Drawback Quotes & Sayings

The real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality. — Oscar Wilde

Whenever she saw in others an advantage, however trivial, which she herself lacked, she would persuade herself that it was no advantage at all, but a drawback, and would pity so as not to have to envy them. — Marcel Proust

God is infinite and without end, but the soul's desire is an abyss which cannot be filled except by a Good which is infinite; and the more ardently the soul longeth after God, the more she wills to long after him; for God is a Good without drawback, and a well of living water without bottom, and the soul is made in the image of God, and therefore it is created to know and love God. — Johannes Tauler

There are simply more young people than there ever were. You get this feeling of strength. Also, large numbers can be a drawback, making it difficult to lose one's anonymity. — John Knowles

A drawback to success in life is that failure, when it does come, acquires an exaggerated importance. — P.G. Wodehouse

When writing fantasy
novels, one must be careful what one
invents. For every benefit, there is
usually a drawback. — J.K. Rowling

Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well contented with fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.
Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Of course, living is another way of killing oneself: its drawback is that it takes so horribly long. — Imre Kertesz

It's only a drawback in the States, where most people seem to have no real interest in other countries and the notion of a novel which might offer insight into life in the UK doesn't seem to appeal very widely. — Jonathan Coe

Behind our gun position we dug a depression that a couple of guys could lay in. That depression would fill with water, and at nighttime, when you wanted to take a nap, two guys would crawl in that water and their bodies would keep it warm. There was a drawback to that because your skin would all shrink up. SID — Adam Makos

Setting a posteriority is also unpleasant. Every posteriority is somebody else's top priority. It is much easier to draw up a nice list of top priorities and then to hedge by trying to do "just a little bit" of everything else as well. This makes everybody happy. The only drawback is, of course, that nothing whatever gets done. — Peter F. Drucker

I have the power of my height. Growing up, it was a total drawback. There was nothing good about it at all. — Allison Janney

I'm very interested in religion and different religions, and I know quite a lot about it. I love gospel music, and I love going to churches, but the one drawback is that I don't actually believe in God. And it is quite a handicap, you know. — Nick Lowe

I used to think I'd like to be a fireman - in fact, I still would - and the only drawback I could see was coming back to the firehouse, after a day of fighting fires, and still having to put in an eight-hour day writing. — David Mamet

A recurrent theme in Kissinger's early writing is the historical ignorance of the typical American decision-maker. Lawyers, he remarked in 1968, are the "single most important group in Government, but they do have this drawback - a deficiency in history." For Kissinger, history was doubly important: as a source of illuminating analogies and as the defining factor in national self-understanding. Americans might doubt history's importance, but, as Kissinger wrote, "Europeans, living on a continent covered with ruins testifying to the fallibility of human foresight, feel in their bones that history is more complicated than systems analysis."
-Foreign Affairs, The Meaning of Kissinger: A Realist Reconsidered, By Niall Ferguson — Niall Ferguson

Every clique is a refuge for incompetence. It fosters corruption and disloyalty, it begets cowardice, and consequently is a burden upon and a drawback to the progress of the country. Its instincts and actions are those of the pack. — Soong May-ling

Overstimulation has been the real drawback. I need to find ways to stop thinking about analysis of algorithms, in order to do various other things that human beings ought to do. — Donald Ervin Knuth

and retreat from the busy and hectic day to day daily life or the desire for fresh veggies, gardening can fill that void. In addition to providing some peace for an individual it can also provide a brilliant source of nutrition and cost savings at the dinner table. The drawback that gardeners have had to face is change of seasons, insect and rodent pests as well as fertilizing problems. Gardening methods over the years has taken a pleasant turn for the better as people are trying to re-connect to the natural way of things and are taking an organic approach to raising vegetables and fruits. It is pleasing and inspiring to witness this shift from chemical saturated food going back to the natural way it was meant to be eaten. It thrills me to contribute to this global shift! I hope our children and generations after them have many blessed years of health and abundance at their dinner tables from the positive teachings — Anthony Higgins

Some made the long drop from the apartment or the office window; some took it quietly in two-car garages with the motor running; some used the native tradition of the Colt or Smith and Wesson; those well-constructed implements that end insomnia, terminate remorse, cure cancer, avoid bankruptcy, and blast an exit from intolerable positions by the pressure of a finger; those admirable American instruments so easily carried, so sure of effect, so well designed to end the American dream when it becomes a nightmare, their only drawback the mess they leave for relatives to clean up. — Ernest Hemingway,

I find vocabulary to be a great drawback. — Elizabeth Taylor

Now, there is some concern about the fact that, given we are in the middle of a desert, there is no actual water at the waterfront. And that is a definite drawback, I agree. — Joseph Fink

Believe me, I have no please in the world superior to that of contributing to yours. No, I can safely say, I have no pleasure so complete, so unalloyed. It is without a drawback. — Jane Austen

Yeah, Quirrell was a great teacher,' said Harry loudly, 'there was just that minor drawback of him having Lord Voldemort sticking out of the back of his head.' This — J.K. Rowling

Sure, there is an undeniable pleasure in rooting for a winning team and in being able to look down on opposing fans with equal measures of superiority and disdain. But that's also the Ruthian drawback in rooting for the Yankees (along with high ticket prices, overpriced concessions and crude neighbors). The true pleasure in sports comes not from simply winning but from watching a team overcome adversity to win in the end. The joy of sports is never the final destination, it's the journey. It's experiencing the highs and lows, and appreciating those highs all the more because of the awful lows. — Jim Caple

The real drawback when you write with a partner is that where you want it to go and where they want it to go is similar, but not exactly lined up, and that's where it's going to lead you into trouble. — John Krasinski

For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it
even of my own music
with the same nuances forever. — Aaron Copland

The most obvious drawback of social media is that they are aggressive distractions. — Bill Keller

The main job requirement for a network-news anchor is thinking it's the only important job in the world. This is a field where solemn gravitas isn't a drawback; it's the whole point. — Rob Sheffield

I write from a thorough conviction that it is the duty of me, and with the belief that, after every drawback and shortcoming, I do my best, all things considered
that is for me, and, so being, the not being listened to by one human creature would, I hope, in nowise affect me. — Robert Browning

The stillness and stasis of bed are the perfect opposite of travel: inertia is what I've come to consider the default mode, existentially and electronically speaking. Bed, its utter inactivity, offers a glimpse of eternity, without the drawback of being dead. — Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Our huge population is not a drawback, it's an advantage. — Sumit Agarwal

Isolation is not a drawback to those who understand that isolation is the point. I — Don DeLillo

Jesper always felt better when people were shooting at him. It wasn't that he liked the idea of dying (in fact, that potential outcome was a definite drawback), but if he was worrying about staying alive, he couldn't be thinking about anything else. — Leigh Bardugo

Men have to be hooked. Women don't need that. Women go freely into anything. That's their power and at the same time their drawback. Men have to be led and women have to be contained — Carlos Castaneda

One serious drawback about letters is that, in order to get them, one must send some out. When it comes to the mail, I feel it is better to receive than to give. — Joseph Epstein

Yeah, Quirrell was a great teacher. There was just that minor drawback of him having Lord Voldemort sticking out of the back of his head! — J.K. Rowling

Champagne does have one regular drawback: swilled as a regular thing a certain sourness settles in the tummy, and the result is permanent bad breath. Really incurable. — Truman Capote

You know I am not a champion of marriage. The real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless. — Oscar Wilde

Rockefeller and his associates did not build the Standard Oil Co. in the board rooms of Wall Street banks. They fought their way to control by rebate and drawback, bribe and blackmail, espionage and price cutting, by ruthless efficiency of organization. — Ida Tarbell

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men. — Baruch Spinoza

Fear is a dreadful drawback because it stops us living in the moment. — Edna O'Brien

Why hang about in long drawn out fights, you want them to be over as quick as possible and I was blessed with a pitiless punch that sorted the men out from the boys. The only drawback to having such a vicious punch is that my hands have been broken so many times over the years. — Stephen Richards

It was sometimes inconvenient to have the gold-green, slit-pupilled eyes of a cat, but this was usually easily hidden with a small glamour, and if not, well, there were quite a few ladies-and men-who didn't find it a drawback. — Cassandra Clare

another drawback is inadequate training. Management training on a regular basis is a sine-qua-non for good performance in management. The principles of management are basically the same as they involve men, money and materials. Applications vary slightly depending on the nature of what is being managed, at what level and for what purpose. New ideas, innovations and new practices may emerge from time to time which a manager needs to be conversant with. Otherwise he will be way behind or even obsolete. Training and exposure act as tonic for renewal and reshaping of a manager. There can be no adequate substitute for such training, interaction and exposure until one ceases to be an active manager. To think that once one is in management position, there is no further need for training through formal and informal interaction and exposure is, I believe, the height of folly. — Olusegun Obasanjo

If you eat healthily most of the time you can afford to indulge yourself occasionally, but if you eat nothing but junk, you'll end up not being able to run for a bus without huffing like a steam train. (The only drawback to being super-fit is that centring your life around your quinoa intake and yoga classes often results in an overdose of smugness which may cause your social circle to shrink.) — Rosie Blythe

Give me a moment I am preparing to drawback to scream
Louder than a train overhead below a railroad bridge — John E. Wordslinger

One minute I'm just another rabbit and happy about it, next minute whazzaam, I'm thinking. That's a major drawback if you're looking for happiness as a rabbit, let me tell you. You want grass and sex, not thoughts like What's it all about, when you get right down to it? — Terry Pratchett

I am ambivalent about cluster servers. At the same time, they are marvelous and kludgy. They can add redundancy and failover to applications that weren't designed for it. Configuring the cluster server itself is finicky, though, and applications usually have a few small glitches when failing over. The biggest drawback is probably that these run in active/passive mode. So, redundancy is achieved, but scalability is not. I consider cluster servers a Band-Aid for applications that don't do it themselves. — Michael T. Nygard

I wish to marry her ... But she has one drawback, her attitude is uncooperative. — Ernest Hemingway,

I know this sounds stupid, but in some ways, the way I look is a drawback. — Tim Daly

As for 'story' I never yet did enjoy a novel or play in which someone didn't tell me afterward that there was something wrong with the story, so that's going to be no drawback as far as I'm concerned. "Good Lord, why am I so bored" "I know; it must be the plot developing harmoniously." So I often reply to myself, and there rises before me my special nightmare that of the writer as craftsman, natty and deft. — E. M. Forster

A full, rich drawing style is a drawback. — Bill Griffith

The greatest drawback in making pictures is the fact that film makers have to eat. — Ray Milland

The 'chess machine', by which admiring title he had been known, revealed the great drawback of a machine: it had not sufficient flexibility to adapt itself to altered circumstances. — Max Euwe

It was a rich and wonderful voice, with every diphthong gliding beautifully into place. It was a golden brown voice. If the Creator of the multiverse had a voice, it was a voice such as this. If it had a drawback, it was that it wasn't a voice you could use, for example, for ordering coal. Coal ordered by this voice would become diamonds. — Terry Pratchett

The world we inhabit is abundant beyond our wildest imagination. There are trees, dreams, sunrises; there are thunderstorms, shadows, rivers; there are wars, flea bites, love affairs; there are the lives of people, Gods, entire galaxies. The simplest human action varies from one person and occasion to the next-how else would we recognize our friends only from their gait, posture, voice, and divine their changing moods? Only a tiny fraction of this abundance affects our minds. This is a blessing, not a drawback. A superconscious organism would not be superwise, it would be paralyzed. — Paul Feyerabend

The most serious drawback to the telling-nothing approach is that it made that much more of a mystery of what had happened, and the nature of gossip abhors a vacuum of the unexplained. — Robin McKinley

The real drawback to the simple life is that it is not simple. If you are living it, you positively can do nothing else. There is not time. — Katharine Elizabeth Fullerton Gerould

In general she had found that the main drawback in being a man was that conversations were less interesting. — Ursula K. Le Guin

In actions of enthusiasm, this drawback appears: but in those lower activities, which have no higher aim than to make us more comfortable and more cowardly, in actions of cunning, actions that steal and lie, actions that divorce the speculative from the practical faculty, and put a ban on reason and sentiment, there is nothing else but drawback and negation. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

In other words," it continued, "you can't ride. That's a drawback. I'll have to teach you as we go along. If you can't ride, can you fall?"
"I suppose anyone can fall," said Shasta.
"I mean can you fall and get up again without crying and mount again and fall again and yet not be afraid of falling? — C.S. Lewis

As far as population size goes, big is no longer important, and it can even be a drawback. In fact, the future belongs more to second-tier cities. Any place can become a world-class center today by finding an area in which it outperforms others, by thinking for the long term, by expanding its competitive abilities and by operating globally. — Charles Landry

Raveand Rhamnusia, Goddes of Dispyte,' said Lymond acidly. 'I am trying to get you home, vide the shiten shepherd and the clene shepe, with your woolly chops spotless. The only drawback to date is that the bloody sheep is going to have to carry the shepherd, so far as I can see. — Dorothy Dunnett

Ah! that quite does for me. I haven't a word to say ... Too much care was taken with our education, I am afraid. To have been well brought up is a great drawback nowadays. It shuts one out from so much. — Oscar Wilde

There was the usual dreaminess, I suppose. Also a shyness that caused me - and others - to notice that I could express myself better by writing than by speaking. This is typical of many writers, I think. What is a drawback in childhood is an asset to a literary life. Not being fluent on one's feet sends one to the page and a habit is born. — Lorrie Moore

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back
in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you. — Frederick Buechner

Many a gentleman lives well upon a soft head, who would find a heart of the same quality a very great drawback. — Charles Dickens

The chief drawback with men is that they are too talkative. — Marilyn Monroe

A system in which legal police shootings of unarmed civilians are a common occurrence is a system that has some serious flaws. In this case, the drawback is a straightforward consequence of America's approach to firearms. A well-armed citizenry required an even-better-armed constabulary. Widespread gun ownership creates a systematic climate of fear on the part of the police. The result is a quantity of police shootings that, regardless of the facts of any particular case, is just staggeringly high. Young black men, in particular, are paying the price for America's gun culture. — Matthew Yglesias

The term "bend sinister" means a heraldic bar or band drawn from the left side (and popularly, but incorrectly, supposed to denote bastardy). This choice of title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being, a wrong turn taken by life, a sinistral and sinister world. The title's drawback is that a solemn reader looking for "general ideas" or "human interest" (which is much the same thing) in a novel may be led to look for them in this one. — Vladimir Nabokov

Once we have found ourselves, we must understand how from time to time to lose
and then to find
ourselves once again: assuming,that is, that we are thinkers. For a thinker it is a drawback to be bound to a single person all the time. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Governmental aid is a drawback rather than an assistance, as, although it may facilitate in the routine of artistic production, it is an impediment to the development of true artistic genius. — John Philip Sousa

One cold winter's day a number of porcupines huddled together quite closely in order, through their mutual warmth, to prevent themselves from being frozen. But they soon felt the effects of their quills on one another, which made them again move apart. Now, when the need for warmth once again brought them together, the drawback of the quills was repeated so they were tossed between two evils, until they discovered the proper distance from which they could best tolerate one another. Thus the needs for society, which springs from the emptiness and monotony of men's lives, drives them together but their many unpleasant and repulsive qualities once more drive them apart. — Irvin D. Yalom

The drawback of stealing a thing, is that one never knows how wonderful the thing that one steals is. — Oscar Wilde

The only drawback is once the work is done you rarely see each other. — Adrian Belew

Portability also explains why many old chests and trunks had domed lids- to throw off water during travel. The great drawback of trunks, of course, is that everything has to be lifted at to get things at the bottom. It took a remarkably long time- till the 1600s- before it occurred to anyone to put drawers in and thus convert trunks into chests of drawers. — Bill Bryson

The usefulness of mathematics in furthering the sciences is commonly acknowledged: but outside the ranks of the experts there is little inquiry into its nature and purpose as a deliberate human activity. Doubtless this is due to the inevitable drawback that mathematical study is saturated with technicalities from beginning to end. — Herbert Turnbull

At some time during the process, [of writing] I came up with a therapeutic device. After each draft I would tear up the pages and feed the paper to a worm compost I keep in my garage. A few months later, those painful pages were dirt that nourished my yard, which I could walk with bare feet. It was a real and tangible connection to that larger immensity. I liked to remind myself that the same process is going to happen to me when I'm done, when I die and nature tears me up... — Ryan Holiday

Morning is wonderful. Its only drawback is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day. — Glen Cook

I always say when you see that old black-and-white footage of the rocket on the launch pad and it falls over and explodes, that's because people had slide rules. Not having the decimal point is a real drawback. You want the decimal point, take it from me. — Bill Nye

Poetry has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time, and the drawback, if you do not give it your full attention, of seeming to say half as much in twice the time. — Christopher Fry

The only big drawback to writing is its negative impact on reading. — Michael Kroft

The greatest drawback to true love was that once true love unexpectedly ends there is no other romance that can replace it. Romance instead becomes a race, with one's new beau consistently failing to meet up to the grand expectations set by the meaning of one's existence. The only one. — Denis Fitzpatrick

...the Indian boy is the result of a curious convolution of branches in an old chestnut; there are two perfectly formed legs, a long slim body, a small knotted head, and two branching arms... The only drawback is that in order to [see him] you have to be lying in the bath. Unless you are in a prone position, gazing out of one particular window, he refuses to materialize.... Very few other people have seen him. You cannot ask people to come up to the bathroom and lie flat on their backs in order to see the little Indian boy. It would make them gloomy and suspicious, particularly if they were females. 'If you come up and lie down in the bathroom I will show you my little Indian boy....' No. Definitely not. Out. — Beverley Nichols

[Richard Bedford Bennett] was the richest Prime Minister and the only millionaire to hold office before Pierre Trudeau. His money obviously colored his thinking
colored it true blue
but he did not consider it a political drawback. No leader, he said, could serve the public properly if he was constantly looking over his shoulder at the shadow of debts. This theory is now widely accepted in the United States where it has become practically impossible for a non-millionaire to run for high office without selling pieces of himself like a prize-fighter. Yet the public still suspects a self-made millionaire like Lyndon Johnson while revering the much-richer John F. Kennedy, who got it all from his father. — Gordon Donaldson

What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster. — John Steinbeck