Extraneous Quotes & Sayings

There is no room for the impurities of literature in an essay ... the essay must be pure
pure like water or pure like wine, but pure from dullness, deadness, and deposits of extraneous matter. — Virginia Woolf

When I occasionally quote the words of Jesus or the Buddha, from A Course in Miracles or from other teachings, I do so not in order to compare, but to draw your attention to the fact that in essence there is and always has been only one spiritual teaching, although it comes in many forms. Some of these forms, such as the ancient religions, have become so overlaid with extraneous matter that their spiritual essence has become almost completely obscured by it. To a large extent, therefore, their deeper meaning is no longer recognized and their transformative power lost. When I quote from the ancient religions or other teachings, it is to reveal their deeper meaning and thereby restore their transformative power - particularly for those readers who are followers of these religions or teachings. I say to them: there is no need to go elsewhere for the truth. Let me show you how to go more deeply into what you already have. — Eckhart Tolle

I returned to the waiting area. For the first time, I was conscious of being widowed, of lacking the prosecution of a man, it was an entirely atavistic sensation. Here in the lobby of this police station in Greece, I suddenly felt extraneous to the workings of the world, which is to say the world of men, I had grown invisible, standing at the threshold of that door. — Katie Kitamura

Beautiful things of any kind are beautiful in themselves and sufficient to themselves. Praise is extraneous. The object of praise remains what it was - no better and no worse. — Marcus Aurelius

I think that words are often extraneous to what I do. — Howard Hodgkin

People who are great thinkers, in science or in art, people who are great performers, have to have that kind of capacity. Without that kind of capacity, it's extremely difficult to manage a high level of performance because you're going to get a lot of extraneous material chipping away at the finery of your thinking or the finery of your motor execution. — Antonio Damasio

Of course , if I am nothing but an ego, and woman is nothing but another ego, then there is really no vital difference between us. Two little dolls of conscious entities, squeaking when you squeeze them. And with a tiny bit of an extraneous appendage to mark which is which ... — D.H. Lawrence

The sad fact is that language and logic cut off from reality have a far greater power than the language and logic of reality - with all that extraneous matter weighing down like a rock on any actions we take. In — Haruki Murakami

The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to die for rags
that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it. — Mark Twain

Age is convinced one extraneous calorie will make her go from super skinny to just
regular skinny. Tragedy. — Richelle Mead

Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition- and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, evEryThing is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scare here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking TO do- clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth-the naked shining truth. — Agatha Christie

Does not ingenuity consist in the finding or creating of connections between apparently extraneous orders of ideas?) — Primo Levi

Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument. The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features. — Primo Levi

Now when you transfer into the conscious parenting paradigm, you have to release those pressures and those fears ... you actually think into the very ordinary but profound moment to moment connection to your children and you do away with those extraneous attachments to achievement or beauty or wealth or success. And while those things have their place, they don't overwhelm or override the life of the parent and child. Your life is actually suddenly liberated. — Shefali Tsabary

Advertising is the art of the tiny. You have to tell a complete a story and deliver a complete message in a very encapsulated form. It disciplines you to cut away extraneous information. — Dick Wolf

We really should get some X-rays," the EMT said.
"You just want to fondle my extraneous body parts," I said to the EMT. — Darynda Jones

Without extraneous words or phrases or clauses, there will be room for implication. The longer the sentence, the less it's able to imply, And writing by implication should be one of your goals. Implication is almost nonexistent in the prose that surrounds you, The prose of law, science, business, journalism, and most academic fields. It was nonexistent in the way you were taught to write. That means you don't know how to use one of a writer's most important tools: The ability to suggest more than the words seem to allow, The ability to speak to the reader in silence. — Verlyn Klinkenborg

Extraneous violence is totally wrong. 'Robocop' was violence for violence's sake - you don't shoot somebody's arm off. — Lee Rich

I feel passionately about how I express myself. Language is the greatest motivating force. You can phrase something positively and inspire people to do their best, or negatively and make them feel worried, uncertain, and self-conscious. You can talk at a fast pace and people will get nervous, feel afraid to bring up extraneous thoughts. But those are the very thoughts that might be most important! They might represent that person's best thinking. If you're rushed, you're simply not going to get at that extra level of thinking. — Frances Hesselbein

Mysteries are fine things, but the written word should be preserved, intact, and free of extraneous error. — Sandra Staas

For me, writing for kids is harder because they're a more discriminating audience. While adults might stay with you, if you lose your pacing or if you have pages of extraneous description, a kid's not going to do that. They will drop the book. — Rick Riordan

So somehow, things that seem extraneous to the play in reality are not. The scene lasts 37 minutes, and you only need 12 minutes of that for the plot. But if you pull the rest of it out, it's not my play. — August Wilson

Odd, eccentric people they were, these entertainers. Most of them had a streak of imagination, and most of them drank. Most of them were middle-aged. Most of them had an abstracted manner; in ordinary life, they seemed left aside, somehow. Odd, extraneous creatures, often a little depressed, feeling life slip away from them. The cinema was killing them. — D.H. Lawrence

Edna felt depressed rather than soothed after leaving them. The little glimpse of domestic harmony which had been offered her, gave her no regret, no longing. It was not a condition of life which fitted her, and she could see in it but an apalling and hopeless ennui. She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle, - a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life's delirium. Edna vaguely wondered what she meant by "life's delirium." It had crossed her thought like some unsought, extraneous impression. — Kate Chopin

Science ignores the spiritual realm because it is not amenable to scientific analysis. As importantly, the predictive success of Newtonian theory, emphasizing the primacy of a physical Universe, made the existence of spirit and God an extraneous hypothesis that offered no explanatory principles needed by science. — Bruce Lipton

The extraneous duties, in a sense, were the job. — Tom Clancy

One day the stars will be as familiar to each man as the landmarks, the curves, and the hills on the road that leads to his door, and one day this will be an airborne life. But by then men will have forgotten how to fly; they will be passengers on machines whose conductors are carefully promoted to a familiarity with labelled buttons, and in whose minds knowledge of the sky and the wind and the way of weather will be extraneous as passing fiction. — Beryl Markham

I had learned to dwell with pleasure as a beloved daydream on the
thought of the separation of these elements. If each I told myself could be housed in separate identities life would be relieved of all that was unbearable the unjust might go his way delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path doing the good things in which he found his pleasure and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Of all the soul divas, Gladys Knight was the one for me. Knight's always been about tone and heart, none of the big showboating or extraneous doodling. She nailed a melody and only played a little around the edges like Ma Staple. — Alison Moyet

The one affectation I have forced on the publisher ... are my apostrophe-free ellisions. Because I write my scripts to read myself, I dont spell 'don't' with an apostrophe. I spell it 'dont'. We all know the word and it seems foolish to put in an extraneous apostrophe. Punctuation marks are devices we use to make the meaning of sentences clear. There is nothing confusing about a word like 'dont' printed without an apostrophe to indicate an omitted letter. — Andy Rooney

Human beings are on a journey of awareness, which has momentarily been interrupted by extraneous forces. — Carlos Castaneda

You have such a sacred responsibility when you touch John Lewis's story, when you touch the story of the movement. You don't want to leave anything out, but you want to tell a good story so the people will read it and they're engaged and they don't fall apart with extraneous details. — Andrew Aydin

The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to becomeerased as the years go by, but often they change, or even grow, by incorporating extraneous features. Judges know this very well: almost never do two eyewitnesses of the same event describe it in the same way and with the same words, even if the event is recent and if neither of them has a personal interest in distorting it. — Primo Levi

The only institution in the Sicilian conscience that really counts is the family; counts, that is to say, more as a dramatic juridical contract or bond than as a natural association based on affection. The family is the Sicilians' State. The State, as it is for us, is extraneous to them, merely a de facto entity based on force; an entity imposing taxes, military service, war, police. Within the family institution the Sicilian can cross the frontier of his own natural tragic solitude and fit into a communal life where relationships are governed by hair-splitting contractual ties. To ask him to cross the frontier between family and State would be too much. In imagination he may be carried away by the idea of the State and may even rise to being Prime Minister; but the precise and definite code of his rights and duties will remain within the family, whence the step towards victorious solitude is shorter. — Leonardo Sciascia

The historian, predisposed to verbal evidence, who reads about rather than looks at objects, becomes dependent upon secondhand impressions and is helpless when critics disagree or interpose their own extraneous judgments between the work and the viewer. — Oscar Handlin

It is not the accumulation of extraneous knowledge, but the realization of the self within, that constitutes true progress. — Okakura Kakuzo

Suicidal thinking, if serious, can be a kind of death scare, comparable to suffering a heart attack or undergoing a cancer operation. One survives such a phase both warier and chastened. When-ten years ago-I emerged from a bad dip into suicidal speculation, I felt utterly exhausted and yet quite fearless of ordinary dangers, vastly afraid of myself but much less scared of extraneous eventualities. — Edward Hoagland

Anyone can overdress.
The true art is stripping the extraneous. — Jacob Oet

He knew he couldn't tell stories, that he always included extraneous details & tangents that interested only him. — John Green

(he) reminded me by his presence, by his natural and plain manner of being good, that there still existed a just world outside our own, something and someone still pure and whole, not corrupt, not savage, extraneous to hatred and terror; something difficult to define, a remote possibility of good, but for which it was worth surviving. — Primo Levi

In terms of screenwriting adaptations it's trying to cut out stuff that's extraneous, without doing damage to the original piece, because you owe a debt of some respect to the original author. That's why it was bought. — Rod Serling

Actually, I'm highly logical, which allows me to look past extraneous detail and perceive clearly that which others overlook. — J.K. Rowling

Her looks were almost extraneous. They weren't any more important to her appeal than a glass was to wine. — Jim Butcher

What is new is that we know so very much about the world, or at least the part of it that is most picturesquely exploding on any given day, that we're left with a desperate sense that all of it is exploding, all the time. As far as I can tell, that is the intent and purpose of television news. We see so much, understand so little, and are simultaneously told so much about What We Think, as a populace polled minute by minute, that is begins to feel like an extraneous effort to listen at all to our hearts. — Barbara Kingsolver

Perhaps ultimately, spiritual simply means experiencing wholeness and interconnectedness directly, a seeing that individuality and the totality are interwoven, that nothing is separate or extraneous. If you see in this way, then everything becomes spiritual in its deepest sense. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

The role of designers and product makers is to really become much better editors. What kind of functionality is actually needed - and truly delightful - to consumers? Remove all the extraneous stuff. — Yves Behar

I'm trying always to leave out what I think is extraneous. And to find what I think is the most wonderful language to make a beautiful sentence. — Lynne Tillman

Regardless of the extraneous shit and the centuries I had to wait to get what was mine, destiny fuckin' loves me. — Kristen Ashley

Expected outcomes contribute to motivation independently of self-efficacy beliefs when outcomes are not completely controlled by quality of performance. This occurs when extraneous factors also affect outcomes, or outcomes are socially tied to a minimum level of performance so that some variations in quality of performance above and below the standard do not produce differential outcomes — Albert Bandura

Creative activity is not a superimposed, extraneous task against which the body, or brain protests, but an orchestration of ... joyful doing. — Gyorgy Kepes

Every minute you spend on something extraneous is a minute you're not spending working on something meaningful to you. — Diana Fitts

It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. — Henry David Thoreau

Our lives are lived in intense and anxious struggle, in a swirl of speed and aggression, in competing, grasping, possessing and achieving, forever burdening ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations. — Sogyal Rinpoche

If, at the time when the mind is praying it is distracted by any extraneous thought or worry about anything, then this prayer is not called pure. — Isaac Of Nineveh

All things that are living are expression and therefore part of the inherent symbology of life. Art, therefore, that is encumbered with excessive symbolism is extraneous, and from my point of view, useless art. Anyone who understands life needs no handbook of poetry or philosophy to tell him what it is. — Marsden Hartley

This was the advantage of desire. Desire focused the mind. It eliminated extraneous thought. The greater the desire, the less the burden of the mind. She would like to live her life this way. Perhaps it was how to survive intact. Live to satisfy her desires. Desire only what she could have. — Alexander Maksik

We've got to cut the extraneous out of our lives, and we've got to learn to stem the inflow. We need to think before we buy. Ask ourselves, 'Is that really going to make me happier? Truly?' — Graham Hill

He was notorious for cutting short extraneous verbiage from over-loquacious barristers". — Bryce Courtenay

The soul of woman must be expansive and open to all human beings, it must be quiet so that no small weak flame will be extinguished by stormy winds; warm so as not to benumb fragile buds ... empty of itself, in order that extraneous life may have room in it; finally, mistress of itself and also of its body, so that the entire person is readily at the disposal of every call. — Edith Stein

Many of us have convinced ourselves that compromise is necessary to achieve our goals, that all of our goals are not attainable so we should eliminate the extraneous, prioritize our desires, and accept less than the moon. — Garth Stein

I like my surroundings to be pretty spare and severe. It helps me to concentrate on my work. All I ever do here is go from my studio to my bedroom. Everything else is extraneous. I never entertain, because to me, New York is about meeting people in public spaces, absorbing a little bit of their energy. — Ross Bleckner

For God does not want to save us by our own but by an extraneous righteousness, one that does not originate in ourselves but comes to us from beyond ourselves, which does not arise on earth but comes from heaven. — Martin Luther

When you hear extraneous noise, they are bored in some way, so it makes me upset. Even coughing, I find, is passive-aggressive, usually. — Joshua Bell

If intellection and knowledge were mere passion from without, or the bare reception of extraneous and adventitious forms, then no reason could be given at all why a mirror or looking-glass should not understand. — Ralph Cudworth

It seemed so tawdry what he had offered her - mere money - compared with what she offered him. He offered her an extraneous thing with which he could part without a pang, while she offered him herself, along with disgrace and shame, and sin, and all her hopes of heaven. — Jack London

Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me
a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life; not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books. — Michel De Montaigne

How much money you get, depends on lots of extraneous things. It depends on how good you are at turning poetry into a marketable product, which is something it was never supposed to be. That's why many people suppose that the better the poet you are the lower your income should be, and that's probably true. — Robert Bringhurst

This effect would be increased by extraneous circumstances producing other familiar physical sensations - night, cold or the rattling of heavy traffic, for instance." "Yes." "Yes. The old wounds are nearly healed, but not quite. The ordinary exercise of your mental faculties has no bad effect. It is only when you excite the injured part of your brain." "Yes, I see." "Yes. You must avoid these occasions. You must learn to be irresponsible, Lord Peter." "My friends say I'm only too irresponsible already." "Very likely. A sensitive nervous temperament often appears so, owing to its mental nimbleness." "Oh! — Dorothy L. Sayers

Music is the purest form of art, and therefore the most direct expression of beauty, with a form and spirit which is one and simple, and least encumbered with anything extraneous. We seem to feel that the manifestation of the infinite in the finite forms of creation is music itself, silent and visible. — Rabindranath Tagore

As sculptors chip away the stone in order to find the statue, writers chip away extraneous verbiage so readers can see the shape of an idea clearly. My gift is to see through the confusion, to bring order and simplicity to a story. — Leslie Parrish

There is the name and the thing; the name is a sound which sets a mark on and denotes the thing. The name is no part of the thing nor of the substance; it is an extraneous piece added to the thing, and outside of it. — Michel De Montaigne

I crossed my arms, stilled by a revelation that had been mounting in me ever since our arrival in this bower of poured concrete: that as the "subject," I was both the center of attention and completely extraneous. The feeling brought with it an eerie, stultifying familiarity; I was still the model, after all. I was modeling my life. — Jennifer Egan

I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give. — Charlotte Bronte

The way the function dictates the form ... elegant lines ... nothing extraneous ... this shoe perfectly expresses the essence of shoeness. — David Mazzucchelli

If the fidelity [ in a book] isn't maintained, the reader will think your structure is extraneous, or superficial, or that you're trying to curry favor, or live up to the expectations of some sort of genre or structure. — David Bezmozgis

The key to excellent report writing' he said between chews, 'is to take every bit of passion out of it. Use an extra heaping portion of superflously extraneous tautological redundancies in order to make it mind-numbingly boring. So that when one's superior officers read it, they zone out and start skimming and maybe don't notice the fact that one has been spinning one's wheels since the body turned up and hasn't solved a goddamn thing. — Jonathan Kellerman

A player's effectiveness is directly related to his ability to be right there, doing that thing, in the moment. He can't be worrying about the past or the future or the crowd or some other extraneous event. He must be able to respond in the here and now. — John Brodie

They always try to trick you, deliberately throwing extraneous plot lines just to confuse and misguide you, withholding important information until the last chapter, using vague and misleading descriptions so you don't notice something that should be plain as day. — Moxie Mezcal

We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our Liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good. — John Adams

Consider an event from the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the world's greatest military strategists: During a meeting, his subordinates informed Napoleon Bonaparte of a new general who was turning out to be extremely capable. The new man's bravery, skill, determination and organizational capabilities were outlined for Napoleon in great detail. Napoleon waved his hand impatiently. 'That's all very well,' said Napoleon. 'But tell me: Is he lucky?' Napoleon's question may sound rather strange in our times, but he saw luck as a personal trait rather than an extraneous factor. A — Ashwin Sanghi

Twitter taught me how to become better at writing jokes because it forces you to chip away at all the extraneous words. — Peter Serafinowicz

Unfortunately the next day was not the vast, extraneous expanse of time which I had feverishly looked forward. When it drew to a close my laziness and my painful struggle to overcome internal obstacles had simply lasted twenty-four hours longer. — Marcel Proust

The cognitive functioning of a human brain depends on a delicate orchestration of many factors, especially during the critical stages of embryo development-and it is much more likely that this self-organizing structure, to be enhanced, needs to be carefully balanced, tuned, and cultivated rather than simply flooded with some extraneous potion. — Nick Bostrom

It takes so much to be a king that he exists only as such. That extraneous glare that surrounds him hides him and conceals him from us; our sight breaks and is dissipated by it being filled and arrested by this strong light. — Michel De Montaigne

Ambulances were cool. "You just want to fondle my extraneous body parts," I said to the EMT as I picked up a silver gadget that looked disturbingly like an alien orifice probe, broke it, then promptly put it back, hoping it wouldn't leave someone's life hanging in the balance because the EMT couldn't alien-probe his orifices. — Darynda Jones

Sense perceptions can be and often are false and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there is realization outside the senses, it is infallible. It is proved not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within. — Mahatma Gandhi

I had reached the point, at Balbec, of regarding the pleasure of playing with a troop of girls as less destructive of the spiritual life, to which at least it remains alien, than friendship, the whole effort of which is directed towards making us sacrifice the only part of ourselves that is real and incommunicable (otherwise than by means of art) to a superficial self which, unlike the other, finds no joy in its own being, but rather a vague, sentimental glow at feeling itself supported by external props, hospitalised in an extraneous individuality, where, happy in the protection that is afforded it there, it expresses its well-being in warm approval and marvels at qualities which it would denounce as failings and seek to correct in itself. — Marcel Proust

The tragic fear and pity may be aroused by the Spectacle; but they may also be aroused by the very structure and incidents of the play - which is the better way and shows the better poet. The Plot in fact should be so framed that even without seeing the things take place, he who simply hears the account of them shall be filled with horror and pity at the incidents; which is just the effect that the mere recital of the story in Oedipus would have on one. To produce this same effect by means of the Spectacle is less artistic, and requires extraneous aid. — Aristotle.

[T]he true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law. — Thomas Jefferson

God gave laws to His people to bless them, not to burden them. Every rule either elevates the quality of human life or restores one's relationship with God after a breach. He makes no extraneous demands and He is never capricious. — Charles R. Swindoll

I love short stories - reading and writing them. The best short stories distill all the potency of a novel into a small but heady draught. They are perfect reading material for the bus or train or for a lunchtime break. Everything extraneous has been strained off by the author. The best short stories pack the heft of any novel, yet resonate like poetry. — Ian Rankin

Directing made me realise what I do as an actor that's extraneous, it focuses your mind on story, story, story. — Matt Smith

Do not be seduced by those big-box come-ons, full of "complete sets" of extraneous cookware. A complete set is whatever you need, and maybe all you need is a wok and a hot place to grill your bacon. In a pinch, I can do it all with my good heavy nonstick frying pan. Besides the obvious braising, browning, and frying, I can make sauces and stir-fries in it, toast cheese sandwiches and slivered almonds, use the underside to pound cutlets, and in a pinch probably swing it to defend my honor. If I could find a man that versatile and dependable, I'd marry him. — Jennifer Crusie

Life introduces us to the gentle, cosmic rhythms of an extraneous world. What is objective truth might exceed human capacity to ever fully perceive, comprehend, and explain. — Kilroy J. Oldster

In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. — Samuel Adams

After puberty the personality develops impetuously and all extraneous intervention becomes odious ... Now it so happens that parents feel the responsibility towards their children precisely during this second period, when it is too late. — Antonio Gramsci

And how shall we be able to tell whether he is a true zaddik?" The Baal Shem replied. "Ask him to advise you what to do to keep unholy thoughts from disturbing you in your prayers and studies. If he gives you advice, then you will know that he belongs to those who are of no account. For this is the service of men in the world to the very hour of their death; to struggle time after time with the extraneous, and time after time to uplift and fit it into the nature of the Divine Name. — Martin Buber

He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics; that is mixed mathematics. The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is still biographical. — Henry David Thoreau

Only he who bestirs himself can advance spiritually. The fool who uses extraneous aids for this, in the form of the ready-made opinions of others, only walks his path as if on crutches, while ignoring his own healthy limbs. — ABD- RU-SHIN

You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags
that is loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal. — Mark Twain