“
To err is human, to forgive, divine.
”
”
Alexander Pope (An Essay On Criticism)
“
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
”
”
Theodore Roosevelt
“
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
”
”
Mahatma Gandhi
“
Erre es korakas, Blinky!" Dionysus cursed. "I will have your soul!
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5))
“
To err is human - but it feels divine.
”
”
Mae West
“
People are messy, and love can be ugly. I’m inclined to always err on the side of compassion.
”
”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo)
“
You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.
”
”
Caspar David Friedrich
“
The greatest feminists have also been the greatest lovers. I'm thinking not only of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley, but of Anais Nin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and of course Sappho. You cannot divide creative juices from human juices. And as long as juicy women are equated with bad women, we will err on the side of being bad.
”
”
Erica Jong
“
I know there's a proverb which that says 'To err is human,' but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.
”
”
Agatha Christie (Hallowe'en Party (Hercule Poirot, #41))
“
To err is human, to purr is feline.
”
”
Robert Byrne (The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said)
“
errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum: 'to err is human, but to persist (in the mistake) is diabolical.
”
”
Seneca
“
Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
“
He who thinks little errs much…
”
”
Leonardo da Vinci
“
If you must err, do so on the side of audacity.
”
”
Sue Monk Kidd (The Invention of Wings)
“
Erre es korakas, Blinkey!" Dionysus cursed. "I will have your soul!"
"Um, he's a video game character," I said.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5))
“
Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
To err is human. To loaf is Parisian.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
Preachers err by trying to talk people into belief; better they reveal the radiance of their own discovery.
”
”
Joseph Campbell
“
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
”
”
Henry Beston (The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod)
“
Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish play.
”
”
Friedrich Schiller
“
What do you think?" shouted Razumihin, louder than ever, "you think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That's man's one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can't even make mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I'll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's. In the first case you are a man, in the second you're no better than a bird. Truth won't escape you, but life can be cramped. There have been examples. And what are we doing now? In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism, judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are still in the preparatory class at school. We prefer to live on other people's ideas, it's what we are used to! Am I right, am I right?" cried Razumihin, pressing and shaking the two ladies' hands.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
“
Sometimes my need to love hurts-- myself, my family, my cause. Is there a cure? Of course. But I refuse. Refuse to stop loving, to stop caring. To avoid those tears, that pain...To err on the side of passion is human and right and the only way I'll live.
”
”
Jon Krakauer
“
To err is human, to forgive divine. (Acheron)
I don’t ask for your forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. I only ask for a chance to show you now that I’m not the fool I was once. (Styxx)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Second Chances (Dark-Hunter #7.1))
“
To err is human, to forgive is divine... but I’m only a cardinal and cardinals are human, so rather than forgiving you I’m going to err towards beating you with this stick.
”
”
Mark Lawrence (Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War, #1))
“
Experience does not err; only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.
”
”
Leonardo da Vinci
“
To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life. A wild angel appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on!
”
”
James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)
“
Relationships are complex,” Evelyn says. “People are messy, and love can be ugly. I'm included to always err on the side of compassion.
”
”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo)
“
I give the victim the benefit of the doubt when it comes to allegations of rape and sexual abuse. I choose to err on that side of caution. This does not mean I am unsympathetic to the wrongly accused, but if there are sides to be chosen, I am on the side of the victim.
”
”
Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist)
“
It's so effortless to let my loneliness defeat me, make me mold myself to whatever would (in some way - but not wholly) relieve it. I must never forget it... I want sensuality and sensitivity, both... Let me never deny that... I want to err on the side of violence and excess, rather than to underfill my moments.
”
”
Susan Sontag (Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963)
“
Err, sorry Father Abbot. I tripped y'see. Trod on my Abbot, Father Habit. Oh dear, I mean....
”
”
Brian Jacques (Redwall (Redwall, #1))
“
While Man's desires and aspirations stir, He cannot choose but err.
”
”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust)
“
Men are born to sin…What does matter most, is not that we err, it is that we do benefit from our mistakes, that we are capable of sincere repentance, of genuine contrition.
”
”
Sharon Kay Penman (The Sunne in Splendour)
“
The cautious seldom err.
”
”
Confucius
“
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again... who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
”
”
Theodore Roosevelt
“
Maidens stand still, they are lovely statues and all admire them. Witches do not stand still. I was neither, but better that I err on the side of witchery, witchery that unlocks towers and empties ships.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (In the Night Garden (The Orphan's Tales, #1))
“
There’s no rule book that tells you how to act in every given situation in life, you know? So what I always say is that it’s always better to err on the side of kindness. That’s the secret. If you don’t know what to do, just be kind. You can’t go wrong.
”
”
R.J. Palacio (The Julian Chapter (Wonder, #1.5))
“
If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand.
”
”
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
“
THE ROAD TO WISDOM
The road to wisdom?
-- Well, it's plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
”
”
Piet Hein
“
To err is human, to persist in error is diabolical.
”
”
Georges Canguilhem (Ideology and Rationality in the History of the Life Sciences)
“
To be a saint is the exception; to be a just person is the rule. Err, stumble, commit sin, but be one of the just.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much;
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old time, and regulate the sun;
Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,
And quitting sense call imitating God;
As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,
And turn their heads to imitate the sun.
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule—
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!
”
”
Alexander Pope (An Essay on Man)
“
Reason offers us many possibilities at once. Intuition infallibly chooses the best. Remember this and you cannot err; you will always make the right choice.
”
”
Arthur Japin (In Lucia's Eyes)
“
The true value of man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectability is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand.
”
”
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
“
Exactly. To err is to be human, irrational or not. And while some mistakes are bigger than others, if we learn from them, we become better people. Even if we have spiders in our brains.
”
”
T.J. Klune (The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1))
“
People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to compositions as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times.
”
”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“
It is not human to be wise,’ said Blood. ‘It is much more human to err, though perhaps exceptional to err on the side of mercy.
”
”
Rafael Sabatini (Captain Blood)
“
What would you say if I tortured you?" asked the bandit leader conversationally.
Halla blinked at him. "Err, 'Ow,' probably. 'Stop, Stop, Stop,' something like that?" *What a bizarre question. What does he expect me to say?*
”
”
T. Kingfisher (Swordheart (Swordheart, #1))
“
I may err but I am not a heretic, for the first has to do with the mind and the second with the will!
”
”
Meister Eckhart
“
Man errs, till he has ceased to strive.
”
”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust, Part One)
“
To err is common
To all men, but the man who having erred
Hugs not his errors, but repents and seeks
The cure, is not a wastrel nor unwise.
”
”
Sophocles (Antigone (Theban Plays, #3))
“
My father always told me that in this world we are going to make a truckload of mistakes, but the best mistake we can ever make is to err on the side of mercy
”
”
Joan Bauer (Best Foot Forward (Rules of the Road, #2))
“
If there is confusion in your head and in your heart, what more do you want! A man who no longer loves and no longer errs should have himself buried straight away.
”
”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Selected Poetry)
“
To err is human — and to blame it on a computer is even more so.
”
”
Robert Orben
Karen M. McManus (One of Us Is Lying (One of Us is Lying, #1))
“
Never exaggerate. It is a matter of great importance to forego superlatives, in part to avoid offending the truth, and in part to avoid cheapening your judgment. Exaggeration wastes distinction and testifies to the paucity of your understanding and taste. Praise excites anticipation and stimulates desire. Afterwards when value does not measure up to price, disappointment turns against the fraud and takes revenge by cheapening both the appraised and the appraise. For this reason let the prudent go slowly, and err in understatement rather than overstatement. The extraordinary of every kind is always rare, wherefore temper your estimate.
”
”
Baltasar Gracián (The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle)
“
No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson
“
When I was a kid, they had a saying, 'to err is human but to really fuck it up takes a computer.’
”
”
Benjamin R. Smith (Atlas)
“
To err, as they say, is human. To forgive is divine. To err by withholding your forgiveness until it’s too late is to become divinely fucked up.
”
”
Jonathan Tropper (The Book of Joe)
“
To err is human, to repent divine; to persist devilish.
”
”
Benjamin Franklin
“
Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on!
”
”
James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)
“
To err is to wander and wandering is the way we discover the world and lost in thought it is the also the way we discover ourselves. Being right might be gratifying but in the end it is static a mere statement. Being wrong is hard and humbling and sometimes even dangerous but in the end it is a journey and a story. Who really wants to stay at home and be right when you can don your armor spring up on your steed and go forth to explore the world True you might get lost along get stranded in a swamp have a scare at the edge of a cliff thieves might steal your gold brigands might imprison you in a cave sorcerers might turn you into a toad but what of what To fuck up is to find adventure: it is in the spirit that this book is written.
”
”
Kathryn Schulz (Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error)
“
This time I would choose to err on the side of illogic. I had to trust intuition, and plunge as I had never plunged before, with blind faith.
”
”
Dean Koontz (Forever Odd (Odd Thomas, #2))
“
It was great seeing Annie again. I realised what a terrific person she was and how fun it was just knowing her. And I thought of that old joke, you know. The guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, my brother's crazy. He thinks he's a chicken." and the doctor says, "well, why don't you turn him in?" and the guy says, "I would, but o need the eggs."
Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships. You know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd and, but, err, I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.
”
”
Woody Allen (Annie Hall: Screenplay)
“
Mr. Grace sounded like a very small child, helpless, hopeless. I had made him fuck himself with his own big tool, like one of those weird experiences you read about in the Penthouse Forum. I had taken off his witch doctor's mask and made him human. But I didn't hold it against him. To err is only human, but it's divine to forgive. I believe that sincerely.
”
”
Richard Bachman (Rage)
“
One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“
It is hard to see why we should not turn round and mistrust this very mistrust. Should we not be concerned as to whether this fear of error is not just the error itself?
”
”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
“
To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.
”
”
James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)
“
All our knowledge hast its origins in our perceptions … In nature there is no effect without a cause … Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments … Science is the observation of things possible, whether present or past; prescience is the knowledge of things which may come to pass.
”
”
Leonardo da Vinci
“
As a general principle, people feel more responsible for their actions than they do for their inactions. If we are going to err at something, we would rather err by failing to act.
”
”
Joseph T. Hallinan (Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average)
“
To err is human, to forgive is divine.
”
”
Jo Nesbø (The Son)
“
Mr. Linton?"
"Yes, Sir?"
"You do know what I would do if you ever lied to me, don't you?"
"Err... no?"
"Good. Keep wondering.
”
”
Robert Thier (Silence Breaking (Storm and Silence, #4))
“
Err on the side of awesome.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson
“
Whence we may draw the general axiom, which never or rarely errs, that he who is the cause of another’s greatness is himself undone, since he must work either by address or force, each of which excites distrust in the person raised to power.
”
”
Niccolò Machiavelli (The Prince)
“
If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.
”
”
Thomas Jefferson
“
Err in the direction of kindness.
”
”
George Saunders
“
When in doubt as to what you should do, err on the side of 'giving.
”
”
Tony Cleaver (A Chain of Flames)
“
Man of an hard heart! Hear me, Proud, Stern, and Cruel! You could have saved me; you could have restored me to happiness and virtue, but would not! You are the destroyer of my Soul; You are my Murderer, and on you fall the curse of my death and my unborn Infant’s! Insolent in your yet-unshaken virtue, you disdained the prayers of a Penitent; But God will show mercy, though you show none. And where is the merit of your boasted virtue? What temptations have you vanquished? Coward! you have fled from it, not opposed seduction. But the day of Trial will arrive! Oh! then when you yield to impetuous passions! when you feel that Man is weak, and born to err; When shuddering you look back upon your crimes, and solicit with terror the mercy of your God, Oh! in that fearful moment think upon me! Think upon your Cruelty! Think upon Agnes, and despair of pardon!
”
”
Matthew Gregory Lewis (The Monk)
“
Even a man who makes the most modest pretensions to integrity must know that a theologian, a priest, a pope of today not only errs when he speaks, but actually lies—and that he no longer escapes blame for his lie through “innocence” or “ignorance.” The priest knows, as every one knows, that there is no longer any “God,
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ)
“
As our God Most High fights, we flourish. As err his people flourish, our God strikes the killing blow. The battles in heaven are seen on earth, and the battles of earth do not escape the notice of heaven. We flourish when we are one with each other and with heaven's purpose.
”
”
Lisa Bevere (Girls with Swords: How to Carry Your Cross Like a Hero)
“
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
”
”
Brené Brown (Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.)
“
All things pass in the end, even the worst melancholy. I opened my dresser and pulled out the lava box that held my button. My eyes glazed at the sight of it, and this time I felt my spirit rise up to meet my will. I would not give up. I would err on the side of audacity. That was what I'd always done.
”
”
Sue Monk Kidd (The Invention of Wings)
“
So you shun me? - you shut yourself up and grieve alone! I would rather you had come and upbraided me with vehemence. You are passionate: I expected a scene of some kind. I was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief. But I err: you have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose, then, that your heart has been weeping blood?
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Consider me an open book" dev said. "Mi casa es su casa." Dev crinkled his nose and smelled the air. "Err, mi nose es su nose.
”
”
Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Taken by Storm (Raised by Wolves, #3))
“
To a misogynist: To err is woman.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
I was somebody's boyfriend now. This would mean a lot of trial and error. But she was who I wanted to try and err with.
”
”
Rob Sheffield (Talking to Girls About Duran Duran)
“
It costs you nothing to err on the side of "care".
”
”
Lindy West (The Witches Are Coming)
“
She hands me her phone and points to a post on my timeline from Yale University: To err is human @BronwynRojas. We look forward to receiving your application.
”
”
Karen M. McManus (One of Us Is Lying (One of Us is Lying, #1))
“
To err his human, to stroll is Parisian.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
So often, children are punished for being human. Children are not allowed to have grumpy moods, bad days, disrespectful tones, or bad attitudes, yet we adults have them all the time! We think if we don't nip it in the bud, it will escalate and we will lose control. Let go of that unfounded fear and give your child permission to be human. We all have days like that. None of us are perfect, and we must stop holding our children to a higher standard of perfection than we can attain ourselves. All of the punishments you could throw at them will not stamp out their humanity, for to err is human, and we all do it sometimes.
”
”
Rebecca Eanes (The Newbie's Guide to Positive Parenting)
“
the only difference between a wise man and a fool was in the magnitude of his mistakes. To err was human, and the smarter and more powerful you were, the greater the scope of your screwup.
”
”
Tom Clancy (Red Rabbit (Jack Ryan, #2))
“
One will seem to promote virtue better by using encouragement and persuasion of speech than law and necessity. For it is likely that he who is held back from wrongdoing by law will err in secret but that he who is urged to what he should by persuasion will do nothing wrong either in secret or openly. Therefore he who acts rightly from understanding and knowledge proves to be at the same time courageous and right-minded.
”
”
Democritus
“
How can one set these opposite states in harmony? There is only one way: through giving oneself completely. How does one give oneself? By forgetting the traumas of the past, and by not forming expectations about the future - in other words, the orgasm. How can one do this? Very simply: by not being afraid to err.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (Warrior of the Light)
“
He went on to say that conclusions arrived at through reasoning had very little or no influence in altering the course of our lives. Hence, the countless examples of people who have the clearest convictions and yet act diametrically against them time and time again, and have as the only explanation for their behavior the idea that to err is human.
”
”
Carlos Castaneda (The Fire from Within)
“
To err is human; to forgive, divine
”
”
Alexander Pope
“
Many often err and accomplish little or nothing because they try to become learned rather than to live well.
”
”
Bernard of Clairvaux (10 Jewels of Christian Mysticism: A Selection of Western Tradition Primary Texts)
“
How came the people to err? How happens it that, when seeking liberty and equality, they fell back into privilege and slavery? Always through copying the ancient régime.
”
”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (What Is Property?)
“
not only do all human beings err, but they err frequently and in predictable, patterned ways.
”
”
Atul Gawande (Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science)
“
Nor is the people's judgment always true:
The most may err as grossly as the few.
”
”
John Dryden (Absalom and Achitophel)
“
So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it.
”
”
Herman Melville (Bartleby the Scrivener)
“
I study the chessboard and concede defeat.
"You can gain yourself in five moves" says the Colonel. "Worth fighting to the end. In five moves your opponent can err. No war is won or lost until the final battle is over.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World)
“
Hello, IT... Have you tried turning it off and on again?... OK, well, the button on the side. Is it glowing?... Yeah, you need to turn it on.... Err, the button turns it on.... Yeah, you do know how a button works, don't you?... No, not on clothes... I'm sorry, are you from the past?
”
”
Graham Linehan
“
There is nothing exceptional about today, except that today can be a day of new beginnings, of crossing lines in the sand, of deciding that you are sick of prison, and you want freedom.
”
”
Mike Erre
“
This is folly, Tyrion,' declared Lord Tywin. 'Speak to the matter at hand. You are not on trial for being a dwarf.
'That is where you err, my lord. I have been on trial for being a dwarf my entire life.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
“
To be a saint is to be an exception; to be a true man is the rule. Err, fail, sin if you must, but be upright. To sin as little as possible is the law for men; to sin not at all is a dream for angels. All earthly things are subject to sin; if is like the force of gravity.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
My son, you've seen the temporary fire
and the eternal fire; you have reached
the place past which my powers cannot see.
I've brought you here through intellect and art;
from now on, let your pleasure be your guide;
you're past the steep and past the narrow paths.
Look at the sun that shines upon your brow;
look at the grasses, flowers, and the shrubs
born here, spontaneously, of the earth.
Among them, you can rest or walk until
the coming of the glad and lovely eyes--
those eyes that weeping, sent me to your side.
Await no further word or sign from me:
your will is free, erect, and whole-- to act
against that will would be to err: therefore
I crown and miter you over yourself
”
”
Dante Alighieri (The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Volume 2: Purgatorio)
“
Your life," she corrected. "It's the nature of existence. To err is human. We screw up, and then screw up some more.
”
”
Amanda Sellet (By the Book)
“
When ordinary human beings err, it is sad, but when leaders do, it haunts us for generations.
”
”
Gurcharan Das (India Unbound)
“
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.
”
”
Alekandr I. Solzhenitsyn
“
When it comes to screening, a doctor who says ‘Let’s err on the side of caution,’ may actually err on the side of reckless ignorance and grave harm.
”
”
Otis Webb Brawley (How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America)
“
That which is original creates a new origin. That which is original, by definition, must stray off the previously worn paths. It must wander; it must err.
”
”
Blake Charlton
“
If honor were reserved only for those who never err, none of us would be worthy," Rain answered.
”
”
C.L. Wilson (Lady of Light and Shadows (Tairen Soul, #2))
“
My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion. So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach.
”
”
Herman Melville (Bartleby the Scrivener)
“
Never was the old conventional maxim, that Nature cannot err, more flatly contradicted - never was the fair promise of a lovely figure more strangely and startingly belied by the face and head that crowned it. The lady's complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her upper lip was almost a moustache.
”
”
Wilkie Collins (The Woman in White)
“
The idea that a person is at fault when something goes wrong is deeply entrenched in society. That’s why we blame others and even ourselves. Unfortunately, the idea that a person is at fault is imbedded in the legal system. When major accidents occur, official courts of inquiry are set up to assess the blame. More and more often the blame is attributed to “human error.” The person involved can be fined, punished, or fired. Maybe training procedures are revised. The law rests comfortably. But in my experience, human error usually is a result of poor design: it should be called system error. Humans err continually; it is an intrinsic part of our nature. System design should take this into account. Pinning the blame on the person may be a comfortable way to proceed, but why was the system ever designed so that a single act by a single person could cause calamity? Worse, blaming the person without fixing the root, underlying cause does not fix the problem: the same error is likely to be repeated by someone else.
”
”
Donald A. Norman (The Design of Everyday Things)
“
I choose to suppress the initial categories I want to put people in - rich, poor, together, not together, druggie, yuppie, rocker, loser, winner, cool, uncool. I choose to remember that I don't know their struggle or their pain. I choose to err on the side of grace because someday I'll stand before God, and I pray He'll err on the side of grace with me.
”
”
Jud Wilhite (Stripped: Uncensored Grace on the Streets of Vegas)
“
I said, "And then, when those all-American Joes get out and some of them fucking turn into monsters? What happens then?"
Amy said, "Then we will once again err on the side of not letting people be murdered. You take the choice in front of you, and then you keep picking the non-murder choices as long as you can.
”
”
David Wong (This Book Is Full of Spiders (John Dies at the End, #2))
“
To err is human, whether we are religious, atheist, or agnostic.
”
”
Newton Lee (The Transhumanism Handbook)
“
The heart is always right. It never errs. The heart never errs. The heart never ever errs.
”
”
Karl Ove Knausgaard (Min kamp 5 (Min kamp, #5))
“
Remember, everyone has weaknesses, and there are at least two sides to every story. If you err in judgment, be sure you err on the side of love and mercy.”7
”
”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith)
“
Anger, [Evagrius] wrote, is given to us by God to help us confront true evil. We err when we use it casually, against other people, to gratify our own desires for power or control.
”
”
Kathleen Norris (The Cloister Walk)
“
The mistakes of doctors are innumerable. They err as a rule out of optimism as to the treatment, and pessimism as to the outcome.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Sodom and Gomorrah)
“
For us to err, with the Bible in our hands, is the effect of pride, sloth, and carelessness.
”
”
Matthew Henry
“
Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.
”
”
William Cowper
“
Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely? That
”
”
Plato (The Republic)
“
To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.
”
”
Hubert H. Humphrey
“
You’re not likely to err by practicing too much of the cross.
”
”
Alexander Whyte (Bunyan characters in the Pilgrim's progress)
“
To err is to be human, irrational or not. And while some mistakes are bigger than others, if we learn from them, we become better people. Even if we have spiders in our brains.
”
”
T.J. Klune (The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1))
“
May we always have the choice to err on the side of mercy,” I said, lifting my wine.
”
”
T. Kingfisher (What Feasts at Night (Sworn Soldier, #2))
“
For everyone who's afraid of making mistakes.
To err is to be human. Give yourself some grace.
”
”
Emily McIntire (Crossed (Never After, #5))
“
To err once is human; to err twice is idiotic.
”
”
Nita Prose (The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid, #2))
“
Better a thousand times err on the side of over-readiness to fight, than to err on the side of tame submission to injury, or cold-blooded indifference to the misery of the oppressed.
”
”
Edmund Morris (The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Theodore Roosevelt, #1))
“
To err is to wander, and wandering is the way we discover the world; and, lost in thought, it is also the way we discover ourselves. Being right might be gratifying, but in the end it is static, a mere statement. Being wrong is hard and humbling, and sometimes even dangerous, but in the end it is a journey, and a story.
”
”
Kathryn Schulz (Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error)
“
You know,” he said, “one of the things you learn when you get old like me is that sometimes, a new situation will come along, and you’ll have no idea what to do. There’s no rule book that tells you how to act in every given situation in life, you know? So what I always say is that it’s always better to err on the side of kindness. That’s the secret. If you don’t know what to do, just be kind. You can’t go wrong.
”
”
R.J. Palacio (Wonder)
“
Ah! Indeed but! But he consumes too much spice, eats it like candy. Look at his eyes! He might have come directly from the Arrakeen labor pool. Efficient, Piter, but he's still emotional and prone to passionate outbursts. Efficient, Piter, but he still can err.
-Baron Vladimir
”
”
Frank Herbert (Dune (Dune #1))
“
I will be merciful, and I will believe in people. If I am to err, I will err on the side of mercy. I will give people the benefit of the doubt. I will bend, but not break, in order to give people the opportunity to grow and develop.
”
”
David K. Bernard (Growing a Church: Seven Apostolic Principles)
“
To err is human, to admit it is divine. It is absolutely human to commit mistakes. To admit, without any guilt—you are simply admitting your humanity by admitting your mistakes—brings a transformation in your being. Something of the divine, something of the beyond starts opening up.
”
”
Osho (Mindfulness in the Modern World: How Do I Make Meditation Part of Everyday Life? (Osho Life Essentials))
“
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.… —Theodore Roosevelt
”
”
Brené Brown (Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead)
“
Dionysus snorted. “Oh, I didn’t want you particularly. Any of you silly heroes would do. That Annie girl—”
“Annabeth.”
“The point is,” he said, “I pulled you into party time to deliver a warning. We are in danger.”
“Gee,” I said. “Never would’ve figured that out. Thanks.”
He glared at me and momentarily forgot his game. Pac-Man got eaten by the red ghost dude. “Erre es korakas, Blinky!” Dionysus cursed. “I will have your soul!”
“Um, he’s a video game character,” I said.
“That’s no excuse! And you’re ruining my game, Jorgenson!”
“Jackson.”
“Whichever!
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5))
“
There is no young creature, my Lord, who so greatly wants, or so earnestly wishes for, the advice and assistance of her friends, as I do: I am new to the world, and unused to acting for myself;-my intentions are never willfully blameable, yet I err perpetually!
”
”
Frances Burney (Evelina)
“
Men should friendly confer together, and offer one another their gifts and knowledge in love, and try things one with another, and hold that which is best, and not so stand in their own opinion as if they could not err.
”
”
Jakob Böhme
“
Let everyone beware lest he presume to take it upon himself to criticize and condemn other men's faults without his having been truly touched within by the Holy Spirit in his work. Otherwise he may very easily err in his judgments. Beware therefore. Judge yourself as seems right to you between yourself and your God, and let other men alone.
”
”
Ira Progoff (The Cloud of Unknowing)
“
If there is a person, place, or thing with which you do not agree, you attack it. If there is a religion that goes against yours, you make it wrong. If there is a thought that contradicts yours, you ridicule it. If there is an idea other than yours, you reject it. In this you err, for you create only half a universe. And you cannot even understand your half when you have rejected out of hand the other.
”
”
Neale Donald Walsch (The Complete Conversations with God)
“
We humans are prone to err, and to err systematically, outrageously, and with utter confidence. We are also prone to hold our mistaken notions dear, protecting and nourishing them like our own children. We defend them at great cost. We surround ourselves with safe people, people who will appreciate our cherished views. We avoid those who suggest that our exalted ideas, our little emperors, have no clothes.
”
”
Valerie Tarico (Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light)
“
To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on!
”
”
James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)
“
They tell me to be quiet
When I’d rather cause a riot
And have everyone screaming
Out their eccentric meaning.
”
”
Initially NO (Err and Grr)
“
A guilty conscience, urged with the thought
Of former evils, easily cannot err.
”
”
Thomas Kyd (The Spanish Tragedy)
“
Good nature and good sense must ever join;
To err is human; to forgive, divine.
”
”
Alexander Pope (An Essay On Criticism)
“
Let it be a settled principle in our minds, in reading the Bible, that Christ is the central sun of the whole book. So long as we keep Him in view, we shall never greatly err in our search for spiritual knowledge. Once losing sight of Christ, we shall find the whole Bible dark and full of difficulty.
”
”
J.C. Ryle (The Gospel of Luke)
“
I like them to talk nonsense. That's man's one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth. I am a man because I err! You can never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
With all dear Emma's little faults, she is an excellent creature. Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend? No, no; she has qualities which may be trusted; she will never lead any one really wrong; she will make no lasting blunder; where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred times.
”
”
Jane Austen (Emma)
“
As Mozart himself wrote to a friend, “People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times.
”
”
Twyla Tharp (The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life (Learn In and Use It for Life))
“
Intelligent and educated people are less likely to learn from their mistakes, for instance, or take advice from others. And when they do err, they are better able to build elaborate arguments to justify their reasoning, meaning that they become more and more dogmatic in their views. Worst still, they appear to have a bigger "bias blind spot," meaning they are less able to recognize the holes in their logic.
”
”
David Robson (The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes)
“
Besides, she had just reached the autumnal period of womanhood, in which reflection is combined with tenderness, in which the beginning of maturity colours the face with a more intense flame, when strength of feeling mingles with experience of life, and when, having completely expanded, the entire being overflows with a richness in unison with its beauty. Never had she possessed more sweetness, more leniency. Secure in the thought that she would not err, she abandoned herself to a sentiment which seemed to her justified by her sorrows. And, moreover, it was so innocent and fresh! What an abyss lay between the coarseness of Arnoux and the adoration of Frederick!
”
”
Gustave Flaubert (Sentimental Education)
“
Mais parfois il y a quelque chose de fébrile, de morbide, dans l’allure du flâneur. Il erre dans la ville, semble être à la recherche d’une chimère. Sa destination est confuse ou impossible à atteindre. Son pas se fait nerveux, exaspéré : on dirait un homme en fuite. Le flâneur fuit la banalité de la vie ordinaire. Il fuit les souvenirs et les spectres de son intériorité.
”
”
Federico Castigliano (Flâneur: L'art de vagabonder dans Paris (French Edition))
“
And was it not perhaps more childlike and human to lead a Goldmund-life, more courageous, more noble perhaps in the end to abandon oneself to the cruel stream of reality, to chaos, to commit sins and accept their bitter consequences rather than live a clean life with washed hands outside the world, laying out a lonely harmonious thought-garden, strolling sinlessly among one's sheltered flower beds. Perhaps it was harder, braver and nobler to wander through forests and along the highways with torn shoes, to suffer sun and rain, hunger and need, to play with the joys of the senses and pay for them with suffering.
At any rate, Goldmund had shown him that a man destined for high things can dip into the lowest depths of the bloody, drunken chaos of life, and soil himself with much dust and blood, without becoming small and common, without killing the divine spark within himself, that he can err through the thickest darkness without extinguishing the divine light and the creative force inside the shrine of his soul.
”
”
Hermann Hesse
“
I hear the philosophers opposing it and saying 'tis a miserable thing for a man to be foolish, to err, mistake, and know nothing truly. Nay rather, this is to be a man. And why they should call it miserable, I see no reason; forasmuch as we are so born, so bred, so instructed, nay such is the common condition of us all.
”
”
Erasmus (Praise of Folly)
“
„Aleksandra egyrészt agyrázkódást szenvedett, másrészt sokkot kapott. Továbbá nem szabad megfeledkeznünk a hipotermiáról sem. Egy egészséges, ruhátlan ember a saját testhőmérsékletét még nulla fok körüli hőmérsékleten is képes egy órán át tartani. Utánanéztem, a gyilkosság éjszakáján nyolc fok volt. Aleksandra valószínűleg órákat bolyongott a szabad ég alatt, a tünetei legalábbis erre engednek következtetni. Tíz fok alatti levegőhőmérsékleten már felléphet hipotermia. Ilyenkor a szívverés lelassul, a légzés ritkul, és felületessé válik. A szervezet hőszabályozása kimerül, a testhőmérséklet folyamatosan csökken. Bágyadtság, álmosság, érzékcsalódás jelentkezik. A vérnyomás leesik. Szívritmuszavar lép fel. A bőr erei összehúzódnak, a kéz- és lábujjak, a fül, orr, az ajkak elkékülnek, elszürkülnek. Az áldozat beszéde érthetetlen lesz, tántorog, a viselkedése zavarttá, ésszerűtlenné válik.
”
”
Mercèdes Rheinberger (Ártatlan vagyok)
“
I believe - I daily find it proved - that we can get nothing in this world worth keeping, not so much as a principle or a conviction, except out of purifying flame, or through strengthening peril. We err; we fall; we are humbled - then we walk more carefully. We greedily eat and drink poison out of the gilded cup of vice, or from the beggar's wallet of avarice; we are sickened, degraded; everything good in us rebels against us; our souls rise bitterly indignant against our bodies; there is a period of civil war; if the soul has strength, it conquers and rules thereafter.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë
“
So you felt bad for him? Your abuser?”
“Relationships are complex,” Evelyn says. “People are messy, and love can be ugly. I’m inclined to always err on the side of compassion.”
“You’re saying you had compassion for what he was going through?”
“I’m saying you should have a little compassion for how complicated it must have been for me.
”
”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo)
“
As it ferments, kraut whispers alchemical secrets. In two days, it will smell as agreeable as an old pillow still warm from night’s use. In five days it will smell like a horse run to foam. The odor will then lessen as the vegetable begins its tart transformation. It will be good to eat in two weeks, but at five weeks it will reach the zenith of its power, its taste a violin bow drawn across the tongue. After six weeks it will err slowly toward slime. Like hams and men, it gets better with age only to a point.
”
”
Eli Brown (Cinnamon and Gunpowder)
“
I am tired of being the elder sister, were the words within. When I expressed my objection for the first time today, Father gave me such a look of disappointment that I felt my entire world tremble. Why does he only see my disobedience, and not my desperate love for him? To live near home, to be close enough to care for my parents in their old age—I wish I could cry, I wish I could fall apart as little sister often does, and still be loved and understood. But I cannot. My parents do not love me when I am weak, when I fail them, when I err. Who am I, if I am not the perfect daughter?
”
”
June Hur (A Crane Among Wolves)
“
We are all creatures of the stars and their forces, they make us, we make them, we are part of a dance from which we by no means and not ever may consider ourselves separate. But when the Gods explode, or err, or dissolve into flying clouds of gas, or shrink, or expand, or whatever else their fates might demand, then the minuscule items of their substance may in their small ways express—not protest, which of course is inappropriate to their station in life—but an acknowledgement of the existence of irony: yes, they may sometimes allow themselves—always with respect—the mildest possible grimace of irony.
”
”
Doris Lessing (Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta (Canopus in Argos, #1))
“
Ez így van; az ember mániákusan, veszendően, a pokol és halál határán vágyódik valaki után, keresi, kergeti, hiába és élete elsorvad a nosztalgiában. Amióta Rómában volt, állandóan ezt a pillanatot várta, erre készült, és már-már azt hitte, hogy sosem fog Évával beszélni. És azután egyszerre megjelenik, és akkor az ember olcsó pizsamáját a mellén összeszorítja, szégyelli, hogy kócos, borotválatlan, mérhetetlenül szégyelli lakását, és legjobb szeretné, ha nem lenne ott az, aki után kimondhatatlanul vágyódott.
”
”
Antal Szerb (Utas És Holdvilág (Hungarian Edition))
“
... you think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That's man's one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing too, in its way; but we can't even make mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I'll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one's way is better than to go right in someone else's.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
“
Most errors consist only in our not rightly applying names to things. For when someone says that the lines which are drawn from the center of a circle to its circumference are unequal, he surely understands (then at least) by a circle something different from what mathematicians understand. Similarly, when men err in calculating they have certain numbers in their mind and different ones on the paper. So if you consider what they have in mind, they really do not err, though they seem to err because we think they have in their mind the numbers which are on the paper. If this were not so, we would not believe that they were erring, just as I did not believe that he was erring whom I recently heard cry out that his courtyard had flown into his neighbor's hen, because what he had in mind seemed sufficiently clear to me.
And most controversies have arisen from this, that men do not rightly explain their own mind, or interpret the mind of the other man badly. For really, when they contradict one another most vehemently, they either have the same thoughts, or they are thinking of different things, so that what they think are errors and absurdities in the other are not.
”
”
Baruch Spinoza (Ethics)
“
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
”
”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“
The human brain works by identifying patterns. It uses information from the past to understand what is happening in the present and to anticipate the future. This strategy works elegantly in most situations. But we inevitably see patterns where they don’t exist. In other words, we are slow to recognize exceptions. There is also the peer-pressure factor. All of us have been in situations that looked ominous, and they almost always turn out to be innocuous. If we behave otherwise, we risk social embarrassment by overreacting. So we err on the side of underreacting.
”
”
Amanda Ripley (The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why)
“
I extended my hand to Chase, "Eveline Sophia Fallon, daughter of Brennan and Mina, sister of Gaurdian and supposedly the One." His chuckle was low and sexy and caused a tremor to course through me. I fought to keep my hand steady so he wouldn't see the way he affected me. Liam stiffened beside me but for once said nothing.
Chase inclined his head haughtily, playing along. "Chase Andrew Alexander err...Smith, at least for now. Son of Gabriel, elder brother of Guardian and Jennavieve. No relation to the, 'supposed' One. Thank goodness," he grinned wickedly then bowed slightly.
”
”
Heather Self (The One (The Portal Trilogy, #1))
“
I suppose I am talking about just that: the ambiguity of belonging to a generation distrustful of political highs, the historical irrelevancy of growing up convinced that the heart of darkness lay not in some error of social organization but in man's own blood. If man was bound to err, then any social organization was bound to be in error. It was a premise which still seems to me accurate enough, but one which robbed us early of a certain capacity for surprise.
”
”
Joan Didion
“
A study led by the Harvard researcher Nicholas Christakis asked the doctors of almost five hundred terminally ill patients to estimate how long they thought their patient would survive, and then followed the patients. Sixty-three per cent of doctors overestimated survival time. Just seventeen per cent underestimated it. The average estimate was five hundred and thirty per cent too high. And, the better the doctors knew their patients, the more likely they were to err.
”
”
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End)
“
Nemrég, az olimpia mámorában, mindenki, politikus, sportoló, közíró, szinte ugyanazokkal a szavakkal nyilatkozta, hogy milyen jó most, ennyi arany után magyarnak lenni, és hogy eztán ez már így is marad.
Nem tudom. Erre még nem gondoltam, hogy jó volna. Szerintem nem olyan jó magyarnak lenni. Sohase is volt jó; inkább elkerülhetetlen. De azért várjuk ki a végét.
”
”
Péter Esterházy (A halacska csodálatos élete)
“
Know then thyself; presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
And too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err.
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much.
”
”
Alexander Pope (An Essay on Man & Satires)
“
If we do not love the Bible, we certainly do not love the God who gave it to us; but if we do love God, then no other book in the entire world will be comparable in our minds. When God speaks, it is the delight of our ears to hear what he says. In other books there is some truth and some error. Apart from the Bible, the best book ever written has mistakes in it. It is not possible for fallible men to write infallible books. Somehow or other we either say more than is true or less than is true. The most skillful writer does not always keep along that hairline of truth that is more difficult to tread than a razor's edge. But Scripture never errs.
”
”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
“
Prepare for every negotiation... 1) Focus on Outcomes. What is it that you want to walk away with? Being as specific as possible also increases the likelihood of negotiation success. 2) Support your desired outcome with data that points to its reasonableness. 3) Writing down your key points in advance - and practicing them - enables you to stay focused on what's most important and avoid going off on tangents. 4) Err on the side of asking for more, rather than less [of what you really want]. 5) Be willing to walk away.
”
”
Lois P. Frankel (Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers)
“
I do think it is their husbands’ faults if wives do fall: say that they slack their duties and pour our treasures into foreign laps, or else break out in peevish jealousies, throwing restraint upon us, or say they strike us, or scant our former having in despite. Why, we have galls; and though we have some grace, yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know their wives have sense like them: they see and smell and have their palates both for sweet and sour, as husbands have. What is it that they do when they change us for others? Is it sport? I think it is. And doth affection breed it? I think it doth. Is’t frailty that thus errs? It is so too. And have not we affections, desires for sport, and frailty, as men have? Then let them use us well, else let them know the ills we do their ills instruct us so.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Othello)
“
For both men and women, Good Men can be somewhat disturbing to be around because they usually do not act in ways associated with typical men; they listen more than they talk; they self-reflect on their behavior and motives, they actively educate themselves about women’s reality by seeking out women’s culture and listening to women…. They avoid using women for vicarious emotional expression…. When they err—and they do err—they look to women for guidance, and receive criticism with gratitude. They practice enduring uncertainty while waiting for a new way of being to reveal previously unconsidered alternatives to controlling and abusive behavior. They intervene in other men’s misogynist behavior, even when women are not present, and they work hard to recognize and challenge their own. Perhaps most amazingly, Good Men perceive the value of a feminist practice for themselves, and they advocate it not because it’s politically correct, or because they want women to like them, or even because they want women to have equality, but because they understand that male privilege prevents them not only from becoming whole, authentic human beings but also from knowing the truth about the world…. They offer proof that men can change.
”
”
bell hooks (The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love)
“
Anthony Bridgerton hátradőlt bőr karosszékében, elgondolkodva kortyolta a whiskyt; lötykölte, körbe áramoltatta a pohárban, majd megszólalt: - Arra gondoltam, hogy megnősülök.
Benedict Bridgerton, aki éppen azon szokását gyakorolta, amit anyja annyira megvetett, nevezetesen székét két hátsó lábára billentve kissé kapatosan hintázott, erre lehuppant.
Colin Bridgerton félrenyelt.
Colin szerencséjére Benedict éppen időben nyerte vissza egyensúlyát, hogy erőteljesen hátba verje, mire öccse egy zöld olívabogyót állított asztalt átívelő röppályára.
Kis híján fülön találta Anthonyt.
Anthony megjegyzés nélkül hagyta e méltatlanságot. Nagyon jól tudta, hogy hirtelen bejelentése a meglepetés erejével hatott.
”
”
Julia Quinn (The Viscount Who Loved Me (Bridgertons, #2))
“
I bless the Lord that my heart is at that point, that if any man can lay any thing to my charge, either in doctrine or in practice, in this particular, that can be proved error or heresy, I am willing to disown it, even in the very market-place; but if it be truth, then to stand to it to the last drop of my blood. And, Sir, said I, you ought to commend me for so doing. To err and to be a heretic are two things; I am no heretic, because I will not stand refractorily to defend any one thing that is contrary to the Word. Prove any thing which I hold to be an error, and I will recant it.
”
”
John Bunyan (Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners)
“
How these papers have been placed in sequence will be made manifest in the reading of them. All needless matters have been eliminated, so that a history almost at variance with the possibilities of later-day belief may stand forth as simple fact. There is throughout no statement of past things wherein memory may err, for all the records chosen are exactly contemporary, given from the standpoints and within the range of knowledge of those who made them.
”
”
Bram Stoker (Dracula)
“
The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of the Truth, but rather the pursuit of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectibility is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent, and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand. —GOTTHOLD LESSING, ANTI-GOEZE (1778)
”
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Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything)
“
Valószínűleg foglalkoztat a kérdés, hogy mi lesz veled. Erre könnyű a válaszolni. Ugyanaz történik majd veled, mint minden egyes emberrel, aki valaha élt. Meg fogsz halni. Mind meghalunk. Ez van.
Hogy mi történik velünk, amikor meghalunk? Nos, ebben sincs konszenzus. De minden jel arra utal, hogy semmi sem történik. Egyszerűen csak meghalunk, az agyunk leáll, és aztán már nem leszünk itt, hogy mindenféle keresztkérdéseket tegyünk fel. Ja, hogy ezzel kapcsolatban is hallottál mindenféle sztorit? hogy van egy „mennyország” nevű csodálatos hely, ahol nincs több fájdalom és halál, és örökké élhetünk az állandó boldogság állapotában? Ez is teljes kamu. Mint az az Isten-sztori. Nincs bizonyíték a mennyország létezésére, és soha nem is volt. Ezt is csak kitaláltuk. Ezt hívják vágybeteljesítő gondolkodásnak. Mostantól tehát úgy kell élned az életedet, hogy tudod: egy nap meghalsz, és örökre eltűnsz.
Bocs.
”
”
Ernest Cline (Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1))
“
Even a man who makes the most modest pretensions to integrity must know that a theologian, a priest, a pope of today not only errs when he speaks, but actually lies— and that he no longer escapes blame for his lie through “innocence” or “ignorance.” The priest knows, as every one knows, that there is no longer any “God,” or any “sinner,” or any “Saviour”— that “free will” and the “moral order of the world” are lies —: serious reflection, the profound self-conquest of the spirit, allow no man to pretend that he does not know it. . . . All the ideas of the church are now recognized for what they are — as the worst counterfeits in existence, invented to debase nature and all natural values; the priest himself is seen as he actually is — as the most dangerous form of parasite, as the venomous spider of creation. . . . We know, our conscience now knows — just what the real value of all those sinister inventions of priest and church has been and what ends they have served, with their debasement of humanity to a state of self-pollution, the very sight of which excites loathing — the concepts “the other world,” “the last judgment,” “the immortality of the soul,” the “soul” itself: they are all merely so many instruments of torture, systems of cruelty, whereby the priest becomes master and remains master. . . .
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ)
“
In order that the concept of substance could originate--which is indispensable for logic although in the strictest sense nothing real corresponds to it--it was likewise necessary that for a long time one did not see or perceive the changes in things. The beings that did not see so precisely had an advantage over those who saw everything "in flux." At bottom, every high degree of caution in making inferences and every skeptical tendency constitute a great danger for life. No living beings would have survived if the opposite tendency--to affirm rather than suspend judgment, to err and make up things rather than wait, to assent rather than negate, to pass judgment rather than be just-- had not been bred to the point where it became extraordinarily strong.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“
Granted it is easy at least comparatively to find pleasure in error when there's nothing at stake. But that can't be the whole story since all of us have been known to throw tantrums over totally trivial mistakes. What makes illusions different is that for the most part we enter in them by consent. We might not know exactly how we are going to err but we know that the error is coming and we say yes to the experience anyways.
In a sense much the same thing could be said of life in general. We can't know where your next error lurks or what form it will take but we can be very sure that it is waiting for us. With illusions we look forward to this encounter since whatever minor price we paid in pride is handily outweighed by curiosity at first and by pleasure afterward. The same will not always true when we venture past these simple perceptual failures to more complex and consequential mistakes But nor is willing the embrace of error always beyond us. In fact this might be the most important thing that illusions can teach us: that is is possible at least some of the time to find in being wrong a deeper satisfaction then we would have found being right.
”
”
Kathryn Schulz (Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error)
“
Benefits Now—Costs Later We have seen that predictable problems arise when people must make decisions that test their capacity for self-control. Many choices in life, such as whether to wear a blue shirt or a white one, lack important self-control elements. Self-control issues are most likely to arise when choices and their consequences are separated in time. At one extreme are what might be called investment goods, such as exercise, flossing, and dieting. For these goods the costs are borne immediately, but the benefits are delayed. For investment goods, most people err on the side of doing too little. Although there are some exercise nuts and flossing freaks, it seems safe to say that not many people are resolving on New Year’s Eve to floss less next year and to stop using the exercise bike so much. At the other extreme are what might be called sinful goods: smoking, alcohol, and jumbo chocolate doughnuts are in this category. We get the pleasure now and suffer the consequences later. Again we can use the New Year’s resolution test: how many people vow to smoke more cigarettes, drink more martinis, or have more chocolate donuts in the morning next year? Both investment goods and sinful goods are prime candidates for nudges. Most (nonanorexic) people do not need any special encouragement to eat another brownie, but they could use some help exercising more.
”
”
Richard H. Thaler (Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness)
“
I am in doubt as to the propriety of making my first meditations in the place above mentioned matter of discourse; for these are so metaphysical, and so uncommon, as not, perhaps, to be acceptable to every one. And yet, that it may be determined whether the foundations that I have laid are sufficiently secure, I find myself in a measure constrained to advert to them. I had long before remarked that, in relation to practice, it is sometimes necessary to adopt, as if above doubt, opinions which we discern to be highly uncertain, as has been already said; but as I then desired to give my attention solely to the search after truth, I thought that a procedure exactly the opposite was called for, and that I ought to reject as absolutely false all opinions in regard to which I could suppose the least ground for doubt, in order to ascertain whether after that there remained aught in my belief that was wholly indubitable. Accordingly, seeing that our senses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us; and because some men err in reasoning, and fall into paralogisms, even on the simplest matters of geometry, I, convinced that I was as open to error as any other, rejected as false all the reasonings I had hitherto taken for demonstrations; and finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am ["cogito ergo sum"], was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search
”
”
René Descartes (Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy)
“
What makes my bed seem hard seeing it is soft?
Or why slips downe the Coverlet so oft?
Although the nights be long, I sleepe not tho,
My sides are sore with tumbling to and fro.
Were Love the cause, it's like I shoulde descry him,
Or lies he close, and shoots where none can spie him?
T'was so, he stroke me with a slender dart,
Tis cruell love turmoyles my captive hart.
Yeelding or striving doe we give him might,
Lets yeeld, a burden easly borne is light.
I saw a brandisht fire increase in strength,
Which being not shakt, I saw it die at length.
Yong oxen newly yokt are beaten more,
Then oxen which have drawne the plow before.
And rough jades mouths with stubburn bits are tome,
But managde horses heads are lightly borne,
Unwilling Lovers, love doth more torment,
Then such as in their bondage feele content.
Loe I confesse, I am thy captive I,
And hold my conquered hands for thee to tie.
What needes thou warre, I sue to thee for grace,
With armes to conquer armlesse men is base,
Yoke VenusDoves, put Mirtle on thy haire,
Vulcan will give thee Chariots rich and faire.
The people thee applauding thou shalte stand,
Guiding the harmelesse Pigeons with thy hand.
Yong men and women, shalt thou lead as thrall,
So will thy triumph seeme magnificall.
I lately cought, will have a new made wound,
And captive like be manacled and bound.
Good meaning, shame, and such as seeke loves wrack
Shall follow thee, their hands tied at their backe.
Thee all shall feare and worship as a King,
Jo, triumphing shall thy people sing.
Smooth speeches, feare and rage shall by thee ride,
Which troopes hath alwayes bin on Cupids side:
Thou with these souldiers conquerest gods and men,
Take these away, where is thy honor then?
Thy mother shall from heaven applaud this show,
And on their faces heapes of Roses strow.
With beautie of thy wings, thy faire haire guilded,
Ride golden Love in Chariots richly builded.
Unlesse I erre, full many shalt thou burne,
And give woundes infinite at everie turne.
In spite of thee, forth will thy arrowes flie,
A scorching flame burnes all the standers by.
So having conquerd Inde, was Bacchus hew,
Thee Pompous birds and him two tygres drew.
Then seeing I grace thy show in following thee,
Forbeare to hurt thy selfe in spoyling mee.
Beholde thy kinsmans Caesars prosperous bandes,
Who gardes the conquered with his conquering hands.
-- ELEGIA 2 (Quodprimo Amore correptus, in triumphum duci se a Cupidine patiatur)
”
”
Christopher Marlowe
“
Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage as would store the world they play’d for. But I do think it is their husbands’ faults If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties And pour our treasures into foreign laps; Or else break out in peevish jealousies, Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us, Or scant our former having in despite; Why, we have galls; and though we have some grace, Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell And have their palates both for sweet and sour, As husbands have. What is it that they do When they change us for others? Is it sport? I think it is: and doth affection breed it? I think it doth: is’t frailty that thus errs? It is so too. And have not we affections, Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have? Then let them use us well: else let them know The ills we do their ills instruct us so.
”
”
William Shakespeare
“
When the post-bailout debate was still at its highest pitch, Jamie Dimon sent Hank Paulson a note with a quote from a speech that President Theodore Roosevelt delivered at the Sorbonne in April 1910 entitled “Citizenship in a Republic.” It reads: It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
”
”
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves)
“
A fáradtság, az éhség, az aggodalom ellenére Maurice Michaud nem érezte túlontúl szerencsétlennek magát. Sajátos gondolkodásmóddal bírt: önmagának nem tulajdonított különösebb jelentőséget; nem volt az a ritka és pótolhatatlan lény a saját szemében, amilyennek ki-ki önmagát látja. Szenvedésben vett sorstársai iránt szánalmat érzett, ám ez tudatos, hideg szánalom volt. Arra gondolt ilyenkor, hogy végeredményben a népességnek ezek a nagy migrációi láthatóan természeti törvényeknek engedelmeskednek. A népeknek nyilván éppúgy szükségük van az időközönkénti tömeges helyváltoztatásra, mint a nyájaknak a legelőváltásra. E gondolatban különös megnyugvást talált. Körülötte az emberek mind azt hitték, hogy a sors különleges módon sújtott le rájuk vagy a nemzedékükre; ő viszont emlékezetébe idézte, hogy mindig is voltak exodusok. Mennyien rogytak már erre a földre (és a világ összes többi földjére) vér és könnyek között, az ellenség elől menekülve, hátrahagyva az égő városokat, a gyerekeket keblükhöz szorítva; e számtalan halottra még soha, senki sem gondolt részvéttel. Utódaik szemében nem volt több jelentőségük, mint a levágott csirkének. Maga előtt látta, amint panaszos árnyaik fölkelnek előtte az úton, felé fordulnak, és a fülébe suttogják:
– Előtted már mi is átéltük ezt. Miért lennél nálunk boldogabb?
”
”
Irène Némirovsky (Suite Française)
“
THE phrase Daring Greatly is from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech “Citizenship in a Republic.” The speech, sometimes referred to as “The Man in the Arena,” was delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on April 23, 1910. This is the passage that made the speech famous: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.…
”
”
Brené Brown (Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead)
“
An inexhaustible capacity to engage in sin is what makes human beings capable of living a virtuous life. To err is human; to seek penance is humankind’s unique act of salvation. Whenever a person fails, it is often their overwhelming sense of anguish that drives them forward to make a second attempt that is far more bighearted than they originally envisioned. The need for redemption drives us to try again despite our backside enduring the terrible weight of our greatest catastrophes. There is no person as magnanimous as a person whom finally encountered tremendous success after previously enduring a tear-filled trail of hardships and repeated setbacks. In an effort to redeem our lost dignity, in an effort to regain self-respect, we find our true selves. By working independently to better ourselves and struggling to fulfill our cherished values, we save ourselves while coincidentally uplifting all of humanity.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
Among us, on the other hand, 'the righteous man lives by faith.' Now, if you take away positive affirmation, you take away faith, for without positive affirmation nothing is believed. And there are truths about things unseen, and unless they are believed, we cannot attain to the happy life, which is nothing less than life eternal. It is a question whether we ought to argue with those who profess themselves ignorant not only about the eternity yet to come but also about their present existence, for they [the Academics] even argue that they do not know what they cannot help knowing. For no one can 'not know' that he himself is alive. If he is not alive, he cannot 'not know' about it or anything else at all, because either to know or to 'not know' implies a living subject. But, in such a case, by not positively affirming that they are alive, the skeptics ward off the appearance of error in themselves, yet they do not make errors simply by showing themselves alive; one cannot err who is not alive. That we live is therefore not only true, but it is altogether certain as well. And there are many things that are thus true and certain concerning which, if we withhold positive assent, this ought not to be regarded as a higher wisdom but actually a sort of dementia.
”
”
Augustine of Hippo (The Augustine Catechism: The Enchiridon on Faith, Hope, and Love)
“
We are committed to involving as many people as possible, as young as possible, as soon as possible. Sometimes too young and too soon! But we intentionally err on the side of too fast rather than too slow. We don’t wait until people feel “prepared” or “fully equipped.” Seriously, when is anyone ever completely prepared for ministry?
Ministry makes people’s faith bigger. If you want to increase someone’s confidence in God, put him in a ministry position before he feels fully equipped.
The messages your environments communicate have the potential to trump your primary message. If you don’t see a mess, if you aren’t bothered by clutter, you need to make sure there is someone around you who does see it and is bothered by it. An uncomfortable or distracting setting can derail ministry before it begins. The sermon begins in the parking lot.
Assign responsibility, not tasks.
At the end of the day, it’s application that makes all the difference. Truth isn’t helpful if no one understands or remembers it.
If you want a church full of biblically educated believers, just teach what the Bible says. If you want to make a difference in your community and possibly the world, give people handles, next steps, and specific applications. Challenge them to do something. As we’ve all seen, it’s not safe to assume that people automatically know what to do with what they’ve been taught. They need specific direction. This is hard. This requires an extra step in preparation. But this is how you grow people.
Your current template is perfectly designed to produce the results you are currently getting.
We must remove every possible obstacle from the path of the disinterested, suspicious, here-against-my-will, would-rather-be-somewhere-else, unchurched guests. The parking lot, hallways, auditorium, and stage must be obstacle-free zones.
As a preacher, it’s my responsibility to offend people with the gospel. That’s one reason we work so hard not to offend them in the parking lot, the hallway, at check-in, or in the early portions of our service. We want people to come back the following week for another round of offending!
Present the gospel in uncompromising terms, preach hard against sin, and tackle the most emotionally charged topics in culture, while providing an environment where unchurched people feel comfortable.
The approach a church chooses trumps its purpose every time.
Nothing says hypocrite faster than Christians expecting non-Christians to behave like Christians when half the Christians don’t act like it half the time.
When you give non-Christians an out, they respond by leaning in. Especially if you invite them rather than expect them. There’s a big difference between being expected to do something and being invited to try something.
There is an inexorable link between an organization’s vision and its appetite for improvement. Vision exposes what has yet to be accomplished. In this way, vision has the power to create a healthy sense of organizational discontent. A leader who continually keeps the vision out in front of his or her staff creates a thirst for improvement. Vision-centric churches expect change. Change is a means to an end. Change is critical to making what could and should be a reality.
Write your vision in ink; everything else should be penciled in. Plans change. Vision remains the same. It is natural to assume that what worked in the past will always work. But, of course, that way of thinking is lethal. And the longer it goes unchallenged, the more difficult it is to identify and eradicate. Every innovation has an expiration date. The primary reason churches cling to outdated models and programs is that they lack leadership.
”
”
Andy Stanley (Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend)
“
THE AMERICAN brand of socialism known as the New Deal was made possible by the income tax. But with the advent of income taxation, socialism was unavoidable. There have always been, and perhaps always will be, people who are averse to letting other people alone. Recognizing the human inclination to err, they are impelled by their kindness of heart to overcome this imperfection; invariably they come up with a sure-proof plan that needs only political power to become effective. Political power is the essential ingredient of every one of these plans to improve the human. Since all the ills of mankind, they argue, follow from the exercise of free will, it follows that the only cure for these ills is to suppress free will and to compel the individual to behave in all things as per the perfect pattern devised by these improvers. Compulsion means force; there must be a policeman to see that the individual does not follow his own inclinations. But policemen must live. Since they do not produce a thing by which they can live, others must support them. Hence, the planners must have the means of getting at the production of the very people who are to be improved by the policeman. That means taxes, and the more taxes the greater the number of enforcement agents, and therefore the more comprehensive the plan. No plan can be bigger than its bureaucracy. The income tax is the ideal instrument for the planner.
”
”
Frank Chodorov (The Income Tax: Root of All Evil)
“
I beg your pardon, Mrs. Graham - but you get on too fast. I have not yet said that a boy should be taught to rush into the snares of life, - or even wilfully to seek temptation for the sake of exercising his virtue by overcoming it; - I only say that it is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe; - and if you were to rear an oak sapling in a hothouse, tending it carefully night and day, and shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on the mountain-side, exposed to all the action of the elements, and not even sheltered from the shock of the tempest.'
'Granted; - but would you use the same argument with regard to a girl?'
'Certainly not.'
'No; you would have her to be tenderly and delicately nurtured, like a hot-house plant - taught to cling to others for direction and support, and guarded, as much as possible, from the very knowledge of evil. But will you be so good as to inform me why you make this distinction? Is it that you think she has no virtue?'
'Assuredly not.'
'Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; - and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith. It must be either that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded, that she cannot withstand temptation, - and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin is at once to make her a sinner, and the greater her knowledge, the wider her liberty, the deeper will be her depravity, - whereas, in the nobler sex, there is a natural tendency to goodness, guarded by a superior fortitude, which, the more it is exercised by trials and dangers, is only the further developed - '
'Heaven forbid that I should think so!' I interrupted her at last."
'Well, then, it must be that you think they are both weak and prone to err, and the slightest error, the merest shadow of pollution, will ruin the one, while the character of the other will be strengthened and embellished - his education properly finished by a little practical acquaintance with forbidden things. Such experience, to him (to use a trite simile), will be like the storm to the oak, which, though it may scatter the leaves, and snap the smaller branches, serves but to rivet the roots, and to harden and condense the fibres of the tree. You would have us encourage our sons to prove all things by their own experience, while our daughters must not even profit by the experience of others. Now I would have both so to benefit by the experience of others, and the precepts of a higher authority, that they should know beforehand to refuse the evil and choose the good, and require no experimental proofs to teach them the evil of transgression. I would not send a poor girl into the world, unarmed against her foes, and ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself; - and as for my son - if I thought he would grow up to be what you call a man of the world - one that has "seen life," and glories in his experience, even though he should so far profit by it as to sober down, at length, into a useful and respected member of society - I would rather that he died to-morrow! - rather a thousand times!' she earnestly repeated, pressing her darling to her side and kissing his forehead with intense affection. He had already left his new companion, and been standing for some time beside his mother's knee, looking up into her face, and listening in silent wonder to her incomprehensible discourse.
Anne Bronte, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (24,25)
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Anne Brontë
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It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who 'but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier.
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Theodore Roosevelt
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—I cannot, at this place, avoid a sigh. There are days when I am visited by a feeling blacker than the blackest melancholy—contempt of man. Let me leave no doubt as to what I despise, whom I despise: it is the man of today, the man with whom I am unhappily contemporaneous. The man of today—I am suffocated by his foul breath!… Toward the past, like all who understand, I am full of tolerance, which is to say, generous self-control: with gloomy caution I pass through whole millenniums of this madhouse of a world, call it “Christianity,” “Christian faith” or the “Christian church,” as you will—I take care not to hold mankind responsible for its lunacies. But my feeling changes and breaks out irresistibly the moment I enter modern times, our times. Our age knows better… . What was formerly merely sickly now becomes indecent—it is indecent to be a Christian today. And here my disgust begins.—I look about me: not a word survives of what was once called “truth”; we can no longer bear to hear a priest pronounce the word. Even a man who makes the most modest pretensions to integrity must know that a theologian, a priest, a pope of today not only errs when he speaks, but actually lies—and that he no longer escapes blame for his lie through “innocence” or “ignorance.” The priest knows, as every one knows, that there is no longer any “God,” or any “sinner,” or any “Saviour”—that “free will” and the “moral order of the world” are lies—: serious reflection, the profound self-conquest of the spirit, allow no man to pretend that he does not know it… . All the ideas of the church are now recognized for what they are—as the worst counterfeits in existence, invented to debase nature and all natural values; the priest himself is seen as he actually is—as the most dangerous form of parasite, as the venomous spider of creation… . We know, our conscience now knows—just what the real value of all those sinister inventions of priest and church has been and what ends they have served, with their debasement of humanity to a state of self-pollution, the very sight of which excites loathing,—the concepts “the other world,” “the last judgment,” “the immortality of the soul,” the “soul” itself: they are all merely so many instruments of torture, systems of cruelty, whereby the priest becomes master and remains master… . Every one knows this, but nevertheless things remain as before. What has become of the last trace of decent feeling, of self-respect, when our statesmen, otherwise an unconventional class of men and thoroughly anti-Christian in their acts, now call themselves Christians and go to the communion-table?… A prince at the head of his armies, magnificent as the expression of the egoism and arrogance of his people—and yet acknowledging, without any shame, that he is a Christian!… Whom, then, does Christianity deny? what does it call “the world”? To be a soldier, to be a judge, to be a patriot; to defend one’s self; to be careful of one’s honour; to desire one’s own advantage; to be proud … every act of everyday, every instinct, every valuation that shows itself in a deed, is now anti-Christian: what a monster of falsehood the modern man must be to call himself nevertheless, and without shame, a Christian!—
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Friedrich Nietzsche (The Antichrist)
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If you’re going to make an error in life, err on the side of overestimating your capabilities (obviously, as long as it doesn’t jeopardize your life). By the way, this is something that’s hard to do, since the human capacity is so much greater than most of us would ever dream. In fact, many studies have focused on the differences between people who are depressed and people who are extremely optimistic. After attempting to learn a new skill, the pessimists are always more accurate about how they did, while the optimists see their behavior as being more effective than it actually was. Yet this unrealistic evaluation of their own performance is the secret of their future success. Invariably the optimists eventually end up mastering the skill while the pessimists fail. Why? Optimists are those who, despite having no references for success, or even references of failure, manage to ignore those references, leaving unassembled such cognitive tabletops as “I failed” or “I can’t succeed.” Instead, optimists produce faith references, summoning forth their imagination to picture themselves doing something different next time and succeeding. It is this special ability, this unique focus, which allows them to persist until eventually they gain the distinctions that put them over the top. The reason success eludes most people is that they have insufficient references of succeeding in the past. But an optimist operates with beliefs such as, “The past doesn’t equal the future.” All great leaders, all people who have achieved success in any area of life, know the power of continuously pursuing their vision, even if all the details of how to achieve it aren’t yet available. If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.
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Anthony Robbins (Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny!)