Precarious Balance Quotes & Sayings

I don't think of myself as being tied. — William Shatner

In certain cases I don't want to sell tracks individually; I want to only sell the whole album. With simple things like that I just don't get any response [from iTunes]. I don't want to kill iTunes - I just want to offer my own retail experience in my own tiny corner of the Internet. — DJ Shadow

It is important to remember that value investing is not a perfect science. It is an, with an ongoing need for judgment, refinement, patience, and reflection. It requires endless curiosity, the relentless pursuit of additional information, the raising of questions, and the search for answers. It necessitates dealing with imperfect information - knowing you will never know everything and that that must not prevent you from acting. It requires a precarious balance between conviction, steadfastness in the face of adversity, and doubt - keeping in mind the possibility that you could be wrong. — Seth Klarman

The further we distance ourselves from the spell of the present, explored by our senses, the harder it will be to understand and protect nature's precarious balance, let alone the balance of our own human nature. — Diane Ackerman

This kind of compartmentalizing - separating one's livelihood from one's social aspirations - is part of the reason David Koch, the hidden hand behind a lot of ultraconservatives and, reportedly, the Tea Party movement in the United States, transforms himself into a respected arts patron by funding a theater at Lincoln Center, or why at Swiss bank that helps U.S. depositors avoid paying taxes generously supports symphony halls and the ballet. It's almost as if there are moral scales, and by tossing some loot on one side, you can balance out the precarious situation your reputation might be getting into on the other. — David Byrne

There is a precarious balance to the life of a building. It has nothing to do with its age, or the beauty of its construction. A damaged building can always be repaired if it still has life, but a dead building will never be whole again. — Natsuhiko Kyogoku

... a precarious balance between the forces of good and evil ... — Jostein Gaarder

Of course, no matter how hard we try to be objective as reporters, our life experiences and personal circumstances influence our journalism, including the choice of topics we pursue. — Sheri Fink

There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it. — May Sarton

I was thinkin if I cheated on my fears, broke up with my doubts, got engaged to my faith. I can marry my dreams. — Beyonce Knowles

The problems of the global economy are not based in perception, but in the reality of prices, balance sheets and income statements, vast concentrations of wealth and power, precarious systemic imbalances, ruthless exploitation, and command economies mismanaged by Central State/Bank policy and manipulation. — Charles Hugh Smith

The experience of a cosmos existing in precarious balance on the edge of emergence from nothing and returning to nothing must be acknowledged, therefore, as lying at the center of the primary experience of the cosmos. — Eric Voegelin

For peace is not simply the absence of warfare, based on a precarious balance of power; it is fashioned by efforts directed day after day toward the establishment of the ordered universe willed by God, with a more perfect form of justice among men. — Pope Paul VI

Erienne closed the door and leaned against it as she frowned at Farrell. He had caught his good arm about the balustrade and was trying to steady himself while he tugged feebly at the ties of his cloak.
"Eriennie, give yer li'l Farrell a hand with 'is rebesh ... uh ... rebelush garment. It willn't leave me as I bid it." He grinned apologetically and lifted his crippled arm in helpless appeal.
"Fine time for you to be coming home," she admonished, helping him out of the recalcitrant cloak. "Have you no shame?"
"None!" he declared, attempting a gallant bow. His efforts caused him to lose his precarious balance, and he began to totter backward.
-Farrell & Erienne — Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Everything in the world was in precarious balance, pure risk, and those who didn't agree to take the risk wasted away in a corner, without getting to know life. — Elena Ferrante

Fishing is still elemental in the most elemental sense of the word - an activity composed of water and air and light and space, all arranged in precarious balance around a central idea of a man in a boat, waiting for a bite. — Samanth Subramanian

...you have to ask yourself two questions: Who am I? And how may I become myself? — Paul Beatty

She knew how to swing her legs on that hyphen that defined and denied who she was: Iranian-American. Neither the first word nor the second really belonged to her. Her place was on the hyphen and on the hyphen she would stay, carrying memories of the one place from which she had come and the other place in which she must succeed. The hyphen was hers-- a space small, and potentially precarious. On the hyphen she would sit, and on the hyphen she would stand, and soon, like a seasoned acrobat, she would balance there perfectly, never falling, never choosing either side over the other, content with walking that thin line. — Marjan Kamali

The classical ballet world is so exclusive and small, and a lot of people don't know about it. — Misty Copeland

The pope dies, you get another pope. — Dino De Laurentiis

Those in the grip of a strong drug - heroin, devil grass, true love - often find themselves trying to maintain a precarious balance between secrecy and ecstasy as they walk the tightrope of their lives. Keeping one's balance on a tightrope is difficult under the soberest of circumstances; doing so while in a state of delirium is all but impossible. — Stephen King

You can never really know someone completely. That's why it's the most terrifying thing in the world, really - taking someone on faith, hoping they'll take you on faith too. It's such a precarious balance, It's a wonder we do it at all. And yet.. — Libba Bray

The room held her scent, that elusive fragrance that sometimes reminded him of spring flowers and other times made him think of summer afternoons and ripe peaches. Gracie seemed to be part of all the seasons. The warm glints of autumn shone in her hair, the clear light of winter sun sparkled in those intelligent gray eyes. He had to keep reminding himself that she wasn't a U.S.D.A. prime-cut female because lately he'd had a tendency to forget. It was just . . .

She was so damned cute. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Girl rabbits in an' tells the law she been raped. The guys in Weed start a party out to lynch Lennie. So we sit in a irrigation ditch under water all the rest of that day. — John Steinbeck

Unfortunately, the fact is that modern antisemitism grew in proportion as traditional nationalism declined, and reached its climax at the exact moment when the European system of nation-states and its precarious balance of power crashed. — Hannah Arendt

There was no better way to feel powerful than to make others feel powerless. — Chris Dietzel

But the Seeker, who is of unsure gait, also has unsure traits. The way that he moves is unstable and ungainly. It is also unnatural. No other life form adopted this precarious locomotion method of walking on two legs. Intrinsically off balance at all times, it takes just a small stone or a banana peel to topple him over. It is a mysterious wobbly motion much like that of a bicycle. How easy it is, to throw a cyclist off balance, need not be elaborated. But try throwing a truck off balance? Unsettling the Seeker's balance is also equally easy. But try throwing a horse or a tiger off balance? Even a child knows that four wheels or, at least, three wheels are more stable than two wheels. — Biju Vasudevan

There was a precarious balance during those crucial months between composition and decomposition - what the world gained and what a great city lost. Even then, some part of Detroit was dying, and that is where the story begins. — David Maraniss

i was fine not liking you. i was fine not liking anyone. and now i'm in the middle of this and so lost i can hardly think straight. but now that you matter, and i don't know what to do about it. - Eadlyn — Kiera Cass

When love doesn't work, we hurt. Indeed, "hurt feelings" is a precisely accurate phrase, according to psychologist Naomi Eisenberger of the University of California. Her brain imaging studies show that rejection and exclusion trigger the same circuits in the same part of the brain, the anterior cingulate, as physical pain. — Sue Johnson

Cezanne produced precarious little worlds that almost, almost, almost lose their balance but somehow hold themselves together, creating tension, beauty and danger all at once. — Robert Krulwich

As a writer, it is always fun to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes. — Darren Star

I live in a world where school is in a precarious balance with social life, parties, and sports games. He lives in a world where school is all-consuming, and when his homework isn't, Star Wars and video games are. — Selena Brooks