The trouble with so many of us is that we underestimate the power of simplicity. We have a tendency it seems to over complicate our lives and forget what's important and what's not. We tend to mistake movement for achievement. We tend to focus on activities instead of results. And as the pace of life continues to race along in the outside world, we forget that we have the power to control our lives regardless of what's going on outside.
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His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. You appear to be astonished, he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it. To forget it! You see, he explained, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. But the Solar System! I protested. What the deuce is it to me? he interrupted impatiently: you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.
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A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
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Whatever happened to that old-fashioned Grandpa If he still survives, he must be hiding in the small towns. You sure don't see him very often in the big city. The big-city Grandpa has gone big time. ... He is the life of every party, and out to prove he is just as young as he ever was. A grandchild who makes the mistake of calling him 'Gramps' is lucky if he isn't rewarded by a quick kick in the stomach.
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When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.
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The first mistake in public business is the going into it.
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He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
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Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good.
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The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.
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It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.
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But have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same mistake twice. Oh don't you see, Marilla? There must be a limit to the mistakes one person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I'll be through with them. That's a very comforting thought.
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Swallowing that chocolate you just ate May have been your fatal mistake! Your smooth complexion will get lumps and spots, Your lips will go brown and your teeth will all rot. Your breath will go smelly - it may make you sick, Not to mention your waistline expanding a bit! After eating that chocolate with its lack of nutrition, You will need to visit your local beautician. But no matter how ugly you may turn out to be You will always be sweet and beautiful to me.
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Never mistake activity for achievement.
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Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings.
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The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism.
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He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
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Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
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Drama is based on the Mistake. I think someone is my friend when he really is my enemy, that I am free to marry a woman when in fact she is my mother, that this person is a chambermaid when it is a young nobleman in disguise, that this well-dressed young man is rich when he is really a penniless adventurer, or that if I do this such and such a result will follow when in fact it results in something very different. All good drama has two movements, first the making of the mistake, then the discovery that it was a mistake.
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Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.
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I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.
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At the opera in Milan with my daughter and me, Needleman leaned out of his box and fell into the orchestra pit. Too proud to admit it was a mistake, he attended the opera every night for a month and repeated it each time.
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Take all that is given whether wealth, love or language, nothing comes by mistake and with good digestion all can be turned to health.
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Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.
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Four Lessons on Life 1. Never take down a fence until you know why it was put up. 2. If you get too far ahead of the army, your soldiers may mistake you for the enemy. 3. Don't complain about the bottom rungs of the ladder they helped to get you higher. 4. If you want to enjoy the rainbow, be prepared to endure the storm.
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The trial court has already said it's a good-faith mistake. I think the Court of Appeals is not going to get involved in this. I think everybody realizes Harris County got hoodwinked as much as the defense did with Park Dietz's testimony.
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Vivisection: The Psychopathic Aspect. Sadism is a very ugly word, which serves to define a very ugly psychopathy - a mental disease. Vivisectors have been known to accept with equanimity the allegation of being money grubbers - of doing cruel experiments only to gain money or a professorship. But we have never known a vivisector who bore with equanimity the allegation of being a sadist. They always reacted to all such allegations with frothing, like other psychopaths when they are confronted with the nature of their disorder. If it is a mistake to believe that all vivisectors are sadists, it would be another mistake to believe that sadism is not rampant in the animal laboratories. It is. In fact, for men and women (more men, as a rule) who are affected by this grave psychopathy (mental malady), and on top of it are animal haters, what kind of remunerated occupation could be more gratifying than a job in a viviection laboratory?
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Never mistake motion for action.
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The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.
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Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing; but this is a mistake. Mere bald fabrication is useless; the veriest tyro can manage that. It is in the circumstantial detail, the embellishing touches of probability, the general air of scrupulous -- almost of pedantic -- veracity, that the experienced angler is seen.
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We make a mistake forsaking England and moving out into the periphery of life. After all, Taormina, Ceylon, Africa, America -- as far as we go, they are only the negation of what we ourselves stand for and are: and we're rather like Jonahs running away from the place we belong.
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