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Quotes from Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays — James Richardson

born 1950 United States

← All quotes by James Richardson

74 quotes

Think of all the smart people made stupid by flaws of character. The finest watch isn’t fine long when used as a hammer.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

A strange gratitude for those I disagree with. They keep me from having to take too seriously the moments when I disagree with myself.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

What’s thinking? You live in a grandly appointed house, but spend all your time rummaging around in the attic for any little trinket you hadn’t known was there.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

I aspire to know when best to walk or eat, which music I need, and how to keep myself sitting as I am now, stubbornly enraptured with doing practically nothing.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

They say productivity is the key to confidence, and confidence … to productivity. And they’re happy walking back and forth between these two rooms, each the excuse for the other.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

It’s amazing that I sit at my job all day and no one sees me clearly enough to say What is that boy doing behind a desk?

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

So many times I’ve made myself stupid with the fear of being outsmarted.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Water deepens where it has to wait.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Anger has been ready to be angry.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

I lied. And my embarrassment was so great that I changed everything else to make the lie true.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

I’ll buy that means also I believe it.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Suppose you had to remember to beat your heart, contract in exact sequence the muscles you use for every step. … Conservatism comes out of the body, the sense of many things being done for us that any attempt to re-think, or even make conscious, would fatally disrupt.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

What did you do today? Nothing say our little children, and so do I. What we most are is what we keep mistaking for nothing.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Patience is decisive indecision.

Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: James Richardson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.