Quotes About Complacency

The question of the next generation will not be one of how to liberate the masses, but rather, how to make them love their servitude.

Familiarity breeds indifference.

They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave.

Analizando su vida doméstica, Biran sentía que había hecho muy bien en casarse con una amable y simple mujer, capaz de ser feliz a mi lado sin reclamarme nada, y para quien soy siempre lo suficientemente bueno como para no hacer esfuerzo alguno en modificarme.

La familiaridad engendra la indiferencia.

how little one knows, really, about anything! And how grossly incurious one remains about so many things, what an enormous number of intrinsically astonishing achievements one merely takes for granted!

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

La dictature parfaite aurait les apparences de la démocratie; une prison sans murs dont les prisonniers ne songeraient pas à s'évader. Un système d'esclavage où, grâce à la consommation et au divertissement, les esclaves auraient l'amour de leur servitude.

Todo pájaro que aprenda a organizarse una buena vida sin necesidad de usar sus alas pronto renunciará al privilegio del vuelo y permanecerá por siempre en tierra. Algo parecido pasa con los seres humanos. Si se les procura con regularidad y abundancia el pan tres veces al día, muchos de ellos se contentarán con vivir de pan únicamente o, al menos, de pan y circo únicamente.

There are some people who start off knowing very little about the world and end up years later knowing even less. Never underestimate the capacity of the human mind for ignorance." Mr. Woodhouse found this very amusing.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni warmed to the theme. "And you could have yet another list," he said. "Things that other people should do, but don't seem to be doing." Mma Ramotswe thought for a while. "That could be a very long list," she said. "There are many people who do not do what they should be doing.

Probably 90 percent of our life decisions are powered by the twin engines of inertia and laziness.

I wake up every morning excited. Rather than become complacent or overwhelmed, I've made a choice for life - and I can do something about it.

Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

People seem very comfortable having a kind of Cheesecake Factory-type of life.

The problem is a lot of people don't think. The general bloke just goes through life, gets a job, gets married and all that, and that's it.

As for the excellent little wretches who grow up in what they are taught, with never a scruple or a query, ... they signify nothing in the intellectual life of the race.

The modern world was a burning bus speeding toward a cliff with a maniac at the wheel. And he was not apart, but complicit, a hyperactive child making yuk-yuks in his seat, keeping everyone laughing, distracting them from certain doom. Faster, faster, no more room to brake.

Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.

The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.

There are three kinds of people in the world: those who make things happen ... those who watch things happen ... and those who wonder what happened.

In the U.S., whichever party was in power wasn't interested in support for public health. Public health never competed well for resources in either the House or the Senate. Countries were like people: they didn't value health until they lost it. And then once they got it back, they returned to their old complacency.

There are really only three types of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who say, What happened?

Arrest the meek! Reward the obnoxious!