A Quote by Virginia Woolf

Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes.

Virginia Woolf

Quote Topics

Alike Attitudes Blame Delightful Futile May Mean Measuring Most Nothing Pastime Praise Submit

Quote Author

Virginia Woolf
British - Author
January 25, 1882 - March 28, 1941

One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Fate rules. You follow the steps and you plan and you work. Then fate slips in laughing and makes fools of us. Sometimes we can trick it or out guess it but most often its already written. For some its written in blood. That doesn't mean we stop, but it does mean we can't comfort ourselves with blame. It's easier to take the blame than to admit there was nothing you could do to stop whatever happened.

Nora Roberts

We usually look outside ourselves for heroes and teachers. It has not occurred to most people that they may already be the role model they seek. The wholeness they are looking for may be trapped within themselves by beliefs, attitudes, and self-doubt. But our wholeness exists in us now. Trapped though it may be, it can be called upon for guidance, direction, and most fundamentally, comfort. It can be remembered. Eventually we may come to live by it.

Rachel Naomi Remen

No one to blame! That was why most people led lives they hated, with people they hated. How wonderful to have someone to blame! How wonderful to live with one's nemesis! You may be miserable, but you feel forever in the right. You may be fragmented, but you feel absolved of all the blame for it. Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

Erica Jong

Denmark has long been regarded as one of the world's most attractive nations, for citizens and tourists alike. My own visits there, years ago as a student, were delightful.

Elliott Abrams

Man and woman and speech and deed and city and object should be honored with praise if praiseworthy and incur blame if unworthy, for it is an equal error and mistake to blame the praisable and to praise the blamable.

Gorgias

Music is a pastime, a relaxation from more serious occupations.

Alexander Borodin

The most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the "best" sources.

Walter Karp

You can't blame me. I mean that literally. You're incapable of blaming me. You're human. Being human is choosing freedom over imprisonment, autonomy over dependency, liberty over servitude. You can't blame me because you know (come on, man, you've always known) that the idea of spending eternity with nothing to do except praise God is utterly unappealing. You'd be catatonic after an hour. Heaven's a swiz because to get in you have to leave yourself outside. You can't blame me because -- now do please be honest with yourself for once -- you'd have left, too.

Glen Duncan

[On writing:] The most egotistic of occupations, and the most gratifying while it lasts.

Vita Sackville-West

Exceed due measure, and the most delightful things become the least delightful.

Epictetus

When it comes right down to it, people are quite similar. We may come from different backgrounds, cultures, and economic circumstances, and our attitudes and perspectives may vary. But in the heart-where it really counts-we're a lot alike.