Confusion Quotes

“Yes, Kālāmas, it is proper that your have doubt, that you have perplexity, for a doubt has arisen in a matter which is doubtful. Now, look you Kālāmas, do not be led by reports, or traditions, or hearsay. Be not led by the authority of religious texts, not by the delight in speculative opinions, nor by seeming possibilities, not by the idea: 'this is our teacher'. But, O Kālāmas, when you know for yourself that certain things are unwholesome, and wrong, and bad, then give them up... And when you know for yourself that certain things are wholesome and good, then accept them and follow them.”
― The Buddha

“Never make the mistake of thinking you are alone — or inconsequential. Ignorance is voluntary and confusion is temporary. You see the world as-is, which is more than can be said for the vast populace.”
― Rebecca McKinsey, Sydney West

“In the process of burning out these confusions, we discover enlightenment. If the process were otherwise, the awakened state of mind would be a product dependent upon cause and effect and therefore liable to dissolution. Anything which is created must, sooner or later, die. If enlightenment were created in such a way, there would always be a possibility of ego reasserting itself, causing a return to the confused state. Enlightenment is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it.”
― Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

“There is bound to be turbulence in the clouds of confusion before one can view the friendly skies, and an illuminated landing strip.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“إنه كان أحسن الأزمان وكان أسوأ الأزمان .. كان عصر الحكمة وكان عصر الجهالة .. كان عهد اليقين والإيمان وكان عهد الحيرة والشكوك .. كان أوان النور وكان أوان الظلام .. كان ربيع الرجاء وكان زمهرير القنوط .. بين أيدينا كل شيء وليس في أيدينا أي شيء .. وسبيلنا جميعا إلى سماء عليين، وسبيلنا جميعا إلى قرار الجحيم. تلك أيام كأيامنا هذه التي يوصينا الصاخبون من ثقاتها أن نأخذها على علاتها، والا نذكرها إلا بصيغة المبالغة فيما اشتملت عليه من طيبات ومن آفات // في زمن الثورة الفرنسية”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“If I knew what to do
I'd do more than write a song for you”
― Criss Jami, Venus in Arms

“What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?”
― Shakespeare, Hamlet

“What was he? A mere human, stuck between the rungs of blended adolescence and nascent adulthood. What power did he command over the mysterious forces of love? Which sword could shatter the impenetrable armour of desire?”
― Faraaz Kazi

“We should set our goals; then learn to control our appetites. Otherwise, we will lose ourselves in the confusion of the world.”
― Hark Herald Sarmiento

“She thought of Henry and Diana on the stoop gazing at each other with the confusion and sadness of two puppies who have just stumbled into their first puddle and not yet come to understand what has happened to them and found that she wanted to lie extravagantly.”
― Anna Godbersen, Envy

“Essentially, love is the Donnie Darko of feelings: Anyone who brags, "I, like, totally get it man," is either full of crap or really, really high (or they watched the commentary on the DVD).”
― Andrea Lavinthal, Your So-Called Life: A Guide to Boys, Body Issues, and Other Big-Girl Drama You Thought You Would Have Figured Out by Now

“So you're going to have to ask yourselves on simple question: Which one of us is speaking now?”
― Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book

“We just didn't get it. We were weakened and exhilarated at the same time. A paranoiac's nightmare! A narcissist's dream! We didn't know how to feel: flattered or raped. Maybe both. We were puzzling at breakneck speed.”
― Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole

“By now it was too late to call St. Jude. He chose an out-of-the-way patch of airport carpeting and lay it down to sleep. He didn't understand what had happened to him. He felt like a piece of paper that had once had coherent writing on it but had been through the wash. He felt roughened, bleached and worn out along the fold lines. He semi-dreamed of disembodied eyes and isolated mouths in ski masks. He'd lost track of what he wanted, and since who a person was was what a person wanted, you could say that he'd lost track of himself.”
― Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections

“Confusion is a sign of intelligence; only fools are crystal clear.”
― Haresh Sippy

“So, Mr. Mandrake, what is it you plan to do with me this evening?” I asked haughtily.

“I presume,” he said, playing along, “that I will start with feeding you proper and then proceed with more…pestiferous acts.”

I smiled through the confusion. I’d have to look up that word later.”
― Brandi Salazar, Faerie Tales: The Misfortune of a Teenage Socialite

“Are you done briefing the company yet?"

"We, um... Haven't gotten through the introductions yet."

"Allow me: Time-traveling Kevyn Andreyasn, this is the mercenary company "Tagon's Toughs."

"Company, this is the time-traveling Kevyn Andreyasn, who will have become your captain thirty-two hours from now, as of seven weeks ago.
Now, quick. Let's go save the galaxy while they're confused.”
― Howard Tayler, Resident Mad Scientist

“Are women literal creatures? I have to admit this is not my forte.”
― A. Rosa, Emotionally Compromised

“I felt confused about my own life, as if I were living in the mind of a stranger. I wanted to understand her heart. I just wanted to be certain it was the right decision. Love was something I felt deeply but couldn't express, and now that I've said goodbye, I suddenly realize all the things I should have said.”
― Rolf van der Wind

“I've never had an interest, but baseball looks abnormal.”
― Emily J. Proctor, The Baseball Club for Girls

“To whomever is writing this book, what do you want
from me? I need to know my calling. Why was I chosen? Why
not Lee? Why not Susan March? Why me? What is my
purpose? Please let it be more than to destroy a life and
embarrass another. I need to know. I am suffering. You are a
constant headache. Anywhere I go, I can hear you, I can feel
you. I want to be like the others, ignorant of this.”
― K. Jared Hosein

“He answered his own question. He did not seem upset. He seemed puzzled, as if looking back at his past self and wondering how he could possibly have been so stupid.
"You're nothing special.”
― Sarah Rees Brennan, Unspoken

“I walked through a forest near a highway until I found a clump of moss to sleep on and remembered that Simon said possums were not indigenous to New Zealand, that they had been brought here by somebody a long time ago, some European, and since there were no animals here that liked to kill possums, all those unkilled possums had fucked up the whole fucking ecosystem by eating plants, too many plants, by wanting so much, and now there were what? --ten or fifteen possums per person in New Zealand? Something fucked up like that; and I imagined my dozen fucked-up possums gathered around me, a personal audience, and I wondered which things inside a person might be indigenous or nonindigenous, but it isn’t as easy to trace those kinds of things in a person as it is in a country. I wished that I could point to some colonizer and blame him for everything that was nonindigenous in me, whoever or whatever had fucked my ecosystem, had made me misunderstand myself--but I couldn’t blame anyone for what was in me, because I am, like everyone, populated entirely by myself,”
― Catherine Lacey, Nobody Is Ever Missing

“If you approach your romantic connections with confusion, you will receive confused treatment from them as well. It is all a mirroring act. Be intentional and clear about them and about what exactly you expect.”
― Robin S. Baker

“—Tienes que saber que yo siempre estoy confuso. No fui ni escribí porque quería apartarme de ti sin quererlo. Tú no lo entendías. Querías hacerme volver por todos los medios y yo tenía un miedo terrible. Te sentía a ti cuando intentaba dormirme en casa del médico. Me obsesionabas. Yo sabía que algo iba mal, pero no podía decir el qué. Así que me dediqué a pensar que eras tú.”
― E.M. Forster

“If we are ready to re-envision our status and reclaim a sense of involvement, we can transcend immediate reality, explore new possibilities, and find meaning and direction even in the face of confusion and misfortune. ("Check, and mate”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“You don't figure out everything overnight, you figure out things over time.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Still others, busy on the outside of the soul, devoted themselves to the cult of noise and confusion, thinking they were living whenever they heard themselves, and supposing they loved whenever they brushed love's outward forms. Living was painful because we knew we were alive; dying didn't scare us, for we had lost the normal notion of what death is.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Life is a ball of yarn that someone got all tangled. It would make sense if it were rolled up tight, or if it were unrolled and completely stretched out. But such as it is, life is a problem without shape, a confusion of yarn leading nowhere.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Being on the verge of seventeen could be harsh and painful and confusing.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe