James Madison Quotes

It's really interesting to me how all of us can experience the exact same event, and yet come away with wildly disparate interpretations of what happened. We each have totally different ideas of what was said, what was intended, and what really took place.

In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty.

You almost never get the pleasure of seeing that you won the argument in real time. People just don't like to publicly change their minds. They change their minds in private.

He walked, groping for a sentence that hung in his mind as an empty shape. He could neither fill it or dismiss it.

Sometimes I don't know whether I'm thening or nowing.

Either I've invented a whole new logic or, ahem, I'm not playing with a full deck.

It's the presence of others who are smarter, kinder, wiser, and different from you that enables you to evolve. Those are the people to surround yourself with at all times.

I think of how and why and what happened and the thoughts come easily, but the answers don't.

things which in my mind blossom will stumble beneath a clumsiest disguise appear capable of fragility and indecision

The heart and the mind, what an enigma.

Insecurity is not just a state of mind.

I begin indeed to fear that I have undertaken an impossibility, undertaken to tell what I cannot tell because no speech at my command will fit the forms in my mind.

One of the curious effects of a bad hangover is that you think you're wrong whether you are or not. Not wrong in particulars, but wrong in general, wrong about everything.

In my experience, the most staunchly held views are based on ignorance or accepted dogma, not carefully considered accumulations of facts. The more you expose the intricacies and realtities of the situation, the less clear-cut things become.

When we don't hear anything from God we just don't know exactly what He is planning and we come to different conclusions that maybe He has forgotten me, maybe He doesn't hear my prayers, maybe I'm not good enough.

Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find, for a mind maker-upper to make up his mind

The cards always look different when it's your turn to play them; loaded with subtly different possibilities.

Are you saying you don't love me?" Hazael asked Liraz. "Because I love you. I think." He paused in contemplation. "Oh. No. Never mind. That's fear.

Every body drags its shadow, and every mind its doubt.

I'm really lucky to have the kind of people I've got around me. I've got such a great group of predominantly young people, but so diverse, and they bring different perspectives to the table. They will tell me exactly what's on their mind.

The passion to interpret as madness that with which we disagree seems to have infected the best of contemporary minds.

The need for certainty is the greatest disease the Mind faces

Other people's belief changes you. We all have insecurity, and uncertainty, and to have that glow cast over you by somebody that you respect, makes a gigantic difference.

If you have any question in your mind, don't do it. If you go in thinking it's going to fix something that's wrong, don't do it.

My mind and gut are never simpatico: Every time I think somebody likes me, she doesn't; every time I think somebody doesn't like me, she does. This has never changed and I'm certain it never will.