A Quote by Mason Cooley

We often mistake the original part of ourselves for a weakness.

Mason Cooley

Quote Topics

Mistake Often Original Ourselves Part Weakness

Quote Author

Mason Cooley
American - Writer
1927 - 2002

Nature has made us a present of a broad capacity for entertaining ourselves apart, and often calls us to do so, to teach us that we owe ourselves in part to society, but in the best part to ourselves.

Michel de Montaigne

We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Life is a competition not with others, but with ourselves. We should seek each day to live stronger, better, truer lives; each day to master some weakness of yesterday; each day to repair a mistake; each day to surpass ourselves.

David B. Haight

So it is that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don't know what part to give or maybe we don't like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed.

Norman Maclean

The Human is the only animal on earth that pays a thousand times for the same mistake. We make a mistake, we judge ourselves, we find ourselves guilty, and we punish ourselves. Every time we remember, we judge ourselves again, we are guilty again, and we punish ourselves again and again and again.

Miguel Angel Ruiz

Don't ever mistake my silence for ignorance, my calmness for acceptance or my kindness for weakness. Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.

Dalai Lama

Generally speaking, companies get into bankruptcy as a kind of meritocracy. Somebody made some sort of big mistake, to get into bankruptcy, and very often, a part of the mistake is too much leverage.

Wilbur Ross

Events in the present can trigger quite a young part of ourselves. If we don't take responsibility and start looking after that young part of ourselves, we can start asking partners to look after that part of ourselves or we wound ourselves.

Danny Boyle

You need a good editor because every writer thinks he can write a War and Peace, but by the time he gets it on paper, it's not War and Peace anymore; it's comic-book stuff. Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

Samuel Johnson

We want to be original. To express our most interesting stuff. But you don't see the word "original" come up very often to describe big bands. Our job isn't to pigeonhole ourselves or describe where we fit in. Our goal isn't to fit in. Our goal is to be free of all that stuff.

John Flansburgh

Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part.

Alexander Pope

Even some of our friends, not only here, but in the international community, in Africa as well, were beginning to show weakness and their weakness, did not lend support to us and we found ourselves weak negotiators at various stages.

Robert Mugabe

Don't mistake my tears for weakness.

Wendy Williams

Don't mistake niceness for weakness.

Jennifer Granholm

I see myself as having this innate weakness that a lot of times will get confused with kindness, but I know that it's often more weakness than kindness.