Quotations

«The chimerical pursuit of perfection is always linked to some important deficiency, frequently the inability to love.»

«The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.»

«Strange new problems are being reported in the growing generations of children whose mothers were always there, driving them around, helping them with their homework /an inability to endure pain or discipline or pursue any self-sustained goal of any sort, a devastating boredom with life.»

«Tears are the symbol of the inability of the soul to restrain its emotion and retain its self command.»

«There is in Hollywood, as in all cultures in which gambling is the central activity, a lowered sexual energy, an inability to devote more than token attention to the preoccupations of the society outside. The action is everything, more consuming than sex, more immediate than politics; more important always than the acquisition of money, which is never, for the gambler, the true point of the exercise.»

«Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.»

«MONAD, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. (See _Molecule_.) According to Leibnitz, as nearly as he seems willing to be understood, the monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation --Leibnitz knows him by the innate power of considering. He has founded upon him a theory of the universe, which the creature bears without resentment, for the monad is a gentlmean. Small as he is, the monad contains all the powers and possibilities needful to his evolution into a German philosopher of the first class --altogether a very capable little fellow. He is not to be confounded with the microbe, or bacillus; by its inability to discern him, a good microscope shows him to be of an entirely distinct species.»

«There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles... but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief /a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you.»

«The futility of everything that comes to us from the media is the inescapable consequence of the absolute inability of that particular stage to remain silent. Music, commercial breaks, news flashes, adverts, news broadcasts, movies, presenters / there is no alternative but to fill the screen; otherwise there would be an irremediable void. That's why the slightest technical hitch, the slightest slip on the part of the presenter becomes so exciting, for it reveals the depth of the emptiness squinting out at us through this little window.»

«The concept of boredom entails an inability to use up present moments in a personally fulfilling way.»