Practitioner Quotes & Sayings

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way. — Cormac McCarthy

Still, I repeat, there was a general impression that Lydgate was something rather more uncommon than any general practitioner in Middlemarch. And — George Eliot

The high-minded pursuit of a Jiu Jitsu practitioner pursuing mastery cannot coexist well with the modern world. Our values vary immensely from our contemporaries. This pursuit leaves societal norms slaughtered in our wake. Those who share this journey will praise our efforts; those in the hive will think we have lost it. We must be willing to be misunderstood if we are to understand ourselves. — Chris Matakas

Well, I don't give it out very often, but I reject the notion that you have to be a practitioner to give good advice. — Barney Frank

Nothing but the natural ignorance of the public, countenanced by the inoculated erroneousness of the ordinary general medical practitioners, makes such a barbarism as vaccination possible ... Recent developments have shown that an inoculation made in the usual general practitioner's light-hearted way, without previous highly skilled examination of the state of the patient's blood, is just as likely to be a simple manslaughter as a cure or preventive. But vaccination is nothing short of attempted murder. A skilled bacteriologist would just as soon think of cutting his child's arm and rubbing the contents of the dustpan into the wound, as vaccinating it in the same. — George Bernard Shaw

There is false humility and genuine humility and between them, there is a desire of the practitioner to become humble. — Radhanath Swami

Jesus himself provides the measuring stick by which we may know whether a teacher or practitioner of the Christian faith is genuine or fraudulent. "You shall know them by their fruit, — Brian Tubbs

We started giving presentations at practitioner conferences in 1986, and since then all of our derivatives research has been stimulated by contact with practitioners. — John Hull

The attitude, "You can win if you want to badly enough," means that the will to win is constant. No amount of punishment, no amount of effort, no condition is too "tough" to take in order to win. Such an attitude can be developed only if winning is closely tied to the practitioner's ideals and dreams. — Bruce Lee

In Connecticut the crime of oral sex could be punishable by a thirty-year jail term. In Ohio it was one to twenty years. In Georgia such a "crime against nature" could lead a practitioner to life imprisonment at hard labor- a penalty far more severe than having sex with animals, which in Georgia was punishable by only five years. — Gay Talese

Concern with labor's length began in hospital, where a prompt turnover of beds was of practical and financial concern. Next came practitioner impatience: doctors with overbusy schedules or better things to do than wait around for women to give birth wanted to define how long was too long. — Elizabeth Davis

She would expect explanations from her Main Man, and while I had invented mansplaining and was its foremost practitioner, I had no answers to give her. — Rick Riordan

If you're looking to grow your business then Kate Beeders is the practitioner for you — Jessica Ortner

Wisdom is a living stream, not an icon to be preserved in a museum. Only when a practitioner finds the spring of wisdom in his or her own life can it flow to a future generation — Nhat Hanh

It is chiefly upon the lay citizen, informed about science but not its practitioner, that the country must depend in determining the use to which science is put, in resolving the many public policy questions that scientific discoveries constantly force upon us. — David Lilienthal

There is a clear matter that I am not a practicing physician; I have never been a practitioner; everybody has known for decades. — Robert Jarvik

The actor is merely a crude empiricist, a practitioner guided by vague instinct. — Antonin Artaud

I think it's designed to flower open like a Chocolate Orange."
Me and Lesley then had to explain Terry's Chocolate Orange to Nightingale.
"Not unlike a practitioner's hand opening to reveal a werelight," said Nightingale.
"Not unlike at all," I said. Yeah, exactly like that I thought. — Ben Aaronovitch

Inside every one of us is a garden, and every practitioner has to go back to their garden and take care of it. Maybe in the past, you left in untended for a long time. You should know exactly what is going on in your own garden, and try to put everything in order. Restore the beauty; restore the harmony in your garden. If it is well tended, many people will enjoy your garden. — Nhat Hanh

How long had the Doc been crazy? I don't know. Quite some time, I guess. Don't worry. He was only a general practitioner. — Helen Oyeyemi

When psychotherapy began, it was about the practitioner listening to a patient and interpreting what the patient said, in order to afford the patient insights about his or her psyche. But now we understand that the main curative part of psychotherapy is the relationship itself. It appears not to be relevant which psychology school the practitioner belongs to. What matters is the quality of the relationship and the practitioner's belief in what he or she is offering. — Philippa Perry

Whilst personal effectiveness focuses more on your personal development goals as you become the best practitioner in your area of specialty; leadership excellence shifts the focus to your leadership development in making a difference to the greater circle within your areas of influence and beyond. Leadership excellence focuses on areas of concern on behalf of others because a leader is expected to grow from personal effectiveness to begin making a significant impact on the world around them. — Archibald Marwizi

One can use standard principles and textbooks in educating people for law, medicine, architecture, chemistry or almost any other profession - but not for the theater. For, in most professions, every practitioner uses the same tools and techniques, while the actor's chief instrument is himself. And since no two persons are alike, no universal rule is applicable to any two actors in exactly the same way. — Sanford Meisner

... growing a little tiresome on account of some mysterious internal discomfort that the local practitioner diagnosed as imagination — H.G.Wells

Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love. There is no practitioner of love who deceives. Once the choice has been made to be honest, then the next step on love's path is communication. — Bell Hooks

Practically every mental health care practitioner, from the most erudite psychoanalysts to untrained self-help gurus, tell us that it is infinitely more fulfilling and we are all saner if we tell the truth, yet most of us are not rushing to stand up and be counted among the truth tellers. Indeed, as someone committed to being honest in daily life I experience the constant drag of being seen as a 'freak,' for telling the truth, even when I speak truthfully about simple matters. If a friend gives me a gift and asks me to tell him or her whether I like it, I will respond honestly and judiciously; that is to say I will speak the truth in a positive, caring manner. Yet even in this situation, the person who asks for honesty will often express annoyance when given a truthful response. — Bell Hooks

I have been a practitioner of tough politics for many decades. There is little that amazes me and even less that shocks me. — Ed Rollins

The Jedi is a practitioner of mind mastery. He realizes that whatever they are experiencing, they are creating and that they can change their lives in an instant by changing their thoughts, their focus and the way they are observing and engaging the energy of the world around them and the people who they've invited into their lives to play whatever roles they've chosen them to play. — Stephen Richards

But promoting philosophical skepticism is not quite the mission of this book. If awareness of the Black Swan problem can lead us into withdrawal and extreme skepticism, I take here the exact opposite direction. I am interested in deeds and true empiricism. So, this book was not written by a Sufi mystic, or even by a skeptic in the ancient or medieval sense, or even (we will see) in a philosophical sense, but by a practitioner whose principal aim is not to be a sucker in things that matter, period. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

After you acquire knowledge and skill, aim to be a practitioner. Time for practice on the job or in life will still test your authenticity. Knowledge is one of the greatest sources of confidence, and you will need that confidence to do your work and demonstrate you know what you have been trained for. — Archibald Marwizi

I don't view myself as a practitioner of a particular skill or method. I'm constantly looking at what's the most interesting problem that I could possibly work on. I really try to figure out what sort of scientist I need to be in order to solve the problem I'm interested in solving. — Erez Lieberman Aiden

I know of no long-time practitioner who regrets adhering to a value philosophy; few investors who embrace the fundamental principles ever abandon this investment approach for another — Seth Klarman

He thought and suffered a good deal but he lacked the resolution to dare
the first requisite of a practitioner. — Lawrence Durrell

The fundamental problem here is the continued over-identification with doing. By attempting to "do" The Leap, the practitioner is attempting the impossible (as doing and being point to two different realms). Thus far your training has been largely if not entirely immersed in the relative domain. With Being, your training is stepping beyond this domain into the transcendent. Fundamentally, there is nothing you can "do" to "be. — Rob McNamara

Advice from this elderly practitioner is to forget publishers and just roll a sheet of copy paper into your machine and get lost in your subject. — E.B. White

We like to see death as an unfair conspiracy, and what we want is a magic practitioner, a combination of Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes. — A.A. Gill

You aren't a demon practitioner?" "No, but they seem to practice me." Trent and Rachel — Kim Harrison

The yoga asana practice was developed to get the body in the best physical condition possible, so that the yoga practitioner would be able to sit for many hours comfortably in meditation. In order to reach the higher spiritual vibrations we must be as strong, flexible and open as possible. — Dashama Konah Gordon

She was a wonder junkie. In her mind, she was a hill tribesman standing slack-jawed before the real Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon; Dorothy catching her first glimpse of the vaulted spires of the Emerald City of Oz; a small boy from darkest Brooklyn plunked down in the Corridor of Nations of the 1939 World's Fair, the Trylon and Perisphere beckoning in the distance; she was Pocahontas sailing up the Thames estuary with London spread out before her from horizon to horizon. been voyaging between the stars when the ancestors of humans were still brachiating from branch to branch in the dappled sunlight of the forest canopy. Drumlin, like many others she had known over the years, had called her an incurable romantic; and she found herself wondering again why so many people thought it some embarrassing disability. Her romanticism had been a driving force in her life and a fount of delights. Advocate and practitioner of romance, she was off to see the Wizard. — Carl Sagan

At best a practitioner of the Cult of Happy will accept in terms of personal accountability is that they were "too negative." So if people won't be accountable for their own actions, there is little reason to believe that they will be accountable for the actions they perpetrate against others. Similar to a narcissist they will, through their own mental engineering, retreat either to their particular "Cult of Happy Dogma" internally, or to the insulating bubble of like minded followers who will offer reinforcement, similar to narcissistic supply, saying, "There's nothing wrong with you, that person is just negative and you don't need that in your life. — Robert Montgomerie

Becoming a mother has made me even more aware and more passionate about nutrition and wellness. So much so that I am now a certified health coach practitioner. — Miranda Kerr

As a lifelong practitioner of martial arts, I'm trained to remain calm in the face of adversity and danger. — Steven Seagal

Writing is a deeply spiritual act that can have a profound effect upon the practitioner. — Phyllis Theroux

Psychiatry, as a subspecialty of medicine, aspires to define mental illness as precisely as, let's say, cancer of the pancreas, or streptococcal infection of the lungs. However, given the complexity of mind, brain, and human attachment systems, we have not come even close to achieving that sort of precision. Understanding what is "wrong" with people currently is more a question of the mind-set of the practitioner (and of what insurance companies will pay for) than of verifiable, objective facts. — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

The political left, which holds itself as progressive, rational and fact-based, is becoming an enemy of academic inquiry, and a practitioner of thought control on a wide variety of issues. Increasingly, from the left's perspective, there is just one acceptable viewpoint. — David Limbaugh

Though moral axioms to guide the conduct of the practitioner have existed since the beginnings of the profession of healing, Western doctors are most likely to view the Hippocratic Oath of approximately two-and-a-half millennia ago as the first codified set of statements to which they can look for guidance. — Sherwin B. Nuland

From a clearer perspective, I can now see how my presence on that dock that resulted in my brother's rescue was instrumental in giving me the information and the confidence to become a teacher and practitioner of mind-body healing. That childhood experience helped guide us both, leading us to explore and realize the power we possess to accomplish anything that we place our attention on with love rather than fear as our anchor. — Wayne W. Dyer

Some people thought I was using my popularity as a singer to sell my first novel. For others, it was almost a sacrilege: a practitioner of a minor art daring to enter the field of high art. — Chico Buarque

The NLP/HNLP Coach Practitioner Training in combination with Hypnosis I were just the 9 days that I needed. I enjoyed the many practical excercises. As a Coach, building a stronger relationship with my unsconscious mind is the best way I can help my coachees too. Thank you! — Schalk Burger

I was taken to an examining room where a big butch nurse practitioner came in and asked me if I was pregnant. "No way!" Was I sexually active? "Nope!" Had I ever been molested? "Well," I said, trying to make a joke, "Oprah says the only answers to that question are 'Yes' and 'I don't remember.' " I laughed. We were having fun. The nurse looked at me, concerned/annoyed. — Tina Fey

To the absolutist in every craftsman, each imperfection is a failure; to the practitioner, obsession with perfection seems a perception for failure. — Richard Sennett

Relationships matter above all, and that you build relationships by making yourself useful, not annoying. The PR practitioner should focus on providing helpful service to the journalist whenever possible. Help them source good story ideas, provide sources with intelligent contributions to make, thank them for their time and attention. — Laura Fitton

The true depth of understanding and maturity as a practitioner is how we apply what we've learned to our lives. — David F. Swensen

Developing the capacity for clear light dreams is similar to developing the capacity of abiding in the non-dual presence of rigpa during the day. In the beginning, rigpa and thought seem different, so that in the experience of rigpa there is no thought, and if thought arises we are distracted and lose rigpa. But when stabliity in rigpa is developed, thought simply arises and dissolves without in the least obscuring rigpa; the practitioner remains in non-dual awareness. — Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

The road to spiritual enlightenment is an individual experience. The spiritual leader, guru, master or teacher is only a portion of that journey. Eventually, one must "leave the nest" so that they are not limited by the master/student relationship. True advancement begins when the student gains confidence as a practitioner of self-awareness. This can only be done without the constraints of another's journey, such as the master or teacher. — Gary Hopkins

For the general practitioner a well-used library is one of the few correctives of the premature senility which is so apt to take him. — William Osler

If the situation was such that there was only one learned lama or genuine practitioner alive, a person whose death would cause the whole of Tibet to lose all hope of keeping its Buddhist way of life, then it is conceivable that in order to protect that one person it might be justified for one or 10 enemies to be eliminated if there was no other way. — Dalai Lama

In the spirit of being a reflective practitioner of ourselves we must notice your own behavior as an educator and realize how it influences other. Recognize your privileges: race, gender, ability, career, citizenship, language is all privilege. Imagine how you feel in the visitors shoes and adjust to best help them process and contextualize. — Monica O Montgomery

To believe that life's problems will somehow work themselves out, everything bad is fixable and something about samsara has to be worth fighting for makes it virtually impossible to nurture a genuine, all-consuming desire to practise the dharma. The only view that truly works for a dharma practitioner is that there are no solutions to the sufferings of samsara and it cannot be fixed. — Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them. — Ansel Adams

It is possible to be a great novelist - that is, to render a veracious account of your times - and a bad writer - that is, an incompetent practitioner of applied linguistics. — Angela Carter

Tattooing is historical, cultural and a great form of art but it should always be safe for both the client and the tattoo practitioner. — William Webb

Photography's future is infinite and bright. It's growing exponentially, so that's great, but for me as a practitioner, that exponential growth makes it even more problematic. And so for me, it's got me more engaged with storytelling. — Alec Soth

Finding a master of the dark art of ninjutsu in modern westernized Japan seems as unlikely as finding an active practitioner of the magic of Merlin in contemporary industrialized England. — Stephen K. Hayes

Some people say he engineered his own arrest to gain an insight into modern methods of policing for a thriller he had planned. But you know what happens to artistic rats in prison: they have their rectums stretched, and not by overindulgence in Michelin-star food; they have their columns examined, and not by internet humorists or a qualified medical practitioner. I'm sure Rat knew this, too. Although he likes to accumulate a wide general knowledge, he would rather have a narrow rectum. A colon comes in handy here, before examples: two dots on top of one other, like the cowboys who copulate on Brokeback Mountain, on a slope so far away you need binoculars to see them properly. In prison there are too many insights and examples. Rat would never risk it. — Graham Spaid

I'm an observer. I read about life. I research life. I find a corner in a room and melt into it. I can become invisible. It's an art, and I am a wonderful practitioner. — Christine Feehan

I am not a specialist but a general practitioner in the world of the arts. — Theodore Bikel

The disease of the soul is both more common and more deadly than the disease of the body. Just as medicine is the art devoted to healing the body, so philosophy is the art devoted to healing the soul, curing it of improper emotions, false beliefs, and faulty judgments, which are the causes of so much hardship and handicap. To heal the body one turns to the practitioner of the art of healing the body, but to heal the soul there is no doctor to turn to, and each of us is left to become that doctor unto himself. Yet, this need not stop us from exhorting others to imitate us in the godly art, in the forlorn hope that they might transform themselves into better citizens for Athens and better companions for us. — Neel Burton

Yoga, in all its forms, provides a means for the practitioner to master the body and the mind so that the soul (or true self) can emerge to share in the experience of life. — Lei Camille

Brain surgeons earn 10 times that of a general practitioner ... it pays to be an expert. — Allan Pease

A karate practitioner should possess two things : wicked hands, and Buddha's heart — Soke Behzad Ahmadi

The trail of the serpent reaches into all the lucrative professions and practices of man. Each has its own wrongs. Each finds a tender and very intelligent conscience a disqualification for success. Each requires of the practitioner a certain shutting of the eyes, a certain dapperness and compliance, an acceptance of customs, a sequestration from the sentiments of generosity and love, a compromise of private opinion and lofty integrity. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When reality is perceived in its nature of ultimate perfection, the practitioner has reached a level of wisdom called non-discrimination mind - a wondrous communion in which there is no longer any distinction made between subject and object. — Nhat Hanh

Each practitioner thinks there's one magic way to get a machine to be smart, and so they're all wasting their time in a sense. On the other hand, each of them is improving some particular method, so maybe someday in the near future, or maybe it's two generations away, someone else will come around and say, "Let's put all these together," and then it will be smart. — Marvin Minsky

It is not the aim of Kenpo to merely produce a skillful as well as powerful practitioner, but to create a well integrated student respectful of all. — Ed Parker

In Buddhism you study how to release the kundalini to the levels that would certainly afford career success. If we move it further, into the planes of knowledge and wisdom, it enables the practitioner to do just about anything. — Frederick Lenz

In high school I had B's and C's, not too many A's, but I must have done well on that medical school test, and I must have had some charisma in the interview, so I ended up in medicine. Being a general practitioner was all I aspired to. — Barry Marshall

In all technai or arts (medicine perhaps most of all), there is a self-exhilaration on the part of the practitioner (the intoxication of the ego with its own potency) which is infectious: the patient enjoys a placebo-effect which redounds to the ego of the "artist." — Kenny Smith

I don't know what I would have done if they had hugged me. I probably would have frozen in place, become stiff. It took most of my life to overcome my distaste for physical contact and not to stiffen when I was touched, or flinch, twitch, fidget, and eventually figure out how to move away. I learned to accept being hugged by my children when they were infants. Their joy at seeing me enter a room was real and filled with true love and affection and it showed in their embraces. Like a convert, when I learned the joy and comfort of being hugged by and hugging those I loved, I became a regular practitioner. — John William Tuohy

Every client presents a practitioner with a novel and unique problem to solve. A therapist has to be a general problem-solver, and part of this expertise is grounded in an experimental style of reasoning originally developed for scientific purposes. — Richard S. Hallam

A true spiritual practitioner is someone who has discovered that it is possible to be at ease in the world for no reason, if only for a few moments at a time, and that such ease is synonymous with transcending the apparent boundaries of the self. — Sam Harris

Quack: A boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand. A vain boastful pretender to physick; An artful, tricking practitioner in physick. — Samuel Johnson

Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbours among whom, our doctor followed his profession. — Anthony Trollope

Fiction in general holds little interest for me. Novels, in particular, arouse more suspicion than intrigue. It truly baffles me that any practitioner of make-believe should (especially in this day and age) feel the need to produce anything so gratuitous. The fact that certain examples of this fare can approach the length of your average dictionary seems inherently absurd. — Dan Garfat-Pratt

Your progress as a Jiu Jitsu practitioner is a direct reflection of the standards you have for yourself. — Chris Matakas

I would have to say that Richard Nixon is probably the most gifted and skilled political practitioner, in his pre-presidential years, of all of the American presidents in the 20th century. — Roger Morris

In order to understand why one chooses to be a Tantric practitioner, there has to be an understanding of cause and effect, cyclic existence, the awareness that the reality that we think we are seeing is not reality as it really truly is. So enlightenment is seeing reality with bare awareness, non-conceptual reality. — Zeena Schreck

War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. — Cormac McCarthy

To make Hakomi effective a practitioner must be more than just someone who knows a method. The practitioner must be someone whose very presence can be healing, a person who has all the qualities needed to support emotional healing in another. — Ron Kurtz

I can assure you, as a practitioner of Buddhism, that there are ten thousand states of mind, at least, give or take a few billion. — Frederick Lenz

Theatre has been a part of my life since before I can remember - my dad is also an actor and a director and a storyteller who lives and works in the Twin Cities; my mom is a nurse practitioner, but she also grew up doing theatre - so, it has always been a part of my experience. — Seth Numrich

At a personal level, as a Buddhist practitioner, I deliberately visualize and think about death in my daily practice. Death is not separated from our lives. Due to my research and thoughts about death, I have some guarantee and some conviction that it will be a positive experience. — Dalai Lama

Therefore, what you do as a spiritual practitioner in this life shapes that. To seek and find this beautiful, continuing existence, where there can be more progress towards Buddha-hood, toward love, and wisdom, and helping all being etc. So that's the great value of it. — Robert Thurman

Tantra is for the advanced spiritual practitioner who is ready to push aside spiritual practice in the name of spiritual practice. — Frederick Lenz

Failing to listen to the woman is one of the biggest mistakes a practitioner can make. — Helen Varney

In order to become a grandmaster class player whose understanding of chess is superior to the thousands of ordinary players, you have to develop within yourself a large number of qualities, the qualities of an artistic creator, a calculating practitioner, a cold calm competitor. — Alexander Kotov

Crime is a career, whether you are a practitioner or an investigator, and it requires intuition and patience. — Jean-Christophe Grange

In their pure form, the martial arts demand the intense awareness of the meditative mind, and have nothing to do with anger or wanton aggression. A practitioner is taught from the outset that the skills must never be used for personal gain, but only in self-defence or in the protection of others
and even then only enough force as is absolutely necessary should be used. — David Fontana

I'm a practitioner of elegant frugality. I don't feel comfortable telling other people what to do, so I just try and lead by example. — Amory Lovins

Each of the small enlightenments that a Zen practitioner has, which are known in Zen as "Satori experiences," provides deeper insights into the nature of existence and helps a person prepare for complete enlightenment. — Frederick Lenz