Quotes about messy (80 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Everyone thinks that courage is about facing death without flinching. But almost anyone can do that. Almost anyone can hold their breath and not scream for as long as it takes to die.

True courage is about facing life without flinching. I don't mean the times when the right path is hard, but glorious at the end. I'm talking about enduring the boredom, the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right.”

Robin Hobb book The Mad Ship

Source: The Mad Ship

Life , Death , Courage , Thinking

“Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse… and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Family , Family

“What are you going to do? Everything, is my guess. It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complications.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

“Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.”

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

Family , Love , Family

“One of the great things about America is that individual citizens and groups of citizens can petition their government, can protest, can speak truth to power. And that is sometimes messy and controversial. But because of that ability to protest and engage in free speech, America, over time, has gotten better. We've all benefited from that.

The abolition movement was contentious. The effort for women to get the right to vote was contentious and messy. There were times when activists might have engaged in rhetoric that was overheated and occasionally counterproductive. But the point was to raise issues so that we, as a society, could grapple with it. The same was true with the Civil Rights Movement, the union movement, the environmental movement, the anti-war movement during Vietnam. And I think what you're seeing now is part of that longstanding tradition.

What I would say is this -- that whenever those of us who are concerned about fairness in the criminal justice system attack police officers, you are doing a disservice to the cause. First of all, any violence directed at police officers is a reprehensible crime and needs to be prosecuted. But even rhetorically, if we paint police in broad brush, without recognizing that the vast majority of police officers are doing a really good job and are trying to protect people and do so fairly and without racial bias, if our rhetoric does not recognize that, then we're going to lose allies in the reform cause.

Now, in a movement like Black Lives Matter, there's always going to be some folks who say things that are stupid, or imprudent, or overgeneralized, or harsh. And I don't think that you can hold well-meaning activists who are doing the right thing and peacefully protesting responsible for everything that is uttered at a protest site.”

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

Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Rajoy of Spain After Bilateral Meeting https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/07/10/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-rajoy-spain-after-bilateral (10 July 2016)
2016

Women , War , People , Truth

“Democracy is sometimes messy, and for leaders, sometimes it's frustrating.”

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

2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)
Context: Democracy is sometimes messy, and for leaders, sometimes it's frustrating. Democracy means that somebody is always complaining about something. Nobody is ever happy in a democracy about their government. If you make one person happy, somebody else is unhappy. Then sometimes somebody who you made happy, later on, now they’re not happy. They say, what have you done for me lately? But that's the nature of democracy. That's why it works, is because it's constantly challenging leaders to up their game and to do better.

Democracy

“This idea of purity and that you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke — you should get over that quickly. … The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you. … I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media — there is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough. If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself. Did you see how woke I was, I called you out. Then I’m going to get on my TV and watch my show … That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”

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

Comments at an Obama Foundation event, Chicago (29 October 2019), as quoted in "Obama Calls Out Online Call-Out Culture: 'That’s Not Activism"", Rolling Stone (30 October 2019) https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/obama-calls-out-call-out-culture-not-activism-905600/
2019

People , Fight , Way , Sense

“Life is messy. Would that every puzzle piece fell into place, every word was kind, every accident happy, but such is not the case. Life is messy”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Source: The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

Life , Happiness

“For the girls with messy hair and thirsty hearts.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Girl , Heart

“Books were a lot less messy than orgasms.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

Books

“I'm not messy. I'm rebelling against folding.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

“… In its original Latin form, sacrifice means to make sacred or to make holy. I wholeheartedly believe that when we are fully engaged in parenting, regardless of how imperfect, vulnerable, and messy it is, we are creating something sacred.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Parent

“Spirituality is not about being fixed; it is about God's being present in the mess of our unfixedness. (Messy Spirituality)”

Mike Yaconelli (1942–2003) American theologian

God

“Love is messy. If you really love someone, you can't avoid the pain. People die, people leave, things change, but sometimes it all works”

Danielle Steel book Friends Forever

Source: Friends Forever

Love , Pain , People , Change

“Life itself is a haphazard, untidy, messy affair.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

Life

“Messy, isn't it?”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

“There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and that's the truth”

Walter Isaacson book Steve Jobs

Source: Steve Jobs

Life , Truth , Parting , Personality

“Surely it's better to love others, however messy and imperfect the involvement, than to allow one's capacity for love to harden.”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Source: Through the Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery

Love

“The way we live ought to manifest the truth of what we believe. A messy life speaks of a messy and incoherent faith.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: Let Me be a Woman

Life , Truth , Faith , Way

“Like silence after noise, or cool, clear water on a hot, stuffy day, Emptiness cleans out the messy mind and charges up the batteries of spiritual energy. Many people are afraid of Emptiness, however, because it reminds them of Loneliness.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

People , Silence , Water , Loneliness

“Theta blew out another plume of cigarette smoke. “Not interested. Love’s messy, kiddo. Let those other girls get moony-eyed and goofy. Me? I got plans.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

Love , Girl

“Sex was never as neat as the movies made it. Real sex was messy. Good sex was messier.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Blue Moon

Source: Blue Moon

Sex

“Angus looked at Hamish. "I hate it when Mom and Dad fight."
Hamish smoothed his brother's messy hair. "Me too.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

Hate , Moms , Fight

“Death is simple. Life is messy. Give me life, the more complicated the better.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

Life , Death

“Living is messy.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

“All those clean, fresh starts had made me forget what it was like, until now, to be messy and honest and out of control. To be real.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

Source: What Happened to Goodbye

Forgetting

“The truth is messy. It's raw and uncomfortable. You can't blame people for preferring lies.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

People , Truth

“Human behavior is messy and unpredictable and unconcerned with convenient symmetries.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Behavior

“Real life is messy, inconsistent, and it's seldom when anything ever really gets resolved. It's taken me a long time to realize that.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

Life , Time

“Life is divine Chaos. It's messy, and it's supposed to be that way.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Life , Way

“Rain didn't make things messy. People did that all on their own.”

Barbara Delinsky (1945) American writer

Source: The Secret Between Us

People

“Life is still life. It’s still tough, complicated, and more than a little messy, with lessons to be learned, mistakes to be made, triumphs and disappointments to be had, and not every day is meant to be a party.”

Alyson Nöel book Dark Flame

Source: Dark Flame

Life , Disappointment , Learning

“It's painful and it's messy. But sometimes you just have to make the break and start again.”

Tony Parsons (1953) British writer

Source: Man and Wife

Pain

“Do people always act this way around you? (Kiara)
You should have seen the reactions when I wore a League uniform. Those were actually comical. Except for the ones who lost control of their bowels. Then it was just messy. (Nykyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

People , Way

“He exhaled loudly and raked a hand through the sable brown hair he always kept stylishly messy. "Look, Rose. You don’t have to keep up with the hard-to-get thing. You’ve already got me.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

“Take chances! Get messy! Make mistakes!”

Joanna Cole (1944) American children's books author

Chance

“The road is messy in the way that real life is messy. It leads us out of denial and into reality, out of theory and into practice, out of caution and into action, out of statistics and into stories—in short, out of our heads and into our hearts.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Source: My Life on the Road

Life , Way , Reality , Heart

“Because she was raw and uncertain, and she liked to keep all the messy parts of herself to herself…. As much as Lena liked to hide the mess and display the finished product, by this point she was all mess and no product.”

Ann Brashares book Sisterhood Everlasting

Source: Sisterhood Everlasting

Parting

“… wanting things for the wrong reasons can turn anyone's life into a marshmallow on a stick over a hot fire: impossibly messy and eventually consumed, one way or another.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Queen of Everything

Life , Way

“Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness.”

Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything

Source: A Short History of Nearly Everything

Search

“Life was messy. Always had been and always would be and that was just the way it was, so why bother complaining? You either did something about it or you didn’t, and then you lived with the choice you made.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Best of Me

Source: The Best of Me

Life , Way

“This is the end of spoon-fed orthodoxy and infallible institutions, and the rise of messy mosaics of information that require—and reward—investigation.”

Chris Anderson book The Long Tail

Source: The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More (2006), Ch. 11, p. 190

“I was lucky to be part of the "underground comix" thing in which cartoonists were completely free to express themselves. To function on those terms means putting everything out in the open—no need to hold anything back—total liberation from censorship, including the inner censor! A lot of my satire is considered by some to be "too hard." My "negro" characters are not about black people, but are more about pushing these "uncool" stereotypes in readers' faces, so suddenly they have to deal with a very tacky part of our human nature. … Who did I think I was appealing to? I don't know. I was just being a punk, putting down on paper all these messy parts of the culture we internalize and keep quiet about. I admit I'm occasionally embarrassed when I look at some of that work now.”

Robert Crumb (1943) American cartoonist

The R. Crumb Handbook by Robert Crumb and Peter Poplaski (2005), p. 256

People , Nature , Thinking , Parting

“There was a limited literature on external economies and international trade before 1978. It was never, however, very influential, because it seemed terminally messy; even the simplest models became bogged down in a taxonomy of possible outcomes. What has since become clear is that this messiness arose in large part because the modelers were asking their models to do what traditional trade models do, which is to predict a precise pattern of specialization and trade.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

How I Work (1993)

Literature , Parting

“Yet on some level we do know the truth. We know that meat production is a messy business, but we choose not to know just how messy it is. We know that meat comes from an animal, but we choose not to connect the dots. And often, we eat animals and choose not to know we're even making a choice. Violent ideologies are structured so that it is not only possible, but inevitable, that we are aware of an unpleasant truth on one level while being oblivious to it on another. Common to all violent ideologies is this phenomenon of knowing without knowing.”

Melanie Joy book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows

And it is the essence of carnism.
Source: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2010), p. 71

Truth , Business , Animals

“Chemistry has been termed by the physicist as the messy part of physics, but that is no reason why the physicists should be permitted to make a mess of chemistry when they invade it.”

Frederick Soddy (1877–1956) chemist and physicist from England

As quoted in American Journal of Physics, Vol. 14 | (1946), p. 248

Parting

“Well, what kind of thing does make you feel calm and peaceful?"
"Killing demons. A good clean kill is very relaxing. The messy ones are more annoying, because you have to clean up afterward--"
"No. No killing. We're trying to make you feel peaceful. Blood, killing, war, those are all non-peaceful things. Isn't there anything else you like?"
"Weapons. I like weapons.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

"I'm starting to think we have a problematic issue of personal philosophy here."
Jordan Kyle and Jace Herondale, pg. 27-29
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

War , Peace , Feeling , Thinking

“The worst thing about this modern world is that people think you get killed on television with zero pain and zero blood. It must enter into kids' heads that it's not very messy to kill somebody, and it doesn't hurt that much. That's a real sickness to me. That's a real sick thing.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

As quoted in "Dark Lens on America" in The New York Times Magazine (14 January 1990) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE0D6113FF937A25752C0A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Pain , People , World , Thinking

“He's like a PlayStation. I think he can take advantage of every mistake you make. Barcelona are a very good side but of course they have Messi who can make the difference at any moment in the game. He is very young but he can achieve a lot. There are not many players who can score four goals like he did. He has six or seven great years ahead of him and he can become unbelievable.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

On Lionel Messi, (7 April 2010) http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/apr/07/barcelona-arsenal-lionel-messi

Game , Thinking

“… [ Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lucy Stone, Martin Luther King Jr. ]… didn’t let the ugliness and the obstacles deter them. They didn’t just give up and retreat to the comfortable company of like-minded folks, because they understood that this is how democracy operates. It is loud and messy, and it’s not particularly warm and fuzzy.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, Commencement speech for Oberlin College Prep graduates (2015)

Democracy

“Reality is far more complex and messy than many of the grander themes and explanations would have us believe.”

Peter Dicken (1938) British geographer

Source: Global Shift (2003) (Fourth Edition), Chapter 2, A New Geo-Economy, p. 14

Reality

“Honor your humanness and all of your feelings - the messy ones, the growing pains, the ache - because we can't have the dark without the light.”

Sabrina Ward Harrison (1975) Canadian writer

Quoted in [Buchwald, Laura, 2003, http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/sharrison.html, "Authors: Sabrina Ward Harrison", The Modern Library, RandomHouse.com, 2007-09-21]

Pain , Feeling , Light

“Messi is a very quick and technically gifted player. When you face him you have to make decisions in an instant. When he approaches you, you have to make the sign of the cross and pray that everything will be alright.”

Thiago Silva (1984) Brazilian footballer

Interview with Globo Esporte, 2011 http://www.football-italia.net/node/13081

Decision

“I sometimes miss the anonymity and walking around without makeup on and having messy hair.”

Princess Marie of Denmark (1976) Danish princess

The nerve-racking first meeting, Royalista

“If things weren't messy, or getting messy, there would be no discontent, and you wouldn't need productive thinking in the first place.”

Tim Hurson (1946) Creativity theorist, author and speaker

Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking

Thinking

“I get all my hair products at PetCo. (Jay's hair is long, curly, and quite messy)”

Jay London (1966) American comedian

One-liners

“Constitutions do not emerge perfectly formed from the brain of the philosopher king, as Mr. Trudeau himself discovered in 1980 and 1981. They are always messy processes that are easier to knock down or tear apart than they are to construct.”

Bob Rae (1948) Canadian politician

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Seven, The Three Questions and the Question of Canada, p. 158

Tear

“We still encounter considerable doses of messiness, accident, fortuitous coupling, and dumb luck.”

John W. Kingdon (1940) American political scientist

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 9, Wrapping Things Up, p. 206

“I realized that I don't have to be perfect. All I have to do is show up and enjoy the messy, imperfect and beautiful journey of my life. It's a trip more wonderful than I could have imagined.”

Kerry Washington (1977) American actress

Life , Beauty , Imagination , Perfection

“And that’s when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friends with the folks in struggle, we start to ask why people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to charity. One of my friends has a shirt marked with the words of late Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara: “When I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist.” Charity wins awards and applause but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for living out of love that disrupts the social order that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)

Love , People , World , Justice

“He is an extremely messy person, the messiest on earth. But he loves to cook and absolutely loves making pasta at home. We never discussed cricket at home and always made sure there was life away from the sport at home. Conversations revolved around kids and made sure there was life beyond the sport. Kumar is a very relaxed, open sort of person. He has never demanded much. (But) He will have to get used to our routine now. He will of course still play some cricket for a year or two.”

Kumar Sangakkara (1977) Sri Lankan cricketer

Kumar's wife, Yehali Sangakkara, quoted on sports.ndtv, "Kumar Sangakkara is Extremely Messy, Would Love to Have Him at Home Now: Yehali Sangakkara" http://sports.ndtv.com/sri-lanka-vs-india-2015/news/247313-kumar-sangakkara-is-extremely-messy-would-love-to-have-him-at-home-now-yehali-sangakkara, August 21, 2015.
About

Love , Life , Home , Sport

“Within the DM paradigm the Tully-Fisher law must arise from galaxy formation since it connects luminosity of baryonic matter with a dynamical property, rotation, which is seen as dominated by the DM halo. But it has not been easy to derive Tully-Fisher from any natural connection between the two components. And as R. H. Sanders has pointed out, the messiness of galaxy formation is hardly the natural backdrop for such a sharp correlation between galaxy properties. The sharpness needs a dynamical reason as opposed to an evolutionary one.”

Jacob Bekenstein (1947–2015) Mexican-Israeli physicist

[Alternatives to dark matter: Modified gravity as an alternative to dark matter, arXiv preprint arXiv:1001.3876, 21 January 2010, https://arxiv.org/abs/1001.3876]

Law , Nature

“Sex is squalid, uncomfortable, and messy. (18 April 2005)”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

Fully Ramblomatic

Sex

“Politics can be a battle of ideas, not insults. It can be about solutions. It can be about making a difference. It can be about always striving to do better. That’s what it can be and what it should be. This is the system our Founders envisioned. It’s messy. It’s complicated. It’s infuriating at times. And it’s a beautiful thing too.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

College Republican National Committee, "Paul Ryan's Unshakeable Optimism in the American Dream" http://www.crnc.org/paul-ryans-unshakeable-optimism-america/ 15 April 2016

Beauty , Idea , Time

“Soft systems viewpoints are those held by behavioural, management, social anthropology, social psychology and other science students concerned with observing the living world, and in particular the human world. Human activity systems (HASs) are messy, in that they do not exhibit a clear need or purpose - if they can be said to exhibit purpose at all. Indeed, so complex is the real world of people that the idea of driving towards optimal solutions may be a non-starter - perhaps we should see if we can simply understand and concern ourselves with improving the situation.”

Derek Hitchins (1935) British systems engineer

Source: Putting systems to work (1992), p. 7; as cited in: Stuart Anderson (2006)

People , World , Idea , Optimism

“The parity pushers fail to see the subtle grays of complexity in all of its tortured and messy manifestations. With swords held high, they ride forth and exploit every possible weapon in the political arsenal. Equality is to be imposed, unevenness and nonlinearity banished to the nether world. Science is politicalized for mass consumption, and natural laws are summarily supplanted by ideological 'correctness.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 301

World , Law , Nature , Science

“It’s so messy bleeding like a pig.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

A Murder is Announced (1950)

“It is a terrible mistake for conservatives to abandon our Iraqi allies now. A U. S. victory will establish a vibrant, modern democracy in the heart of the Arab world that will serve as an infectious model for the oppressed peoples in the region. A prosperous, democratic Iraq will become a catalyst for reform percolating within the ossified, conservative dictatorships of its neighbors. This change may be messy. In the long-run, however, Arab nations will be modernized. This will create a more stable and secure Middle East and thereby, a more stable and secure world for the United States.”

Jeffrey T. Kuhner (1969) American journalist

Cut-and-Run Conservatives http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=17676, Human Events, 2006-10-24

People , World , Democracy , Change

“People say, "get us out of the UN, we don't need the UN", we invented the UN. This is us, we are the ones who founded the idea of nations working together, and I think that's something we need to do. And it's, it's messy, and it's really complicated, and there's going to be a lot of countries out there that expect us to clean up there mess, or just want to see us fall on (our) face. And they love that, which is what I think president Obama said brilliantly at the UN, when he basically said, "that ok". If I'm paraphrasing, I don't think he's ever said "ok" in his life, he's probably said "well". But basically he said, "look, for the last eight years you've been on our case about going it alone, you know, we're imperialists, we're hegemonic, we're going it alone, we're going it alone… Ok, we're not going it alone anymore, we're going to listen to you, but you better ante up and kick in. Because, you don't have the right to have an opinion, if you can't back it up. It's put up or shut up time". And I was so happy when he said that, and the way he handled the Latin (American) countries, when he was dealing with the crisis in Central America, the coups in Honduras. And he said, "the very same countries who accuse us of doing nothing, are also the same ones who accuse us of being imperialistic. You can't have it both ways."”

Max Brooks (1972) American author

Lecture of Opportunity | Max Brooks: World War Z https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nGG5E04cog

Love , Life , People , Way

“Statists tend to treat governmental edicts as though they were incantations, passing directly from decree to result, without the inconvenience of means; since in the real world the chief means employed by government is violence, threatened and actual, cloaking state decrees and their violent implementation in the garb of incantation disguises both the immorality and the inefficiency of statism by ignoring the messy path from decree to result.”

Roderick Long (1964) American philosopher

"Equality: the Unknown Ideal" (2001)

World

“The history of art and art’s condition at any time are pretty messy. They should stay that way. One can think about them as much as one likes, but they won’t become neater; neatness isn’t even a very good reason for thinking about them. A lot of things just can’t be connected.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Donald Judd, "Local History" (1964); Quoted in: Judd (1975, p. 151); and cited in: David Raskin. Donald Judd. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.
1960s

Art , Way , History , Thinking

“The more I look around and listen I realize that I'm not alone. We are all facing choices that define us. No choice. However messy is without importance in the overall picture of our lives. We all at our own age have to claim something, even if it's only our own confusion. I am in the middle of growing up and into myself.”

Sabrina Ward Harrison (1975) Canadian writer

Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself, Introduction (2000)

Age

“Quantum mechanics… developed through some rather messy, complicated processes stimulated by experiment. While it's a very rich and wonderful theory, it doesn't quite have the conceptual foundation of general relativity.”

Edward Witten (1951) American theoretical physicist

"Edward Witten" interview, Superstrings: A Theory of Everything? (1992) ed. P.C.W. Davies, Julian Brown
Context: Quantum mechanics... developed through some rather messy, complicated processes stimulated by experiment. While it's a very rich and wonderful theory, it doesn't quite have the conceptual foundation of general relativity. Our problem in physics is that everything is based on these two different theories and when we put them together we get nonsense.

“The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

"Heretical Thoughts about Science and Society", in Edge (8 August 2007) http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge219.html#dysonf
Context: My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.

World , Understanding

“Conservatism — from Burke and Hume to Hayek and Oakeshott — has always been, at its core, a critique of ideology in favor of reality. The world is as it is, the conservative argues. Any attempt to drastically overhaul it, to impose a utopian vision onto a messy, evolving human landscape will not just fail, it will likely make things worse. To pretend that the present exists for no good reason — and can be repealed or transformed in an instant — is a formula for ruin.”

Andrew Sullivan (1963) Journalist, writer, blogger

"The Triumph of Obama’s Long Game" in New York magazine (21 July 2017) http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/the-triumph-of-obamas-long-game.html
Context: Conservatism — from Burke and Hume to Hayek and Oakeshott — has always been, at its core, a critique of ideology in favor of reality. The world is as it is, the conservative argues. Any attempt to drastically overhaul it, to impose a utopian vision onto a messy, evolving human landscape will not just fail, it will likely make things worse. To pretend that the present exists for no good reason — and can be repealed or transformed in an instant — is a formula for ruin. The leftist vision of perfect “social justice” is therefore as illusory and as pernicious as the reactionary’s dream of restoring a mythical past. And the great virtue of America’s deeply conservative Constitution is that it throws so many obstacles in the way of radical, ideological change — to the left or right — that it limits the harm that humans can do to themselves in moments of passion or certainty or in search of ideological perfection.

World , Reality

“And if that plunges me into contradiction and paradox, so be it; I've lived in that messy ocean all my life. I've fished in it for my art.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Address at Columbia University (1991)
Context: "Our lives teach us who we are." I have learned the hard way that when you permit anyone else's description of reality to supplant your own — and such descriptions have been raining down on me, from security advisers, governments, journalists, Archbishops, friends, enemies, mullahs — then you might as well be dead. Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture I've always carried about is rather more vulnerable. Yet I must cling with all my might to … my own soul; must hold on to its mischievous, iconoclastic, out-of-step clown-instincts, no matter how great the storm. And if that plunges me into contradiction and paradox, so be it; I've lived in that messy ocean all my life. I've fished in it for my art. This turbulent sea was the sea outside my bedroom window in Bombay. It is the sea by which I was born, and which I carry within me wherever I go.
"Free speech is a non-starter," says one of my Islamic extremist opponents. No, sir, it is not. Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

Life , Art , Fish

“You start with where you are, not where you were or where you want to be. There are no utopias in the future or Gardens of Eden in our past. There is just now — in all its incoherent, groaning, volatile messiness. Our job, like everyone before us, is to keep our nerve and make the best of it.”

Andrew Sullivan (1963) Journalist, writer, blogger

The Reactionary Temptation (2017)
Context: You will not arrest the reactionary momentum by ignoring it or dismissing it entirely as a function of bigotry or stupidity. You’ll only defuse it by appreciating its insights and co-opting its appeal.
Reaction can be clarifying if it helps us better understand the huge challenges we now face. But reaction by itself cannot help us manage the world we live in today — which is the only place that matters. You start with where you are, not where you were or where you want to be. There are no utopias in the future or Gardens of Eden in our past. There is just now — in all its incoherent, groaning, volatile messiness. Our job, like everyone before us, is to keep our nerve and make the best of it.

Past , Future

“The so-called Facebook and Twitter revolutions in the Arab world started in hopeful online communities, but once they emerged into the messy offline world, they were commandeered by religious fanatics and military juntas.”

Yuval Noah Harari book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

World , Hope , Communication

“I never went into their apartment, but what I saw from the door was pretty rough - not simply messy or chaotic, but hopeless, the lair of a depressed person.”

David Sedaris book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Essay, "The girl next door" - p.108
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004)

Personality

“What I can't understand is why you can't see the extraordinary beauty of the idea that life started from nothing – that is such a staggering, elegant, beautiful thing, why would you want to clutter it up with something so messy as a God?””

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

During his conversation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, as quoted in The Telegraph, in . In " Richard Dawkins: I can't be sure God does not exist http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Dawkins-I-cant-be-sure-God-does-not-exist.html"

God , Understanding , Beauty , Idea