A Quote by Bernard Williams

Tranquility is like quicksilver. The harder you grab for it, the less likely you will grasp it. — © Bernard Williams
Tranquility is like quicksilver. The harder you grab for it, the less likely you will grasp it.
Headline writers love the phrase 'Power Grab,' but you can't really grab it, can you? Power is a greased watermelon, a wisp of smoke, difficult to grasp, harder to hold, impossible to control while getting both feet down in bounds.
There is a perverse comfort zone to living a small life. For women, that zone has to do with the fact that we're less likely to be challenged, we're less likely to be criticized, we're less likely to be called angry or strident, if we simply go along and acquiesce to the prevailing patterns of thought and behavior.
In middle school, one day this girl was like, 'One day you wore Abercrombie, and one day you wore Quicksilver.' I was like, 'Hold on... what?' I'm usually really calm, but I kind of went off on her. Because I decided to wear Quicksilver one day, you can't place me? How stupid to have to live inside that box.
People who believe that they are going to be excommunicated and shamed, or whatever other dark things may happen to them, are much less likely to enter open, loving relationships. And they are also much less likely to have the self-esteem that is required to be monogamous and loving. And in consequence, they are much less likely to create families.
As things get worse and the State seems powerless to help, the State will seem less and less legitimate. People will lose their moral connection to it. Laws will seem more like revenue traps and shakedowns. The state will start to seem more like another extortion racket, and, as in Mexico, people will have a harder time telling the good guys from the bad guys.
The more fluent the experience of reading a quote - or the easier it is to grasp, the smoother it sounds, the more readily it comes to mind--the less likely we are to question the actual quotation.
In terms of love and romance, it just seems less and less like that's ever going to happen again, or be a possibility for me. I feel like I've irrevocably lost so much. You want the surprise, but it gets harder and harder to find, whether we're talking about romance, or somebody else's song, or your own song.
Unemployment, low wages, and poverty discourage family formation and erode family stability, making it less likely that individuals will marry in the first place and more likely that their marriages will dissolve.
Kyoto is likely to yield far less than the targeted emissions reduction. That failure will most likely be papered over with creative accounting, shifting definitions of carbon sinks, and so on. If this happens, the credibility of the international process for addressing climate change will be at risk.
Here's the perversity of Wall Street's psychology: The more Wall Street is convinced that Washington will act rationally and raise the debt ceiling, most likely at the 11th hour, the less pressure there will be on lawmakers to reach an agreement. That will make it more likely a deal isn't reached.
The children of less effective, less competent parents will be more likely to adopt the customs and values of the peer group.
Our view of reality is like a chart of the sea - the truer it is, the less likely we will become lost.
Everything is harder when you are a Nordestino. You have to work harder than anybody else because people will be judging you with much less mercy than the other players.
The less you struggle with a problem, the more it's likely to solve itself. The less time you spend frantically running around, the more productive you are likely to be.
A first-generation fortune is the most likely to be given away, but once a fortune is inherited it's less likely that a very high percentage will go back to society.
Let your mind and soul be at ease. Don't grasp and grab for the magic and miracles. When you reside in that place of stillness, the joy, miracles, and magic you're seeking will find you.
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