Quotes About Circumstances

I remember facts are just facts, circumstances are merely circumstances.

Monotheistic religions in the West have tended to conflate having a general orientation in life, having a specific theory of the world, having a sense of the positive meaningfulness of one's existence, and having a fixed set of rules for behavior, but these elements are in principle separable. ... The "metaphysical need," ... both Marx and Nietzsche held, is a historical phenomenon that arises under determinate circumstances, and could be expected to disappear under other circumstances that we could relatively easily envisage.

We must recognise that duty and morality vary under different circumstances; not that the man who resists evil is doing what is always and in itself wrong, but that in the different circumstances in which he is placed it may become even his duty to resist evil.

One cardinal rule in behavioral medicine is that unless it is interfered with, your body knows exactly what it is doing and always does the best thing it can do under the circumstances. Consequently, if you are overweight, you may reasonably assume that the extra fat itself is your body's best adjustment to the circumstances you are providing.

There are no great men, just great circumstances, and how they handle those circumstances will determine the outcome of history.

The bottom line is pray. If you’re tired, sick, emotionally overwhelmed—pray. If you’re on cloud nine and life seems perfect—pray. If you lack direction—pray. If you doubt that prayer makes any difference—pray. If the circumstances of your life are out of your control—pray. If the circumstances of your life seem well within you’re your control—pray even harder. Whatever you do—pray.

People of poor character tend to blame their choices on circumstances. Ethical people make good choices regardless of circumstances. If they make enough good choices, they begin to create better conditions for themselves.

Joy cannot be pursued. It comes from within. It is a state of being. It does not depend on circumstances, but triumphs over circumstances. It produces a gentleness of spirit and a magnetic personality.

Most people use their energy attempting to rearrange circumstances that trigger painful emotions. Changing external circumstances will not change your rigid patterns of emotional response. That requires looking at the patterns themselves.

Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night's sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too.

I didn't have a job. Employers were afraid of losing their reputations. I didn't have a reputation. I had zilch. So, I had the freedom, which unemployment gives you, and that was to behave as badly as I believed I should under the circumstances. And the circumstances were quite awful.

The people who live the life of their dreams take risks. And on top of that, they persist. And on top of that, they trust themselves. And on top of that, they don't let circumstances hold them back, because they know that they are more powerful than their circumstances.

We cannot control what emotions or circumstances we will experience next, but we can choose how we will respond to them.

The ultimate foundation of honor is the conviction that moral character is unalterable: a single bad action implies that future actions of the same kind will, under similar circumstances, also be bad.

It is in the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know-or care-about circumstances in the colonies.

I think boxing is a singular sport, because the stakes are so high and because it just appeals to people's primal instincts. It's a life and death sport, and it's a sport of sacrifice. It's a humbling sport, and people are coming from humbling circumstances. It's always fun to watch a person that's come from nothing to having everything and losing it again.

Accustom yourself to submit on all and every occasion, and on the most minute, no less than on the most important circumstances of life, to a small present evil, to obtain a greater distant good. This will give decision, tone, and energy to the mind, which, thus disciplined, will often reap victory from defeat and honor from repulse.

..where effective competition can be created, it is a better way of guiding individual efforts than any other... regards competition as superior not only because it is in most circumstances the most efficient method known but even more because it is the only method by which our activities can be adjusted to each other without coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority.

In general, you have great artists who have died far too early and who have left great cultural impact. If you look at people like Vincent van Gogh or Jean-Michel Basquiat-there's a long, long list of artists who have died in tragic circumstances, and far, far too early.

You can’t let your current circumstances dictate what kind of choices you make.

Do not wait for ideal circumstances, nor the best opportunities; they will never come.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can't find them, make them.

All I can say is, I did my best. This was the job I undertook, I did my best, and I could not have done more in the circumstances. What people think of it, I have to leave to them. It is of no great consequence. What is of consequence is I did my best.

we ourselves are not something apart from our circumstances. What we are and where we are are one and the same.

The thing that always attracted me to New York was the sense of being in a place where a lot of people had a lot of stories not unlike mine,' Rushdie says. 'Everybody comes from somewhere else. Everyone's got a Polish grandmother, some kind of metamorphosis in their family circumstances. That's a very big thing - the experience of not living where you started.

If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from the physical life-process.

The next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you’re feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in. Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves. This is priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering—yours, mine, and that of all living beings.

If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

An atmosphere of beliefs and conceptions has been formed by the labours and struggles of our forefathers, which enables us to breathe amid the various and complex circumstances of our life.

Don't be an actor. Be a human being who works off what exists under imaginary circumstances.

The modernists started with the assumption that science is the only source of sure knowledge, that nature is all there is, and thus that morality is merely a human invention that can be changed to meet changing circumstances in an evolving world.

We're living in a different world now in terms of employee needs, and companies have to offer alternative methods for getting the work done. Even under the most difficult circumstances you can have creative flexibility.

I actually wanted to publish [ interview with Donald Trump about Citizen Kane] in the New York Times, but the circumstances under which I did that movie made me vulnerable to a lawsuit and at this point in my career, I don't want to go there. But it's amazing.

When you live in the present moment, time stands still. Accept your circumstances and live them. If there is an experience ahead of you, have it! But if worries stand in your way, put them off until tomorrow. Give yourself a day off from worry. You deserve it. Some people live with a low-grade anxiety tugging at their spirit all day long. They go to sleep with it, wake up with it, carry it around at home, in town, to church, and with friends. Here's a remedy: Take the present moment and find something to laugh at. People who laugh, last.

Those who have gone through a divorce know the pain and special challenges of raising a child under such circumstances.

Even under the most favorable circumstances no mortal can be asked to seize the truth in its wholeness or at its center.

A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor will a libertarian advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.

One day I realized that I wasn't getting anywhere by blaming other people for my circumstances. I finally understood: Even if you feel someone has wronged you or owes you something, no one is going to give you anything for free.

The possibility of a war under the current circumstances is not far-fetched and there is some evidence for that.

Most commonly revolt is born of material circumstances; but insurrection is always a moral phenomenon. Revolt is Masaniello, who led the Neapolitan insurgents in 1647; but insurrection is Spartacus. Insurrection is a thing of the spirit, revolt is a thing of the stomach.

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

Unless the poor of the world agitate for themselves to be heard, there will be no changes in their circumstances.

I am clearly vulnerable on the question of socializing under circumstances not appropriate for a married man.

Judo teaches us to look for the best possible course of action, whatever the individual circumstances.

Thoughts crystallize into habit and habit solidifies into circumstances.

To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances for which you were not to blame. That says something very important about the condition of the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertain and on a willingness to be exposed; it’s based on being more like a plant than like a jewel, something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility.

'Crowd folly', the tendency of humans, under some circumstances, to resemble lemmings, explains much foolish thinking of brilliant men and much foolish behavior - like investment management practices of many foundations represented here today. It is sad that today each institutional investor apparently fears most of all that its investment practices will be different from practices of the rest of the crowd.

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal