Irresolution Quotes & Sayings

Pierre did not go to the army, but remained in deserted Moscow, still in the same anxiety, irresolution, in the fear and at the same time the joy of awaiting something terrible. — Leo Tolstoy

There's this element of surprise when you're writing songs, like it's something outside of you that you get to be part of. And it's just exciting. And that's why I keep writing - because I like that feeling. — Nathaniel Rateliff

I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing. — Stephen Hawking

We can all be clockmakers, or astronomers. But if we all wanted to be Pushkin ... if the question is, how do you make a poem by Pushkin?- or, what exactly makes one poem or painting or piece of music greater than another?- or, what is beauty?, or liberty?, or virtue?- if the question is, how should we live? ... then, reason gives no answer or different answers. So something went wrong. The divine spark in man is not reason after all, but something else, some kind of intuition or vision, perhaps like the moment of inspiration experienced by the artist ... — Tom Stoppard

They were close enough that he could feel the hurried beat of her heart. He could feel Charlotte's indecision in every word she didn't say and every move she didn't make. She was tense with uncertainty, quivering with irresolution. She might not be leaning into him, but she wasn't pulling away, either. — Lauren Willig

When I was younger, I used to make resolutions which imagined were virtuous. I was less anxious to be what I was, than to become what I wished to be. Now, I am not far from thinking that in irresolution lies the secret of not growing old. — Andre Gide

Sloth is the great enemy
the inspirer of cowardice, irresolution, self-pitying grief, and trivial, hairsplitting doubts. Sloth may also be a psychological cause of sickness. It is tempting to relax from our duties, take refuge in ill-health and hide under a nice warm blanket. — Patanjali

The leveling effect of the women's movement has contributed to discourage dating. As women's options have increased and some women have become more aggressive, some men have become reluctant to take traditional male initiatives, such as asking for dates, lest they be thought to qualify for the dreaded label male chauvinist. — Dallin H. Oaks

Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men whose views are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive. — Samuel Johnson

The 'Irish Question' has dogged English politics for four hundred years and will continue to measure out its irresolution in blood and human lives until there is peace in Ireland. — Kevin Toolis

Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? — Patrick Henry

The repose necessary to all beauty is repose, not of inanition, nor of luxury, nor of irresolution, but the repose of magnificent energy and being; in action, the calmness of trust and determination; in rest, the consciousness of duty accomplished and of victory won; and this repose and this felicity can take place as well in the midst of trial and tempest, as beside the waters of comfort. — John Ruskin

I have suffered, like other writers, from indolence, irresolution, distaste to my work, absence of 'inspiration,' and all that: but I have also found that sitting down, however reluctantly, with the pen in my hand, I have never worked for one quarter of an hour without finding myself in full train ... — Harriet Martineau

In matters of great concern, and which must be done, there is no surer argument of a weak mind than irresolution; to be undetermined where the case is so plain, and the necessity so urgent. To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating, and drinking, and sleeping, from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed. — John Tillotson

The stage, the show, the fans, that doesn't matter because I'm always gonna fight my fight. — Cat Zingano

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. — Patrick Henry

In theory momentos serve to bring back the moment. In fact they serve only to make clear how inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here. How inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here is something else I could never afford to see. — Joan Didion

That little space of irresolution is a strange place to be. You feel safe because you are entirely at the world's mercy. It is a rush. You lose yourself in it. And so you run towards those little shots of fate, where the world turns. That is the lure: that is why we lose ourselves, when powerless from hurt and grief, in drugs or gambling or drink; in addictions that collar the broken soul and shake it like a dog. — Helen Macdonald

I can't think straight. But why am I trying to do that anyway? Everybody else thinks straight. That's why nobody expects me to think zigzag-hop. — Frances Hardinge

There is always a countermove, always an escape or way through. No one said it would be easy and of course the stakes are high, but the path is there for those ready to take it. — Ryan Holiday

I take it so seriously as far as meditation, notes, visualization, preparation, everything. I take it a lot more serious than a lot of people that play this sport. I'm obsessed with the game that I play. — Jon Jones

Like the market, conjugal society, consisting of marriage and family, is not the creation of the state. It is a pre-political institution, rooted in sex difference and procreation. Given the pre-political nature of conjugal society, the state regulates it rightly by recognizing it as a natural fact with its own norms and purposes. The state ought not treat conjugal society as its own creation. Where there is evidence that parents are failing in their duties to each other or to their children, the state may intervene. Absent this, however, the state ought to leave conjugal society, rooted in the union of one man and one woman, alone. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

The old Squire was an implacable man: he made resolutions in violent anger, and he was not to be moved from them after his anger had subsided - as fiery volcanic matters cool and harden into rock. Like many violent and implacable men, he allowed evils to grow under favour of his own heedlessness, till they pressed upon him with exasperating force, and then he turned round with fierce severity and became unrelentingly hard ... Godfrey knew all this, and felt it with the greater force because he had constantly suffered annoyance from witnessing his father's sudden fits of unrelentingness, for which his own habitual irresolution deprived him of all sympathy. (He was not critical on the faulty indulgence which preceded these fits; that seemed to him natural enough.) — George Eliot

Cesar is not a philosophical man. His life has been one long flight from reflection. At least he is clever enough not to expose the poverty of his general ideas; he never permits the conversation to move toward philosophical principles. Men of his type so dread all deliberation that they glory in the practice of the instantaneous decision. They think they are saving themselves from irresolution; in reality they are sparing themselves the contemplation of all the consequences of their acts. Moreover, in this way they can rejoice in the illusion of never having made a mistake; for act follows so swiftly on act that it is impossible to reconstruct the past and say that an alternative decision would have been better. They can pretend that every act was forced on them under emergency and that every decision was mothered by necessity — Thornton Wilder

It is a fair adornment of a man and a great convenience both to himself and to all those with whom he converses and deals, to act uprightly, uniformly, and consistently. The practice of piety frees a man from interior distraction and from irresolution in his mind, from duplicity or inconstancy in his character, and from confusion in his proceedings, and consequently securing for others freedom from deception and disappointment in their transactions with him. — Isaac Barrow

Stop trying to leave, and you shall arrive; stop seeking, and you shall see; stop running away, and you shall be found. — Lao-Tzu

There are no evil people; there are perfectly good people who are of the track, but they do not need condemnation or punishment; they only need to get upon the rails again. — Wallace D. Wattles

Irresolution is a worse vice than rashness. He that shoots best may sometimes miss the mark; but he that shoots not at all can never hit it. Irresolution loosens all the joints of a state; like an ague, it shakes not this nor that limb, but all the body is at once in a fit. The irresolute man is lifted from one place to another; so hatcheth nothing, but addles all his actions. — Owen Feltham

I think Luc was right," he added when they were out of earshot. "I can hardly take you out anymore." "I just took out a vamp twice my weight while wearing a cocktail dress and three-inch heels. I think I deserve some credit for that. — Chloe Neill

One of the challenges was to make a cinematic movie about literally talking heads and to try to make it feel like something you want to see in a theater. — Morgan Neville

Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness. — Joseph Addison

God creates, blesses and saves each of us for a radically global purpose — David Platt

I'm not on my way anywhere, Harry sometimes tells inquirers. How to explain, in a culture frantic for resolution, that sometimes the shit stays messy? I do not want the female gender that has been assigned to me at birth. Neither do I want the male gender that transsexual medicine can furnish and that the state will award me if I behave in the right way. I don't want any of it. How to explain that for some, or for some at some times, this irresolution is OK - desirable, even (e.g., "gender hackers") - whereas for others, or for others at some times, it stays a source of conflict or grief? — Maggie Nelson