names it has blown in the past? And with its crutch, its old age, and its wisdom, it whispers no this will be the last. — Jimi Hendrix

On Dantooine, when Mara made me stop using the Force like a crutch, I had a
lot of time to think about things. I realized I was using the force too much.
Uncle Luke uses it like an advisor, or sometimes a power source. Others use it
like a vibroblade, some like an opinion poll, and others yet like a whole
variety of tools. I thought all about that, and I guess I chose to follow in
Uncle Luke's footsteps."
-Anakin — Michael A. Stackpole

Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch. — Larry Flynt

Fear had also choked out any desire to work magic. It had been my crutch and my cloak, keeping me from exercising my power. Fear had sheltered me from the curiosity of others and provided an oubliette where I could forget who I really was: a witch. I'd — Deborah Harkness

[Robin Stewart] was your man. True for you, you had withdrawn the crutch from his sight, but still it should have been there in your hand, ready for him. For you are a leader-don't you know it? I don't, surely, need to tell you?-And that is what leadership means. It means fortifying the fainthearted and giving them the two sides of your tongue while you are at it. It means suffering weak love and schooling it till it matures. It means giving up you privicies, your follies and your leasure. It means you can love nothing and no one too much, or you are no longer a leader, you are led. — Dorothy Dunnett

Love is simple to understand if you haven't got a mind soft and full of holes. It's a crutch, that's all, and there isn't any one of us that doesn't need a crutch. — Norman Mailer

People who are dependent are merely using alcohol as a crutch to get through the day. Yet doctors and scientists are still treating "alcoholism" as if it is the problem, when it has nothing to do with the problem. They might as well be studying "scratchism" for people who have a chronic itch. — Chris Prentiss

I'm not going to pick her up and carry her screaming to the basement," Trent said. "It's a workday. Besides, she has a crutch."
"Crutch or no, she's hurt!" Ceri protested.
"I mean," Trent said intently, "she can hit me with it if I do something she doesn't like. — Kim Harrison

I pledged myself to smoke but one cigar a day. I kept the cigar waiting until bedtime, then I had a luxurious time with it. But desire persecuted me every day and all day long. I found myself hunting for larger cigars ... within the month my cigar had grown to such proportions I could have used it as a crutch. — Mark Twain

Plain speaking is necessary in any discussion of religion, for if the freethinker attacks the religious dogmas with hesitation, the orthodox believer assumes that it is with regret that the freethinker would remove the crutch that supports the orthodox. And all religious beliefs are 'crutches' hindering the free locomotive efforts of an advancing humanity. There are no problems related to human progress and happiness in this age which any theology can solve, and which the teachings of freethought cannot do better and without the aid of encumbrances. — David Marshall Brooks

You can rise above it. This country gives you opportunity if you want to take it, so don't blame your environment. I look down on people who use their environment as a crutch. — Vince McMahon

There are those who seem to feel they have no choice about being jerks in the present because they had a crappy childhood. Well, that's the definition of childhood; nobody gets out alive. You either get stronger from what you experience, or you turn it into a crutch, an excuse, a dodge. — J. Michael Straczynski

The main reason that smokers find it difficult to quit is that they believe that they are giving up a genuine pleasure or crutch. It is absolutely essential to understand that there is nothing to 'give up'. — Allen Carr

When you're together with someone for some time, you will automatically depend on them as if they were a crutch. And then it ends. — Kim Wilde

The wonderful fortune of some writers deludes and leads to misery a great number of young people. It cannot be too often repeated that it is dangerous to enter upon a career of letters without some other means of living. An illustrious author has said in these times, Literature must not be leant on as upon a crutch; it is little more than a stick. — Jean Antoine Petit-Senn

You ought to have known I'd do it!" My voice sounded harsh and savage like a stranger's in my ears. "Didn't I steal a crutch from a cripple? — Dashiell Hammett

What happens in our lives is not really anybody's fault but our own ... When I was in high school, I was in an atheist crowd, and it was the consensus that religion was a crutch. — Gillian Anderson

Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live. — Jesse Ventura

As I was waiting, a man came out of a side room, and at a glance I was sure he must be Long John. His left leg was cut off close by the hip, and under the left shoulder he carried a crutch, which he managed with wonderful dexterity, hopping about upon it like a bird. He was very tall and strong, with a face as big as a ham - plain and pale, but intelligent and smiling. Indeed, he seemed in the most cheerful spirits, whistling as he moved about among the tables, with a merry word or a slap on the shoulder for the more favoured of his guests. — Robert Louis Stevenson

I don't really have a life philosophy; my thing is just rebelling against pretty much organized religion. That is my main thing, because personally I think it's a crutch for people that are too weak to get through life on their own. I'm the kind of guy that says if I don't see it, then it doesn't work. And nobody can show me God. — Kerry King