Quotes About Discernment

So much of artistic creation is just exclusion. It's not creating things; it's just excluding things that really aren't going to be helpful.

I think the purpose of the writer is to help us see. The writer is someone who can perhaps have the joy of helping others see.

I'm very hesitant to call somebody a racist, a sexist.

if you make waffles, throw out the first one.

It is amazing from what a mere fraction of a fact concerning him a man will dare judge the whole of another man

One who not merely beholds the outward shows of things, but catches a glimpse of the soul that looks out of them ...

I maun hae buiks. I wad get the newspapers whiles, but no aften, for they're a sair loss o' precious time. Ye see they tell ye things afore they're sure, an' ye hae to spen' yer time the day readin' what ye'll hae to spen' yer time the morn readin' oot again; an' ye may as weel bide till the thing's sattled a wee.

It is yet better to perceive a hidden good than a hidden evil.

don't blame you for not being able to believe it, but I do blame you for fancying such a child would try to deceive you. Why should she? Depend upon it, she told you all she knew. Until you had found a better way of accounting for it all, you might at least have been more sparing of your judgment.

What it is, I can not tell; I only know it is not that which the young fool calls it, still less that which the old sinner thinks it.

Truth is truth, whether from the lips of Jesus or Balaam

She knew when to cheer and when to boo, and that was all one needed

D??ar?daki hayvanlar, bir domuzlar?n yüzlerine, bir insanlar?n yüzlerine bak?yor, ama birbirlerinden ay?rt edemiyorlard?.

He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly.

Le creature di fuori gurdavano dal maiale all'uomo dall'uomo al maiale e ancora dal maiale all'uomo, ma già era loro impossibile distinguere fra i due.

It is obvious that a person who reads Mein Kampf must be a Fascist.

They were like the ant, which can see small objects but not large ones.

Advice is one thing that is freely given away, but watch that you take only what is worth having.

Be not misled by

I]t is that we are too apt to despise what appears to be neither good nor beautiful, and thus we lose what is helpful and salutary.

Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.

My experience has been that the poor, simple people of the world admire us, are enamored of our boldness, are hopeful that the insanely positive values we espouse can be actualized in the world. They are, in other words, rooting for us. Which means that when we disappoint them--when we come in too big, kill innocents, when our powers of discernment are diminished by our frenzied, self-protective, fearful post-9/11 energy--we have the potential to disappoint them bitterly and drive them away.

The world is full of people with agendas, trying to persuade us to act on their behalf (spend on their behalf, fight and die on their behalf, oppress others on their behalf). But inside us is what Hemingway called a 'built-in, shockproof, shit detector.' How do we know something is shit? We watch the way the deep, honest part of our mind reacts to it. And that part of the mind is the one that reading and writing refine into sharpness.

Gentlemen don't understand anything, however wise they may be.