Attempt Quotes - page 42

The whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills. (Thomas Jefferson)
In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
You all very well know what deference I always pay, and ever will, to that part of the office of a jury which properly belongs to them. In regard to the law, I have always been as tenacious of the proper function of a Judge, as I have been of that of the jury. I never will, while I have the honour of executing the office of a Judge, attempt to controul or influence their minds in respect of damages; but only submit to them such observations as occur to me upon the evidence. View quote
John Eardley Wilmot
My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane. View quote
Alain de Botton
A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong. View quote
Francis Crick
Our ... advantage was that we had evolved unstated but fruitful methods of collaboration ... If either of us suggested a new idea, the other, while taking it seriously, would attempt to demolish it in a candid but non-hostile manner. View quote
Francis Crick
All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich. View quote
Johann Kaspar Lavater
I think we have two choices in the face of such big beauty: terror and awe. And this is precisely why we attempt to chart God, because we want to be able to predict Him, to dissect Him, to carry Him around in our dog and pony show. We are too proud to feel awe and to fearful to feel terror. We reduce Him to math so we don't have to fear Him, and yet the Bible tells us fear is the appropriate response, that it is the beginning of wisdom. View quote
Don Miller (author)
We feel the necessity of deceiving ourselves, of even grossly deceiving ourselves, and of believing, when we are doing wrong, that we are doing right. When we do not succeed in reaching such persuasion, merely by sounding our own reason and conscience, we look about for something or some person to aid us in the attempt. View quote
Alexandre Vinet
For what is the amount of all his prayers but an attempt to make the Almighty change his mind, and act otherwise than he does? It is as if he were to say: Thou knowest not so well as I. View quote
Thomas Paine
Unless the French are thoroughly reduced, no solid peace can be obtained, and no attempt ought to be encouraged of opening a negotiation, which even has the effect of destroying all energy in those who ought to look forward to the continuance of war. (George III of the United Kingdom)
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Politics Is the Entertainment Branch of Industry. C-SPAN's coverage of governmental proceedings is wonderful. Caution! Buffoons on the Hill! Wallowing in blabber and spew, regiments of ex-lawyers and used-car salesmen attempt to distract us from the naughty little surprises served up by deregulated corporate America. View quote
Frank Zappa
Today President Bush has failed the American people and especially people of color. Despite the lip service he and his party have given in recent weeks to building racial unity, his latest action seeks to perpetuate the current effects of past discrimination. ... President Bush's decision to join this misguided attempt to resegregate our public institutions is regrettable. View quote
Jim Clyburn
There's nothing I won't attempt. View quote
Tracey Ullman
My own approach has always been to push intense emotions down and attempt to deal with them later. View quote
Alanis Morissette
Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing. View quote
George Eliot
I knew, as everyone knows, that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place some one is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death. That's what attracts us to the man who paints the flagstaff on the tall building, or to the 'human fly' who scales the walls of the same building. View quote
Harry Houdini
I sat there beside him till morning and as I watched his face in the starlight, then the first ray of the sun on his untroubled forehead and closed eyelids, what I experienced was not a prayer, I do not pray, but that state of spirit at which a prayer is a misguided attempt a full, confident, affirming self-dedication to my love of the right, to the certainty that the right would win and that this boy would have the kind of future he deserved.... I did not expect it to be as great as this or as hard. View quote
Ayn Rand
But a few understand that building is a great symbol we live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form. For the man who understands this, a house he owns is a statement of his life. View quote
Ayn Rand
He wanted her. He knew where to find her. He waited. It amused him to wait, because he knew that the waiting was unbearable to her. He knew that his absence bound her to him in a manner more complete and humiliating than his presence could enforce. He was giving her time to attempt an escape, in order to let her know her own helplessness when he chose to see her again. View quote
Ayn Rand
Your emotional capacity is an empty motor, and your values are the fuel with which your mind fills it. If you choose a mix of contradictions, it will clog your motor, corrode your transmission and wreck you on your first attempt to move with a machine which you, the driver, have corrupted. (Ayn Rand)
George's son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at twelve o'clock that same day-another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct in a world made up so largely of compromise. View quote
Thomas Hardy
Huebner observes that my use of laugher is my attempt to practice theology in a manner that refuses the attempt to manage the world. In short, my use of laughter is "an appropriate theological antidote to the Constantinian desire for control.”. View quote
Stanley Hauerwas
Civil religion is the attempt to empower religion, not for the good of religion, but for the creation of the citizen. View quote
Stanley Hauerwas
Even [Marx], whose information about people came mainly from books, must have known that the Manifesto's depiction of the relations between men and women was grossly distorted. His rage was therefore-as is so much modern rage-entirely synthetic, perhaps an attempt to assume a generosity of spirit, or love of mankind, that he knew he did not have but felt he ought to have. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)