Quotes About Background

It is a mistake to imagine that potentially great men are rare. It is the conditions that permit the promise of greatness to be fulfilled that are rare. What is so difficult to achieve is the cultural background that permits potential greatness to be converted into actual greatness.

the conventional sociology of literature or culture, which modestly limits itself to the identification of class motifs or values in a given text, and feels that its work is done when it shows how a given artifact "reflects" its social background, is utterly unacceptable.

Spring's imminence was a comfort akin to a favourite piece of music playing quietly in the background, all of the time.

She had to stop judging people. But was that possible? Wasn't interaction based, in part, on judgments? A person's background and attitudes influenced how she responded to them.

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.

Catherine, who was extremely modest, had no desire to shine, and on most social occasions, as they are called, you would have found her lurking in the background.

It's best to keep America just like that, always in the background, a sort of picture post card which you look at in a weak moment. Like that, you imagine it's always there waiting for you, unchanged, unspoiled, a big patriotic open space with cows and sheep and tenderhearted men ready to bugger everything in sight, man, woman or beast. It doesn't exist, America. It's a name you give to an abstract idea…

It's best to keep America just like that, always in the background, a sort of picture post card which you look at in a weak moment. Like that, you imagine it's always there waiting for you, unchanged, unspoiled.... It doesn't exist, America. It's a name you give to an abstract idea.

I'm a Catholic by background. I was raised in Goa, a part of India that was visited by Portuguese missionaries a few hundred years ago, which explains my last name.

My early novels were very understated and English. Fourteen years ago, I met and married my American husband, and as I learned more about his background and culture, I became interested in using American voices.

I was planning to go into law or politics. I was well known for my public speaking. I went to an all-girl boarding school with uniforms. It was very posh for someone like me who came from a world where my parents showed beagles and sold dog products out of a yellow caravan.

I come from a working-class background in Queens, New York.

I started in the club route. I did the alternative scene later on. When I lived in New York, I did the Luna Lounge and stuff, where Janeane Garofalo and David Cross and all those guys worked out of, but I came from a comedy club background. I'm proud of that background. I'm one of the people that really crossed over and did both.

I knew dad was born in Yorkshire and mum was from Mountain Ash.

I take the subway all the time here in New York. I love people watching and trying to figure out everybody's background, especially teenagers - they're so uninhibited when they display puppy love. I concoct stories in my mind: 'Are you guys like Romeo and Juliet?'

My family wasn't involved in the college. They were more of just your 'white trash' kind of family. And so I have that kind of background, but I always kind of aspired to be something else, and I made a lot of different friends over the years that were passing through.

You suffer from trauma from the things that you've been through because you come from a poverty-stricken background. There are a lot of us like that.

My background is in broadcast television - I used to be a travel host for BBC, Discovery, and National Geographic.

Well, I am from an army background. My dad is in the Defence forces and I have travelled enough in the north to get my Hindi right.

We know from our clinical experience in the practice of medicine that in diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, the individual and his background of heredity are just as important, if not more so, as the disease itself.

I'm very grateful for the career that I've had. And I'm very grateful for the experiences that 'Star Trek' has afforded me, along with my past background.

My dance background helped me tremendously. Dancing is like second nature to me.

I grew up in a very simple home, a very simple background, and to be able to do what I'm able to do today, I'm very honored. I don't think I'll ever lose that perspective, and I don't want to.

But by providing the background picture - the universal situational awareness that we desire - by showing the anomalies, the Space-Based Radar will change the nature of how we do our analysis and our intelligence.