Diverted Quotes & Sayings

We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all-that the wealth of individuals and of state is being diverted from the development and the progress of human expression and civilization. — Margaret Sanger

For my part I think the Learned, and Unlearned Blockhead pretty equal; for 'tis all one to me, whether a Man talk Nonsense, or unintelligible Sense, I am diverted and edified alike by either; the one enjoys himself less, but suffers his Friends to do it more; the other enjoys himself and his own Humour enough, but will let no body else do it in his Company. — Mary Astell

All of it just confirmed his belief that his real life, the life he should be living, had been mislaid through some clerical error by the cosmic bureaucracy. This couldn't be it. It had been diverted elsewhere, to somebody else, and he'd been issued this shitty substitute faux life instead — Lev Grossman

It is impossible to read the daily press without being diverted from reality. You are full of enthusiasm for the eternal verities - life is worth living, and then out of sinful curiosity you open a newspaper. You are disillusioned and wrecked. — Patrick Kavanagh

I wouldn't say there isn't a direct path to a successful career. There are people who knew exactly what they wanted to do from a very young age, weren't going to be diverted, and then they just went out and achieved it. — Clayton M Christensen

Our trouble is that we drink too much tea. I see in this the slow revenge of the Orient, which has diverted the Yellow River down our throats. — J.B. Priestley

He who has learned to look to God in everything he does is at the same time diverted from all vain thoughts. — John Calvin

There is another side [to ego] that can wreck a team or an organization. That is being distracted by your own importance. It can come from your insecurity in working with others. It can be the need to draw attention to yourself in the public arena. It can be a feeling that others are a threat to your own territory. These are all negative manifestations of ego, and if you are not alert to them, you get diverted and your work becomes diffused. Ego in these cases makes people insensitive to how they work with others and it ends up interfering with the real goal of any group efforts. — Bill Walsh

I always rejoice when I see a tribunal filled with a man of an upright and inflexible temper, who in the execution of his country's laws can overcome all private fear, resentment, solicitation, and even pity it self. Whatever passion enters into a sentence or decision, so far will there be in it a tincture of injustice. In short, justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore always represented as blind, that we may suppose her thoughts are wholly intent on the equity of a cause, without being diverted or prejudiced by objects foreign to it. — Joseph Addison

Thank God for my ADD. I would have killed myself along time ago, but I got bored of it when something else diverted me. — Jason Hartnett

Asceticism in most cases is either the result of a sordid imagination or of passion diverted from its natural course, and experience has shown that when the protection of public morals is entrusted to its votaries, the consequences are usually appalling. — Rudolf Rocker

And Julius Caesar could be a statesman in one moment and a butcher in the next, and Ecuadorian paper money could be traded for food, shelter, and clothing in one moment and line the bottom of a birdcage in the next, and the universe could be created by God Almighty in one moment and by a big explosion in the next - and on and on. Thanks to their decreased brainpower, people aren't diverted from the main business of life by the hobgoblins of opinions anymore. — Kurt Vonnegut

It was going to be hard, she was learning, not to be crushed or diverted by the criticism of strangers. She would have to be tough and look to herself for confidence. She remembered noticing as a child, when she had shuttled so often back and forth between her intellectual German grandmother in Italy and the silk-gowned and bourgeois grandmother in England, that people had very different attitudes about what was right and what was wrong, and were generally inclined to believe that only their own way was correct. Freya resolved to keep her mind open. — Jane Fletcher Geniesse

The law perverted! The law - and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation - the law, I say, not only diverted from its proper direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law become the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law guilty of that very iniquity which it was its mission to punish! Truly, this is a serious fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to call the attention of my fellow citizens. — Frederic Bastiat

But tears are not, like blood, shed by all involuntarily and according to the same determinants. And I had come to wonder, from the cauterized state of my own emotions then, whether those who have suppressed or diverted the course of strong feeling are sometimes left immune, with nothing more than just such superficial traces of what was once a great affliction. [p. 78] — Shirley Hazzard

Those who can least bear a jest upon themselves, will be most diverted with one passed on others. — Samuel Richardson

Encourage your own curiosity; pursue the problems based on that. Don't get diverted by trying to do things for your own advancement. In other words, don't be lured into responding to incentives. — James Mirrlees

When our ancestors crouched about the camp fire at night, they told each other tales of gods and heroes, monsters and marvels, to hold back the terrors of the night. Such tales comforted and entertained, diverted and educated those who listened, and helped shape their sense of the world and their place in it. — Kate Forsyth

The public sector can only feed off the private sector; it necessarily lives parasitically upon the private economy. But this means that the productive resources of society - far from satisfying the wants of consumers - are now directed, by compulsion, away from these wants and needs. The consumers are deliberately thwarted, and the resources of the economy diverted from them to those activities desire by the parasitic bureaucracy and politicians. — Murray Rothbard

The pretty fellows you speak of, I own entertain me sometimes, but is it impossible to be diverted with what one despises? I can laugh at a puppet show, at the same time I know there is nothing in it worth my attention or regard. — Mary Wortley Montagu

When you decide to follow a certain path, you should follow it to the end and not be diverted from it for personal reasons. — Aung San Suu Kyi

Neoliberalism works best when there is formal electoral democracy, but when the population is diverted from the information, access, and public forums necessary for meaningful participation in decision making. — Noam Chomsky

As a digital technology writer, I have had more than one former student and colleague tell me about digital switchers they have serviced through which calls and data are diverted to government servers or the big data algorithms they've written to be used on our e-mails by intelligence agencies. — Douglas Rushkoff

Thanks to their decreased brainpower, people aren't diverted from the main business of life by the hobgoblins of opinion anymore. — Kurt Vonnegut

Time spent in a casino is time given to death, a foretaste of the hour when one's flesh will be diverted to the purposes of the worm and not of the will. — Rebecca West

Tombs decked by the arts can scarcely represent death as a formidable enemy; we do not, indeed, like the ancients, carve sports and dances in the sarcophagus, but thought is diverted from the bier by works that tell of immortality, even from the altar of death. — Madame De Stael

I feel like I need just to keep trying to make the work for the right reasons. I think part of that is working with really good people, and just trying to make strong truthful work. And not being diverted from that. — Cate Shortland

When I start a new novel and find myself diverted by domestic activities, many of which I genuinely enjoy, I panic that I will never write another word. — Christina Baker Kline

Next to the ministry I know of no more noble profession than the law. The object aimed at is justice, equal and exact, and if it does not reach that end at once it is because the stream is diverted by selfishness or checked by ignorance. Its principles ennoble and its practice elevates. — William Jennings Bryan

Then I realized the vital necessity of art. Human life, yes, you nurse people, you clean house, you market, but then comes the moment of solace and flight. i sit and write and summon other friends, other forms of life, other experiences, and the voyage and the exploration, the delving into character, the vast expanse of life's possibilities and potentialities, contemplation of future travels, of dazzling friendships, all this then makes the chores and the sacrifices beautiful because they are diverted toward some beautiful aim, they become part of the structure of a work of art. — Anais Nin

Once severe depression has a hold, it is unshakeable until it has run its course or that course has been diverted by treatment. — Sally Brampton

Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted. — Anita Brookner

Personal matters have diverted attention away from the important work Sesame Street is doing, and I cannot allow it to go on any longer. I am deeply sorry to be leaving and am looking forward to resolving these personal matters privately. — Kevin Clash

Woolf worried about the childlessness from time to time, and suffered from the imposed anxiety that she was not, unlike her friend Vita Sackville-West, a real woman. I do not know what kind of woman one would have to be to stand unflinchingly in front of The Canon, but I would guess, a real one. There is something sadistic in the whip laid on women to prove themselves as mothers and wives at the same time as making their way as artists. The abnormal effort that can be diverted or divided. We all know the story of Coleridge and the Man from Porlock. What of the woman writer and a whole family of Porlocks?
For most of us the dilemma is rhetorical but those women who are driven with consummate energy through a single undeniable channel should be applauded and supported as vigorously as the men who have been setting themselves apart for centuries. — Jeanette Winterson

Wherever you are or whatever your job, don't be confused or diverted by false priorities. We have only one mission to perform-that is to fight and win. And, we must do it better than anyone else in the world. — Leslie E. Brown

A lot of issues need to be swept under the carpet
and poof, along comes SARS. Whether or not its appearance was coordinated, up front, to coincide with these scandals and tragedies in Iraq, one thing is for sure. SARS has been used as a smokescreen to keep the global public diverted and in fear. — Jon Rappoport

Men do not know the natural infirmity of their mind: it does nothing but ferret and quest, and keeps incessantly whirling around, building up and becoming entangled in its own work, like silkworms, and is suffocated in it. A mouse in a pitch barrel ... thinks it notices from a distance some sort of glimmer of imaginary light and truth; but while running toward it, it is crossed by so many difficulties and obstacles, and diverted by so many new quests, that it strays from the road, bewildered. — Michel De Montaigne

every thought that deviates from the officially prescribed and permanently changing line is already suspect, no matter in which field of human activity it occurs. Simply because of their capacity to think, human beings are suspects by definition, and this suspicion cannot be diverted by exemplary behavior, for the human capacity to think is also a capacity to change one's mind. — Hannah Arendt

Human activity is having a major impact on the planet. We consume or have diverted a large proportion of the productivity of the land and oceans. Our hunger for land crowds out fellow species. Our waste products pollute the waters, warm the atmosphere and acidify the oceans. — Ian Goldin

Having faith in the plan of salvation includes steadfastly refusing to be diverted from our true identities and responsibilities. In the brief season of our existence on earth we may serve as a plumber, professor, farmer, physician, mechanic, bookkeeper, or teacher. These are useful activities and honorable designations; but a temporary vocation is not reflective of our true identities. Matthew was a tax collector, Luke a physician, and Peter a fisherman. In a salvational sense, 'so what!' — Neal A. Maxwell

He never hearkened to the dictates of his heart, but busied himself in obeying the voices of his environment. H e amused himself with shimmering objects that blinded his eyes and heart to life's secrets; his soul was diverted away from an understanding of the law of nature, and to a temporary self-gratification. — Kahlil Gibran

So many people are diverted to doing what people want photographed - fashion models, buildings, mountains - they get to thinking those photographs are good. — Rondal Partridge

The result of observing only the universe is anxiety. Only observing the Observer of the universe will put a stop to a man's worrying and fussing and scheming. When his interest is diverted inwards he naturally relaxes his hold - his stranglehold - on the outer world. Having withdrawn his capital and paid it into his own Central Bank (where it appreciates to infinity), he has nothing to lose out there and no reason for interfering. He knows how to let things be and work out in their own time. He's in no hurry. Knowing the Self, he can hardly fail to trust its products. — Douglas Harding

If you don't have true, deep, enduring conviction about the importance of the change you're pursuing, you will be buffeted, worn down, ground down, and diverted at those critical points where leadership is the only force that keeps the change moving. The biggest mistakes that I see come during those points. At root, the mistakes arise from the dissipation of conviction - leadership and management conviction. — David S. Pottruck

Theodosius was chaste and temperate; he enjoyed, without excess, the sensual and social pleasures of the table, and the warmth of his amorous passions was never diverted from their lawful objects. The proud titles of Imperial greatness were adorned by the tender names of a faithful husband, an indulgent father; his uncle was raised, by his affectionate esteem, to the rank of a second parent. — Edward Gibbon

Not so much for Carnival?" I asked Ben playfully, hooking my arm through his.
"Not so much for driving through Carnival," Ben amended.
"Too tough for you?"
"I travel with you. Nothing's too tough for me."
"Not even that guy?"
He turned to look, and the minute his attention was diverted, I raced to the elevators.
"Hey!" Ben cried, and ran after me, but I dove and pressed the button first.
"Yes!" I cheered.
"Loser," Ben said.
"Actually, I just won. Let's go up and change, then we can hit the Samba Parade."
"Change? But I like you just the way you are."
"You are such a dork."
Ben nodded, accepting the title with grace as the elevator arrived. — Hilary Duff

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles. — Samuel Johnson

For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy making arm of the government. — Harry S. Truman

Let us hold fast to the iron rod. The Savior urged us to put our hand to the plow without looking back. In that spirit we are being asked to have humility and a deep and abiding faith in the Lord and to move forward-trusting in him, refusing to be diverted from our course, either by the ways of the world or the praise of the world. — Spencer W. Kimball

The delicate muses lose their head if their attention is once diverted. Perhaps if you were successful abroad in talking and dealing with men, you would not come back to your bookshelf and your task. When the spirit chooses you for its scribe to publish some commandment, it makes you odious to men and men odious to you, and you shall accept that loathsomeness with joy. The moth must fly to the lamp, and you must solve those questions though you die. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The danger we face does not come from religion. It comes from a growing intellectual bankruptcy that is one of the symptoms of a dying culture. In ancient Rome, as the republic disintegrated and the Caesars were deified, as the Roman Senate became little more than an echo chamber of the emperor, the population's attention was diverted by a series of frontier wars and violent and elaborate spectacles in the arena. The excitement of entertainment consumed ancient Rome's emotional and intellectual life. It poisoned civic and political discourse. Social critics no longer had a form in which to speak. They were answered with ridicule and rage. It was not prerogative of the citizen to think. — Chris Hedges

The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings. — Emile Durkheim

But the more an organization succeeds and prospers, the more it is likely to be diverted from its original ideals, principles and purposes. — Robert Shea

It is significant that whenever the public mind is to be diverted from great social wrong, a crusade is inaugurated against indecency. — Emma Goldman

Everything stopped that day, literally. I even stopped growing....Injured and traumatized children--they quite often fail to grow to normal height....Resources are diverted. The growth system shuts down....Accidents, catastrophes--something like seventy-five percent of disaster victims are convinced there were warning signs they brushed off....If you trace it back, you can see the mistake--the point you would have had a different outcome....To see the mistake, the place where you went wrong, and not be able to go back and fix it? Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch, p. 615 — Donna Tartt

Both were diverted by life's young fumblings,
both saddened by the wisdom of time — Vladimir Nabokov

Another activity that can detract us from the proper way is watching television excessively or viewing improper movies. While fine productions on these media are uplifting and entertaining, we need to be very selective in choosing what we see and how much of our time such an activity deserves. Our precious time must not be diverted to the sideline attractions of vulgar language, immoral conduct, pornography, and violence. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

But you, dear #GIRLBOSS, should save 10 percent at the bare minimum. I know it's a lot easier to talk about saving money than it is to actually save it. Here's a tip: Treat your savings account like just another bill. It has to be paid every month, or there are consequences. If you have direct deposit, have a portion of your paycheck automatically diverted into a savings account. Once it's in there, forget about it. You never saw it anyway. It's an emergency fund only (and vacations are not emergencies). — Sophia Amoruso

The mark of a certain kind of genius is the ability and energy to keep returning to the same task relentlessly, imaginatively, curiously, for a lifetime. Never give up and go on to something else; never get distracted and be diverted to something else. — Eugene H. Peterson

As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome. — Noam Chomsky

The most serious problems lie in the financial sphere, where the economy's debt overhead has grown more rapidly than the 'real' economy's ability to carry this debt ... The essence of the global financial bubble is that savings are diverted to inflate the stock market, bond market and real estate prices rather than to build new factories and employ more labor. — Michael Hudson

The great attraction of fashion is that it diverted attention from the insoluble problems of beauty and provided an easy way
which money could buy ... to a simply stated, easily reproduced ideal of beauty, however temporary that ideal. — Theodore Zeldin

Ah, but I'm not a gentleman," said the Marquis. "I have it on the best of authority that I am only a
nobleman."
"Good gracious, Vidal, who in the world dared to say such a thing?" cried his cousin, instantly
diverted.
"Mary," replied his lordship, pouring himself out a glass of wine. — Georgette Heyer

As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose
that it may violate property instead of protecting it
then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. — Frederic Bastiat

I am excessively diverted. — Jane Austen

Money was evil, beauty vain, and both were transitory. Ambition was pride, desire for gain was avarice, desire of the flesh was lust, desire for honor, even for knowledge and beauty, was vainglory. Insofar as these diverted man from seeking the life of the spirit, they were sinful. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Archaic humans paid for their large brains in two ways. Firstly, they spent more time in search of food. Secondly, their muscles atrophied. Like a government diverting money from defence to education, humans diverted energy from biceps to neurons. It's hardly a foregone conclusion that this is a good strategy for survival on the savannah. A chimpanzee can't win an argument with a Homo sapiens, but the ape can rip the man apart like a rag doll. — Yuval Noah Harari

The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on a mission for Jesus Christ, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, "Don't worry about whether or not you are being treated justly." Looking for justice is actually a sign that we have been diverted from our devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. — Oswald Chambers

An individual with genital character, according to Reich, was fully in contact with with his body, his drives, his environment- he possessed "orgastic potency," the capacity to "surrender to the flow of energy in the orgasm without any inhibition ... free of anxiety and unpleasure and unaccompanied by fantasies"; and while genital character alone would not assure enduring contentment, the individual at least would not be blocked or diverted by destructive or irrational emotion or by exaggerated respect for institutions that were not life-enhancing. — Gay Talese

Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted to sinister uses by those who control propaganda. — Bertrand Russell

I hate raising money. It diverts you from what your real task is: to be a representative. You're diverted into preservation when you really want to spend your time and energy making a better state and a better country - which is the reason you ran in the first place. — Shelley Moore Capito

Alif, Lam, Ra. These are the verses of the Book and a clear Qur'an.Perhaps those who disbelieve will wish that they had been Muslims.Let them eat and enjoy themselves and be diverted by [false] hope, for they are going to know.And We did not destroy any city but that for it was a known decree." Quran :Surah Chapter AL-HIJR (THE ROCKY TRACT):15 :1-4 . — Qur'an

Real stories like this, human ones, could get you sent to prison, and it didn't matter what they were about. It didn't matter if the story was about an old woman or a squid attack - if it diverted emotion from the Dear Leader, it was dangerous. — Adam Johnson

Everywhere you go on the continent of Europe at this hour you see the conflict between militarism and industrialism. You see the expansion of industrial power pushed forward by the energy, hope, and thrift of men, and you see the development arrested, diverted, crippled, and defeated by measures which are dictated by military considerations. — William Graham Sumner

The demons diverted its sights from me and swooped down on the yappy mutt.
Dogs aren't my thing.
I hate dogs. And if this one was dumb enough to sacrifice itself for me, hallelujah. I kept running.
After I reversed course.
Stupid dog. — A&E Kirk

The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business and invest it in tax-exempt securities or to find other lawful methods of avoiding the realization of taxable income. The result is that the sources of taxation are drying up; wealth is failing to carry its share of the tax burden; and capital is being diverted into channels which yield neither revenue to the Government nor profit to the people. — Andrew Mellon

of making the Grand Fleet turn away and open the range. Admiral Scheer claims that putting the van of his fleet again into action "diverted the enemy fire and rendered it possible for the torpedo-boat flotillas to take so effective a share in the proceedings," (S) but of course it is a question whether the same result might not have been obtained' by the use of the torpedo flotillas alone. In any case, it must be acknowledged that Admiral Scheer's extraordinary manoeuvres had accomplished a surprise effect upon his enemy as, besides forcing the Grand Fleet to turn away, the moral effect of this torpedo attack had a great influence upon the British conduct of the rest of the action. It is also evident that the British had not comprehended — Thomas Goddard Frothingham

The motives behind scientism are culturally significant. They have been mixed, as usual: genuine curiosity in search of truth; the rage for certainty and for unity; and the snobbish desire to earn the label scientist when that became a high social and intellectual rank. But these efforts, even though vain, have not been without harm, to the inventors and to the world at large. The "findings" have inspired policies affecting daily life that were enforced with the same absolute assurance as earlier ones based on religion. At the same time, the workers in the realm of intuition, the gifted finessers - artists, moralists, philosophers, historians, political theorists, and theologians - were either diverted from their proper task, while others were looking on them with disdain as dabblers in the suburbs of Truth. — Jacques Barzun

Calic!" a male voice shouted.
Analia jumped at the sound. She peeked to see the guard's attention diverted to something inside the other ship.
"What?" the blond guard snapped.
"The last load is stuck!" the other voice yelled. "We can't get it through the doorway! It won't fit!"
"It helps if you're smarter than the door," the blond guard muttered before yelling back, "We got it in there, didn't we? — Kiersten Fay

The important thing is never to let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries; to continue steadfastly on one's way without
letting oneself be either defeated by failure or diverted by applause. — Gustav Mahler

[I]t seems to me that a lot of the stranger ideas people have about medicine derive from an emotional struggle with the very notion of a pharmaceutical industry. Whatever our political leanings, we all feel nervous about profit taking any role in the caring professions, but that feeling has nowhere to go. Big pharma is evil; I would agree with that premise. But because people don't understand exactly how big pharma is evil, their anger gets diverted away from valid criticisms - its role in distorting data, for example, or withholding lifesaving AIDS drugs from the developing world - and channeled into infantile fantasies. "Big pharma is evil," goes the line of reasoning; "therefore homeopathy works and the MMR vaccine causes autism." This is probably not helpful. — Ben Goldacre

Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world may make upon you, for their censures are not in your power and should not be at all your concerns. — Epictetus

In the 1920s, a generation before the coming of solid-state electronics, one could look at the circuits and see how the electron stream flowed. Radios had valves, as though electricity were a fluid to be diverted by plumbing. With the click of the knob came a significant hiss and hum, just at the edge of audibility. — James Gleick

Stop staring at me this instant! the sorceress shouted at Geralt. She writhed like a snake in her bonds in a vain attempt to conceal her naked charms. Geralt obediently diverted his eyes. Dandelion didn't. — Andrzej Sapkowski

Reason, on the contrary, assures us, that as in so great a number, a fit representative would be most likely to be found, so the choice would be less likely to be diverted from him, by the intrigues of the ambitious, or the bribes of the rich. — James Madison

The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principle subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied. — Samuel Johnson

The intellect must not be kept at consistent tension, but diverted by pastimes ... The mind must have relaxation, and will rise stronger and keener after recreation. — Seneca The Younger

Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or what you think could have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts. — Bertrand Russell

The mind ought sometimes to be diverted that it may return to better thinking. — Phaedrus

If [a man] spent his money, say, in giving parties for his friends, they (we may hope) would get pleasure, and so would all those upon whom he spent money, such as the butcher, the baker, and the bootlegger. But if he spends it (let us say) upon laying down rails for surface cars in some place where surface cars turn out not to be wanted, he has diverted a mass of labor into channels where it gives pleasure to no one. Nevertheless, when he becomes poor through failure of his investment he will be regarded as a victim of undeserved misfortune, whereas the gay spendthrift, who has spent his money philanthropically, will be despised as a fool and a frivolous person. — Bertrand Russell

I didn't feel physically sick. But mentally. My mind was twisting in so many ways. ( ... ) We once saw a documentary on migraines. One of the men interviewed used to fall on his knees and bang his head against the floor, over and over during attacks. This diverted the pain from deep inside his brain, where he couldn't reach it, to a pain outside that he had control over. — Jay Asher

Caravaggio was constantly diverted by the human element during burglaries. Breaking into a house during Christmas, he would become annoyed if the Advent calendar had not been opened up to the date to which it should have been. — Michael Ondaatje

Here." Mark shrugged out of his blue T-shirt. He was wearing another T-shirt under it, this one gray. Julian blinked at him. "Proper vestments." He offered it to his brother. "Why are you wearing a T-shirt under your other T-shirt?" Livvy asked, temporarily diverted. "In case one of them is stolen," Mark said, as if this were entirely normal. Everyone paused to stare at him, even Julian, who had stripped off the rags of his shirt and covered himself with Mark's. — Cassandra Clare

Through art they confuse us and blind us to our enslavement. Art adorns our prison walls, keeps us silent and diverted and indifferent. — Jim Morrison

Closed my eyes and diverted my mind from the awful sounds by thinking about language. I'd always thought of it as a friend. It's guided me through life and shown me new directions. Each new language I learned added to me. I became richer. But a language you don't know, sir, that is one mean, unfriendly son of a bitch. It's rude and secretive and it pushes you away, keeps you on the outside. And that's where I am now, on the outside. — Colin Cotterill

The evil of our times, are mines, dams, power plants and hundreds of smart cities. Shadeless roads, widened by cutting down trees; rivers diverted to fill the flush tanks of five-star hotels; hillocks, the abode of tribal gods, laid bare due to mining; marketplaces without sparrows and trees without birds — U.R. Ananthamurthy

Every bit of capital, therefore, which is given to a shiftless and inefficient member of society, who makes no return for it, is diverted from a reproductive use; but — William Graham Sumner

The resulting texts always took a narrative term, enigmatic at first but ultimately explicit and often premonitory. The semantic distribution of these basic elements diverted them from their original meaning, thus revealing their real significance. Henceforth, every form of writing will consist of an operation of decoding, of contamination, and of sense perversion. All this because all language is essentially mystification, and everything is fiction. — Brion Gysin

Be careful to not haul around in our lives so many nice but unnecessary things that we are distracted and diverted from the things that truly matter most. — David A. Bednar

The eye is diverted from the real business, it is caught by the spectacular action that means nothing
nothing at all. — Agatha Christie