Unprepared Quotes & Sayings

There they stood, in twos and threes and fours, in their Cub Scout uniforms and with their Cub Scout faces, totally unprepared, as is the way with American he-men, for anything that could not be settled with a club or a fist or a gun. — James Baldwin

Kid's heads are filled with so many nonfacts that when they get out of school they're totally unprepared to do anything. They can't read, they can't write, they can't think. Talk about child abuse. The U.S. school system as a whole qualifies. — Frank Zappa

He had been quite unprepared for this particular blow, striking under every conceivable kind of armour, and for some minutes he could hardly bear the pain, but sat there blinking in the sun. 'Christ,' he said at last. 'Another day. — Patrick O'Brian

If one's conscious life is too rigid, too regimented, then the surface may crack at times, and we are unprepared for the strange emotions or sensations we experience. — Anais Nin

Planning is helpful. If you don't know what you want, you'll seldom get it. But, no matter how well you plan, you will fare better if you expect the unexpected. The unexpected, by nature, comes unseen, unthought, unenvisioned. All you can do is plan to go unplanned, prepare to be unprepared, make going with the flow part of your agenda, for the most successful among us envision, plan, and prepare, but cast all aside as needed, while those who are unable to go with the flow often suffer, if they survive. — David W. Jones

As the twentieth century was about politics, which is to say survival, the twenty-first is about God, which is to say oblivion, a subject his country is profoundly unprepared to contemplate. — Steve Erickson

We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God. Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world - of all living things. The danger and the glory and the choice rest finally in man. The test of his perfectibility is at hand. Having taken Godlike power, we must seek in ourselves for the responsibility and the wisdom we once prayed some deity might have. — John Steinbeck

It is taken as a strong proof of a man's innocence that he should look you full in the face with a steadfast gaze when you look at him with suspicion plainly visible in your eyes; but would he not be the poorest villain if he shirked that encounter of glances when he knows full surely that he is in that moment put to the test? It is rather innocence whose eyelids drop when you peer too closely into its eyes, for innocence is appalled by the stern, accusing glances which it is unprepared to meet. Guilt stares you boldly in the face, for guilt is hardened and defiant, and has this one grand superiority over innocence
that it is prepared for the worst. — Mary Elizabeth Braddon

We were totally unprepared for such a large quantity of visitors, and in view of the preservation of the antiquities they being very crowded and in poor preservation, we were obliged to refuse admission until some preparation was made to safeguard the objects. — Howard Carter

Always be ready; always live in such a way that death can never find you unprepared. — Thomas A Kempis

When you live a life without questions, you're unprepared for the questions when they come. — Neal Shusterman

Four Unpardonable Sins of a Communicator: being unprepared, uncommitted, uninteresting, or uncomfortable. — John C. Maxwell

When you feel unprotected, unsupported and unprepared to take care of yourself, your insides will feel if you have been through a train wreck. The best way to describe this experience is that you are having a head on body collision between your wannabe and your can never be. — Iyanla Vanzant

It [his brothers assassination] made Robert Kennedy, a man unprepared for introspection, think for the first time in his life, what he wanted to do, and what he stood for. — Jack Newfield

Trigger warnings are the most ridiculous, patronizing and infantilizing creations ever to come out of feminism....But feminists adore trigger warnings because it reinforces the idea that women are ruled by their emotions, are incapable of recovering from trauma and are just generally hysterical nitwits unprepared to confront adulthood and reality. — Janet Bloomfield

But the process of birthing Claire changed what I wanted to write about. It left me feeling betrayed that I'd been unprepared for the pure animal nature of birth. For the first time, I understood myself to be a mammal with a mammal's instincts and desires beneath the veneer of civilization - a mammal just as much as the opossum with its thirteen nipples. — Beth Ann Fennelly

More importantly, I didn't know then that one day I would genuinely be free. That freedom came out of a thousand small steps of obedience, most of which I took during the waiting or limbo time. The more I learned to lean into Him on a daily basis and simply live out my faith in the everyday elements, the more I was prepared for the bigger steps when they arrived. Not only that, I was given the gift of living my life fully in the present, rather than being fixated and frustrated over some distant time or hope. In the crossroads called limbo, you do arrive at mile markers. You become more mature. More healed. Less surprised by or resistant to or unprepared for the good things God is giving you in the ordinary. Your challenge is to begin to embrace the waiting times as part of the overall journey. Limbo is a key part of the healing process! As you are faithful daily, He is working in you powerfully, and it all counts. Every single moment! — Suzanne Eller

Girls are under enormous pressures rarely experienced by their mothers, grandmothers, and other women in previous generations. Today's little girls are being enticed to grow up too fast and are encountering challenges for which they are totally unprepared. — James C. Dobson

The real catastrophes are always different-unimaginable, unprepared for, unknown — Karen Thompson Walker

Now, all that I feared would happen has happened. We are at war all over the world, and we are unprepared for it from either a spiritual or a material standpoint. — Charles Lindbergh

Passed Grogan's the Tobacconist against which newsboards leaned and told of a dreadful catastrophe in New York. In America those things were continually happening. Unfortunate people to die like that, unprepared. Still, an act of perfect contrition. — James Joyce

Only the unprepared are overcome by pressure — Lou Holtz

There are no guarantees in life, but after any major disaster two separate and distinct groups will emerge - the Prepared and the Unprepared. It's up to you which group you'll belong to. As far as I'm concerned, the ultimate measure of this book's success will be how many people it can help guide into the "Prepared group. — Richard Duarte

Military and absolutist regimes are undoubtedly well fitted to get the jump on an unsuspecting or unprepared enemy; but the history of modern warfare proves that they cannot win over representative governments in the long run, provided that people behind those governments have the heart to sustain initial punishment, and both the will and the resources to fight back. — Samuel Eliot Morison

Frederick consistently used his central position to concentrate against one fraction of the enemy, and he always employed tactics of indirect approach. Thereby he gained many victories. But his tactical indirect approach was geometrical rather than psychological-unprepared by the subtler forms of surprise favoured by Scipio-and for all their executive skill, these manoeuvres were narrow. The opponent might be unable to meet the following blow, owing to the inflexibility of his mind or his formations, but the blow itself did not fall unexpectedly. — B.H. Liddell Hart

Workplace dynamics are no less complicated or unexpectedly intense than family relations, with only the added difficulty that whereas families are at least well-recognised and sanctioned loci for hysteria reminiscent of scenes from Medea, office life typically proceeds behind a mask of shallow cheerfulness, leaving workers grievously unprepared to handle the fury and sadness continually aroused by their colleagues. — Alain De Botton

Coming down off the trail, I am lost in my own thoughts and unprepared when a bear chugs across the path just before it gives out on the gravel road. I am so distracted that I keep walking towards the bear. I only stop when it rears, stands on hind legs, and stares at me, sensitive nose pressed into the air, weak eyes searching. I have never been this close to a wild bear before, but I am not frightened. There is no menace in its stance; it is not even curious. The bear seems to know who or what I am. The bear is not impressed. — Louise Erdrich

Being unprepared makes me nervous. I'm old-fashioned show folk. — John C. Reilly

She would never be caught unprepared again, she swore to herself. She would never trust. Never love. Never put faith in other human beings again. She would learn all she could of the shape and substance of the world, and she would find a way to survive in it. — David Anthony Durham

There is no limit of degradation to which power cannot bring anyone even with the loftiest principles. We would hope that being unprepared for power, they would be ineffective. Their task is not "seize power" (those who use this term show that they seek personal power for themselves) but to abolish the bases for power. Power to all means power to nobody in particular. — Albert Meltzer

Beyond [known peoples of black West Africa] to the south there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves, and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings. — Ibn Khaldun

It must be every barrister's nightmare, something that finds him or her unprepared. — Louise Doughty

It was thinking negative thoughts or thinking positive thoughts, leaving the house prepared or leaving the house unprepared that made the difference. — Jack Canfield

[T]horoughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still, we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie. - Carl Jung, Stages of Life — Marianne Williamson

Who never lost, are unprepared — Emily Dickinson

I have had many patients who expected themselves to perform in ways which were constitutionally impossible. We were not created equal except for the respect which we may demand for who we are. Sorting the possible from the impossible empowers these people to give their energies to the things they can do, and to leave to others those which they are inherently unprepared. — Leon Hammer

When it happens, you're totally unprepared, fragmented and lost, looking for the hidden meaning in every little thing. I've replayed the events of that day a hundred thousand times, looking for clues. An alternate ending. The Butterfly effect.
If I could find the butterfly that flapped its wings before we got into the car that day, I would crush it. — Sarah Ockler

A good many observers have remarked that if equality could come at once, the Negro would not be ready for it. I submit that the white American is even more unprepared. — Martin Luther

Passion.
She'd dared him to discover the emotion but had been unprepared to discover it herself. — Sarah MacLean

The pigeon had been unlucky. Ten birds had been on their way back to their Ilkley coop, flying in stolid, heavy formation; nine had returned home. The tenth, flying low over the moor at the base of this avian wedge, had plummeted soundlessly to the soil, its senses overwhelmed by the tendrils of consciousness which had enwrapped them.

When the pigeon awoke, moments later, all of the rudimentary universal constructs which defined pigeonness in its brain had been carefully swept away, save one. The entity didn't need birdseed; it didn't need a pigeon coup in Ilkley; but it needed to fly.

And it needed as much of the pigeon's cerebral activity as possible to focus on getting it to its desired location, which meant that for the first time in its life, this pigeon was reading roadsigns.

It was also experiencing emotions for which it was somewhat unprepared, most notably an insistent, imperative yearning for Leeds United. — Windsor Holden

As to moral courage, I have very rarely met with the two o'clock in the morning kind. I mean unprepared courage, that which is necessary on an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgement and decision. — Napoleon Bonaparte

It is impossible to exaggerate how unprepared the medical community in West Africa was for this crisis. Prior to the Ebola outbreak Liberia had approximately fifty doctors in the entire country. Many clinics and hospitals had no electricity or running water. — Nancy D. Sheppard

You have a light in you that's almost blinding. But in me there's only darkness. Sometimes I think it's like the darkness that infected you that night in the inn when you began to cry and to tremble. You were so helpless, so unprepared for it. I try to keep the darkness from you because I need your light. I need it desperately, but you don't need the darkness. — Anne Rice

Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared. a — George S. Clason

We can see now that we Americans were caught unprepared, because we were ordinary human beings, following the best advice we had at the time. No one would have guessed in 1941 that we would be attacked in such an unsportsmanlike manner as we were. No one could have visualized Pearl Harbor, either out there or in Washington. But if we had known then what we know now, we would have expected an attack in 1941. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Late Echo"

Alone with our madness and favorite flower
We see that there really is nothing left to write about.
Or rather, it is necessary to write about the same old things
In the same way, repeating the same things over and over
For love to continue and be gradually different.

Beehives and ants have to be re-examined eternally
And the color of the day put in
Hundreds of times and varied from summer to winter
For it to get slowed down to the pace of an authentic
Saraband and huddle there, alive and resting.

Only then can the chronic inattention
Of our lives drape itself around us, conciliatory
And with one eye on those long tan plush shadows
That speak so deeply into our unprepared knowledge
Of ourselves, the talking engines of our day. — John Ashbery

He was unsure what the thing inside him was and was unprepared to commit himself to the course of action that would be required to explore the question. — David Foster Wallace

Now, 'that sort of Bear' is of course a bear who wants to be flattered, and it is plain that the Christophoric ear is using Pooh to make its own devious request that it (the ear's projection, 'Christopher Robin') be made the center of attention. The Milnean voice, however, in its didactic-paternal role, is unprepared simply to feed the self-love of the Christophoric ear; it (the voice) must also see that it (the ear) is properly edified in a moral sense. The stories, therefore, will express a vector of the two forces pleasing and teaching the Christophoric ear. — Frederick C. Crews

When you look in the mirror, it's usually to fix your hair or put on makeup. To examine your body searching for problem areas. We look at ourselves to see the flaw, not beauty. And we look at predictable times, in the morning, after using the bathroom, before bed. We hardly ever see ourselves when we aren't prepared for inspection. But only when you're unprepared can you see your true self, your true beauty. — Valerie Frankel

Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world, of all living things. — John Steinbeck

On differing perspectives:

"At birth, we're yanked from a warm, safe place and thrust into a world we have no way of comprehending. Childhood is a constant routine of punishment and confusion. Hell we're depressed and misunderstood as teenagers, then frightened and unprepared as we become adults. In midlife, we watch as our youth slowly slips away; our dreams for greatness becoming pathetic memories. Old age brings loneliness, infirmity, and the constant fear of death."

"At birth, we're rescued from a dark, silent place and ushered into a world full of wonder. Childhood is a magical time, free from responsibility. We're curious and filled with energy as teenagers, and then challenged to reach our full potential as we become adults. In mid-life, we watch as our pretensions slowly slip away, our dreams for happiness finally becoming realized. Old age brings wisdom, wonderful memories, and a passionate love of life. — Rick Reynolds

Use humility to make the enemy haughty. Tire them by flight. Cause division among them. When they are unprepared, attack and make your move when they do not expect it. — Sun Tzu

Unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not as materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to — Henry David Thoreau

I don't think people ever were free of fear of death, but clinging to life and being so unprepared for it is a modern experience. — Katy Butler

Having anticipated the onward march of our selfish genes, many of us are unprepared for children who present unfamiliar needs. Parenthood abruptly catapults us into a permanent relationship with a stranger, and the more alien the stranger, the stronger the whiff of negativity. — Andrew Solomon

From a position of this sort, if the enemy is unprepared, you may sally forth and defeat him. But if the enemy is prepared for your coming, and you fail to defeat him, then, return being impossible, disaster will ensue. — Sun Tzu

I will not go into a story unprepared. I will do my homework, and that's something I learned at an early age. — Ed Bradley

I felt so insufficiently equipped, so unprepared, so weak, and at the same time it seemed to me that my reflections on art were correct. I quarreled with all the world and with myself. — Edgar Degas

You, know, the only thing I can be is a writer. I'm absolutely unprepared for anything else. When you've lived the kind of life I have, you are good for nothing. Only writing can save you. — Anne Rice

The unprepared speaker has a right to be afraid. — Ralph C. Smedley

Unlike the student protests in the 1960s, by using religion and multiculturalism as a cover, we brought an entirely foreign lexicon to the table. We knowingly presented political demands disguised as religion and multiculturalism, and deliberately labelled any objection to our demands as racism and bigotry. Even worse, we did this to the very generation who had been socialist sympathisers in their youth, people sympathetic to charges of racism, who were now in middle-career management posts; people like Dave Gomer. It is no wonder then that the authorities were unprepared to deal with politicised religion as ideological agitation, and felt racist if they tried to stop us. — Maajid Nawaz

You are absolutely amazing,' he breathed into her ear, but she didn't have the breath to respond to his words. She gasped heavily as their faces drew closer. He leaned down towards her, and she felt so drawn to him that she leaned up to meet him. She had no idea what was going on, but in spite of Uche's presence, she decided to follow her heart under the clear cold stars. Next thing, her unprepared body was rising gently, gradually standing on her tingling toes in order to meet his face. He was so tall that she barely reached his shoulders... — Nick Nwaogu

We disguised our political demands behind religion and multiculturalism, and deliberately labeled any objection to our demands as racism. Even worse, we did this to the very generation who had been socialist sympathizers in their youth, people sympathetic to charges of racism, who like Dave Gomer were now in middle-career management posts. It is no wonder then that the authorities were unprepared to deal with politicized religion as ideological agitation; they felt racist if they tried to stop us. — Maajid Nawaz

Because our hearts are unprepared for truth, we cling to the deception as a shipwreck victim on a storm-tossed sea will grab at anything that floats. But the splintered rubble of our broken trust - those temporary buoys of our shattered dreams - betray us, gouging rough gashes into our souls, drawing our blood and leaving us to sink. — Penelope J. Stokes

Don't be afraid to fail, encourage your talent, and use your heart. And never be unprepared — Joe Torre

Failure knocks the door of the unprepared minds very often. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

My dear sir," said the sheikh. "God likes catching His servants unprepared. The boy has set down what is obviously the first plate of food he has seen in a long while in order to thank his Creator. There are few acts of piety more honest than that. — G. Willow Wilson

The only thing in which I have been actually thorough has been in being thoroughly unprepared. Alfred Stieglitz — Anonymous

I fell in love. It felt exactly like a fall, a head-over-heels tumble into a state of unbearable lightness. The earth tilted on its axis. I did not believe in romantic love at the time, thinking it a human construct, an invention of fourteenth century Italian poets. I was as unprepared for love as I had been for goodness and beauty. Suddenly, my heart seemed swollen, too large for my chest. — Philip Yancey

It will often be a question when a man is or is not wise in advancing unpalatable opinions, or in preaching heresies; but it can never be a question that a man should be silent if unprepared to speak the truth as he conceives it. — George Henry Lewes

It's easy to give God a list of excuses for not feeling worthy or as capable as someone else, in our service to him. The problem is that God doesn't call those who are unprepared or incapable. He calls those who have the talent and ability to serve. He has it all planned out for us. Our challenge is to accept his calling and move out in faith believing in his promises of help and support. — Diane Goold

Do the unexpected, attack the unprepared. — Zhuge Liang

While his decision to break into the derelict station hadn't been on a whim like most things in his life, Rob had come unprepared. He had no torch, no matches. All he had was faith, and that wasn't much to go on. — Chris Ward

How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane. — Newt Gingrich

I am very much a seat-of-the-pants actor. I will prepare when I have to. But I like being unprepared. — Lena Headey

Hurricane Katrina brought a city, a state and the Bush 43rd Administration to its knees because all levels of government were unprepared for the sheer magnitude of the event. — J.C. Phillips

A Guards regiment, eh, Comrade Colonel? These tit-sucking children could not guard a Turkish whorehouse; much less do anything worthwhile inside of it!
While commenting on how unprepared his troops are. -Alekseyev — Tom Clancy

I actually don't have any fear of people reading Wild and going out unprepared. Because one of the best things that ever happened to me was that I went out unprepared. And when you really think about it, all I did wrong was that I took too much stuff, which is the most common backpacker mistake. The part that I wasn't prepared for is the part you can't prepare for. — Cheryl Strayed

Few boys have been as fortunate as I, raised into manhood with only the gentlest of words and blandishments in my ears and the kindest of caresses upon my person, by a mother who sheltered us from everything that is harsh and ugly in this world. I was spoiled, utterly unprepared for cruelty, and perhaps this sounds like I'm complaining, but I'm not! You mustn't think I blame you. I'm afraid I must sound like the most ungrateful son in the world, when in fact the opposite is true. I am more grateful now than ever for the way you raised us, teaching us the value of kindness, of education, of independent thinking and liberal ideals, in the face of the fascism that is sweeping our country. The cruelest punishments now fail to bring even a tear to my eye, but the thought of the hardship you've suffered on behalf of your ideals makes me weep like a baby. — Ruth Ozeki

I've been in politics long enough to expect criticism and hostility. But I was unprepared for the hatred I get from Christians. Why do Christians hate so much?. — William J. Clinton

If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected . — Sun Tzu

This is in the natural order of things
the time of life we've now entered. The afternoon, as Jung called it. Thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life. Are we unprepared simply because preparation is not possible? ... We learn
if we are lucky we learn
as we go.
... we are in the center of the stream. Much has already happened, and has formed the shape of our lives as surely as water shapes rock. Much lies ahead of us. We can't see what's coming. We can't know it. All we have is our hope that all will be well, and our knowledge that it won't always be so. We live in the space between this hope and this knowledge.
...
Life keeps coming at us. Fleeing it is pointless, as is fighting. What I have begun to learn is that there is value in simply standing there
this too
whether the sun is shining, or the wind whipping all around. [pp.239-240] — Dani Shapiro

Boys who grow up seeing themselves everywhere as powerful and central just by virtue of being boys, often white, are critically impaired in many ways. It's a rude shock to many when things don't turn out the way they were told they should. It seems reasonable to suggest media misrepresentations like these contribute, in boys, to a heightened inability to empathize with others, a greater propensity to peg ambition to intrinsic qualities instead of effort and a failure to understand why rules apply or why accountability is a thing. It should mean something to parents that the teenagers with the highest likelihood of sexually assaulting a peer and feel no responsibility for their actions are young white boys from higher-income families. The real boy crisis we should be talking about is entitlement and outdated notions of masculinity, both of which are persistently responsible for leaving boys confused and unprepared for contemporary adulthood. — Soraya Chemaly

I can't do it. I can't get into a philosophical debate with an archangel, knowing how ridiculous it is and how unprepared I am. — T.J. Klune

Xingu!" she scoffed. "Why, it was the fact of our knowing so much more about it than she did - unprepared though we were - that made Osric Dane so furious. I should have thought that was plain enough to everybody! — Edith Wharton

I was completely unprepared for the public spectacle my private life became, and didn't like it a bit. — Harrison Ford

The study book for life's tests is the whole of our experience. Though we may
feel unprepared, tests appear only when we are truly ready to ace them. — Gina Greenlee

Those who are unprepared to demonstrate tolerance cannot expect or even demand tolerance for themselves. — Walter Kasper

When you see something or experience something extraordinary, you can't go back to normal ... I think that that's the way I see the supernatural-as happening in mundane circumstances or to people who are unprepared. — Guillermo Del Toro

It's important to avoid mirrors if one is unprepared to accept their daily news, and I think, in something as insignificantly devastating as appearance, denial is more socially constructive than despondency. Not that there's anything especially wrong with me
just the usual. — Rivka Galchen

If he decided to pursue Sienna ... Sucking in a breath Indigo promised herself she'd warn the girl if and when the time came-because no woman should have to face that campaign unprepared. — Nalini Singh

This was an easy matter with a man Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard; And even the wisest, do the best they can, Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared, That you might 'brain them with their lady's fan;' And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard, And fans turn into falchions in fair hands, And why and wherefore no one understands. — George Gordon Byron

Don't complain about not getting a chance and then be unprepared when you finally do. — Joe Montana

MODERN SCIENTIFIC CAPABILITY has profoundly altered the course of human life. People live longer and better than at any other time in history. But scientific advances have turned the processes of aging and dying into medical experiences, matters to be managed by health care professionals. And we in the medical world have proved alarmingly unprepared for it. — Atul Gawande

Later, I would come to think of those first days as the time when we learned as a species that we had worried over the wrong things: the hole in the ozone layer, the melting of the ice caps, West Nile and swine flu and killer bees. But I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different - unimagined, unprepared for, unknown. — Karen Thompson Walker

And you bring your words,
But you're just like them,
You're unprepared
'Cause you don't know the terrain — Dar Williams

I can share my dreams, and even encourage you along the way, but you have to have your own dreams. You have to want for something, and work towards it. Don't give up in when you feel overwhelmed, undeserving or unprepared. He has given you the gift(s) you will need. If you remember that, fear will have no place to reside. — J'son M. Lee

No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. — Wilkie Collins

Many's the audition I waltzed into unprepared and wondered why I didn't get it. I learned the hard way. — Deirdre O'Kane

The unprepared mind cannot see the outstretched hand of opportunity. — Alexander Fleming