Explaining Old Quotes & Sayings

It is man who has introduced a little grace, beauty, unknown charm and mystery into creation by singing about it, interpreting it, by admiring it as a poet, idealizing it as an artist and by explaining it through science, doubtless making mistakes, but finding ingenious reasons, hidden grace and beauty, unknown charm and mystery in the various phenomena of Nature. God created only coarse beings, full of the germs of disease, who, after a few years of bestial enjoyment, grow old and infirm, with all the ugliness and all the want of power of human decrepitude. — Guy De Maupassant

I spend way too much time on Facebook and MySpace to feel too uncomfortable at this. I like to think of the Internet as an effective way to waste time and time. — Jim Gaffigan

There was a sudden awkwardness between them, so thick it permeated the air around them. "Ahhh," Nick said as he understood why they weren't explaining it. As the old saying went, opposites attract. "You two are special friends."
Kyrian frowned. "How do you mean?"
Acheron passed a peeved look to Kyrian. "He thinks we're a couple."
Kyrian took a step away from Acheron. "No. No. No. Definitely not. Not that Acheron is not an attractive man, not that I've ever really noticed whether or not he's attractive, but male is not my type. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

When you actively engage in gradually refining yourself, you retreat from your lazy ways of covering yourself or making excuses. Instead of feeling a persistent current of low-level shame, you move forward by using the creative possibilities of this moment, your current situation. — Epictetus

On the long drive home, Laurence tuned out his parents explaining to him that life isn't an adventure, for chrissake, life is a long slog and a series of responsibilities and demands. When Laurence was old enough to do what he liked, he would be old enough to understand he couldn't do what he liked. — Charlie Jane Anders

As much as Jefferson loved France residence abroad gave him greater appreciation for his own nation. He was a tireless advocate for things American while abroad, and a promoter of things European while at home. Moving between two worlds, translating the best of the old into the new and explaining the benefits of the new to the old, he created a role for himself as both intermediary and arbiter. — Jon Meacham

True emptiness is not empty, but contains all things. The mysterious and pregnant void creates and reflects all possibilities. From it arises our individuality, which can be discovered and developed, although never possessed or fixed. — Jack Kornfield

It is possible that what stirred inside her head at that moment was her brain, waking up. She was nine years old, and she was in the third-A grade at school, but that was the first time she had ever had a whole thought of her very own. At home, Aunt Frances had always known exactly what she was doing, and had helped her over the hard places before she even knew they were there; and at school her teachers had been carefully trained to think faster than the scholars. Somebody had always been explaining things to Elizabeth Ann so carefully that she had never found out a single thing for herself before. This was a very small discovery, but it was her own. — Dorothy Canfield Fisher

But I liked you from the moment I first heard your voice," he said, "when I had no idea what you looked like. I thought it delicious, the way you bargained for me, as though I were an old rug. Then I loved the way you looked at me. Then I loved the way you ordered me about. I loved your patient and impatient ways of explaining things to me. I love the sound of your voice and the way you move. I love your courage and your kindness and your generosity and your obstinacy and your passion." He paused. "You're the genius. What do you think that means? — Loretta Chase

- You can't expect me to follow you into the bush in the middle of the night
- And yet, here you are. — Anyta Sunday

After four seasons of co-hosting 'Wipeout,' I have been given the opportunity to pursue new directions in my acting career, which I am very passionate about. I am extremely grateful to all those at 'Wipeout,' Endemol and ABC, who have been so supportive of me through these years. — Jill Wagner

Poor Scott. Briefly, briefly, as a boy on the verge of manhood, he'd been so handsome and promising that the sequel must have seemed a dream; behind the acne and brain damage and bewildering alienation, he was a golden boy still. Probably he thought he'd given his poor old stepmom the thrill of her life. One thing was certain: at that moment he'd loved her and was sorry for ever thinking ill of her - she'd packed his lunch! - and wanted to convey this in some meaningful way. Probably, too, he was drunk and/or high. As Scott's only brother - a person who shared his sense of humor and some of his darker tendencies too - I considered explaining as much to Sandra, for what it was worth. Instead I said, "Welcome to the club." ". . . No!" I nodded. "Tongue and all." Sandra — Blake Bailey

It's all been worth it. Every fight, all those years of childish experimentation, the occasional heartbreak, the paltry checking account, the used, old trucks. To have lived with another human being, another person, this man, as long as I have, and to see him change and grow. To see him become more decent and more patient, stronger and more competent - to see how he loves our children - how he wrestles with them on the floor and kisses them unabashedly in public. To hear his voice in the evening, reading books to them, or explaining to them what his father was like while he was alive, or what I was like as a girl, a teenager, a young woman. To hear him explain why our part of the world is so special. — Nickolas Butler

We live in a moment in which old conflicts, much altered during their subterraneous years, have boiled up again. The struggle to own the past so that it can be made to serve contemporary interests has led to gross distortions. But it is true also that the experience of any generation is inevitably a warped lens through which to view the thought and the actions of any previous generation, especially when there is a lack of rigorous historical perspective to correct for these distortions. This second consideration may go some way toward explaining the fact that there are not two sides to what would otherwise be a great national controversy. — Marilynne Robinson

Explaining God to Children
Draw a rapid river clockwise, flowing in a circle.
Draw a mountain in the middle, with heaven at the tip.
Tell a child,
'God is the top of the mountain.
Man is the river.
Only God's sees we're in a big hurry going nowhere.'
The clever child will ask,
'What does man see?'
Tell the child,
'Well, man sees there's a light side to God ~ and maybe a dark side too,
depending on where he's at.
Man sometimes doesn't see God at all because there are clouds.'
(Quickly draw some clouds.)
The clever child will ask,
'How do i know it's God on top of the mountain in heaven and it's not the Devil in hell?'
'Hmm...How old did you say you were?'

Back to the drawing board. — Beryl Dov

Docendo discimus is an old latin phrase meaning, "by teaching, we learn." Teaching makes ideas real. Explaining an idea to friends forces you to clarify it for yourself and builds confidence in your answer. Teaching flows an idea from your brain, to your mouth, into the air, and back into your ears. Now the idea is real. Now you own it. By — Hans Van Nas

My grandest boyhood ambition was to be a professor of history at Notre Dame. Although what I do now is just a different way of working with history, I suppose.") He told me about his blind-in-one-eye canary rescued from a Woolworth's who woke him singing every morning of his boyhood; the bout of rheumatic fever that kept him in bed for six months; and the queer little antique neighborhood library with frescoed ceilings ("torn down now, alas") where he'd gone to get away from his house. About Mrs. De Peyster, the lonely old heiress he'd visited after school, a former Belle of Albany and local historian who clucked over Hobie and fed him Dundee cake ordered from England in tins, who was happy to stand for hours explaining to Hobie every single item in her china cabinet and who had owned, among other things, the mahogany sofa - rumored to have belonged to General Herkimer - that got him interested in furniture in the first place. — Donna Tartt

I have prayed for new men, fiery, reckless men, possesed of uncontrollably youthful passion - these lit by the Spirit of God. I have prayed for new words, explosive, direct, simple words. I have prayed for new miracles. Explaining old miracles will not do. If God is to be known as the God who does wonders in heaven and earth, then God must produce for this generation. Lord, fill preachers and preaching with Thy power. How long dare we go on without tears, without moral passions, hatred and love? Not long, I pray, Lord Jesus, not long ... — Jim Elliot

So I'm explaining intrinsic value to my 4 year old daughter - who loves toy cats - and ask her, if she was really thirsty in the desert, whether she would like a bottle of water, or a toy cat, and she tells me that she would like a bottle of water in the shape of a toy cat.
Unarguable. — Stefan Molyneux

Love is a choice you make everyday. — Gary Chapman

Since 1870 a commander has seldom if ever been able to survey a whole battlefield from a single spot; and in any case he has had little opportunity - although sometimes a considerable inclination - to try. For the modern commander is much more akin to the managing director of a large conglomerate enterprise than ever he is to the warrior chief of old. He has become the head of a complex military organization, whose many branches he must oversee and on whose cooperation, assistance, and support he depends for his success. As the size and complexity of military forces have increased, the business of war has developed an organizational dimension that can make a mighty contribution to triumph - or to tragedy. Hitherto, the role of this organizational dimension of war in explaining military performance has been strangely neglected. We shall return to it later - indeed, it will form one of the major themes of this book. For now we simply need to note its looming presence. — Eliot A. Cohen

I can conceive few human states more enviable than that of the man to whom, panting in the foul laboratory, or watching for his life under the tropic forest, Isis shall for a moment lift her sacred veil, and show him, once and for ever, the thing he dreamed not of; some law, or even mere hint of a law, explaining one fact; but explaining with it a thousand more, connecting them all with each other and with the mighty whole, till order and meaning shoots through some old Chaos of scattered observations. — Charles Kingsley

But I have seen my obstacles: trivialities, learning and poetry. This last needs explaining: the old artist's readiness to dissolve characters into a haze. Characters cannot come alive and fight and guide the world unless the novelist wants them to remain characters. — E. M. Forster

Time is the only capital of those who just have their inteligence as fortune. — Honore De Balzac

As the old fisherman remarked after explaining the various ways to attach a frog to a hook, it's all the same to the frog. — Paul Schullery

I missed you but I knew you were in the best place for you. I would have been a terrible mother. I had no patience. Maya, when you were about two years old, you asked me for something. I was busy talking, so you hit my hand, and I slapped you off the porch without thinking. It didn't mean I didn't love you; it just meant I wasn't ready to be a mother. I'm explaining to you, not apologizing. We would have all been sorry had I kept you. — Maya Angelou

An elementary school student asked me the NOT "politically correct" question, "Is an idiot smarter than a moron?" I had to Google it because I was afraid to respond in today's PC society and didn't want to offend him, his parents, or anyone else. Here's what I found.

Technically, a moron is smarter than an idiot. An imbecile is also smarter than an idiot.

Although today the words are considered insulting and derogatory, prior to the 1960s they were widely used as actual psychology terms associated with intelligence on an IQ test.

An IQ between:
00-25 = Idiot
26-50 = Imbecile
51-70 = Moron

Explaining all of this to a nine year old with an IQ of 130 made me feel like society has turned all adults into one of the above, myself included.

When I told him that I'm afraid to openly say it, the nine year old said, "Adults are idiots! — Ray Palla

Here I am in the garden laughing an old woman with heavy breasts and a nicely mapped face how did this happen well that's who I wanted to be at last a woman in the old style sitting stout thighs apart under a big skirt grandchild sliding on off my lap a pleasant summer perspiration that's my old man across the yard he's talking to the meter reader he's telling him the world's sad story how electricity is oil or uranium and so forth I tell my grandson run over to your grandpa ask him to sit beside me for a minute I am suddenly exhausted by my desire to kiss his sweet explaining lips. — Grace Paley

This was always the difficult part, back when she'd been at her old school: explaining that "asexual" and "aromantic" were different things. — Seanan McGuire

Sometimes just explaining your predicament--to a bartender, a priest, the old woman in a shift and flip-flops cleaning the lint traps in the Laundromat dryers--is all it takes to see a way out of it. — Julia Claiborne Johnson

We must not dwell on what we were in our salad days when soup days steam now upon the table! — Catherynne M Valente

My first job was singing on the Cas Walker radio show in Knoxville, Tennessee. I was about 10 years old, and I thought it was big time. — Dolly Parton

She frowned, thinking of going down there and explaining herself all over again, reliving the horror of finding Mimi's body and trying not to think of how she'd looked when they'd dragged her up and out of the ravine. No sooner had she thought it than she heard Mimi's voice, chastising her over a year ago.

"You hide from life, Catherine. Even when you're in the middle of it, standing toe to toe with all the bad guys you bring in, you manage to keep an emotional distance. I understand why you do it, but ultimately, you're the one who will suffer. You're the one who's going to grow old alone."

Cat blinked back tears, remembering what she'd told her.

I won't be alone, Mimi. I'll always have you.

Obviously she had been wrong. — Sharon Sala

I agree, Dad. I was just explaining to the woman why we don't look anything alike and why you would have been younger than me when I was born. It doesn't mean I don't love you 'cause you know I do. Make one snotty comment in anger when you're twelve years old going through puberty and getting grounded, and you pay for it for the rest of your life. Parents ain't got no sense of humor. (Omari) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

To me, there's nothing funnier than funny people in peril, because it's just a great springboard for people to be at a heightened emotionality and things get funnier. — Paul Feig

I wish [that when] I was 12 years old I'd been able to watch a video of my favourite actress explaining in such an intellectual, beautiful, poignant way the definition of feminism - I would have understood it and then earlier on in my life I would have proudly claimed that I was a feminist, because I would have understood what the word means. — Taylor Swift