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1 " To me, at least in retrospect, the really interesting question is why dullness proves to be such a powerful impediment to attention. Why we recoil from the dull. Maybe it’s because dullness is intrinsically painful; maybe that’s where phrases like ‘deadly dull’ or ‘excruciatingly dull’ come from. But there might be more to it. Maybe dullness is associated with psychic pain because something that’s dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient, low-level way, and which most of us spend nearly all our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from feeling, or at least from feeling directly or with our full attention. Admittedly, the whole thing’s pretty confusing, and hard to talk about abstractly…but surely something must lie behind not just Muzak in dull or tedious places any more but now also actual TV in waiting rooms, supermarkets’ checkouts, airport gates, SUVs’ backseats. Walkman, iPods, BlackBerries, cell phones that attach to your head. This terror of silence with nothing diverting to do. I can’t think anyone really believes that today’s so-called ‘information society’ is just about information. Everyone knows it’s about something else, way down. "
― David Foster Wallace
2 " Even the slightest criticism of others is an impediment (hindrance) to Absolute Knowledge (Kevalgnan, Absolute Enlightenment). It also hinders Atmagnan (Knowledge of the Self), also hinders Samkit (Self-realization). "
― Dada Bhagwan
3 " Fool! The Ideal is in thyself, the impediment too is in thyself: thy Condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of: what matters whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the Form thou give it be heroic, be poetic? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth: the thing thou seekest is already with thee, ‘here or nowhere,’ couldst thou only see! "
― Thomas Carlyle , Sartor Resartus
4 " Rationale still remains the greatest impediment to encountering God's mysteries. "
― , The Dawn of Grace (Revelation #1)
5 " My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe. "
6 " Now that your speech impediment has been rectified, perhaps you might say something. It would be best if it were humorous. I enjoy a good jest.' 'You are dreadfully rude,' I said to him. He sighed. 'That wasn't the slightest bit funny. "
― Danielle L. Jensen , Stolen Songbird (The Malediction Trilogy #1)
7 " Only a mind free of impediment is capable of grasping the chaotic beauty of the world. This is our greatest asset. "
― , The Secret Crusade (Assassin's Creed, #3)
8 " You have control over doing your respective duty, but no control or claim over the result. Fear of failure, from being emotionally attached to the fruit of work, is the greatest impediment to success because it robs efficiency by constantly disturbing the equanimity of mind. "
9 " Expectation is the greatest impediment to living, running ahead to tomorrow, it loses today. "
― Lars Iyer
10 " The accumulation of beliefs, knowledge and experiences contribute to our level of success and progress in life, however they also introduce the reality that we are all prejudiced. If not well managed, our personal prejudices can become the mental prison we lock ourselves inside or we use to shut others out. You need to deal with this likely impediment to a success-driven lifestyle. "
― Archibald Marwizi , Making Success Deliberate
11 " Finally, there was the impediment of his nature. In the secret parts of his peculiar brain, those unhappy and inextricable tangles which he felt at the roots, the boy was disabled by something which we cannot explain. He could not have explained either, and for us it is all too long ago. He loved Arthur and he loved Guenever and he hated himself. The best knight of the world: everybody envied the self-esteem which must surely be his. But Lancelot never believed he was good or nice. Under the grotesque, magnificent shell with a face like Quasimodo’s, there was shame and self-loathing which had been planted there when he was tiny, by something which it is now too late to trace. It is so fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible. "
― T.H. White , The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-4)
12 " As it happens I am comfortable with the Michael Laskis of this world, with those who live outside rather than in, those in whom the sense of dread is so acute that they turn to extreme and doomed commitments; I know something about dread myself, and appreciate the elaborate systems with which some people manage to fill the void, appreciate all the opiates of the people, whether they are as accessible as alcohol and heroin and promiscuity or as hard to come by as faith in God or History. But of course I did not mention dread to Michael Laski, whose particular opiate is History. I did suggest “depression,” did venture that it might have been “depressing” for him to see only a dozen or so faces at his last May Day demonstration, but he told me that depression was an impediment to the revolutionary process, a disease afflicting only those who do not have ideology to sustain them. "
― Joan Didion , Slouching Towards Bethlehem
13 " The ego with its protective defense mechanisms is the biggest impediment to attaining spiritual growth. "
― , Dead Toad Scrolls
14 " Drunkenness. This Greek word means overindulgence in alcohol. Alcohol may be used for medicine, but it can also become a terrible drug. The way it is used in our world is probably one of the great evils of our day. It is a self-inflicted impediment that springs from “a man taking a drink, a drink taking a drink, and drink taking the man.”Distilled liquors as we have them today were unknown in Bible times.12 "
― Billy Graham , Billy Graham in Quotes
15 " Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. "
― Bill Watterson , Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (Calvin and Hobbes #9)
16 " Science discovered long ago that carbon is a source of life. The ashes of my faith have prepared the ground for the planting of seeds that have produced new forms of truth, morality and meaning on my own terms, not according to the dogma laid down by religious ruffians or a vengeful God. If, as believers claim, the word " gospel" means good news, then the good news for me is that there is no gospel, other than what I can define for myself, by observation and conscience. As a journalist and free-thinking human being, I have come not to favor and fear religion, but to face and fight it as an impediment to civilized advancement. "
17 " Even a great philosophical idea when mixed with mysticism, turns into a dangerous weapon that becomes an impediment in the path of progress of developing communities. "
― Abhijit Naskar , I Am The Thread: My Mission
18 " Ignorance and weakness is not an impediment to survival. Arrogance is. "
― Liu Cixin , Death's End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #3)
19 " The biggest impediment to loving life is our inflated egos. Only by suppressing our ego and controlling our selfish thoughts can we truly comprehend the immaculate beauty of every day unfolding before us. "
20 " The ego resists change. False pride is an impediment to change. "
