Perfectly Clear Quotes & Sayings

Storytelling is the only studio movie where the censorship is perfectly clear, the only studio movie with a big red box covering up a shot. I take pride in that - and, of course, in having avoided the fate of Eyes Wide Shut. — Todd Solondz

We human beings are only part of something much larger. When we walk along we may crush a battle or simply cause a change in the air so that a fly ends up where it might not have gone otherwise. And if we think of the same example but with ourselves in the role of the insect, and the larger universe in the role we've just played, it's perfectly clear that we're affected every day by races over which we have no control than the poor beetle has over our gigantic foot as it descends upon it. — Arthur Golden

We are posing two very clear questions. The first is: Did the Holocaust actually take place? You answer this question in the affirmative. So, the second question is: Whose fault was it? The answer to that has to be found in Europe and not in Palestine. It is perfectly clear: If the Holocaust took place in Europe, one also has to find the answer to it in Europe. — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

It seems perfectly clear that Economy, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science. There exists much prejudice against attempts to introduce the methods and language of mathematics into any branch of the moral sciences. Most persons appear to hold that the physical sciences form the proper sphere of mathematical method, and that the moral sciences demand some other method-I know not what. — William Stanley Jevons

You have certainly observed the curious fact that a given word which is perfectly clear when you hear it or use it in everyday language, and which does not give rise to any difficulty when it is engaged in the rapid movement of an ordinary sentence becomes magically embarrassing, introduces a strange resistance, frustrates any effort at definition as soon as you take it out of circulation to examine it separately and look for its meaning after taking away its instantaneous function. — Paul Valery

Academic historians of the last hundred years or so get all stiff and tweedy when you suggest that people will go to all ends for the sake of their religion. They'll assure you that religion is just a cover for other, more "rational" motivations. They would prefer to explain the world in terms of economic self-interest, of class warfare, or of dynastic imperatives. But has not the early twenty-first century made it catastrophically clear how many people (and not just the desperate, either) are ready to leap over the brink in the name of their religion? The same was certainly true of "the age of discovery." While greed should certainly be given her due, there is no reason to think that da Gama was not perfectly sincere when he said that he came in search of Christians and spices. — Michael Krondl

His memory is perfectly clear

and serves no good, no purpose
at all. He has seen things before

(the fly in the bottle,
the indeterminate will).

Santa Muerte, Saint Death,
we pray to you to swallow our breath. — Michael Palmer

Perfectly clear, it's part of our plans, we're eliminating the Jews, exterminating them. Ha! A small matter. — Heinrich Himmler

You see spirits who talk to you in broad daylight, at night you see perfectly shaped, perfectly distinct phantoms, you think you remember having lived in other forms, you imagine you are growing very tall and that your head is touching the stars, the horizon of Saturn and Jupiter spreads before your eyes, bizarre creatures appear before you with all the characteristics of real beings ... If the mind has to become completely unhinged in order to place us in communication with another world, it is clear that the mad will never be able to prove to the sane how blind they are, to say the very least! — Gerard De Nerval

I was acquainted once with a gallant soldier who assured me that his only measure of courage was this: upon the first fire, in an engagement, he immediately looked upon himself as a dead man. He then bravely fought out the remainder of the day, perfectly regardless of all manner of danger, as becomes a dead man to be. So that all the life or limbs he carried back again to his tent he reckoned as clear gains, or, as he himself expressed it, so much out of the fire. — Laurence Sterne

To make things 'perfectly clear' is reactionary and stupefying. The real is not perfectly clear. — Avital Ronell

So you don't fancy meeting up again?' Max persisted, though Neve didn't know why, because she thought she'd made her position perfectly clear. 'Swap war stories?'
'I don't have any war stories,' Neve said, and in that moment she felt that she never would. That every night would be spent creeping round her flat in her socks with the telly turned down so low that she could barely hear it, so in the end she'd have no other option but to escape into the pages of books where there were other girls falling in and out of love but not her. Never her. She stared down at the scuffed toes of her faux Ugg boots in sudden and tired defeat.
'If you don't have any war stories, then at least you don't have any war wounds,' Max said, so quietly that Neve had to strain her ears to catch his words. 'Take my number. — Sarra Manning

For instance, supposing that the planet earth were not a sphere but a gigantic coffee table,
how much difference in everyday life would that make? Granted, this is a pretty
farfetched example; you can't rearrange facts of life so freely. Still, picturing the planet
earth, for convenience sake, as a gigantic coffee table does in fact help clear away the
clutter - those practically pointless contingencies such as gravity and the international
dateline and the equator, those nagging details that arise from the spherical view. I mean,
for a guy leading a perfectly ordinary existence, how many times in the course of a
lifetime would the equator be a significant factor? — Haruki Murakami

At that moment - in that small, concise, perfectly clear moment of time - I knew. It was that moment I fell in love with him. It actually caused me to stop, and time froze for just a second. But that feeling was so right, and so strong, that I knew I wasn't wrong. — Jessica Verday

In order not to be misunderstood, I want it perfectly clear that I believe it is incumbent on us to conduct our lives in a way that takes into account all the consequences of our actions, including the consequences to other people, and the consequences to the environment. — Michael Crichton

Marry me, Thena, please.

I tried to sigh and would have managed it, had he left me enough air space. If he intended on kissing me like this a lot, I was going to need a nose-mask and oxygen tanks in the future.
Yes, I said reluctantly, I think I must.
It was perfectly clear to me that the poor man had become disturbed in his reason, and in those conditions it would be cruel and unfair to send him to space alone, much less when space had become so dangerous. I must marry him, just to make sure he stayed safe. It was the least I could do, since I was fairly sure I'd started him on this road by trying to garrotte him and reducing his supply of oxygen to the
brain.
Yes, yes, you must, he said. It gets very boring in the Cathouse, without anyone to kick me.
Poor man. Madder than a broomer hopped up on oblivium. — Sarah A. Hoyt

People are saying that they want be convinced [about global warming], perfectly. They want to know the climate science projections with 100 per cent certainty. Well, we know a great deal and even with that there is still uncertainty. But the trend line is very clear. We never have 100 per cent certainty. We never have it. If you wait till you have 100 per cent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield. That's something we know. You have to act with incomplete information. You have to act based on the trend line ... — Gordon R. Sullivan

And then many things became very clear ... we learned perfectly that the life of a single human being is worth millions of times more than all the property of the richest man on earth. — Ernesto Che Guevara

We human beings are only a part of something very much larger. When we walk along, we may crush a beetle or simply cause a change in the air so that a fly ends up where it might never have gone otherwise. And if we think of the same example but with ourselves in the role of the insect, and the larger universe in the role we've just played, it's perfectly clear that we're affected every day by forces over which we have no more control than the poor beetle has over our gigantic foot as it descends upon it. What are we to do? We must use whatever methods we can to understand the movement of the universe around us and time our actions so that we are not fighting the currents, but moving with them. — Arthur Golden

I'm not the hero, Mac. Never have been. Never will be. Let us be perfectly clear: I'm not the antihero, either, so quit waiting to discover my hidden potential. There's nothing to redeem me. — Karen Marie Moning

He was strict and hard and had perfectly clear and definite ideas about duty, where the others were concerned. For oneself one can always find circumstances that alter cases — Hjalmar Soderberg

I am perfectly convinced that whatever the gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear they are not that sort of thing ... Christ bent down and scribbled in the dust with His finger. Nothing comes of this. No one has based any doctrine on it. And the act of inventing little irrelevant details to make an imaginary scene more convincing is purely a modern art. — C.S. Lewis

One clear observation of Geller in action had an overpowering effect on me. I felt as if the whole framework with which I viewed the world had suddenly been destroyed. I seemed very naked an vulnerable, surrounded by a hostile iniverse. It was many days before I was able to come to terms with this sensation. Some of my collegues have even declined to face up to the problem by refusing to attend the demonstrations of such strange phenomena. That is a perfectly understandable position, but one that does not augur well for the future of science. — John G. Taylor

Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn't about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way. — John P. Kotter

Oh, good," he muttered. "We're going to discuss it now."
"No discussion," she said. Her mind was quite clear now, as though a fire had blazed through it, burning away all confusion. "It's perfectly simple. No One Must
Ever Know."
He came up onto one elbow and looked at her. "Do you know," he said, "I can hear those five words in italics. Capitalized. — Loretta Chase

Neptune can sense that I love him; his multiple desires are perfectly clear to me. What charms me about the whole business is that he stubbornly insists on remaining a dog, whereas his mistress would like to make a gentleman of him. — Muriel Barbery

If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on. — Alfred Hitchcock

I have said there are three principles that should be followed. One, we should maintain the "one China" policy that every American president has articulated, including President Reagan. Secondly, we should make clear that we want a peaceful resolution. And three, Taiwan should not challenge that arrangement in a way that will provoke a conflict. Those are three perfectly clear principles. I haven't used any of the other slogans. — Henry A. Kissinger

It is perfectly clear that people, given no alternative, will choose tyranny over anarchy, because anarchy is the worst tyranny of all ... The special nature of liberties is that they can be defended only as long as we still have them. So the very first signs of their erosion must be resisted, whether the issue be domestic surveillance by the Army, so-called preventive detention, or the freedom of corporate television, or that of a campus newspaper. — Eric Sevareid

We are never to do anything of which we are not perfectly clear and certain. If you have a doubt about that particular thing that is bothering you, as to whether it is worldly or not, the best policy is don't do it. — Billy Graham

Immortality is often ridiculous or cruel: few of us would have chosen to be Og or Ananias or Gallio. Even in mathematics, history sometimes plays strange tricks; Rolle figures in the textbooks of elementary calculus as if he had been a mathematician like Newton; Farey is immortal because he failed to understand a theorem which Haros had proved perfectly fourteen years before; the names of five worthy Norwegians still stand in Abel's Life, just for one act of conscientious imbecility, dutifully performed at the expense of their country's greatest man. But on the whole the history of science is fair, and this is particularly true in mathematics. No other subject has such clear-cut or unanimously accepted standards, and the men who are remembered are almost always the men who merit it. Mathematical fame, if you have the cash to pay for it, is one of the soundest and steadiest of investments. — G.H. Hardy

The great way is not difficult if you don't cling to good or bad. Just let go of your preferences; and everything will become perfectly clear. — Sengcan

I want to make this perfectly clear: you can be sure that I will never be a yes-man except to my own conscience. — Charles Edison

he folded the parchment and put it away. The words raised some questions in his mind but as there was no one to ask he decided it was better to have good advice you didn't entirely understand than poor precepts that were perfectly clear. — Richard Monaco

I'm not interested in anything other than fucking you. I want to make that perfectly clear. — Ella Dominguez

Dear God, your Word has made what you require of us so perfectly clear: you desire a clean heart and loving obedience. Purify my heart by removing all iniquity from my life by the power of your Holy Spirit. I desire to be wholly transformed by your indwelling presence. I want to be with you every moment, and ask that you would give me the happy satisfaction of being used by you. Amen. — Andrew Murray

I want to make it perfectly clear that although I believe in the continuity of existence, I do not hold to the simplistic theory that upon death a vaporous ghost containing our soul floats out of our dead body and goes to some cosmic waiting room while a karmic committee tallies up our unfulfilled needs and desires and matches us up with two unsuspecting fools who deserve the hell that we will put them through as much as we deserve the hell they will put us through. I am very confident, however, in the cycles of nature, and I do not see any reason to believe that the same cyclic behavior we observe in the universe around us cannot apply to consciousness and the continuity of our existence. Perhaps, because of the fragile nature of time, we are living all our "incarnations" simultaneously. — Lon Milo DuQuette

A nagging bitch of a doubt, burrowing painlessly inside a conscience that felt perfectly clear — Joseph Heller

In the first speech I delivered as health secretary, I made one thing perfectly clear: we need a cultural shift in the NHS: from a culture responsive mainly to orders from the top down to one responsive to patients, in which patient safety is put first. — Andrew Lansley

I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, it's perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there. — David Miliband

Two thirds of my countrymen read this kind of newspaper, read things written in this tone every morning and every night, are every day worked up and admonished and incited, and robbed of their peace of mind and better feelings by them, and the end and aim of it all is to have the war over again, the next war that draws nearer and nearer, and it will be a good deal more horrible than the last. All that is perfectly clear and simple. Anyone could comprehend it and reach the same conclusion after a moment's reflection. But nobody wants to. Nobody wants to avoid the next war, nobody wants to spare himself and his children the next holocaust if this be the cost. To reflect for one moment, to examine himself for a while and ask what share he has in the world's confusions and wickedness - clearly, nobody wants to do that. And so there's no stopping it, and the next war is being pushed on with enthusiasm by thousands upon thousands day by day. — Hermann Hesse

The moon was a sharply defined crescent and the sky was perfectly clear. The stars shone with such fierce, contained brilliance that it seemed absurd to call the night dark. — Yann Martel

Milla was always aware, on the dimmest edge of her consciousness that Diaz constantly watched her.
She also knew that he was a man who never gave up, who never lost sight of his goal. Exactly what his goal was wasn't always clear to her, but she had no doubt he was perfectly clear in his own mind what he wanted.
He wanted her. She knew it, and yet she couldn't imagine how they could ever be together again. The rift between them, to her, was final and absolute. He'd betrayed her in the most wounding way possible, and forgiveness evidently wasn't her strong suit. She had found that grudges weren't heavy at all; she could carry them for a very long time.
Diaz wasn't taking care of her out of the goodness of his heart. He was taking care of her the way a wolf cared for its wounded mate. — Linda Howard

Brody's not gay. But then he kisses a boy. So he might be gay? No, Brody's not gay. But he loves this boy. So after much delaying, debating, and waiting, the answer comes clear ... nothing is ever perfectly straight. It's slash. — Dart Gray

Later in the afternoon the sun went down with a riotous swirl of gold and varying blues and scarlets, and left the dry, rustling night of Western summer. Dexter watched from the veranda of the Golf Club, watched the even overlap of the waters in the little wind, silver molasses under the harvest-moon. Then the moon held a finger to her lips and the lake became a clear pool, pale and quiet. Dexter put on his bathing-suit and swam out to the farthest raft, where he stretched dripping on the wet canvas of the springboard. There was a fish jumping and a star shining and the lights around the lake were gleaming. Over on a dark peninsula a piano was playing the songs of last summer and of summers before that - songs from "Chin-Chin" and "The Count of Luxemburg" and "The Chocolate Soldier" - and because the sound of a piano over a stretch of water had always seemed beautiful to Dexter he lay perfectly quiet and listened. — F Scott Fitzgerald

The statements of atheists ought to be perfectly clear of doubt. Now it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material. — Blaise Pascal

That it has pleased God to make Holy Scripture obscure in certain places lest, if it were perfectly clear to all, it might be vulgarized and subjected to disrespect or be so misunderstood by people of limited intelligence as to lead them into error. — Pope Gregory VII

While control is needed, and perfectly warranted, our bias should be clear up front: Monopolies are not justified by theory; they should be permitted only when justified by facts. If there is no solid basis for extending a certain monopoly protection, then we should not extend that protection. — Lawrence Lessig

He's not a child!" said Sirius impatiently.
"He's not an adult either!" said Mrs. Weasley, the color rising in her cheeks. "He's not James, Sirius!"
"I'm perfectly clear who he is, thanks, Molly," said Sirius coldly.
"I'm not sure you are!" said Mrs. Weasley. "Sometimes, the way you talk about him, it's as though you think you've got your best friend back! — J.K. Rowling

The head of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, made it perfectly clear: sophisticated investors don't, or at least shouldn't, rely on trust. Those who bought the products the banks sold were consenting adults who should have known better. — Joseph E. Stiglitz

One minute she acts like she wants to be with me and I'm the one rejecting her. The next, she's got this barbed wire fence and barking dogs around her, like I can't even ask her the simplest questions." "And here I was assuming you didn't care about her." Stabbing his fingers through his hair, he groaned, "I don't!" "And you make it perfectly clear." Men. Idiots. — Jennifer Armintrout

When he smelled battle afar off, Winston Churchill resembled the war horse in Job who turned not back from the sword, but 'paweth in the valley and saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha.' He was the only British minister to have a perfectly clear conviction of what Britain should do and to act upon it without hesitation. — Barbara W. Tuchman

They all looked like a shampoo commercial, healthy and clear-skinned, perfectly proportioned, a group of handsome young men. Their clothes hung on them like they were glad to be gracing such supermodels. — Lilith Saintcrow

What is he to learn? To imitate? Or to avoid? When your friends the bees worry themselves about their sovereign, and become perfectly distracted touching the slightest monarchical movement, are we men to learn the greatness of Tuft-hunting, or the littleness of the Court Circular? I am not clear, Mr. Boffin, but that the hive may be satirical.'
At all events, they work,' said Mr. Boffin.
Ye-es,' returned Eugene, disparagingly, 'they work; but don't you think they overdo it? — Charles Dickens

It's all of a piece, I thought. It's an echo so close to perfect you can't tell which one is the living voice and which is the ghost-voice returning. For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don't we all secretly know this? It's a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark. Mike — Stephen King

An in-depth, introspective analysis is required. It needs to be objective, candid, and thorough. Good questions, like the following, can help. They may not produce perfectly clear answers, but they are a starting point. (Note that they are from an external perspective to give you some distance from internal biases.) What would our competitors say we do exceptionally well? Where are we dominant in the marketplace? Where do we have high market share? Where have others attempted to compete with us and failed? If we asked members to play "word association" with us, when we say the "XYZ Association" what word or phrase would come immediately to mind? If we asked members to identify the one thing that we do that helps them most, what would they say? What are we not doing that we should be doing that expands on existing strength? Don't allow your association to operate on "pseudo strength." Make sure your strength is real. — Harrison Coerver

On opening the incubator I experienced one of those rare moments of intense emotion which reward the research worker for all his pains: at first glance I saw that the broth culture, which the night before had been very turbid was perfectly clear: all the bacteria had vanished ... as for my agar spread it was devoid of all growth and what caused my emotion was that in a flash I understood: what causes my spots was in fact an invisible microbe, a filterable virus, but a virus parasitic on bacteria. Another thought came to me also, If this is true, the same thing will have probably occurred in the sick man. In his intestine, as in my test-tube, the dysentery bacilli will have dissolved away under the action of their parasite. He should now be cured. — Felix D'Herelle

The clear lesson of New England's history is that when there are not enough suitable men around to run the world, women are perfectly capable of doing so. — Wallace Stegner

It's perfectly clear to me that religion is a myth. It's something we have invented to explain the inexplicable. My religion and the spiritual side of my life come from a sense of connection to the humankind and nature on this planet and in the universe. I am in overwhelming awe of it all: It is so fantastic, so complex, so beyond comprehension. What does it all mean
if it has any meaning at all? But how can it all exist if it doesn't have some kind of meaning? I think anyone who suggests that they have the answer is motivated by the need to invent answers, because we have no such answers. — Hugh Hefner

Love is like this, Faye thinks now. We love people because they love us. It's narcissistic. It's best to be perfectly clear about this and not let abstractions like fate and destiny muddle the issue. Peggy, after all, could have picked any boy in the school. — Nathan Hill

I am not of the opinion that one can ever lack the power to express perfectly what one wants to write or say. Observations on the weakness of language, and comparisons between the limitations of words and the infinity of feelings, are quite fallacious. The infinite feeling continues to be as infinite in words as it was in the heart. What is clear within is bound to become so in words as well. This is why one need never worry about language, but at sight of words may often worry about oneself. After all, who knows within himself how things really are with him? This tempestuous or floundering or morasslike inner self is what we really are, but by the secret process by which words are forced out of us, our self-knowledge is brought to light, and though it may still be veiled, yet it is there before us, wonderful or terrible to behold. — Franz Kafka

One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. — John Paul Stevens

I think people like to have everything be perfectly morally clear. When the lines get blurred it worries them. I'm not worried. I don't think the men are either. But I think that the videos bring up feelings in people that they don't want to feel. Sometimes people get really mad. That's okay. — Laurel Nakadate

At the very best, a mind enclosed in language is in prison. It is limited to the number of relations which words can make simultaneously present to it; and remains in ignorance of thoughts which involve the combination of a greater number. These thoughts are outside language, they are unformulable, although they are perfectly rigorous and clear and although every one of the relations they involve is capable of precise expression in words. So the mind moves in a closed space of partial truth, which may be larger or smaller, without ever being able so much as to glance at what is outside. — Simone Weil

I don't want Washington - let me be perfectly clear - I do not want Washington involved in local education decisions any more than I want them involved in common core. You know, common core was a state-created and state-implemented voluntary set of standards in Math and English that are comparable across state lines. — Jan Brewer

THE INNER BUDDHA As Jigme Lingpa said, the moon has all the qualities necessary for its reflection to appear on the surface of a clear lake. If the moon did not have a shape or substance, and if it didn't reflect the light of the sun, it would not be possible for it to appear on the water's surface. Furthermore, the quality of clear water is that it can reflect, and when the moon and the water - two entirely separate entities - are perfectly aligned without any obstruction between them, a reflection of the moon will appear effortlessly, without intention. Similarly, our inner Buddha has qualities that enable it to manifest effortlessly and without intention. When there are no obstacles, the Buddha will reflect spontaneously in sentient beings who have the merit. Some — Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

I think I have been perfectly clear in saying that I hope Canadians do elect a majority government. I think this cycle of election after election, minority after minority is beginning to put some of the country's interests in serious jeopardy. — Stephen Harper

Promise me we'll stay together, okay?" His eyes are once again the clear blue of a perfectly transparent pool. They are eyes to swim in, to float in, forever. "You and me."
"I promise," I say.
Behind us the door creaks open, and I turn around, expecting Raven, just as a voice cuts through the air: "Don't believe her. — Lauren Oliver

[Men] act in response to an outward situation, and on being presented with an opportunity to conform to a pattern. If the pattern gives licence to cruelty, so much the better. They take advantage of the licence so thoughtlessly, so thoroughly, that it becomes perfectly clear: the generality of mankind are only waiting for the chance, only waiting for outward circumstance to sanction brutality and allow them to be cruel and brutal to their heart's content. — Thomas Mann

I understood at once, I am not living, but actively dying. I am smoking, living unhealthily. I'm shutting down. I need to go the other way, inside. And it was so clear to me what I was doing. It was suddenly perfectly clear.
I understood, I need to write. Live here, in my words, and my head. I need to go inside, that's all. No big, complicated, difficult thing. I just need to go in reverse. And not worry about what to write about, but just write. Or, if I'm going to worry about what to write, then do this worrying on paper, so at least I'm writing and will have a record of the anxiety. — Augusten Burroughs

Let's not play games, Mr. Cratchett," I replied. "I wanted to let you know that I'll be coming in for an appointment with Mr. Raisin on Tuesday morning at eleven o'clock. I shall need about an hour and would prefer it if we were not disturbed during that time. I hope that he will be free at that hour but just so you both know, if he is not, then I am perfectly willing to sit in your office until he is free. I shall bring a book with me to pass the time. I shall bring two, if need be. I shall bring the complete works of Shakespeare if he insists on keeping me waiting interminably and those plays will get me through the long hours. But I will not leave until I have seen him, are we quite clear on that? Now, I wish you a very pleasant Sunday, Mr. Cratchett. Enjoy your lunch, won't you? Your breath smells of whisky. — John Boyne

Art is something that is so perfectly clear that no one comprehends it. — Karl Kraus

He can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office. — C.S. Lewis

Just to make things perfectly clear between us, you can have my peanut butter, but my bed is off-limits. — Michelle Rowen

Christ didn't leave us a book of instructions; He left us a body, a family - a Church. If it were perfectly clear, there wouldn't be any freedom. — Francis George

It's perfectly clear that the millions of babies, who are crying at this very moment, want unanimously to be next to a live body. Do you really think they're all wrong? Theirs is the voice of nature. This is the clear, pure voice of nature, without intellectual interference. — Jean Liedloff

It is perfectly clear, in the first place, that the constitution of the United States did not, of itself, create or establish slavery as a new institution; or even give any authority to the state governments to establish it as a new institution. The greatest sticklers for slavery do not claim this. — Lysander Spooner

I'm never going to accomplish anything; that's perfectly clear to me. I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more. — Dorothy Parker

Then I noticed a small plate of complimentary marshmallows near Chloe's elbow and it suddenly seemed clear that I didn't love Chloe so much as marshmallow her. What it was about a marshmallow that should suddenly have accorded so perfectly with my feelings towards her I will never know, but the word seemed to capture the essence of my amorous state with an accuracy that the word love, weary with overuse, simply could not aspire to. Even more inexplicably, when I took Chloe's hand and told her that I had something very important to tell her, that I marshmallowed her, she seemed to understand perfectly, answering it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever told her. — Alain De Botton

This is the only time you can study both of your shadows. If you sit perfectly still and watch your primary shadow as the sun sets you will be able to hold it long enough to see your other shadow fill up when the moon rises like a porcelain basin with clear water. If you turn carefully to face the south you may regard both of them: to understand the nature of silence you must be able to see into this space between your shadows. — Barry Lopez

However, from the very beginning of the program, we made it perfectly clear that we would be out of Europe in four years; that whatever was to be accomplished had to be accomplished in that period of time. — Paul Hoffman

Soul! If anybody had ever struggled with a soul, I am the man. And I wasn't arguing with a lunatic either. Believe me or not, his intelligence was perfectly clear - concentrated, it is true, upon himself with horrible intensity, yet clear; and therein was my only chance - barring, of course, the killing him there and then, which wasn't so good, on account of unavoidable noise. But his soul was mad. — Joseph Conrad

In the state of abandonment the only rule is the duty of the present moment. In this the soul is light as a feather, liquid as water, simple as a child, active as a ball in receiving and following all the inspirations of grace. Such souls have no more consistence and rigidity than molten metal. As this takes any form according to the mould into which it is poured, so these souls are pliant and easily receptive of any form that God chooses to give them. In a word, their disposition resembles the atmosphere, which is affected by every breeze; or water, which flows into any shaped vessel exactly filling every crevice. They are before God like a perfectly woven fabric with a clear surface; and neither think, nor seek to know what God will be pleased to trace thereon, because they have confidence in Him, they abandon themselves to Him, and, entirely absorbed by their duty, they think not of themselves, nor of what may be necessary for them, nor of how to obtain it. — Jean-Pierre De Caussade

You don't return people's smiles - it's perfectly clear to you that people can smile and smile and still be villains. — Helen Oyeyemi

They were looking after themselves, living with rigid economy; and there was no greater proof of their friendship than the way their harmony withstood their very grave differences in domestic behaviour. In Jack's opinion Stephen was little better than a slut: his papers, odd bits of dry, garlic'd bread, his razors and small-clothes lay on and about his private table in a miserable squalor; and from the appearance of the grizzled wig that was now acting as a tea-cosy for his milk-saucepan, it was clear that he had breakfasted on marmalade.
Jack took off his coat, covered his waistcoat and breeches with an apron, and carried the dishes into the scullery. 'My plate and saucer will serve again,' said Stephen. 'I have blown upon them. I do wish, Jack,' he cried, 'that you would leave that milk-saucepan alone. It is perfectly clean. What more sanitary, what more wholesome, than scalded milk? — Patrick O'Brian

It is by the Holy Spirit that we love those who are united to us in Christ. The more plentifully we have received of the Spirit of Christ, the more perfectly we are able to love them: and the more we love them the more we receive the Spirit. It is clear, however, that since we love them by the Spirit Who is given to us by Jesus, it is Jesus Himself Who loves them in us. — Thomas Merton

In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that is certainly universally the case in human affairs. Hence, what is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth. — Richard Feynman

So just to be clear, Microsoft has created a new operating system that isn't properly compatible with a best-selling, still perfectly useable version of its own software. Which of course provides quite a powerful incentive for me to spend up to £99.99 on upgrading to Microsoft Outlook 2007 - except that in my current mood, I'd rather stick pins in my eyes. — Robert Peston

When I am perfectly clear, what is is what I want. — Byron Katie

So singularly clear was the water, that where it was only twenty or thirty feet deep the bottom was so perfectly distinct that the boat seemed floating in the air! — Mark Twain

Usually I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe in the Bilderbergers as a conspiracy or the Trilateralists. But I am certain that the Communists killed JFK. There is a super great book called 'Legend' by Edward Jay Epstein that makes it all perfectly clear. — Ben Stein

THE BEAR AND THE TRAVELLERS Two Travellers were on the road together, when a Bear suddenly appeared on the scene. Before he observed them, one made for a tree at the side of the road, and climbed up into the branches and hid there. The other was not so nimble as his companion; and, as he could not escape, he threw himself on the ground and pretended to be dead. The Bear came up and sniffed all round him, but he kept perfectly still and held his breath: for they say that a bear will not touch a dead body. The Bear took him for a corpse, and went away. When the coast was clear, the Traveller in the tree came down, and asked the other what it was the Bear had whispered to him when he put his mouth to his ear. The other replied, He told me never again to travel with a friend who deserts you at the first sign of danger. — Aesop

When I share with churches today, I often suggest that people read Matthew 28. When I read that chapter, I notice that Jesus never says if or whether you go; He simply talks about where you go! God may have to give instructions about the location - the where. But there is nothing to negotiate about the command to go - God has already made our primary task perfectly clear. — Nik Ripken

Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds. — Terry Pratchett

For some people, the time differentials established in youth never really disappear: the elder remains the elder, even when both are dribbling greybeards. For some people, a gap of, say, five months means that one will perversely always think of himself
herself
as wiser and more knowledgeable than the other, whatever the evidence to the contrary. Or perhaps I should say because of the evidence to the contrary. Because it is perfectly clear to any objective observer that the balance has shifted to the marginally younger person, the other one maintains the assumption of superiority all the more rigorously. All the more neurotically. — Julian Barnes

In the recumbence of depression, your information-gathering system collates its intelligence and reports to you these facts: (1) there is nothing to do; (2) there is nowhere to go; (3) there is nothing to be; (4) there is no one to know. Without meaning-charged emotions keeping your brain on the straight and narrow, you would lose your balance and fall into an abyss of lucidity. And for a conscious being, lucidity is a cocktail without ingredients, a crystal clear concoction that will leave you hung over with reality. In perfect knowledge there is only perfect nothingness, which is perfectly painful if what you want is meaning in your life. — Thomas Ligotti

Rock City begins as an ornamental garden on a mountain side: its visitors walk a path that takes them through rocks, over rocks, between rocks. They throw corn into a deer enclosure, cross a hanging bridge, and peer out through a-quarter-a-throw binoculars at a view that promises them seven states on the rare sunny days when the air is perfectly clear. And from there, like a drop into some strange hell, the path takes visitors, millions upon millions of them every year, down into caverns, where they stare at black-lit dolls arranged into nursery-rhyme and fairy-tale dioramas. When they leave, they leave bemused, uncertain of why they came, of what they have seen, of whether they had a good time or not. — Neil Gaiman

But what do you want me to do, Sir?" "My dear young friend, the golden rule is very simple. There are only two errors which would be fatal to one placed in the peculiar situation which certain parts of your previous conduct have unfortunately created for you. On the one hand, anything like a lack of initiative or enterprise would be disastrous. On the other, the slightest approach to unauthorized action - anything which suggested that you were assuming a liberty of decision which, in all the circumstances, is not really yours - might have consequences from which even I could not protect you. But as long as you keep quite clear of these two extremes, there is no reason (speaking unofficially) why you should not be perfectly safe. — C.S. Lewis

As I uttered these inspiring words the idea came like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed. I drew with a stick on the sand the diagram shown six years later in my address before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and my companion understood them perfectly. The images I saw were wonderfully sharp and clear and had the solidity of metal and stone, so much so that I told him, "See my motor here; watch me reverse it." I cannot begin to describe my emotions. Pygmalion seeing his statue come to life could not have been more deeply moved. A thousand secrets of nature which I might have stumbled upon accidentally, I would have given for that one which I had wrested from her against all odds and at the peril of my existence ... — Nikola Tesla

After a month or so in St. Louis, we were looking around desperately for a way to draw a few people into the ball park, it being perfectly clear by that time that the ball club wasn't going to do it unaided. — Bill Veeck