Quotes about confusion (1305 quotes, page 2)

“I think basically the youth of today are just having so many problems and they are sort of confused…This is their method, of escaping…Just like I sleep to escape my problems.”

Yolanda King (1955–2007) American actress

1970s

Youth , Problem , Thinking , Sleep

“Without love the acquisition of knowledge only increases confusion and leads to self-destruction.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

1950s, Education and the Significance of Life (1953)

Love , Knowledge

“The goal is justice, the method is transparency. It's important not to confuse the goal and the method.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

[Julian Assange Interviewed by John Pilger, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGUq0kYV-8Q]

Justice

“Most men are scantily nourished on a modicum of happiness and a number of empty thoughts which life lays on their plates. They are kept in the road of life through stern necessity by elemental duties which they cannot avoid.
Again and again their will-to-live becomes, as it were, intoxicated: spring sunshine, opening flowers, moving clouds, waving fields of grain — all affect it. The manifold will-to-live, which is known to us in the splendid phenomena in which it clothes itself, grasps at their personal wills. They would fain join their shouts to the mighty symphony which is proceeding all around them. The world seem beauteous…but the intoxication passes. Dreadful discords only allow them to hear a confused noise, as before, where they had thought to catch the strains of glorious music. The beauty of nature is obscured by the suffering which they discover in every direction. And now they see again that they are driven about like shipwrecked persons on the waste of ocean, only that the boat is at one moment lifted high on the crest of the waves and a moment later sinks deep into the trough; and that now sunshine and now darkening clouds lie on the surface of the water.
And now they would fain persuade themselves that land lies on the horizon toward which they are driven. Their will-to-live befools their intellect so that it makes efforts to see the world as it would like to see it. It forces this intellect to show them a map which lends support to their hope of land. Once again they essay to reach the shore, until finally their arms sink exhausted for the last time and their eyes rove desperately from wave to wave. …
Thus it is with the will-to-live when it is unreflective.
But is there no way out of this dilemma? Must we either drift aimlessly through lack of reflection or sink in pessimism as the result of reflection? No. We must indeed attempt the limitless ocean, but we may set our sails and steer a determined course.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 256

Life , Men , Lie , World

“Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley.
But always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would ever have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us.”

A. J. Cronin (1896–1981) Scottish novelist and physician

As quoted in Knight's Treasury of Illustrations (1956), p. 149

Life , Faith , Way , Travel

“Confuse not love with the raptures of possession, which bring the cruellest of sufferings. For, notwithstanding the general opinion, love does not cause suffering: what causes it is the sense of ownership, which is love's opposite.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

Source: Citadelle or The Wisdom of the Sands (1948), p. 152

Love , Sense , Suffering

“The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism, without which we cannot hope to deal with new problems. The New Nationalism puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures attempting to treat national issues as local issues. It is still more impatient of the impotence which springs from over division of governmental powers, the impotence which makes it possible for local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to bring national activities to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards the executive power as the steward of the public welfare. It demands of the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative body shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of the people.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)

People , Hope , Spring , Problem

“Reason well from the beginning and then there will never be any need to look back with confusion and doubt.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

The Path to Enlightenment (1994) ISBN 1559390328

“The Oxford group movement, imagining itself the mediator of Christ's salvation in a catastrophic age, is really an additional evidence of the decay in which we stand. Its religion manages to combine bourgeois complacency with Christian contrition in a manner which makes the former dominant. Its morality is a religious expression of a decadent individualism. Far from offering us a way out of our difficulties it adds to the general confusion. This is not the gospel's message of judgement and hope to the world. It is bourgeois optimism, individualism and moralism expressing itself in the guise of religion. No wonder the rather jittery plutocrats of our day open their spacious summer homes to its message!”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

Source: Christianity and Power Politics (1936), Chapter 29: "Hitler and Buchman"

Age , World , Religion , Hope

“I see people giving me looks because I'm so opinionated. That hurts my feelings, but at the end of the day I have to live with me and respect myself. And I've done enough things in my life where I was confused and didn't respect myself that I will not do it any more.”

Sherilyn Fenn (1965) American actress

Sherilyn Fenn, quoted in "'Three of Hearts' may be Fenn's winning card", by Nancy Mills. Boston Herald (USA). April 25, 1993. p. 41

Life , People , Feeling , Hurt

“That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

This statement has been attributed to John A. Locke, but John Locke did not have a middle name. The words "dynamic," "boring" and "repetitive," found in this quote, were not yet in use in Locke's time. (See The Online Etymology Dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/abbr.php.) John A. Locke is listed on one site as having lived from 1899 to 1961; no more information about him was available.
Misattributed

Art

“What Senator McCain has lately been suggesting is that somehow I'm going to take money from people making over $250,000, and give it to people who "pay no taxes". What he's confusing is the fact that even if you don't pay income tax, there are a lot of people who don't pay income tax, but you're still paying a whole lot of other taxes. You're paying payroll tax, which is a huge burden on a lot of middle-income families. You're paying sales taxes. You're paying property taxes. There are a whole host of taxes that you're paying. So when we provide an offset to the waitress or the janitor, these folks are working.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

This isn't some giveaway to people who are on welfare. This is giving help to people who are working hard every day.
Remarks at a a rally in Lake Worth, Florida (21 October 2008) http://www-tc.pbs.org/newshour/rss/media/2008/10/21/20081021_wrap.mp3
2008

Money , People , Family , Help

“The British soldier is second to none in the communities of fighting men. Some may possess more élan, others may be better disciplined; but none excels him in all-round character. We require no training in bravery in Britain; we can trust to our own native manliness to see us through. So it is with the soldier. It is his natural pride which gives him his fighting qualities. How often he has stood firm before tyranny and oppression, the last hope of the free world! In the midst of the noise and confusion of the battlefield, the simple homely figure of the British soldier stands out calm and resolute—dominating all around him with his quiet courage, his humour and his cheerfulness, his unflinching acceptance of the situation. May the ideals for which he has struggled never vanish from the world! May he never be forgotten by the nation for which he has fought so nobly! I know better than most to what heights the British soldier can aspire. His greatness is a measure of the greatness of the British character, and I have seen the quality of our race proved again and again on the battlefield.”

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) British Army officer, Commander of Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein

Memoirs (London: Collins, 1958), pp. 543-544.

Men , World , Hope , Home

“Shopping bugs me, for metaphorical reasons I'm sure, because in life as in shopping, you go in looking for one thing. There's one thing you really need, right? But then there's “Blue Light Specials”, you know, and you just get confused, you get distracted, that's all. It's human. You wind up with this armload of shiny junk. You know, and then you're checking out—I mean, checking out—and suddenly you remember, “Huh… there was that one thing I came in for. Oh no, I forgot—I just have this junk—oh no!””

David Wilcox

“Too late, you're in the express line!”
"Metaphorical Reasons", Live Songs and Stories (What Are Records?, 2002)

Life , Light

“We know today that nothing will restore the pre-machine condition of reasonably universal employment save an artificial allocation of working hours involving the use of more men than formerly to perform a given task.... The primary function of society, in spite of all the sophistries spurred of selfishness, is to give men better conditions than they could get without it; and the basic need today is jobs for all—not for "property" for a few of the luck and the acquisitive.... In view of the urgent need for change, there is something almost obscene in the chatter of the selfish about various psychological evils allegedly inherent in a New Deal promising decent economic security and humane leisure for all instead of for a few.... What is worth answering is the kindred outcry about "regimentation", "collective slavery", "violation of Anglo-Saxon freedom", "destruction of the right of the individual to make his own way" and so on; with liberal references to Stalin, Hitler, Mustapha Kemal, and other extremist dictators who have sought to control men's personal, intellectual, and artistic lives, and traditional habits and folkways, as well as their economic fortunes. Naturally the Anglo-Saxon balks at any programme calculated to limit his freedom as a man and a thinker or to disturb his inherited perspectives and daily customs—and need we say that no plan ever proposed in an Anglo-Saxon country would conceivably seek to limit such freedom or disturb such perspectives and customs? Here we have a deliberate smoke-screen—conscious and malicious confusion of terms. A decent planned society would indeed vary to some extent the existing regulations (for there are such) governing commercial and economic life. Yet who save a self-confessed Philistine or Marxist (the plutocrat can cite "Das Kapital" for his purpose!) would claim that the details and conditions of our merely economic activities form more than a trivial fraction of our whole lives and personalities? That which is essential and distinctive about a man is not the routine of material struggle he follows in his office; but the civilised way he lives, outside his office, the life whose maintenance is the object of his struggle. So long as his office work gains him a decently abundant and undisputedly free life, it matters little what that work is—what the ownership of the enterprise, and what and how distributed its profits, if profits there be. We have seen that no system proposes to deny skill and diligence an adequate remuneration. What more may skill and diligence legitimately ask? Nor is any lessening in the pride of achievement contemplated. Man will thrill just as much at the overcoming of vast obstacles, and the construction of great works, whether his deeds be performed for service or for profit. As it is, the greatest human achievements have never been for profit. Would Keats or Newton or Lucretius or Einstein or Santayana flourish less under a rationally planned society? Any intimation that a man's life is wholly his industrial life, and that a planned economic order means a suppression of his personality, is really both a piece of crass ignorance and an insult to human nature. Incidentally, it is curious that no one has yet pointed to the drastically regulated economic life of the early Mass. Bay colony as something "American!"”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Unpublished (and probably unsent) letter to the Providence Journal (13 April 1934), quoted in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy, edited by J. T. Joshi, pp. 115-116
Non-Fiction, Letters

Life , Men , Way , Nature

“Your values have to be hierarchically organized with something absolute at the top, because otherwise they do nothing but war. You have to organize your values hierarchically or else you stay confused. This is true if you're an individual and it's true if you're a state. If you don't know what the next thing you should do is, then there are fifty things you should do. Then, how are you doing to do any of them. You can't. You have to prioritize. Something has to be above something else. It has to be arranged in a hierarchy for it not to be chaotic. So there is some principle at the top of the hierarchy.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

War

“Not that this confusion signifies to them who never care to think about the matter at all, for they have the wit to be well pleased with themselves, however great the turmoil of their ideas. But you, if you are a philosopher, will, I believe, do as I say.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Idea , Thinking

“Nobody ever told me,
I found out for myself,
You gotta believe in foolish miracles,
it's not how you play the game,
it's if you win or lose,
you can choose, don't confuse, win or lose.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

I Don't Know.
Song lyrics, Blizzard of Ozz (1980)

Game

“I'm all those things, even though I don't want to, in the confuse depth of my fatal sensibility.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 58
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Sou todas essa coisas, embora o não queira, no fundo confuso da minha sensibilidade fatal.

“Order and discipline are the most important things in an army, and without them it is impossible to have any other service of the troops than of a confused heap of stones, bricks, timber, and tiles; but when everything is in its due place, as in a building, when the foundations and the covering are made of materials that will not grow rotten, and which no wet can damage, such as are stones and tiles, and when the bricks and timber are employed in their due places in the body of the edifice, they altogether make a house, which we value among our most considerable enjoyments.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Memorabilia III.1
Xenophon

Housing

“Among so many conflicting ideas and so many different perspectives, the honest man is confused and distressed and the skeptic becomes wicked … Since one must take sides, one might as well choose the side that is victorious, the side which devastates, loots, and burns. Considering the alternative, it is better to eat than to be eaten.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Letter to his brother, as quoted in The Age of Napoleon (2002) by J. Christopher Herold, p. 8

Idea , Victory

“Of course, science lives by confusing theories, but what were accepted as 'theories' even by the many professional psychologists and psychiatrists were very poor limitations of what physical scientists call a theory.”

Raymond Cattell (1905–1998) British-American psychologist

Source: The Scientific Analysis of Personality, 1965, p. 16 (1966 edition)

Science

“And now to explain colours. I suppose that as bodies excite sounds of various tones and consequently vibrations, in the air of various bignesses, so when rays of light by impinging on the stiff refracting superficies excite vibrations in the ether, these rays excite vibrations of various bignesses… therefore, the ends of the capillamenta of the optic nerve which front or face the retina being such refracting superficies, when the rays impinge on them they must there excite these vibrations, which vibrations (like those of sound in a trumpet) will run along the pores or crystalline pith of the capillamenta through the optic nerves into the sensorium (which light itself cannot do), and there, I suppose, affect the sense with various colours, according to their bigness and mixture—the biggest with the strongest colours, reds and yellows; the least with the weakest, blues and violets; middle with green; and a confusion of all with white, much after the manner, that in the sense of hearing, nature makes use of aereal vibrations of several bignesses to generate sounds of divers tones; for the analogy of nature is to be observed.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

"Hypothesis explaining the Properties of Light" (1675)

Nature , Sense , Light

“Every tradition grows ever more venerable — the more remote its origin, the more confused that origin is. The reverence due to it increases from generation to generation. The tradition finally becomes holy and inspires awe.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

I.96
Human, All Too Human (1878)

“Moreover, there is this harm too, and one of vast extent, and touching men generally, that by insincerity and lying faith and truth are lost, which are the firmest bonds of human society, and, when they are lost, supreme confusion follows in life, so that men seem in nothing to differ from devils.”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

Apologia Pro Vita Sua [A defense of one's own life] (1864)

Life , Men , Truth , Faith

“If you’ve ever sat in a room with twins, immediately you’re forced to deal with this confusion. You’re afraid to call them by name because you’re afraid you’re going to get it wrong. At first being a twin is a source of power, you can switch, you can fool people—but then it becomes a vulnerability because people confuse you when you don’t want them to. The famous story of the twins who were both spanked when either one of them did something wrong because the parents wanted to make sure they got the right twin. So that would immediately make each twin totally responsible for the other one’s actions and therefore would make you want to control the other twin’s actions. It gets quite twisted and the confusion of identities becomes quite intense.”

David Cronenberg (1943) Canadian film director, screenwriter and actor

People , Fools , Parent

“Authoritarian, paralyzing, circular, occasionally elliptical, stock phrases, also jocularly referred to as nuggets of wisdom, are malignant plague, one of the very worst ever to ravage the earth. We say to the confused, Know thyself, as if knowing yourself was not the fifth and most difficult of human arithmetical operations, we say to the apathetic, Where there’s a will, there’s a way, as if the brute realities of the world did not amuse themselves each day by turning that phrase on its head, we say to the indecisive, Begin at the beginning, as if that beginning were the clearly visible point of a loosely wound thread and that all we had to do was to keep pulling until we reached the other end, and as if, between the former and the latter, we had held in our hands a smooth, continuous thread with no knots to untie, no snarled to untangle, a complete impossibility in the life of a skien, or indeed, if we may be permitted on more stock phrase, in the skien of life. … These are the delusions of the pure and unprepared, the beginning is never the clear, precise end of a thread, the beginning is a long, painfully slow process that requires time and patience in order to find out in which direction it is heading, a process that feels its way along the path ahead like a blind man the beginning is just the beginning, what came before is nigh on worthless.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 54 (Vintage 2003)

Life , Wisdom , World , Way

“We must resist the temptation to be “normal,” because those who are now considered normal accept the values and practices of an insane world. In modern society, for example, normal people strive to accumulate as many commodities as possible, because they believe that their success and personal worth are linked to the number of possessions they have acquired. As the joke goes, “The one who dies with the most toys, wins.” If we espouse this viewpoint, the toys we have to play with form the measure of our personal worth. Unfortunately, this notion confuses acquired material worth with our inherent worth as spiritual beings.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume III: Solace for the Heart in Difficult Times (Hari-Nama Press, 2000), Chapter 8 - How To Strengthen Ourselves

People , World , Success , Personality

“Perhaps the topic [of this book] will appear fairly difficult to you because it is not yet familiar knowledge and the understanding of beginners is easily confused by mistakes; but with your inspiration and my teaching it will be easy for you to master, because clear intelligence supported by good lessons is a fast route to knowledge.”

Diophantus Arithmetica

Following the dedication to Dionysus as quoted by Paul Drijvers, Secondary Algebra Education (2011)
Arithmetica (c. 250 AD)

Books , Intelligence , Understanding , Support

“Psychology appeared to be a jungle of confusing, conflicting, and arbitrary concepts. These pre-scientific theories doubtless contained insights which still surpass in refinement those depended upon by psychiatrists or psychologists today. But who knows, among the many brilliant ideas offered, which are the true ones? Some will claim that the statements of one theorist are correct, but others will favour the views of another. Then there is no objective way of sorting out the truth except through scientific research.”

Raymond Cattell (1905–1998) British-American psychologist

Source: The Scientific Analysis of Personality, 1965, p. 14 (quote doesn't seem to be present in 1966 edition)

Truth , Way , Idea , Appearance

“The man who blames the supreme certainty of mathematics feeds on confusion, and can never silence the contradictions of sophistical sciences which lead to an eternal quackery.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Mathematics , Silence , Science

“For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc. Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence. If, as is nearly always the case, music appears to express something, this is only an illusion and not a reality. It is simply an additional attribute which, by tacit and inveterate agreement, we have lent it, thrust upon it, as a label, a convention – in short, an aspect which, unconsciously or by force of habit, we have come to confuse with its essential being.”

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Russian composer, pianist and conductor

Igor Stravinsky (1936). An Autobiography, p. 53-54.
1930s

Music , Feeling , Mood , Nature

“Einstein was confused, not the quantum theory.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Lecture at the Amsterdam Symposium on Gravity, Black Holes, and String Theory (21 June 1997)

“The East will be seen to rush to the West and the South to the North in confusion round and about the universe, with great noise and trembling or fury.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

"In the East wind which rushes to the West"
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings

Universe

“But what changes come upon the weary desert of our culture, so darkly described, when it is touched by the magic of Dionysus! A storm seizes everything decrepit, rotten, broken, stunted; shrouds it in a whirling red cloud of dust and carries it into the air like a vulture. In vain confusion we seek for all that has vanished; for what we see has risen as if from beneath he earth into the gold light, so full and green, so luxuriantly alive, immeasurable and filled with yearning. Tragedy sits in sublime rapture amidst this abundance of life, suffering and delight, listening to a far-off, melancholy song which tells of the Mothers of Being, whose names are Delusion, Will, Woe. -
Yes, my friends, join me in my faith in this Dionysiac life and the rebirth of tragedy. The age of Socratic man is past: crown yourselves with ivy, grasp the thyrsus and do not be amazed if tigers and panthers lie down fawning at your feet. Now dare to be tragic men, for you will be redeemed. You shall join the Dionysiac procession from India to Greece! Gird yourselves for a hard battle, but have faith in the miracles of your god!”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Birth of Tragedy

Aber wie verändert sich plötzlich jene eben so düster geschilderte Wildniss unserer ermüdeten Cultur, wenn sie der dionysische Zauber berührt! Ein Sturmwind packt alles Abgelebte, Morsche, Zerbrochne, Verkümmerte, hüllt es wirbelnd in eine rothe Staubwolke und trägt es wie ein Geier in die Lüfte. Verwirrt suchen unsere Blicke nach dem Entschwundenen: denn was sie sehen, ist wie aus einer Versenkung an's goldne Licht gestiegen, so voll und grün, so üppig lebendig, so sehnsuchtsvoll unermesslich. Die Tragödie sitzt inmitten dieses Ueberflusses an Leben, Leid und Lust, in erhabener Entzückung, sie horcht einem fernen schwermüthigen Gesange - er erzählt von den Müttern des Seins, deren Namen lauten: Wahn, Wille, Wehe.
Ja, meine Freunde, glaubt mit mir an das dionysische Leben und an die Wiedergeburt der Tragödie. Die Zeit des sokratischen Menschen ist vorüber: kränzt euch mit Epheu, nehmt den Thyrsusstab zur Hand und wundert euch nicht, wenn Tiger und Panther sich schmeichelnd zu euren Knien niederlegen. Jetzt wagt es nur, tragische Menschen zu sein: denn ihr sollt erlöst werden. Ihr sollt den dionysischen Festzug von Indien nach Griechenland geleiten! Rüstet euch zu hartem Streite, aber glaubt an die Wunder eures Gottes!
Source: The Birth of Tragedy (1872), p. 98

Life , Men , God , Lie

“Our culture today confuses great attention and great success, assuming them to be the same thing. But they are not.”

Mark Manson (1984) American writer and blogger

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 9, “...And Then You Die” (p. 207)

Success

“In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word “experience” have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word. It is to be feared, however, that if the word is avoided the confusions of thought with which it has been associated may persist.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism (1914)
1910s

Fear

“When someone is drowning, you have to approach them extremely carefully. This is because, if they are panicking and they grab you, then you both drown. And that's stupid, because you both drown. That's a really good metaphor for trying to help someone. When people are in real trouble, some of it is that they're confused, some of it is that their life has collapsed around them, and there's some malevolence there and some desire for vengeance (it's one dangerous mess). If you're going to wade in there unprepared, the possibility that they're going to take you down compared with you elevating them is very high, because you don't even know what your damn psychological stability rests on. You might be sane just because you're lucky and surrounded by good people. That doesn't mean that you have the psychological wherewithal to pull someone up from the depths of the underworld, especially if they have one foot in hell. You should bloody well be careful about doing that kind of thing. It's hubristic to attempt it, and I would definitely caution people – be very careful about rescuing people who don't want to be rescued. It's very dangerous activity, and it can easily be counterproductive.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Life , People , Stupidity , Hell

“Not one of these nobly equipped young men has escaped the restless, exhausting, confusing, debilitating crisis of education. … He feels that he cannot guide himself, cannot help himself—and then he dives hopelessly into the world of everyday life and daily routine, he is immersed in the most trivial activity possible, and his limbs grow weak and weary.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Anti-Education (1872)

Life , Men , World , Education

“This ideal is evidently still very imaginary, and may seem of but little importance; and infinite time must elapse, as in all other cases, before the certitude of those who are convinced that the race so far has erred in the choice of its aliment (assuming the truth of this statement to be borne out by experience) shall reach the confused masses, and bring them enlightenment and comfort. But may this not be the expedient Nature holds in reserve for the time when the struggle for life shall have become too hopelessly unbearable--the struggle for life that today means the fight for meat and for alcohol, double source of injustice and waste whence all the others are fed, double symbol of a happiness and necessity whereof neither is human?”

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist

Source: The Buried Temple (1902), Ch. III: "The Kingdom of Matter", § 5

Life , Alcohol , Truth , Nature

“The risks of war present no danger to those who are well prepared for it in advance and who are mindful of their place in the nation's defences. Confusion and panic usually appear wherever there is no adequate organizaton or appropriate leadership at a time of grim trials.”

Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974) Marshal of the Soviet Union

p. 692

War , Appearance , Time

“I never take offence at any genuine effort to wrest the truth or deduce a rational set of values from the confused phenomena of the external world. It never occurs to me to look for personal factors in the age-long battle for truth. I assume that all hands are really trying to achieve the same main object—the discovery of sound facts and the rejection of fallacies—and it strikes me as only a minor matter that different strivers may happen to see a different perspective now and then. And in matters of mere preference, as distinguished from those involving the question of truth versus fallacy, I do not see any ground whatever for acrimonious feeling. Knowing the capriciousness and complexity of the various biological and psychological factors determining likes, dislikes, interests, indifferences, and so on, one can only be astonished that any two persons have even approximately similar tastes. To resent another's different likes and interests is the summit of illogical absurdity. It is very easy to distinguish a sincere, impersonal difference of opinion and tastes from the arbitrary, ill-motivated, and irrational belittlement which springs from a hostile desire to push another down and which constitutes real offensiveness. I have no tolerance for such real offensiveness—but I greatly enjoy debating questions of truth and value with persons as sincere and devoid of malice as I am. Such debate is really a highly valuable—almost indispensable—ingredient of life; because it enables us to test our own opinions and amend them if we find them in any way erroneous or unjustified.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Robert E. Howard (7 November 1932), in Selected Letters 1932-1934 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 102
Non-Fiction, Letters

Life , Hostility , Truth , Age

“Moreover, in Christ's second discourse, the mode in which the mention of Jonas is understood in Matthew, verse 40, is wholly unsuited to the context and to the application which even there is made of it; and if we do not take this for a later interpolation, for which no adequate inducement suggests itself, it must be considered as an erroneous comment of the reporter, which he has mixed up with Christ’s own words, of course without being conscious of it, a thing which might easily happen when his recollection had become dim and confused. In addition to the signs already adduced of Matthew’s reporter having been so circumstanced comes the fact, that he omits the little incident related in Luke, which intervenes between Christ’s two discourses, namely, the admiring ejaculation of a woman in the crowd and the reply to it.”

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) German theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar

Friedrich Schleiermacher, A Critical Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke https://archive.org/details/gospelofstluke00schluoft, 1825, pp. 185–186

Christ

“When at first thought we think of a creator our ideas appear to us undefined and confused; but if we reason philosophically, those ideas can be easily arranged and simplified. It is a Being, whose power is equal to his will.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)

Idea , Thinking , Appearance

“You [recruits] have sworn loyalty to me. You have only one enemy and that is my enemy. In the present social confusion it may come about that I order you to shoot down your own relatives, brothers or parents but even then you must follow my orders without a murmur.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Speech (23 November 1891), quoted in Michael Balfour, The Kaiser and His Times (London: Penguin, 1975), p. 158
1890s

Parent , Loyalty

“Overcapitalization in all its shapes is one of the prime evils; for it is one of the most fruitful methods by which unscrupulous men get improper profits, and when the holdings come into innocent hands we are forced into the uncomfortable position of being obliged to reduce the dividends of innocent investors, or of permitting the public and the wage-workers, either or both, to suffer. Such really effective control over great inter-State business can come only from the National Government. The American people demands the new Nationalism needful to deal with the new problems; it puts the National need above sectional, or personal advantage; it is impatient of the utter confusion which results from local legislatures attempting to treat National issues as local issues; it is still more impatient of the National impotence which springs from the over-division of governmental powers; the impotence which makes it possible for local selﬁshness, or for the vulpine legal cunning which is hired by wealthy special interests, to bring National activities to a deadlock; The control must be exercised in several different ways. It may be that National incorporation is not at the moment possible; but there must be some affirmative. National control, on terms which will secure publicity in the affairs of and complete supervision and control over the big, Nation-wide business corporations; a control that will prevent and not legalize abuses. […] Such control should protect and favor the corporation which acts honestly, exactly as it should check and punish, when it cannot prevent, every species of dishonesty.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

Men , People , Way , Exercises

“Thank you for your letter and for the enclosure which I return herewith. I have been wondering whether there is any means of preventing the confusion between you and me, and I half-thought that we might write a joint letter to The Times in the following terms: Sir, To prevent the continuation of confusions which frequently occur, we beg to state that neither of us is the other. Do you think this would be a good plan?”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Lord Russell of Liverpool, February 18, 1959
1950s

Thinking , Time

“Surrender is surrender to this moment, not to a story through which you interpret this moment and then try to resign yourself to it. … Can you accept the isness of this moment and not confuse it with a story the mind has created around it?”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Stillness Speaks (2003)

“In our techniques we enter completely into, blend totally with, and control firmly an attack. Strength resides where one's ki is concentrated and stable; confusion and maliciousness arise when ki stagnates.”

Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) founder of aikido

The Art of Peace (1992)

“When men take it in their heads to-day, to hang gamblers, or burn murderers, they should recollect, that, in the confusion usually attending such transactions, they will be as likely to hang or burn some one who is neither a gambler nor a murderer as one who is; and that, acting upon the example they set, the mob of to-morrow, may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them by the very same mistake. And not only so; the innocent, those who have ever set their faces against violations of law in every shape, alike with the guilty, fall victims to the ravages of mob law; and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for the defense of the persons and property of individuals, are trodden down, and disregarded.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)

Men , Law , Personality

“The life of reality is confused, disorderly, almost always without apparent purpose, whereas in the artist's imaginative life there is purpose.”

Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941) writer

"A Note on Realism" in The Literary Review (25 October 1924)
Context: The life of reality is confused, disorderly, almost always without apparent purpose, whereas in the artist's imaginative life there is purpose. There is determination to give the tale, the song, the painting, form — to make it true and real to the theme, not to life. Often the better the job is done, the greater the confusion. I myself remember with what a shock I heard people say that one of my own books Winesburg, Ohio was an exact picture of Ohio village life. The book was written in a crowded tenement district of Chicago. The hint for almost every character was taken from my fellow-lodgers in a large rooming house, many of whom had never lived in a village. The confusion arises out of the fact that others besides practicing artists have imaginations. But most people are afraid to trust their imaginations and the artist is not.
Would it not be better to have it understood that realism, in so far as the word means reality to life, is always bad art — although it may possibly be very good journalism? Which is but another way of saying that all of the so-called great realists were not realists at all and never intended being. Madame Bovary did not exist in fact. She existed in the imaginative life of Flaubert and he managed to make her exist also in the imaginative life of his readers.

Life , Imagination , Reality

“I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.”

Charles Babbage (1791–1871) mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable c…

Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), ch. 5 "Difference Engine No. 1"
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864)
Context: On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

Idea , Question

“Things differ because of the time in which they exist. In time, things opposite will reverse themselves. Also, judging does the opposite of clearing it confuses. Now, if any of this you judged to be non-sense, then perhaps it’s not so obvious that judging is the worst escort perception can have.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

Sense , Time

“That is an example of our perennial confusion of symbols with realities.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Audio lecture "Individual and Society"
Context: I am amazed that Congressmen can pass a bill imposing severe penalties on anyone who burns the American flag, whereas they are responsible for burning that for which the flag stands: the United States as a territory, as a people, and as a biological manifestation. That is an example of our perennial confusion of symbols with realities.

Reality

“The key is not to confuse myth and empirical results, or religion and science.”

Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 196.
Context: Since religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt to reconcile scientific theories with religion. An infinitely old universe, always evolving, may not be compatible with the Book of Genesis. However, religions such as Buddhism get along without having any explicit creation mythology and are in no way contradicted by a universe without a beginning or end. Creatio ex nihilo, even as religious doctrine, only dates to around AD 200. The key is not to confuse myth and empirical results, or religion and science.

Religion , Science

“In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Foreword to The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom (1987)
General sources
Context: In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves.

Soul

“It is surely a pure delight to know, how and by what processes this earth is clothed with verdure and life, how the clouds, mists and rain are formed, what causes all the changes of this terrestrial system of things, and by what divine laws order is preserved amidst apparent confusion.”

Humphry Davy (1778–1829) Cornish chemist

The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy, Volume IX, Salmonia and Consolation in Travel (1840), Consolation in Travel book section, Chapter Dialogue V. The Chemical Philosopher, p. 361 http://books.google.de/books?id=KDw9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA362&lpg=PA362&dq=humphry+davy+Every+discovery+opens+a+new+field+for+investigation+of+facts,+shows+us+the+imperfection+of+our+theories.+It+has+justly+been+said,+that+the+greater+the+circle+of+light,+the+greater+the+boundary+of+darkness+by+which+it+is+surrounded.&source=bl&ots=9MZhcfRJFa&sig=UI05WRE5VzJDjfKd7Kf1Cp9B06Y&hl=de&sa=X&ei=WfSvUoG1OsiatAaHq4CIDg&ved=0CEoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=humphry%20davy%20Every%20discovery%20opens%20a%20new%20field%20for%20investigation%20of%20facts%2C%20shows%20us%20the%20imperfection%20of%20our%20theories.%20It%20has%20justly%20been%20said%2C%20that%20the%20greater%20the%20circle%20of%20light%2C%20the%20greater%20the%20boundary%20of%20darkness%20by%20which%20it%20is%20surrounded.&f=false, edited by John Davy, London: Smith, Elder and Co. Cornhill
Context: It is surely a pure delight to know, how and by what processes this earth is clothed with verdure and life, how the clouds, mists and rain are formed, what causes all the changes of this terrestrial system of things, and by what divine laws order is preserved amidst apparent confusion. It is a sublime occupation to investigate the cause of the tempest and the volcano, and to point out their use in the economy of things, — to bring the lightning from the clouds and make it subservient to our experiments, — to produce as it were a microcosm in the laboratory of art, and to measure and weigh those invisible atoms, which, by their motions and changes according to laws impressed upon them by the Divine Intelligence, constitute the universe of things. The true chemical philosopher sees good in all the diversified forms of the external world. Whilst he investigates the operations of infinite power guided by infinite wisdom, all low prejudices, all mean superstitions disappear from his mind. He sees man an atom amidst atoms fixed upon a point in space; and yet modifying the laws that are around him by understanding them; and gaining, as it were, a kind of dominion over time, and an empire in material space, and exerting on a scale infinitely small a power seeming a sort of shadow or reflection of a creative energy, and which entitles him to the distinction of being made in the image of God and animated by a spark of the divine mind. Whilst chemical pursuits exalt the understanding, they do not depress the imagination or weaken genuine feelings; whilst they give the mind habits of accuracy, by obliging it to attend to facts, they likewise extend its analogies; and, though conversant with the minute forms of things, they have for their ultimate end the great and magnificent objects of nature. They regard the formation of a crystal, the structure of a pebble, the nature of a clay or earth; and they apply to the causes of the diversity of our mountain chains, the appearances of the winds, thunder-storms, meteors, the earthquake, the volcano, and all those phenomena which offer the most striking images to the poet and the painter. They keep alive that inextinguishable thirst after knowledge, which is one of the greatest charactics of our nature; — for every discovery opens a new field for investigation of facts, shows us the imperfection of our theories. It has justly been said, that the greater the circle of light, the greater the boundary of darkness by which it is surrounded.

Life , Law , Change , Clothes

“People are deeply imbedded in philosophical, i. e., grammatical confusions. And to free them presupposes pulling them out of the immensely manifold connections they are caught up in.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: 1930s-1951, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 9 : Philosophy, p. 185

People

“We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2010s, 2018, Farewell statement (2018)
Context: We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.

“It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. No one can really hold that the ecstasy should be static and stand still in one place. It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends 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. It has denouement. It has an outcome that though unforeseen was predestined from the first image of the original mood-and indeed from the very mood.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

The portion of "The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom." is often misquoted as: Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom.
The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)
Context: It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. No one can really hold that the ecstasy should be static and stand still in one place. It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends 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. It has denouement. It has an outcome that though unforeseen was predestined from the first image of the original mood-and indeed from the very mood. It is but a trick poem and no poem at all if the best of it was thought of first and saved for the last. It finds its own name as it goes and discovers the best waiting for it in some final phrase at once wise and sad-the happy-sad blend of the drinking song.

Love , Life , Wisdom , Pleasure

“One of the worst muddles of this age is its confusing of the ideas behind combative and cognitive activity. Cognition is not fighting, but once someone knows a lot, he will have much to fight for, so much that he will be called a relativist because of it.”

Karel Čapek (1890–1938) Czech writer

"On Relativism" (1925)
Context: Socialism is good when it comes to wages, but it tells me nothing when it comes to other questions in life that are more private and painful, for which I must seek answers elsewhere. Relativism is not indifference; on the contrary, passionate indifference is necessary in order for you not to hear the voices that oppose your absolute decrees … Relativism is neither a method of fighting, nor a method of creating, for both of these are uncompromising and at times even ruthless; rather, it is a method of cognition. If one must fight or create, it is necessary that this be preceded by the broadest possible knowledge... One of the worst muddles of this age is its confusing of the ideas behind combative and cognitive activity. Cognition is not fighting, but once someone knows a lot, he will have much to fight for, so much that he will be called a relativist because of it.

Age , Idea , Fight

“We must consider both the ultimate end and all clear sensory evidence, to which we refer our opinions; for otherwise everything will be full of uncertainty and confusion.”

Epicurus (-341–-269 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

22
Sovereign Maxims

“It seems to me that those who complain of man's progress confuse ends with means.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

Ch III : The Tool
Terre des Hommes (1939)
Context: Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures — in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together. Do our dreamers hold that the invention of writing, of printing, of the sailing ship, degraded the human spirit?
It seems to me that those who complain of man's progress confuse ends with means. True, that man who struggles in the unique hope of material gain will harvest nothing worth while. But how can anyone conceive that the machine is an end? It is a tool. As much a tool as is the plough. The microscope is a tool. What disservice do we do the life of the spirit when we analyze the universe through a tool created by the science of optics, or seek to bring together those who love one another and are parted in space?

“The world thought well of my schoolmaster guardian, because he was neither a liar, nor a scamp, nor a gambler; but he was coarse, avaricious, and ignorant; he knew nothing beyond the confused lessons which he taught to his classes. He imagined that in forcing a youth to become a monk he would be offering a sacrifice acceptable to God. He used to boast of the many victims which he devoted annually to Dominic and Francis and Benedict.”

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian

As quoted in Life and Letters of Erasmus: Lectures Delivered at Oxford 1893-4 (1899) by James Anthony Froude

God , Youth , World , Imagination

“We often confuse unconditional love with unconditional approval.”

Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) Dutch priest and writer

Bread For the Journey (1996)
Context: We often confuse unconditional love with unconditional approval. God loves us without conditions but does not approve of every human behavior. God doesn’t approve of betrayal, violence, hatred, suspicion, and all other expressions of evil, because they all contradict the love God wants to instill in the human heart. Evil is the absence of God’s love.

Love

“The notion that all these fragments are separately existent is evidently an illusion, and this illusion cannot do other than lead to endless conflict and confusion.”

David Bohm book Wholeness and the Implicate Order

Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980)
Context: The notion that all these fragments are separately existent is evidently an illusion, and this illusion cannot do other than lead to endless conflict and confusion. Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today. Thus, as is now well known, this way of life has brought about pollution, destruction of the balance of nature, over-population, world-wide economic and political disorder and the creation of an overall environment that is neither physically nor mentally healthy for most of the people who live in it. Individually there has developed a widespread feeling of helplessness and despair, in the face of what seems to be an overwhelming mass of disparate social forces, going beyond the control and even the comprehension of the human beings who are caught up in it.

“The problem comes up because we ask the question in the wrong way. We supposed that solids were one thing and space quite another, or just nothing whatever. Then it appeared that space was no mere nothing, because solids couldn't do without it. But the mistake in the beginning was to think of solids and space as two different things, instead of as two aspects of the same thing. The point is that they are different but inseparable, like the front end and the rear end of a cat. Cut them apart, and the cat dies. Take away the crest of the wave, and there is no trough.
Here is someone who has never seen a cat. He is looking through a narrow slit in a fence, and, on the other side, a cat walks by. He sees first the head, then the less distinctly shaped furry trunk, and then the tail. Extraordinary! The cat turns round and walks back, and again he sees the head, and a little later the tail. This sequence begins to look like something regular and reliable. Yet again, the cat turns round, and he witnesses the same regular sequence: first the head, and later the tail. Thereupon he reasons that the event head is the invariable and necessary cause of the event tail, which is the head's effect. This absurd and confusing gobbledygook comes from his failure to see that head and tail go together: they are all one cat.
The cat wasn't born as a head which, sometime later, caused a tail; it was born all of a piece, a head-tailed cat. Our observer's trouble was that he was watching it through a narrow slit, and couldn't see the whole cat at once.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 26-27

Way , Cats , Failure , Question

“There is a tendency to mistake data for wisdom, just as there has always been a tendency to confuse logic with values, intelligence with insight. Unobstructed access to facts can produce unlimited good only if it is matched by the desire and ability to find out what they mean and where they lead.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

"Freedom as Teacher" in Human Options : An Autobiographical Notebook (1981).
Context: There is a tendency to mistake data for wisdom, just as there has always been a tendency to confuse logic with values, intelligence with insight. Unobstructed access to facts can produce unlimited good only if it is matched by the desire and ability to find out what they mean and where they lead. Facts are terrible things if left sprawling and unattended. They are too easily regarded as evaluated certainties rather than as the rawest of raw materials crying to be processed into the texture of logic. It requires a very unusual mind, Whitehead said, to undertake the analysis of a fact. The computer can provide a correct number, but it may be an irrelevant number until judgment is pronounced.

Wisdom , Intelligence

“If you reject absolutely any single sensation without stopping to discriminate with respect to that which awaits confirmation between matter of opinion and that which is already present, whether in sensation or in feelings or in any immediate perception of the mind, you will throw into confusion even the rest of your sensations by your groundless belief and so you will be rejecting the standard of truth altogether. If in your ideas based upon opinion you hastily affirm as true all that awaits confirmation as well as that which does not, you will not escape error, as you will be maintaining complete ambiguity whenever it is a case of judging between right and wrong opinion.”

Epicurus (-341–-269 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

24
Sovereign Maxims

Truth , Error , Feeling , Idea

“It is only when we move to modem times that we find the first traces of sarva-dharma-samabhâva surfacing in India in the form of the Brahmo Samaj. Raja Ram Mohun Roy, the founder of this cult, was a votary of Islamic monotheism, and later on became infatuated with Jesus Christ. He confused the monism of the Upanishads with the monotheism of Biblical creeds, and gave birth to a lot of confusion. But, by and large, he stayed a Hindu who had some very hard words to say about the doings of Islam and Christian missionaries in India...”

Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833) Indian religious, social, and educational reformer, and humanitarian

S.R.Goel, Preface, in Goel, Sita Ram (ed.) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy.

Birth , Christ , Time

“It just always reveals to me how many misconceptions and what a misunderstanding there is about what feminism is. Feminism is about giving women choice. Feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with. It’s about freedom, it’s about liberation, it’s about equality. I really don’t know what my tits have to do with it. It’s very confusing.”

Emma Watson (1990) British actress and model

"Actress Emma Watson says revealing photo does not undermine feminism" http://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-emmawatson-idUSKBN16C0QV, Reuters, in response to critics of her photos in Vogue magazine (March 5, 2017)

Women , Freedom

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. I do not dispute their right to invent social combinations, to advertise them, to advocate them, and to try them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk. But I do dispute their right to impose these plans upon us by law – by force – and to compel us to pay for them with our taxes.”

Frédéric Bastiat book The Law

The Law (1850)

Religion , Time , Law , Personality

“The Gospel knows nothing of that confusion of the Kingdom of God with the State which is characteristic of the theocratic ideal of Judaism. On the contrary, it opposed the theocratic ideal of Judaism with the same sharpness with which it resisted the totalitarian claims of the Roman State.”

Oscar Cullmann (1902–1999) French theologian

Source: The State in the New Testament (1956), p. 9

God

“For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is. Private property has crushed true Individualism, and set up an Individualism that is false. It has debarred one part of the community from being individual by starving them. It has debarred the other part of the community from being individual by putting them on the wrong road and encumbering them.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

Perfection , Falseness , Parting , Communication

“To dismiss the history of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Communist Party, to dismiss Lenin and Stalin, and to dismiss everything else is to engage in historic nihilism, and it confuses our thoughts and undermines the party’s organizations on all levels.”

Xi Jinping (1953) General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and paramount leader of China

As quoted in " Xi Jinping’s quest to revive Stalin’s communist ideology https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/10/16/xi-jinpings-quest-to-revive-stalins-communist-ideology/?utm_term=.a350d0a610c0" Washington Post
2010s

History

“Nothing is perhaps more confusing to the student of Russia than the conflicting reports that come of the treatment of prisoners and of the criminal law. We are told of the Red Terror and ghastly and horrible details are provided for our consumption; we are also told that the Russian prison is an ideal residence where anyone can live in comfort and ease and with a minimum of restraint. Our own visit to the chief prison in Moscow created a most favourable impression on our minds.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and Impressions (1949)

Law

“A large mirror,—so at first it seemed to me in my confusion—now stood where none had been perceptible before; and, as I stepped up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me with a feeble and tottering gait.”

Edgar Allan Poe book William Wilson

William Wilson (1839)

“Socialist ideology, like so many others, has two main dangers. One stems from confused and incomplete readings of foreign texts, and the other from the arrogance and hidden rage of those who, in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be frantic defenders of the helpless so as to have shoulders on which to stand.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

World , Reading , Rage

“To say that prediction is the purpose of a scientific theory is to confuse means with ends. It is like saying that the purpose of a spaceship is to burn fuel. … Passing experimental tests is only one of many things a theory has to do to achieve the real purpose of science, which is to explain the world.”

David Deutsch book The Fabric of Reality

Source: The Fabric of Reality (1997), Ch. 1

World , Science

“The House of Commons is a body without a head. The Members give their opinions in a disorderly manner. At their meetings nothing is heard but cries, shouts, and confusion. I am surprised that my ancestors should ever have permitted such an institution to come into existence. I am a stranger and found it here when I arrived, so that I am obliged to put up with what I cannot get rid of.”

James I of England (1566–1625) king during union of English and Scottish crowns

Remark to the Spanish Ambassador, as quoted in A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume Two: The New World (1956) by Winston Churchill, p. 157

Housing

“And, at the risk of losing forever your so remarkably candid friendship, let me tell you something. Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford, and you are not that young any more.”

James Baldwin book Giovanni's Room

Pt. 1, Ch. 2 - p.36
Giovanni's Room (1956)

Friendship

“Who, pray, are benefiting by all this waste and confusion? The dew, a mere small percentage of the population of the world. All the remainder submit, because they think "it always has been so and it must always be so."”

Lucy Parsons (1853–1942) American communist anarchist labor organizer

The work of those who have a conception of a true society of the future, must devote all their efforts towards disabusing the people's minds of the ancient false hoods. It can be done. Many other hoary lies have passed away, so will this one, too.

"Property Rights vs. Human Rights" (Nov. 1905)

World , Thinking

“The knight's song and direction
I found new, but not confused;
He left our path,
but strode strongly and confidently.
When you want to evaluate, according to rules, something which doesn't follow your rules,
You have to forget your own ways,
And seek out its rules!”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Original: (de) Des Ritters Lied und Weise,
sie fand ich neu, doch nicht verwirrt;
verliess er unsre Gleise,
schritt er doch fest und unbeirrt.
Wollt ihr nach Regeln messen,
was nicht nach eurer Regeln Lauf,
der eignen Spur vergessen,
sucht davon erst die Regeln auf!
Source: Quotes from his operas, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Hans Sachs, Act 1, Scene 3

Way , Forgetting , Confidence , Self-confidence