Quotes About Vicarious

Unashamed, accustomed to solitude, he began to enjoy his near-invisibility. From his position at the edge of the school around him, he took vicarious pleasure in the activities of those around him, silently celebrating the rise or fall of this or that playground emperor, or the examination failures of particularly unappetizing class-fellows: the delights of the spectator.

Or maybe he had gotten too inured to death, and was hoping to elicit from me an expression of the natural horror he was no longer capable of...I have made use of this technique myself, however, this attempts to access emotions vicariously...eager to detect in my listener that flinch of grief that eluded me.

Vicarious living is only slightly less impossible than vicarious eating.

We have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.

This is why the clergyman is so often called a vicar—he being the person whose vicarious goodness is to stand for that of those entrusted to his charge. 

If you deny yourself your own passion, your own path, your own longing, your own drama, your own life force, your own truth—then you might be tempted to live vicariously through those who allow themselves theirs. Your creative energy has got to go somewhere, even if it is projected onto others. You're tempted to live a life of fantasy if you deny yourself a life of truth.

His physical attitude suggested a holy man doing penance vicariously for the sin of those in his spiritual care.

Vicariously,'" she said slowly. "You'll have to tell me what that means, Anthony." The way she said his name induced a kind of intimacy. It promised something, a repetition in some future time. "It means"—Anthony's mouth had dried—"it means pleasure gained through the pleasure of someone else.

We love disasters that have nothing to do with us

Pleasure of tragedy is vicarious suicide

So,' bellowed Cosmo, pouring me a drink. 'How's your love-life?' Oh no. Why do they do this? Why? Maybe the Smug Marrieds only mix with other Smug Marrieds and don't know how to relate to individuals any more. Maybe they really do want to patronize us and make us feel like failed human beings. Or maybe they are in such a sexual rut they're thinking, 'There's a whole other world out there,' and hoping for vicarious thrills by getting us to tell them the roller-coaster details of our sex lives.

I learned in the early part of my career that labor must bear the cross for others' sins, must be the vicarious sufferer for the wrongs that others do.

Watching a pig eat is the ultimate vicarious thrill. Seldom can you take such pleasure in another's joy. Here is someone following his bliss. Pigs are quite literally made for eating—they were bred to eat and get fat fast.

I haven't had an acceptance since October 1st. And I have piles of poems and stories out. Not to mention my book of poems. Even Ted's letter about winning the contest, with its award details, hasn't come, so even vicarious pleasure is shorn from me. Bills come.

There is no winning or losing, but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you're involved in, whether it's a fantasy game, the Wild West, secret agenst or whatever else. You get to sort of vicariously experience those things.

I think I'm going to have to live vicariously through my daughter's rebellion because I certainly never did go through adolescence.

There is no winning or losing, but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you're involved in, whether it's a fantasy game, the Wild West, secret agents or whatever else. You get to sort of vicariously experience those things.

I think people read travel books either because they intend to take that trip, or because they would never take that trip. In a sense, as a writer you are doing the travel for the reader.

In such instances a person serves not only as a representative but is acting in the stead of the other. In such passages as 2 Corinthians 5:15, "He died for all," and Galatians 3:13 where it is said that Christ became a curse on our behalf, the idea of substitution is demanded and "only violence to the context can get rid of it.

you are too young to feel like the only living you have left to do is vicarious.

I accept what I am, but I did not choose it. I experience human life in the only way I can, vicariously. I am a voracious consumer of books, tapes, holoplays, fictions and drama and histories of all sorts. I have experimented with dreamdust.

There is no such thing as vicarious experience.

The current understanding of happiness identifies it as a pleasurable feeling. Pleasant feelings are surely better than unpleasant ones, but the problem today is that people are obsessively concerned with feeling happiness; people are slaves to their feelings. Feelings are wonderful servants but terrible masters. When people make happiness their goal, they do not find it and, as a result, start living their lives vicariously through identification with celebrities.

Dominion over his environment was supposed to be a hallmark of man. Now, that dominion is almost wholly vicarious, derived from the past ingenuity of others. In urban and industrial communities it is never direct, physical or spontaneous. Our implements are at twelve removes and we may all live to live inside so many Thermos flasks. It may be well to remember how to use a pair of sticks and a stone.