Selected limitations quotes

1. We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.

2. Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens.

3. It's like you wanting to marry Miss World and she doesn't want you, what can I do about it? I can try to help you, but if she does not want to marry you what can I do?

4. Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

5. When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.

6. No such thing as a man willing to be honest - that would be like a blind man willing to see.

7. Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.

8. Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.

9. In the case of the stomach, however, the nerves of the glandular cells were always severed when constructing an artificially isolated pouch and this, naturally, affected the normal work of the stomach.

10. I can embarrass myself very easily on guitar. It's funny because people say to me I can play anything; I'm God on the guitar. But I could make a big list of everything I can't play... I'm grateful that people don't notice that.

11. You've got to know your limitations. I don't know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were when I was twelve. I found out that there weren't too many limitations, if I did it my way.

12. If you can't do what you want, do what you can.

13. Hither and thither spins The wind-borne mirroring soul, A thousand glimpses wins, And never sees a whole.

14. If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.

15. Whatever we treasure for ourselves separates us from others; our possessions are our limitations.

16. Man's unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite.

17. The days of the digitals are numbered. The metaphor is built into them like a self-destruct mechanism.

18. To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent. A reporter can write equally well about everything that is presented to his view, but a creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies.

19. Were Love exempt from the militations of Necessity, he were greater than God and the World.

20. There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.

21. The Master was exceedingly gracious to university dons who visited him, but he would never reply to their questions or be drawn into their theological speculations. To his disciples, who marveled at this, he said, 'Can one talk about the ocean to a frog in a well or about the divine to people who are restricted by their concepts?'

22. What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.

23. Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence- neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish- it is an imponderably valuable gift.

24. 'You're no help,' he told the lime. This was unfair. It was only a lime; there was nothing special about it at all. It was doing the best it could.

25. Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut.

26. That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.

27. Every artist knows that there is no such thing as 'freedom' in art. The first thing an artist does when he begins a new work is to lay down the barriers and limitations; he decides upon a certain composition, a certain key, a certain relation of creatures or objects to each other. He is never free, and the more splendid his imagination, the more intense his feeling, the farther he goes from general truth and general emotion.

28. Then talk not of Inconstancy, False Hearts, and broken Vows; If I, by Miracle, can be This live-long Minute true to thee, 'Tis all that Heav'n allows.

29. For a people, as for an individual, it is tragic to have ambitions and to lack both the means essential to their fulfilment and any hope of acquiring those means. (2nd April 1945-talking about Italians)

30. It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that is not the fault of mathematics, for it is equally true of every other exclusive occupation. So there are mere philologists, mere jurists, mere soldiers, mere merchants, etc. To such idle talk it might further be added: that whenever a certain exclusive occupation is coupled with specific shortcomings, it is likewise almost certainly divorced from certain other shortcomings.

31. I think there's a lot of merit in an international economy and global markets, but they're not sufficient because markets don't look after social needs. Markets are designed to allow individuals to look after their private needs and to pursue profit. It's really a great invention and I wouldn't under-estimate the value of that, but they're not designed to take care of social needs.

32. Six billion people live in this world, and I can only muster thoughts for one. Me.

33. Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge - and has to content oneself with dreaming.

34. Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month.

35. Anthropology is never an exact science; the observer never experiences the same culture as the participant. But there are natural limitations inherent to the science. It is the artificial limitations that hamper us - and, through us, you

36. And so no force however great can stretch a cord however fine into an horizontal line which is accurately straight.

37. Circumstances over which I have no control.

38. Every man would like to be God, if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility.

39. I rap lite on I'm Beautiful. I have an excellent sense of time. I was thinking of taking up bass or drums because I like rhythm. The problem is, I have nothing to say. What am I going to rap about? My hairdresser? My nails? Actually, that could be fun.

40. The biggest problem in designing equipment for Bruce was that he'd go through it so damn fast. I had to reinforce his wooden dummy with automobile parts so he could train on it without breaking it. I had started to build him a mobile dummy that could actually attack and retreat to better simulate 'live' combat, sadly Bruce died before the machine was built. It would have been strung up by big high-tension cables that I was going to connect between two posts, one on either side of his backyard. The reason for the machine was simply because no one could stand up to his full force punches and kicks, Bruce's strength and skill had evolved to a point where he had to fight machines.

41. She had that irony in her eyes. Knowledge without wisdom. Power without purpose. Like me.

42. Our minds are circumscribed by our immediate reality but we stop short at the thought of it.

43. I know I was horrible at times, I was. I really kept a tight rein on, I had to. I felt fine about Sharon being a star, as long as I was close by. You cannot protect your kids, you just can't. There are twenty-four hours in a day.

44. I remember when we opened... we didn't have enough money to finish the landscaping and I had Bill Evans go out and put the Latin tags on all of the weeds...

45. A man cannot write a poem or a story that will transform the whole nature of man, his reality and his truth, making them greater and nobler.

46. I believed that anything was possible, or at least because I didn't put together everyone else's 'facts' and believe that winning was impossible.

47. FEMA doesn't evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications...Many may be surprised to learn that, guess what, FEMA doesn't own fire trucks. We don't own ambulances. We don't own search and rescue equipment. The people of FEMA are being tired of being beat up, and they don't deserve it.

48. She did love him, you know... It was a selfish, possessive love, but it was all she knew how to give

49. A man's gotta know his limitations.

50. How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life, the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do.

51. We all of us live too much in a circle.

52. The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble.

53. Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man. Anything built by man, can be destroyed by him.

54. Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so.

55. Sibelius has an acutely developed sense of identification with nature and a preoccupation with myth that at one and the same time define his unique strength and his basic limitation. These preoccupations override his involvement in the human predicament, except in so far as it affects man's relationship with nature.

56. In limitations he first shows himself the master, And the law can only bring us freedom.

57. Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache.

58. He committed mayhem upon his person. He did everything to him that a man can do who is hampered with boxing gloves.

59. While it is possible for intelligence to increase the range of benevolent impulse, and thus prompt a human being to consider the needs and rights of other than those to whom he is bound by organic and physical relationship, there are definite limits in the capacity of ordinary mortals which makes it impossible for them to grant to others what they claim for themselves.

60. Logic is a feeble reed, friend. 'Logic' proved that airplanes can't fly and that H-bombs won't work and that stones don't fall out of the sky. Logic is a way of saying that anything which didn't happen yesterday won't happen tomorrow.