Merely A Narrow Quotes & Sayings

For everybody who thinks it's warming, I can find somebody who thinks it isn't. — Mitch McConnell

If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

As if Japan weren't small enough to begin with, I fail to understand why it is necessary to think of it in even smaller units. No matter where I go in the world, although I can't speak any foreign language, I don't feel out of place. I think of the earth as my home. If everyone thought this way, people might notice just how foolish international friction is, and they would put an end to it. We are, after all, at a point where it is almost narrow-minded to think merely in geocentric terms. Human beings have launched satellites into outer space, and yet they still grovel on earth looking at their own feet like wild dogs. What is to become of our planet? — Akira Kurosawa

Boys [should be] inured from childhood to trifling risks and slight dangers of every possible description, such as tumbling into ponds and off of trees, etc., in order to strengthen their nervous system ... They ought to practice leaping off heights into deep water. They ought never to hesitate to cross a stream over a narrow unsafe plank for fear of a ducking. They ought never to decline to climb up a tree, to pull fruit merely because there is a possibility of their falling off and breaking their necks. I firmly believe that boys were intended to encounter all kinds of risks, in order to prepare them to meet and grapple with risks and dangers incident to man's career with cool, cautious self-possession ... — R.M. Ballantyne

It is too narrow an understanding of production which confines it merely to the making of things. Production includes not merely the making of things, but the bringing of them to the consumer. The merchant or storekeeper is thus as truly a producer as is the manufacturer, or farmer, and his stock or capital is as much devoted to production as is theirs. — Henry George

Mother had wandered off - where? Was she out on the highway, ready to be picked up by anyone who might come driving by? Was she still suffering a hysterical reaction, would the shock of what she had done cause her to blurt out the truth to whoever came along and found her? Had she actually run away, or was she merely in a daze? Maybe she'd gone down past the woods back of the house, along the narrow ten-acre strip of their land which stretched off into the swamp. Wouldn't it be better to search for her first? Norman sighed and shook — Robert Bloch

But the novels of women were not affected only by the necessarily narrow range of the writer's experience. They showed, at least in the nineteenth century, another characteristic which may be traced to the writer's sex. In Middlemarch and in Jane Eyre we are conscious not merely of the writer's character, as we are conscious of the character of Charles Dickens, but we are conscious of a woman's presence of someone resenting the treatment of her sex and pleading for its rights. — Virginia Woolf

If we're stuck on one world, we're limited to a single case; we don't know what else is possible. Then - like an art fancier familiar only with Fayoum tomb paintings, a dentist who knows only molars, a philosopher trained merely in NeoPlatonism, a linguist who has studied only Chinese, or a physicist whose knowledge of gravity is restricted to falling bodies on Earth - our perspective is foreshortened, our insights narrow, our predictive abilities circumscribed. By contrast, when we explore other worlds, what once seemed the only way a planet could be turns out to be somewhere in the middle range of a vast spectrum of possibilities. When we look at those other worlds, we begin to understand what happens when we have too much of one thing or too little of another. We learn how a planet can go wrong. — Carl Sagan

Yet there have been too many times in the past year when I've wondered if that might just be an excuse for not having to be held responsible when something goes terribly wrong. — Jodi Picoult

If my hair was on fire and llamas came to put it out, he'd tell me the shot was great. — Erin Dionne

Therefore it is not arrogance or narrow-mindedness that leads the economist to discuss these things from the standpoint of economics. No one, who is not able to form an independent opinion about the admittedly difficult and highly technical problem of calculation in the socialist economy, should take sides in the question of socialism versus capitalism. No one should speak about interventionism who has not examined the economic consequences of interventionism. An end should be put to the common practice of discussing these problems from the standpoint of the prevailing errors, fallacies, and prejudices. It might be more entertaining to avoid the real issues and merely to use popular catchwords and emotional slogans. But politics is a serious matter. Those who do not want to think its problems through to the end should keep away from it. — Ludwig Von Mises

When I was older, I found Iqbal's work hugely inspirational. He argued against an unquestioning acceptance of Western democracy as the self-governing model, and instead suggested that by following the rules of Islam a society would tend naturally towards social justice, tolerance, peace and equality. Iqbal's interpretation of Islam differs very widely from the narrow meaning that is sometimes given to it. For Iqbal, Islam is not just the name for certain beliefs and forms of worship. The difference between a Muslim and a non-Muslim is not merely a theological one - it is a difference of a fundamental attitude towards life. — Imran Khan

It's funny how you can think you know someone pretty well, and then something happens or they do something that makes you understand that you didn't really know them at all. — Wendelin Van Draanen

Intellect is merely a narrow and highly specific kind of thing that we DO, but our immediacy relates us to what we naturally and essentially ARE, the actualities of our full-dimensional existence. — Kenny Smith

Years ago, the rats held this very house, and we attacked it and defeated them. But at that time the house was standing. Today only the cellar is left; the rats have certainly dug themselves in, and an attack would merely drive them into their holes - holes so narrow that it would be impossible to pursue and capture them. So has anybody a plan? Charles — Walter R. Brooks

Under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing the religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an "intellectual" question unconnected with the class struggle, as is not infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the bourgeoisie. It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism. Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven. — Anonymous

Probably our atomic weights merely represent a mean value around which the actual atomic weights of the atoms vary within certain narrow limits ... when we say, the atomic weight of, for instance, calcium is 40, we really express the fact that, while the majority of calcium atoms have an actual atomic weight of 40, there are not but a few which are represented by 39 or 41, a less number by 38 or 42, and so on. — William Crookes

Described in this way, utilitarianism has little in common with the prosaic, visionless notion of the 'merely utilitarian,' in the sense of a narrowly or mundanely functional or efficient option. No such limited horizon confined the thought and character of the great English-language utilitarian philosophers, whose influence ran its course from the period just before the French Revolution through the Victorian era. Happiness, for them, was more of a cosmic calling, the path to world progress, and whatever was deemed 'utilitarian' had to be useful for that larger and inspiring end, the global minimization of pointless suffering and the global maximization of positive well-being or happiness. It invokes, ultimately, the point of view of universal benevolence. And it is more accurately charged with being too demanding ethically than with being too accommodating of narrow practicality, material interests, self-interestedness, and the like. — Bart Schultz

Our attitude towards plants is a singularly narrow one. If we see any immediate utility in a plant we foster it. If for any reason we find its presence undesirable or merely a matter of indifference, we may condemn it to destruction forthwith. — Rachel Carson

I'll tell you what's wrong!" he roared, "I'm trying to quit smoking!" Then he strode angrily to the truck, leaving her standing there.
She blinked her eyes, and slowly a smile stretched her lips. She strolled to the truck and got in. "So, are you homicidal or merely as irritable as a wounded buffalo?"
"About halfway in between," he said through clenched teeth.
"Anything I can do to help?"
His eyes were narrow and intense. "It isn't just the cigarettes. Take off your panties and lock your legs around me, and I'll show you. — Linda Howard

When we want to understand something, we cannot just stand outside and observe it. We have to enter deeply into it and be one with it in order to really understand. If we want to understand a person, we have to feel his feelings, suffer his sufferings, and enjoy his joy. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Catch my heart and take my Hand to find yourself some Big Time Love. — Gemini Rising Rockin' Machine, The

The problem is maddening. The thing you seek is so close, you feel you could reach out and touch it. You feel it is your immutable destiny to do so. You have not come this far and at such a cost merely to turn around and go back. There is a solution. Of this you are certain. Now, no longer a game of mass, a game of destiny, it has become, instead a contest of wills. You focus on That Which You Seek as if your gaze alone might bring it closer or narrow the distance between you. Just as it feels as if your mind itself will explode from the strain. — Dave Sim

It sounds honourable to talk like you have your entire life mapped out with each day planned. There's no problem with making plans and having goals; however, as followers of Jesus we have to keep in mind that God is free to change the course or destination as he so chooses. That's why we are followers of Jesus, not followers of our own plans." (Life Hacks, p.32) — Jon Morrison

Thing is," Grial said in a conspiratorial voice, "let me tell you a little secret, girlie. That road- those roads, all roads and paths in fact- they never end. You might think they do. You might think they just narrow and fade and disappear in the hoary depths of the forest? Not so, not at all! They merely go into hiding, and you just have to search a bit harder to see them. — Vera Nazarian

Prior to 2009, when publishers scoffed at the ebook market, they offered writers contracts which gave us half of the money they made off ebook sales. — Michael A. Stackpole

Hate is only a form love that hasn't found a way to express itself logically. — Lil' Wayne

I came to regard my body in a new light. For the first time I apprehended the little mounds on my chest as teats for the suckling of young, and their physical resemblance to udders on cows or the swinging distensions on lactating hounds was suddenly unavoidable. Funny how even women forget what breasts are for.
The cleft between my legs transformed as well. It lost a certain outrageousness, an obscenity, or achieved an obscenity of a different sort. The flaps seemed to open not to a narrow, snug dead end, but to something yawning. The passageway itself became a route to somewhere else, a real place, and not merely to a darkness in my mind. The twist of flesh in front took on a devious aspect, its inclusion overtly ulterior, a tempter, a sweetener for doing the species' heavy lifting, like the lollipops I once got at the dentist. — Lionel Shriver

Contrary to what many may think, immortality is not a fairy tale invented to compensate for an unhappy life. Rather, it is the perception shared by nearly all sentient beings that our conscious lives are not bounded by this time and space. We are not merely lumps of animate matter. We are living spirits - we all feel this innately. And in our deepest hearts, we know that we can only find ultimate fulfilment in union with the supreme spiritual reality - a reality that appears, even during this earthly life, to take us beyond the narrow limits of time. — Stephen R. Lawhead

The truth is that no horizon is especially interesting by itself, by virtue of its peculiar content, and that any horizon, wide or narrow, brilliant or dull, varied or monotonous, may possess an interest of its own which merely requires a vital adjustment to be discovered. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

The doctrines known as Calvinism are not something that emerged late in church history, but rather are that which takes its origins in the teachings of Jesus.1 - James Montgomery Boice — Steven J. Lawson

Just when I begin to imagine I have achieved some pinnacle of understanding, reached the summit of the highest climb . . . I scramble the last few feet to the top only to see that I have merely gained a foothold on a narrow plateau and that entire new mountain ranges rise before me, serried ranks of peaks, each one higher than the last. — Stephen R. Lawhead

When man comes to the realization that he is not the "favorite" of God; that he was not specially created, that the universe was not made for his benefit, and that he is subject to the same laws of nature as all other forms of life, then, and not until then, will he understand that he must rely upon himself, and himself alone, for whatever benefits he is to enjoy; and devote his time and energies to helping himself and his fellow men to meet the exigencies of life and to set about to solve the difficult and intricate problems of living.
The recognition of a problem is the first step to its solution - We are not "fallen" angels, nor were we "created" perfect.
On the contrary, we are the product of millions of years of an unpurposed evolution. We are the descendants and inheritors of all the defects of our primitive ancestry - the evolution of the myriad forms of life from the infinitesimal to the mammoth - from the worm to the dinosaur. — Joseph Lewis