Taking Things Literally Quotes & Sayings

We seldom stop to think - and we certainly should do so more often - that in taking the words of our sages as a description of mere fact, we may miss the deeper meanings which they meant to convey. As a rule, aggadah should not be taken literally; rather, it must be interpreted with the understanding that a higher truth is being alluded to - a truth that is beyond historical perspective, philological expression, or the dimensions of scientific observations. Agaddah speaks to that part of us that understands but cannot articulate what it understands. It allows us to go beyond the realms of the definable, perceivable, and demonstrable. In this sense, aggadah is a form of religious metaphor, a mirror that enables us to form mental images of the indescribable. — Nathan Lopes Cardozo

Practicing As a man in his last breath drops all he is carrying each breath is a little death that can set us free. Breathing is the fundamental unit of risk, the atom of inner courage that leads us into authentic living. With each breath, we practice opening, taking in, and releasing. Literally, the teacher is under our nose. When anxious, we simply have to remember to breathe. So often we make a commitment to change our ways, but stall in the face of — Mark Nepo

The goals of American Christianity are often a nice marriage, children who don't swear, and good church attendance. Taking the words of Christ literally and seriously is rarely considered. — Francis Chan

Is it an original idea? Or is it something where you're literally a creative collagist? You're taking pieces of the world that you see around you and that are inside of you and put them together in a way that you see fit. — Abigail Washburn

The first is spatial: I can imagine how you literally see the world, such that what's on my right is on your left when we're facing one another. In the second type, I can imagine how you think about things - for example, how you might have trouble solving a problem that's easy for me, or how you might hold beliefs about, say, raising children that are different from mine. The third kind consists of imagining how you feel, how something could upset you even if it doesn't have that effect on me. (This last type of perspective taking is sometimes confused with "empathy," which means that I share your feelings. To empathize isn't just to understand that you're angry but actually to feel angry along with you.) — Alfie Kohn

A lot of DJs don't realize they're here today and gone tomorrow. They're literally taking jets to every show. It's crazy how much money they're spending. — Diplo

How generously they shower us with food, literally giving themselves so that we can live. But in the giving their lives are also ensured. Our taking returns benefit to them in the circle of life making life, the chain of reciprocity. Living by the precepts of the Honorable Harvest - to take only what is given, to use it well, to be grateful for the gift, and to reciprocate the gift — Robin Wall Kimmerer

You are taking things far too literally. Everything you see is merely a symbol for things you do not see. Most of the people of this world are asleep in their minds. — Seth Adam Smith

The day the roles reverse is foreign. It's a clumsy dance of love and responsibility, not wanting to cross any lines of respect. It's honoring this person who gave their life to you - not to mention literally gave you life - and taking their fragile body in your hands like a newborn, tending to their every need. — Lisa Goich

College girls on the road! One-night stands! Lee felt like an Austro-Hungarian emperor attended on his deathbed by flappers. He felt them stealing his life - literally going back in time and taking, through their incoherent lifestyles, the little he had struggled so hard to attain. — Nell Zink

I'm in, like, dating Babylon. Like, I go on dates with men and, literally, like Sarah Palin will come up in like the first 20 minutes, and that doesn't put me in the mood. Like, talking about Sarah Palin. And they just want to know gossip, and I'm just kind of taking a little hiatus from dating right now, because I just don't want to talk about Sarah Palin. — Meghan McCain

Nothing will teach you more about perceived value than taking something with literally no value and selling it in the auction format. It teaches you the beauty and power of presentation, and how you can make magic out of nothing. — Sophia Amoruso

Not taking the Bible (or other texts based on 'revealed truths') literally leaves it up to the reader to cherry-pick elements for belief. There exists no guide for such cherry-picking, and zero religious sanction for it. — Jeffrey Tayler

I couldn't sell pills no more [because my] homie went to jail. I was just dirt broke. I went to TDE and was literally living in the studio where you record. I went damn near a whole two years not getting sleep because there was always somebody there recording. I was taking baths with dishwashing liquid.I was one of the dudes [who] would never ask for nothing so I would never ask for soap. — Schoolboy Q

Luther goes so far as to say that vocation is a mask of God. That is, God hides Himself in the workplace, the family, the Church, and the seemingly secular society. To speak of God being hidden is a way of describing His presence, as when a child hiding in the room is there, just not seen. To realize that the mundane activities that take up most of our lives - going to work, taking the kids to soccer practice, picking up a few things at the store, going to church - are hiding-places for God can be a revelation in itself. Most people seek God in mystical experiences, spectacular miracles, and extraordinary acts they have to do. To find Him in vocation brings Him, literally, down to earth, makes us see how close He really is to us, and transfigures everyday life. — Gene Edward Veith Jr.

You know how people love to glamorize poverty? There's nothing glamorous about it. But it did make me really creative. Those days, I was literally taking t-shirts in the day and sewing them back together to make dresses for the night. — Beth Ditto

And so taking the long way home through the market I slow my pace down. It doesn't come naturally. My legs are programmed to trot briskly and my arms to pump up and down like pistons, but I force myself to stroll past the stalls and pavement cafes. To enjoy just being somewhere, rather than rushing from somewhere, to somewhere. Inhaling deep lungfuls of air, instead of my usual shallow breaths. I take a moment to just stop and look around me. And smile to myself.
For the first time in a long time, I can, quite literally, smell the coffee. — Alexandra Potter

Moving toward a more harmonious way of life and greater resilience requires our active participation. This means finding ways to become more aware of and connected to the other forms of life that are around us and that constitute our food -- plants and animals, as well as bacteria and fungi -- and to the resources, such as water, fuel, materials, tools, and transportation, upon which we depend. It means taking responsibility for our shit, both literally and figuratively. — Sandor Ellix Katz

I was born in North Carolina but moved to a suburb just outside of Philadelphia when I was 5, so mostly grew up there. I decided I wanted to become an actor when I was 8 years old. I literally heard a friend on the playground bragging about how he was taking acting classes and thought, 'Oh! That's what I'm supposed to be doing!' — Sarah Steele

I cannot fail to note once again that the poor constitute the modern challenge, especially for the well-off of our planet, where millions of people live in inhuman conditions and many are literally dying of hunger. It is not possible to announce God the Father to these brothers and sisters without taking on the responsibility of building a more just society in the name of Christ. — Pope John Paul II

The thing about trees is that they know what to do. When a leaf loses its colour, it's not because its time is up and it's dying, it's because the tree is taking back into itself the nutrients the leaf's been holding in reserve for it, out there on the twig, and why leaves change colour in autumn is because the tree is preparing for winter, it's filling itself with its own stored health so it can withstand the season. Then, clever tree, it literally pushes the used leaf off with the growth that's coming behind it. But because that growth has to protect itself through winter too, the tree fills the little wound in its branch or twig where the leaf was with a protective corky stuff which seals it against cold and bacteria.
Otherwise every leaf lost would be an open wound on a tree and a single tree would be covered in thousands of little wounds.
Clever trees. — Ali Smith

Among the many problems with taking the Bible literally is it reduces the most mysterious and complex of realities to simple - even simplistic - terms. Yes, scripture speaks of fire and damnation and eternal bliss, but the Bible is the product of human hands and hearts, and much of the imagery is allegorical, not meteorological. — Jon Meacham

[T]here is a methodological bias in favor of taking natural discourse literally, other things being equal. For example, unless there are clear reasons for construing discourse as ambiguous, elliptical, or involving special idioms, we should not so construe it. — Tyler Burge

The pathologized images have moved the soul in several ways: we are afraid; we feel vulnerable and in danger; our very physical sustance and sanity appear to be menaced; we want to prevent or rectify. Especially this last seizes us. We feel protective, impelled to correct, straighten, repair. For we have confused something sick with something wrong. [ ... ]
affliction reaches us partly through the guilt it brings. Guilt belongs to the experiences of deviation, the the sense of being off, failing, 'missing the mark'. [ ... ]
However the true missing of the mark is taking the guilt literally, where failings becomes faults to be set right. This places the guilt on the shoulders of the ego who 'should not' have failed. Then pathologizing reinforces the ego's style and guilt serves a secondary gain, increasing the ego's sense of importance: ego becomes superego, drivenly busy with repairing wrongs. A guilty ego is no less egocentric than a proud one. — James Hillman

'Noah' is about a man whose mission is to obliterate Earth's past and godfather its future. Replacing the word 'God' with 'Creator' and taking other scriptural liberties, the movie risks confusing those who don't take the Bible literally and alienating those who do. — Richard Corliss

This is the ultimate war of ideas. You're trying to get somebody to change their mind about conservatism, because that's exactly what we're fighting out there. We're fighting an insanely fundamentalist mentality that relies on taking certain things absolutely literally, and they're people on both sides of the conflict doing that. Even now, some people still take the Bible literally, and those are the ones wanting to fight a war against Islam. — Immortal Technique

I must brave the interior of the most tawdry and literally trumpery tower of them all ... the Trump Taj Mahal. For taking the name of the priceless mausoleum of Agra, one of the beauties and wonders of the world, for that alone Donald Trump should be stripped naked and whipped with scorpions along the boardwalk.- It is as if a giant toad has raped a butterfly. — Stephen Fry

AS I TELL MY PATIENTS, your skin, hair, and nails are repairable and replaceable, and most of your organs can be revitalized. But the brain is the one organ you can't replace (no matter what you've seen in horror movies). The brain is where your life resides. It governs all aspects of your health as well as your emotional state. And while you can't get a new brain, you can improve the one you have. There are many different ways to literally make your brain younger which can enhance every facet of your health. This chapter will show how you can lose weight permanently once you balance your brain. Without taking the brain into account, you can diet for the rest of your life and never be happy with the results. — Eric R. Braverman

'House of Style' changed my life. I literally had no experience in front of a TV camera before, and there I was taking over for Rebecca Romijn. My exposure heightened instantly. — Molly Sims

Biomimicry is basically taking a design challenge and then finding an ecosystem that's already solved that challenge, and literally trying to emulate what you learn. — Janine Benyus

One time I took my knife and sliced off the end of a hog's nose, just like a piece of salami. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt and rubbed it on the wound. Now that hog really went nuts. It was my way of taking out frustration. Another time, there was a live hog in the pit. It hadn't done anything wrong, wasn't even running around. It was just alive. I took a three-foot chunk of pipe and I literally beat that hog to death. It was like I started hitting the hog and I couldn't stop. And when I finally did stop, I'd expended all this energy and frustration, and I'm thinking what in God's sweet name did I do. — Gail A. Eisnitz

Stop taking my book so literally. — Anonymous

Images are taking over, and writers are a dying breed. The Norman Mailers of today are reduced to writing pun-filled captions for paparazzi photos. Blogs
which were threatening enough to professional writers
are being replaced by video blogs. We writers need to embraced the Second Commandment as our rallying cry for the importance of words. In a literally biblical world, all publications would look like the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Or the way it used to look, anyway. — A. J. Jacobs

The Bible is not absurd for the people who wrote it; it becomes absurd when people in our day insist on taking it literally. The Bible does not present us with material that is ridiculous in the context from which it came. The Bible springs from the context in which people then were thinking, searching, and trying to find answers . — Robert Alley

I quickly found that the American church is a difficult place to fit in if you want to live out New Testament Christianity. The goals of American Christianity are often a nice marriage, children who don't swear, and good church attendance. Taking the words of Christ literally, and seriously, is rarely considered. That's for the 'radicals' who are 'unbalanced' and who go 'overboard.' Most of us want a balanced life we can control, that is safe, and that does not involve suffering. — Francis Chan

You know, people always warn children about taking candy from strange adults. But they never warn us adults about taking candy from strange children.
All those sweet-looking kids who sell boxes of candy bars on the street to help pay for schooling - how do we know what's in those bars? And don't even get me stated on that nefarious institution designed to lure unsuspecting customers into buying mysterious frosted goodies: the bake sale.
Adults, be warned: if a child wanted to poison you it would be a piece of cake! Literally a piece of cake. — Pseudonymous Bosch

People handle things differently, and everybody grieves differently, okay? No, I never considered taking my life, but think about it. What did I do? I did the very same thing you almost did. Maybe not literally but I made the decision to stop living. I went through the motions of waking and working and continuing with my life, but I wasn't living. I didn't even realize it until you came along. This is living." He kissed her softly because he'd just had a huge revelation. "What I was doing before you ... Baby, I may as well have been dead. My life now with you compared to what it was then ... I was dead. — Elizabeth Reyes

Of course, when you shut off your brain from rational analysis, any book is dangerous. Taking literally ancient parables from thousands of years ago is much more dangerous than playing with a loaded gun. Ancient scrawls, written by different authors in different centuries with different agendas
yeah, let's get mad literal about that.
The literalness problem is compounded in religion by the circular logic of not being allowed to question anything, or else you're lacking faith. — Bill Maher

Let's be clear on this, he growled. You have no idea how badly I want to be inside you. Standing up, lying down, taking you from behind. All of it. Right now.

Not being able to do any of that is killing me. Literally. But strangely enough, I like just being with you. Touching you however I can, whenever I can. So no. The virginity thing is not what will keep us apart.

~Wraith — Larissa Ione

When I first did 'Moby,' I didn't realize how taxing it would be. I was climbing fifty feet up in the air and climbing down. Literally, it's so busy, you feel you're on a ship. You're always moving; you're constantly adding clothes or taking them off, and there are many people on stage all the time! — Stephen Costello

You're such a left-brain AND a kleptomaniac. Quit taking things literally and there's hope for you yet! — Bryant A. Loney

The photographer proceeds, via the intermediary of the lens, to a point where he literally takes a luminous imprint, a cast ... [But] the cinema realizes the paradox of moulding itself on the time of the object and of taking the imprint of its duration as well. — Andre Bazin

Once your past no longer has the power to define you, your future is, quite literally, yours for the taking. Every single beautiful thing you could possibly want or imagine will be yours. — Dan Pearce

To make the quickest progress, you don't have to take huge leaps. You just have to take baby steps-and keep on taking them. In Japan, they call this approach kaizen, which literally translates as 'continual improvement.' Using kaizen, great and lasting success is achieved through small, consistent steps. It turns out that slow and steady is the best way to overcome your resistance to change. — Marci Shimoff