Quotes and Sayings about Confusion
"The mere attempt to examine my own confusion would consume volumes."
- James Agee
(Related: Confusion)
"An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15 percent commission."
- Fred Allen
(Related: Advertising, Confusion)
"The use of the polygraph has done little more than create confusion, ambiguity and mistakes."
- Aldrich Ames
(Related: Ambiguity, Confusion, Mistakes)
"There is sometimes a peculiar confusion in the West that equates progress to whatever is recent or whatever is new, and it is time we understood that progress has nothing to do with the chronology of an idea."
- Barbara Amiel
(Related: Time, Idea, Progress, Confusion, Nothing)
"At one of the annual conventions of the American Society for Aesthetics much confusion arose when the Society for Anesthetics met at the same time in the same hotel."
- Rudolf Arnheim
(Related: Society, Time, Aesthetics, American, Confusion)
"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
- Charles Babbage
(Related: Ideas, Answers, Confusion, Machine, Question, Right, Will, Wrong)
"Furthermore, America suffers not only from a lack of standards, but also not infrequently from a confusion or an inversion of standards."
- Irving Babbitt
(Related: America, Confusion)
"Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion."
- Francis Bacon
(Related: Truth, Confusion, Error)
"Acting is a form of confusion."
- Tallulah Bankhead
(Related: Acting, Confusion)
"I feel that these stories are being written to articulate certain confusions and disappointments, and I do mean to shake up the reader, and I do hope they're on target."
- Ann Beattie
(Related: Hope, Being, Disappointments)
"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend."
- Melody Beattie
(Related: Home, Life, Gratitude, Friend, Acceptance, Chaos, Clarity, Confusion, Denial, Order)
"Political and social events must also be effective, but not in a very obvious fashion. But political confusion and prolonged peace undoubtedly affect creative thought but whether they respectively hinder or help it is not at all certain."
- John Desmond Bernal
(Related: Peace, Thought, Confusion, Events, Fashion, Help, Obvious)
"The mystic purchases a moment of exhilaration with a lifetime of confusion; and the confusion is infectious and destructive. It is confusing and destructive to try and explain anything in terms of anything else, poetry in terms of psychology."
- Basil Bunting
(Related: Poetry, Confusion, Psychology)
"The interval between the decay of the old and the formation and establishment of the new constitutes a period of transition which must always necessarily be one of uncertainty, confusion, error, and wild and fierce fanaticism."
- John C. Calhoun
(Related: Confusion, Error, Fanaticism, Old, Uncertainty)
"Let me say that the path I did take for a brief period of my life was not of reckless drug use, hurting others, but it was a path of quiet rebellion, of a little experimentation of a darker side of my confusion in a confusing world, lost in the midst of finding my identity."
- Jennifer Capriati
(Related: Life, Confusion, Identity, Quiet, Rebellion, World)
"Mixed feelings, like mixed drinks, are a confusion to the soul."
- George Carman
(Related: Soul, Feelings, Confusion, Drinks)
"Logic is the last scientific ingredient of Philosophy; its extraction leaves behind only a confusion of non-scientific, pseudo problems."
- Rudolf Carnap
(Related: Confusion, Logic, Philosophy, Problems)
"People look for morals in fiction because there has always been a confusion between fiction and philosophy."
- John Cheever
(Related: People, Confusion, Fiction, Morals, Philosophy)
"One is that that's the way we started and we thought there would be more value and less confusion if the business model was just based on delivering news that's of value to Web sites."
- Jay Chiat
(Related: Business, Thought, Confusion, News, Value)
"It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their confusions."
- John Ciardi
(Related: Men, Courage, Praise)
"Almost all the ideas we have about being a man or being a woman are so burdened with pain, anxiety, fear and self-doubt. For many of us, the confusion around this question is excruciating."
- Andrew Cohen
(Related: Fear, Ideas, Anxiety, Being, Confusion, Man, Pain, Question, Self, Woman)
"Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm."
- Charles Caleb Colton
(Related: Calamity, Confusion)
"Gandhi has asked that the British Government should walk out of India and leave the Indian people to settle differences among themselves, even if it means chaos and confusion."
- Stafford Cripps
(Related: Government, People, Chaos, Confusion)
"Some respected and beloved brethren insist that the forming and organising of churches is, according to God's will, the only means of finding blessing in the midst of that confusion which is acknowledged to exist."
- John Nelson Darby
(Related: God, Churches, Confusion, Will)
"It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content... it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion."
- Rene Daumal
(Related: Goal, Clarity, Confusion, Content, Language)
"I pretty much try to stay in a constant state of confusion just because of the expression it leaves on my face."
- Johnny Depp
(Related: Confusion, Expression, Pretty, State)
"Those who cultivate moral confusion for profit should understand this: we will name their names and shame them as they deserve to be shamed."
- Bob Dole
(Related: Confusion, Name, Names, Profit, Shame, Will)
"Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age."
- Albert Einstein
(Related: Age, Confusion, Perfection)
"Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age."
- Albert Einstein
(Related: Age, Goals, Confusion, Opinion, Perfection)
"A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem."
- Albert Einstein
(Related: Confusion, Perfection)
"I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion."
- Albert Einstein
(Related: Confusion, State)
"I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?"
- Federico Fellini
(Related: Chaos, Confusion, Meaning, Silence, Speech, Television)
"Tis this desire of bending all things to our own purposes which turns them into confusion and is the chief source of every error in our lives."
- Sarah Fielding
(Related: Confusion, Desire, Error)
"History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion."
- Gerald R. Ford
(Related: Experience, History, Progress, Confusion)
"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death."
- Anne Frank
(Related: Death, People, Heart, Confusion, Misery)
"I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death... I think... peace and tranquillity will return again."
- Anne Frank
(Related: Peace, Death, Confusion, Misery, Will)
"The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom... in a clarification of life - not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion."
- Robert Frost
(Related: Life, Wisdom, Confusion, Delight)
"The Lord Jesus will be revealed mightily, and will make bare his holy Arm, as well in the confusion of Antichrist, as in the conversion of the Jews, before the last judgment, and the end of all things."
- George Gillespie
(Related: Confusion, End, Judgment, Will)
"Grief is perhaps an unknown territory for you. You might feel both helpless and hopeless without a sense of a "map" for the journey. Confusion is the hallmark of a transition. To rebuild both your inner and outer world is a major project."
- Anne Grant
(Related: Confusion, Grief, Journey, Project, Sense, World)
"A superstition which pretends to be scientific creates a much greater confusion of thought than one which contents itself with simple popular practices."
- Johan Huizinga
(Related: Thought, Confusion, Popular, Superstition)
"It was a weak spot in any nation to have a large body of disaffected people within its confusion."
- Zora Neale Hurston
(Related: People, Body, Confusion, Nation)
"Instead of this confusion, we need the unifying force of an official language, English, which is the language of success in America."
- Ernest Istook
(Related: Success, America, Confusion, English, Force, Language)
"The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion."
- Molly Ivins
(Related: Confusion, Democracy, Quiet)
"She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way that a midget is good at being short."
- Clive James
(Related: Being, Confusion)
"I'm 16 now, I was 15 when it happened... and the encryption code wasn't in fact written by me, but written by the German member. There seems to be a bit of confusion about that part."
- Jon Johansen
(Related: Confusion, Fact, Now)
"As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a freedom or a confusion."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Work, Artists, Confusion, Freedom, May, Possibilities, Sense)
"All comparisons between America's current place in the world and anything legitimately called an empire in the past reveal ignorance and confusion about any reasonable meaning of the concept empire, especially the comparison with the Roman Empire."
- Donald Kagan
(Related: America, Comparisons, Confusion, Ignorance, Meaning, Past, World)
"I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion."
- Jack Kerouac
(Related: Confusion, Nothing)
"Getting your house in order and reducing the confusion gives you more control over your life. Personal organization some how releases or frees you to operate more effectively."
- Larry King
(Related: Life, Control, Confusion, Order)
"Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn."
- Paul Klee
(Related: Nature, Artist, Confusion)
"Confusion makes people uncomfortable. They can't put their finger on me."
- Lenny Kravitz
(Related: People, Confusion)
"Hitler and Mussolini were only the primary spokesmen for the attitude of domination and craving for power that are in the heart of almost everyone. Until the source is cleared, there will always be confusion and hate, wars and class antagonisms."
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Related: Power, Heart, Attitude, Class, Confusion, Hate, Will)
"The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion."
- Doris Lessing
(Related: Change, People, Body, Causes, Confusion, Old, Years)
"Family traditions counter alienation and confusion. They help us define who we are; they provide something steady, reliable and safe in a confusing world."
- Susan Lieberman
(Related: Family, Alienation, Confusion, Help, Traditions, World)
"The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life - to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity."
- Archibald MacLeish
(Related: Business, Life, Time, Possibility, Confusion, Dignity, Law, Order, Sense)
"And I believe that it becomes a troubled continent because there are those who must always cause confusion so that we do not keep these natural resources."
- Miriam Makeba
(Related: Cause, Confusion)
"I noticed that there are no B batteries. I think that's to avoid confusion, cause if there were you wouldn't know if someone was stuttering. 'Yes, hello I'd like some b-batteries.' 'What kind?' 'B-batteries.' 'What kind?' 'B-batteries!' and D-batteries that's hard for foreigners. 'Yes, I would like de batteries.'"
- Demetri Martin
(Related: Cause, Confusion, Foreigners)
"Innumerable confusions and a feeling of despair invariably emerge in periods of great technological and cultural transition."
- Marshall McLuhan
(Related: Despair, Feeling)
"It is possible to resolve childhood repression safely and without confusion - something that has always been disputed by the most respected schools of thought."
- Alice Miller
(Related: Thought, Childhood, Confusion, Repression, Schools)
"Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood."
- Henry Miller
(Related: Confusion, Order, Word)
"Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar Stood ruled, stood vast infinitude confined; Till at his second bidding darkness fled, Light shone, and order from disorder sprung."
- John Milton
(Related: Confusion, Darkness, Disorder, Light, Voice)
"I feel very comfortable with the way I look, and I feel very comfortable with the kind of confusion that it creates in people's minds."
- Brian Molko
(Related: People, Confusion)
"Amidst the confusion of the times, the conflicts of conscience, and the turmoil of daily living, an abiding faith becomes an anchor to our lives."
- Thomas S. Monson
(Related: Faith, Confusion, Conscience, Living)
"I don't know how many sacred cows there are today. I think there's a little confusion between humor and gross passing for humor. That's kind of regrettable."
- Bob Newhart
(Related: Humor, Confusion, Cows, Today)
"The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares."
- Henri Nouwen
(Related: Friend, Bereavement, Confusion, Despair, Grief, Healing)
"When you face the perils of weariness, carelessness, and confusion, don't pray for an easier life. Pray instead to be a stronger man or woman of God."
- Luis Palau
(Related: God, Life, Confusion, Man, Woman)
"It has not been an easy cross to bear. It has caused considerable confusion. My husband constantly complained about the awkwardness of being married to a woman whom he called Sister."
- Sister Parish
(Related: Sister, HusbBeing, Confusion, Woman)
"I think this confusion leads intellectuals and artists themselves to believe that the elite arts and humanities are a kind of higher, exalted form of human endeavor."
- Steven Pinker
(Related: Artists, Confusion, Intellectuals)
"For the record, I am not an admitted homosexual, nor am I a homosexual, though I do know the lyrics to every show tune ever written, which might perhaps account for the confusion."
- John Podhoretz
(Related: Confusion)
"Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning."
- Katherine Anne Porter
(Related: Life, Work, Artist, Chaos, Confusion, May, Meaning)
"Confusion of sign and object is original sin coeval with the word."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: Confusion, Sin, Word)
"Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds."
- George Santayana
(Related: Chaos, Confusion, Name, Order)
"Be able to notice all the confusion between fact and opinion that appears in the news."
- Marilyn vos Savant
(Related: Confusion, Fact, News, Opinion)
"The first, that their pretensions to this possession of an art properly so called in their art of speaking are entirely unfounded; and the second, that they are involved in a profound mistake in their confusion of the good with the pleasant."
- Friedrich Schleiermacher
(Related: Art, Mistake, Confusion, First, Possession)
"There was a time I could have been mistaken for Burt Reynolds. I had a moustache and so did he. But he was the number one star in the world, so there wasn't really much confusion."
- Tom Selleck
(Related: Time, Confusion, World)
"One learns in life to keep silent and draw one's own confusions."
- Cornelia Otis Skinner
(Related: Life)
"Yet, it ought to be obvious that good music generally occupies a higher plane that mere politics. Great writers can express moods through melody and capture experiences we share most powerfully - love, lust, longing; joy, rage, fear; triumph, yearning and confusion."
- Tony Snow
(Related: Music, Love, Politics, Fear, Confusion, Joy, Longing, Lust, Moods, Obvious, Writers, Yearning)
"When a man's knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has the greater will be his confusion."
- Herbert Spencer
(Related: Knowledge, Confusion, Man, Order, Will)
"I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused."
- Baruch Spinoza
(Related: Beauty, Imagination, Nature, Confusion, Order, Ugly)
"Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man."
- Edward Steichen
(Related: Beauty, Feelings, Wealth, Confusion, Earth, Force, Man, Photography)
"My earlier poems were sadder than my poems are today, perhaps because I wrote them in confusion or when I was unhappy. But I am not a melancholy person, quite the contrary, no one enjoys laughing more than I do."
- Anne Stevenson
(Related: Confusion, Melancholy, Poems, Today)
"These poems, with all their crudities, doubts, and confusions, are written for the love of Man and in praise of God, and I'd be a damn' fool if they weren't."
- Dylan Thomas
(Related: Love, God, Fool, Man, Poems, Praise)
"Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness."
- James Thurber
(Related: Confusion, Thinking, Unhappiness)
"If the Great Way perishes there will morality and duty. When cleverness and knowledge arise great lies will flourish. When relatives fall out with one another there will be filial duty and love. When states are in confusion there will be faithful servants."
- Lao Tzu
(Related: Love, Morality, Knowledge, Cleverness, Confusion, Duty, Lies, Relatives, states, Will)
"Towards four o'clock, the rebels felt strong enough to take the offensive. A brigade with a battery under Earle managed to strike the Federal right on the flank and rear and throw it into utter confusion, which spread rapidly along the whole front. Now came the disastrous end."
- Henry Villard
(Related: Confusion, End, Now, Right)
"Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while."
- Jack Welch
(Related: Change, Strength, Company, Confusion)
"It is equally demonstrable that so far as Texas is concerned, there have been equal confusion, insecurity and injustice in the administration of the State governments."
- William H. Wharton
(Related: Confusion, Injustice, Insecurity, State)
"In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word."
- Walt Whitman
(Related: Confusion, Word)
"I wanted to invent myself as a fictional character. And I did, and it has caused a great deal of confusion."
- Jeanette Winterson
(Related: Character, Confusion)
"In things to be seen at once, much variety makes confusion, another vice of beauty. In things that are not seen at once, and have no respect one to another, great variety is commendable, provided this variety transgress not the rules of optics and geometry."
- Christopher Wren
(Related: Beauty, Confusion, Geometry, Respect, Rules, Variety, Vice)