"There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them."
Block quotes
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"Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it."
"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice."
"Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress."
"Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission."
"The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot."
"The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed - it is a process of elimination."
"Next, take a look at the quality of the people who surround you. Do these people back you emotionally, or not? If they don't back you, are they at least passive? If not, get rid of them. Sometimes it is hard to drop off your mates at the great bus stop of life. But remember, your energy will only rise in direct relationship to the number of things you are able to get rid of - not to the things you acquire. By getting rid of things, attitudes, encumbrances, and blocks of one kind or another, things fly."
"The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers."
"The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude."
"My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?"
"If you deny yourself access to the child within because you're too serious, you also block your connection to the divine Light and your feminine self. Every creator who's any good uses their feminine side to create with.. Whether a scientist working on a hunch, a painter working on the interplay of colors, or a musician dealing with the juxtaposition of notes and chords."
"I got Moxie, I'm so damn foxy Industry try to block me like cops and paparazzi."
"Advocates for a single line of progress encounter their greatest stumbling block when they try to find a smooth link between the apparently disparate designs of the invertebrates and vertebrates."
"Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely-crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army and calls it a war."
"Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know. Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt your sharpness, untie your knots, soften your glare, settle your dust. This is the primal identity. Be like the Tao. It can't be approached or withdrawn from, benefited or harmed, honored or brought into disgrace. It gives itself up continually. That is why it endures."
"If we are not empty, we become a block of matter. We cannot breathe, we cannot think. To be empty means to be alive, to breathe in and to breathe out. We cannot be alive if we are not empty. Emptiness is impermanence, it is change. We should not complain about impermanence, because without impermanence, nothing is possible."
"Cassoulet, that best of bean feasts, is everyday fare for a peasant but ambrosia for a gastronome, though its ideal consumer is a 300-pound blocking back who has been splitting firewood nonstop for the last twelve hours on a subzero day in Manitoba."
"Be true. Be beautiful. Be free. In the midst of segregation and racism Mamma raised us to be independent and free. We saw ourselves as citizens of the world, not of a block."
"To make every little thing special is to grant a magical quality to your life. Once your life becomes charmed in such a way, whatever blocks you may have experienced in the past melt in the light of that inner energy pouring from your heart. From a businessman's point of view, this is beautiful, for everything you touch turns to gold. Further, it helps you to believe in yourself. In seeing worth all around, you make your every act an affirmation of your strength."
"During the aftermath of Katrina, National Guard troops were positioned on every block to establish a sense of safety and source of help for the people in need. They did not leave communities until people were safe and sound."