Margaret Oliphant Quotes

Now I'm confused. Now I don't know what I want.

I think it’s just as likely that someone could say that this place, right here, is heaven, hell and earth all at the same time. And we still wouldn’t know what to do differently. Everyone just muddles through, trying not to make too many mistakes.

There is nothing in the world more pitiable than an irresolute man, oscillating between two feelings, who would willingly unite the two and who does not perceive that nothing can unite them

Caught between the tongue and the taste.

I know not what to do, my mind is divided

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant loosing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

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

The pain of not knowing what to do was exceeded only by that of knowing what I had done.

Often undecided whether to desert a sinking ship for one that might not float, he would make up his mind to sit on the wharf for a day.

People who think too much before they act don't act too much.

It is hard to begin to move when you don't know where you are moving, how to move, or if you are going to get there.

It is most difficult to deal with. There are so many plans, so many schemes, and so many reasons why there should be neither plans nor schemes.

There is such a choice of difficulties, that I own myself at a loss how to determine

I made up my mind, but I made it up both ways.

I find it very hard to make choices.

Sentiment is for those who don't know what to do next.

If I think, I am lost.

Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of choosing between something bad and something worse?

I do know my own mind,' protested Anne. 'The trouble is, my mind changes and then I have to get acquainted with it all over again.

What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?

By dawn he had surrendered, gratefully, to the old inertia, the product of always seeing both sides of every question.

Being at a loss to resolve these questions, I am resolved to leave them without any resolution.

And what am I to do on the occasion? -- It seems an hopeless business.

Seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied.