Quotes & Sayings About Dithering

Even after years of war, some men retained scruples about licensed
homicide. [ ... ] Lieutenant Peter Downward commanded the sniper
platoon of 13 Para. He had never himself killed a man with a rifle,
but one day he found himself peering at a German helmet just visible
at the corner of an air-raid shelter
an enemy sniper.
I had his head spot in the middle of my telescopic sight, my safety
catch was off, but I simply couldn't press the trigger. I suddenly
realised that I had a young man's life in my hands, and for the cost
of one round, about twopence, I could wipe out eighteen or nineteen
years of human life. My dithering deliberations were brought back to
earth with a bump as Kirkbride suddenly shouted: 'Go on, sir. Shoot
the bastard! He's going to fire again.' I pulled the trigger and saw
the helmet jerk back. I had obviously got him, and felt completely
drained ... What had I done? — Max Hastings

Daily routine is the great balm that keeps her spirits up and holds her life together, warding off the existential fright that can take you by ambush anytime you're dithering or at a loss, reminding you of the magnitude of the void you are sitting on. Keeping busy is the middle-class way - a practical way and a good way. — A.S.A Harrison

I think the main thing is: Just do it. Plunge in! Being Canadian, I go swimming in icy cold lakes, and there is always that dithering moment. "Am I really going to do this? Won't it hurt?" And at some point you just have to flop in there and scream. Once you're in, keep going. You may have to crumple and toss, but we all do that. Courage! I think that is what's most required. — Margaret Atwood

Sorting gets harder as time goes on
it requires a sort of ruthless decisiveness, while indecision results in endless dithering. Five moves, they say, equal a fire. But those who haven't moved may begin to need a fire. [p. 38] — Mary Catherine Bateson

'Purple Plumeria' I dithered over for months and then wrote the whole thing between the beginning of July and end of August. The dithering and procrastination time was three times the writing times. — Lauren Willig

Art's task is to save the soul of mankind.. anything less is a dithering while Rome burns. — Terence McKenna

Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserable soddingrotters, the flaming sods, the sniveling, dribbling, dithering, palsied, pulse-less lot that make up England today. They've got white of egg in their veins, and their spunk is that watery it's a marvel they can breed. — D.H. Lawrence

The artist's task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns. Because of the artists, who are self-selected, for being able to journey into the Other, if the artists cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found. — Terence McKenna

Lacan , Derrida and Foucault are the perfect prophets for the weak, anxious academic personality, trapped in verbal formulas and perennially defeated by circumstances. They offer a self-exculpating cosmic explanation for the normal professorial state of resentment, alienation, dithering passivity and inaction. — Camille Paglia

The inexorable search for a stanza of meaning hangs like a thundercloud over the troposphere of humankind's prosaic existence. A dithering sense of loss engulfs us. Humankind's unattainable desire to achieve a slice of perfection generates a suspenseful haze of doom. A lingering stab of incompleteness coupled with the tantalizing riddles of fate are inalterably interlinked and imbued in all thinking people's tormented soul. This cross coalescence of unattainable longing melds with the mystic tinged edges of uncertainty, spawned by the unanswerable questions posed by fate, fomenting a dialectical dissonance that distinguishes and ultimately exemplifies the arc of humankind's plaintive subsistence. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The sky seemed abruptly to have had enough of my dithering and dramatically lightened up around the glowing moon, which retreated like an aging sovereign before the rising sun. — Mary Ellen Hannibal

Talking about how I might write the next book is like talking about whether or not to have sex. Any dithering ruins it. — Louise Erdrich

The minimum I need is six months to allow for dithering, procrastination and the research. The research times varies from book to book; some are faster because they're based off resources I have at my disposal. — Lauren Willig

I somehow got this reputation of diddling and dithering. I don't remember dithering at all. — Mario Cuomo

We associate leadership with decisiveness. That perception of leadership pushes people to make decisions fairly quickly, lest they be seen as dithering and indecisive. — Daniel Kahneman

In negotiating with rejected lovers or husbands, women must stop thinking they can make everyone happy. In many cases of harassment and stalking, it is clear that the woman never learned how to terminate the fantasy which requires resolution and decisiveness on their part. Wavering, dithering, or passive hysterical fear will only intensify or prolong pursuit. — Camille Paglia

Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods 'where they get off', you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith. The — C.S. Lewis

His dithering seemed silly. He was home, and home was Jude. He loved him; he was meant to be with him; he would never hurt him - he trusted himself with that much. — Hanya Yanagihara

They are by far the worst drivers. They are spiteful, dithering, old and in the way. They should have their licences taken away. — Jeremy Clarkson