"There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means."
Mean quotes
Mean
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Mean quotes (page 94 of 1399)
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"Snake's poison is life to the snake; it is in relation to man that it means "death."
"What does this patch-sewing mean you ask? Eating and drinking. The heavy cloak of the body is always getting torn. You patch it with food and other ego-satisfactions."
"If you're nasty, I won't fight. If you're rough, well that's just you. If you're mean, that's alright too. Whatever you are is all okay. I don't like you anyway."
"Literature should be more revolutionary than revolutions themselves; writers must find the means to continue to be critical of the negative elements in the sociopolitical reality."
"Did you ever get fed up?' I said. 'I mean did you ever get scared that everything was going to go lousy unless you did something?"
"As the means, so the end."
"Man's upward progress means ever increasing difficulty, which is to be welcomed."
"By means of the banking system the distribution of capital as a special business, a social function, is taken out of the hands of the private capitalists and usurers. But at the same time, banking and credit become the most effective means of driving captialist production beyond its own limits and one of the most effective vehicles of crises and swindle."
"The sea erupted. Often the sea and land changed places. The immobility of contours of continents and seas, a dogma in geology, has no basis in fact. And immediately there is the problem of the climate. There were ancient climates that were very different from what they are today. If those corals grew where they were found, certainly the Earth was not travelling with the same elements of rotation and revolution which means not in the same orbit, not with the axis directed in the same position as it is today. If you don't believe it, try to conservate corals on the North Pole."
"I asked for very little from life, and even this little was denied me. A nearby field, a ray of sunlight, a little bit of calm along with a bit of bread, not to feel oppressed by the knowledge that I exist, not to demand anything from others, and not to have others demand anything from me - this was denied me, like the spare change we might deny a beggar not because we're mean-hearted but because we don't feel like unbuttoning our coat."
"You know, almost everyone is an irritant to me. I think people have forgotten what the word 'public' means. 'Public' means you're going to be irritated. It's a natural consequence of leaving one's home. You go outside, and there are people who are irritating. I'll be standing on the sidewalk, and someone berates me for smoking. I look at the person and think, but what about your shoes? How can you wear shoes like that and have the confidence to accost someone like me?"
"For although we know that the years pass, that youth gives way to old age, that fortunes and thrones crumble (even the most solid among them) and that fame is transitory, the manner in which—by means of a sort of snapshot—we take cognisance of this moving universe whirled along by Time, has the contrary effect of immobilising it."
"Part of building a new nation means building a spirit of tolerance, love and respect amongst the people of this country."
"A lot of players know how to play the game, but they really don't know how to play the game, if you know what I mean. They can put the ball in the hoop, but I see things before they even happen. You know how a guy can make his team so much better? That's one thing I learned from watching Jordan."
"Snakes are sometimes perceived as evil, but they are also perceived as medicine. If you look at an ambulance, there's the two snakes on the side of the ambulance. The caduceus, or the staff of Hermes, there's the two snakes going up it, which means that the venom can also be healing."
"In the Bible (Hebrews, 6:19), hope is ‘an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.’ Here [in Watts painting], Hope is blindfolded, seated on a globe and playing a lyre of which all but one of the strings are broken . . . Hope’s attempts to make music appear futile and several critics argued that the work might have been more appropriately titledDespair. Watts explained that ‘Hopeneed not mean expectancy. It suggests here, rather, the music which can come from the remaining cord’."
"The handling of our forests as a continuous, renewable resource means permanent employment and stability to our country life. The forests are also needed for mitigating extreme climatic fluctuations, holding the soil on the slopes, retaining the moisture in the ground, and controlling the equable flow of water in our streams."
"Respect is one of life's greatest treasures. I mean, what does it all add up to if you don't have that?"
"I hate when somebody says, "This may not work." You'll never get anywhere with that. I've pushed a lot of people out of my way - I don't mean physically - over them being afraid something isn't going to work."