Limited Minds Quotes & Sayings

I knew then that this is how God loves us all and receives us all, and that there is no such thing in this universe as hell, except maybe in our own terrified minds. Because if even one broken and limited human being could experience even one such episode of absolute forgiveness and acceptance of her own self, then imagine - just imagine! - what God, in all His eternal compassion, can forgive and accept. — Elizabeth Gilbert

This consists in not taking a book into one's hand merely because it is interesting the great public at the time - such as political or religious pamphlets, novels, poetry, and the like, which make a noise and reach perhaps several editions in their first and last years of existence. Remember rather that the man who writes for fools always finds a large public: and only read for a limited and definite time exclusively the works of great minds, those who surpass other men of all times and countries, and whom the voice of fame points to as such. These alone really educate and instruct.

One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind — Arthur Schopenhauer

The villagers seldom leave the village; many scientists have limited and poorly cultivated minds apart from their specialty ... — Simone Weil

I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community-and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion ... Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined ... Finally, [the nation] is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately, it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willing to die for such limited imaginings. — Benedict Anderson

Limited minds can recognize limitations only in others. — Jack London

Humanity was never meant for mediocrity. Yet many among us are now, and will forever remain, limited by their profound lack of understanding. Some of us develop our minds and glimpse the wisdom of the ages. Others develop their muscles and embrace the strength, power and endurance only possible of a body that obeys the heart and mind without question. An even smaller group, look inside themselves to find the peace, compassion, humility and timeless strength of character that can only be attained through spirituality. An infinitesimally smaller minority develop the intellect, strengthen and dominate the body, and come to know the true nature of their spirit - thus finding a balance that comes as close to excellence as any mere mortal can ever hope to attain. — Richard Duarte

Men are limited by the knowledge of their minds, the worth of their characters and the principles upon which they are building their lives. — Edwin Louis Cole

Libertarians see these changes as gains for freedom. No longer under the thumb of traditional marriage and religion, people can make up their own minds about how to live their personal lives, believing what they wish about religion and morality. Maybe so, but that's no basis for a free society. Codified rights offer limited protection. If the Supreme Court can find a right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution, then it can find anything, including dramatically different (and reduced) rights of speech, association, and religion. The most powerful limits to government power are found below and above political life: a strong culture of marriage and family, and robust, assertive religious institutions. A free society depends on strong family loyalties and faith's indomitable resolve. — R. R. Reno

Where no interest is takes in science, literature and liberal pursuits, mere facts and insignificant criticisms necessarily become the themes of discourse; and minds, strangers alike to activity and meditation, become so limited as to render all intercourse with them at once tasteless and oppressive. — Madame De Stael

Four years of world war, at a cost in human suffering which our minds are mercifully too limited to imagine, led to the very clear realization that international anarchy must be abandoned if civilization was to survive. — Arthur Henderson

Some of the biggest challenges faced by computers and human minds alike: how to manage finite space, finite time, limited attention, unknown unknowns, incomplete information, and an unforeseeable future; how to do so with grace and confidence; and how to do so in a community with others who are all simultaneously trying to do the same. — Brian Christian

Those who are esteemed umpires of taste, are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation is local, as if you should rub a log of dry wood in one spot to produce fire, all the rest remaining cold. Their knowledge of the fine arts is some study of rules and particulars, or some limited judgment of color or form which is exercised for amusement or for show. It is a proof of the shallowness of the doctrine of beauty, as it lies in the minds of our amateurs, that men seem to have lost the perception of the instant dependence of form upon soul. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lyall felt he could not say which of two things was harder to put up with, the Abbot's conversational style, with its bland coherence and assumption of severely limited cogitative powers in the hearer, or his recurrent look of pleased surprise as each fresh piece of evidence of his wisdom or moral worth turned up, but between them they were likely to implant in certain minds a hardy seed of revolt. — Kingsley Amis

When we speak of knowing God, it must be understood with reference to man's limited powers of comprehension. God, as He really is, is far beyond man's imagination, let alone understanding. God has revealed only so much of Himself as our minds can conceive and the weakness of our nature can bear. — John Milton

You and I have good enough minds to know how very limited and finite they really are. The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument. — Madeleine L'Engle

The difficulties in the study of the infinite arise because we attempt, with our finite minds, to discuss the infinite, assigning to it those properties which we give to the finite and limited; but this ... is wrong, for we cannot speak of infinite quantities as being the one greater or less than or equal to another. — Galileo Galilei

Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her. She is everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have seen her die in the gloom of an Italian Tomb, sucking the poison from her lover's lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear, and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reed-like throat. I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in one of them. — Oscar Wilde

I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. — Albert Einstein

Sometimes we miss our blessings in life because they do not arrive the way we think they should. Because our minds are so shallow, so limited, we think our blessings have to come a certain way and sometimes we miss them walking up and down the street. Open your mind: get your blessing. — Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.

Minds are in limited supply, and each mind has a limited capacity for memes, and hence there is considerable competition among memes for entry in as many minds as possible. — Daniel Dennett

Therapy is too good to be limited to the sick. — Erving Polster

I repeat, I repeat with emphasis: all "direct" persons and men of action are active just because they are stupid and limited. How explain that? I will tell you: in consequence of their limitation they take immediate and secondary causes for primary ones, and in that way persuade themselves more quickly and easily than other people do that they have found an infallible foundation for their activity, and their minds are at ease and you know that is the chief thing. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What are called opinions "on the left" and "on the right" in the media represent only a limited spectrum of debate, which reflects the range of needs of private power - but there's essentially nothing beyond those "acceptable" positions. So what the media do, in effect, is to take the set of assumptions which express the basic ideas of the propaganda system, whether about the Cold War or the economic system or the "national interest" and so on, and then present a range of debate within that framework - so the debate only enhances the strength of the assumptions, ingraining them in people's minds as the entire possible spectrum of opinion that there is. — Noam Chomsky

Just because our brains are limited in size, does not mean our minds need be. — Jeffrey Fry

Yet I exist in the hope that these memoirs ... may find their way to the minds of humanity in Some Dimension, and may stir up a race of rebels who shall refuse to be confined to limited Dimensionality. — Edwin A. Abbott

Our brains are fairly powerful, but our conscious minds are still extremely limited in their ability to hold onto multiple simultaneous thoughts — Steve Pavlina

The approach of intellect or noesis will forever be an effete and limited sort of thing by contrast with the vigor and color of gnosis; but in academia there is virtually nothing but noetic minds to be found, and the very idea of gnosis is alien and untranslatable, not to mention discreditable. — Kenny Smith

When you aren't open to grow; you are in fact creating hindrances in everyone's growth because everything is connected in the universe. — Hina Hashmi

It is not your duty or responsibility to change the minds of other people. The nature of their thinking is advanced or limited by their experience. In your presence, they have an opportunity to learn about you and, perhaps, to grow. — Iyanla Vanzant

I am not an atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. — Albert Einstein

There is not always 'two sides to every issue.' That statement is a ridiculous slogan invoked by vested interests and perpetuated by minds of limited scope. — Anton Szandor LaVey

Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in any of them. They ride in the park in the morning and chatter at tea parties in the afternoon. They have their stereotyped smile and their fashionable mauve. — Oscar Wilde

The trouble with men is that they have limited minds. That's the trouble
with women, too."
["Existence" (1975)] — Joanna Russ

Don't try to comprehend with your mind. Your minds are very limited. Use your intuition. — Madeleine L'Engle

Life is limited, but by writing, and reading, we can live in different worlds, get inside the skins and minds of other people, and, in this way, push out the boundaries of our own lifes. — Joan Lingard

When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may imagine that allied species made much private remark on each other, and were tempted to think that so many forms feeding on the same store of fodder were eminently superfluous, as tending to diminish the rations ...
The same sort of temptation befell the Christian Carnivora who formed Peter Featherstone's funeral procession; most of them having their minds bent on a limited store which each would have liked to get the most of. The long-recognized blood-relations and connexions by marriage made already a goodly number, which, multiplied by possibilities, presented a fine range for jealous conjecture and pathetic hopefulness. — George Eliot

If I was gay, I wouldn't need an asterisk beside my name. I could stop worrying if the girl I like will bounce when she finds out I also like dick. I could have a coming-out party without people thinking I just want attention. I wouldn't have to explain that I fall in love with minds, not genders or body parts. People wouldn't say I'm 'just a slut' or 'faking it' or 'undecided' or 'confused.' I'm not confused. I don't categorize people by who I'm allowed to like and who I'm allowed to love. Love doesn't fit into boxes like that. It's blurry, slippery, quantum. It's only limited by our perceptions and before we slap a label on it and cram it into some category, everything is possible. — Leah Raeder

She is everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have seen her the in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from her lover's lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear, and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reed-like throat. I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in any of them: — Oscar Wilde

He left Molie's at ten past midnight, twelve hundred New Dollars lighter. The pawnbroker had also sold him a limited but fairly effective disguise: gray hair, spectacles, mouth wadding, plastic buck-teeth which subtly transfigured his lip line. "Give yourself a little limp, too," Molie advised. "Not a big attention-getter. Just a little one. Remember, you have the power to cloud men's minds, if you use it. Don't remember that line, do ya?" Richards didn't. — Richard Bachman

Never say that you can't do something, or that something seems impossible, or that something can't be done, no matter how discouraging or harrowing it may be; human beings are limited only by what we allow ourselves to be limited by: our own minds. We are each the masters of our own reality; when we become self-aware to this: absolutely anything in the world is possible — Mike Norton

The predominant teachings of this age are that there are no limits to man's capacity to govern others and that, therefore, no limitations ought to be imposed upon government. The older faith, born of long ages of suffering under man's dominion over man, was that the exercise of unlimited power by men with limited minds and self-regarding prejudices is soon oppressive, reactionary, and corrupt. The older faith taught that the very condition of progress was the limitation of power to the capacity and the virtue of rulers. — Walter Lippmann

Good and bad aren't absolutes. They are beliefs, judgements, ideas based on limited knowledge as well as on the inclinations of our minds. — Steve Hagen

It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth. — Milan Kundera

It was not the fault of Christian censors or a theological thought-police that the "other" Gospels were criticized and rejected. The "other" Gospels were not recognizable as "gospel," and they failed to capture the hearts, minds, and imaginations of Christians in the worldwide church. The proof of this is the limited number of extant manuscripts for many of these "other" Gospels and the fact that many Jesus books were not known beyond their own immediate circles. The exclusion of other Gospels was not the result of the victory of the orthodox. It was rather based on an objective claim as to who more properly transmitted the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles. In the end, the reason the "other" Gospels lost out is that they simply failed to convince the majority of their antiquity and authenticity as stories of Jesus. — Michael F. Bird

God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because 'God' is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, 'God' is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine. — Forrest Church

Any company run by unknowing and mechanistic minds is in jeopardy and faces a limited life. Specifically, the pursuance of policies that focus on cost reduction and a continued optimisation of the bottom line just accelerate progress towards sudden death — Peter Cochrane

It's harder now for journalists to do stories about billionaires, like Peter Thiel, without having at the back of their minds the fear that maybe somebody deep-pocketed, you know, with limited resources is going to come after us and can my organization afford to defend me? — Nick Denton

Television, radio, and all the sources of amusement and information that surround us in our daily lives are also artificial props. They can give us the impression that our minds are active, because we are required to react to stimuli from the outside. But the power of those external stimuli to keep us going is limited. They are like drugs. We grow used to them, and we continuously need more and more of them. Eventually, they have little or no effect. Then, if we lack resources within ourselves, we cease to grow intellectually, morally, and spiritually. And we we cease to grow, we begin to die. — Mortimer J. Adler

The extreme mathematical weirdness of (infinity), which Galileo spends a lot of time in TNS giving examples of, is rather presciently attributed to epistemology instead of metaphysics. Paradoxes arise, according to G.G.'s mouthpiece, only "when we attempt, with our finite minds, to discuss the infinite, assigning to it those properties which we give to the finite and limited. — David Foster Wallace