Marilynne Robinson Quotes

I think we all ought to be careful about too much generalization on this issue, even as I confess to painting with a pretty broad brush myself!

The more specific you are, the more general it'll be.

The more particular you make something, the more universal it becomes.

The F-word here is focus.

Nature will not be Buddhist: she resents generalizing, and insults the philosopher in every moment with a million fresh particulars.

If those who are sent to draw water begin by drinking themselves, the army is suffering from thirst.

I'm never very good with marks. They're always like, 'You're not on your mark'. I was like, 'Oh, it's that thing you put on the ground? Yeah, I don't pay attention to it.'

It seems to me that the great pleasure of human life is not in having an opinion, but rather in learning all the ways you are wrong, and all the nuances you failed to account for, and all the truths that turned out to be not as simple as you once believed. And it seems to me that one of the central pleasures of attending school is that you get to read with really well-informed people who can help welcome you into a complex world stuffed with rich and maddening ambiguity.

The simplest questions are the most difficult.

I can't afford the luxury of music while I'm flying an airplane. I have to pay attention to what I'm doing.

Always seek the general and never quite trust it.

Just concentrate on what you're supposed to do

The greatest genius is never so great as when it is chastised and subdued by the highest reason.

Intellectuals ... regard over-simplification as the original sin of the mind and have no use for the slogans, the unqualified assertions and sweeping generalizations.

Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.

To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess.

It is necessary, in order to know things well, to know the particulars of them; and these, being infinite, make our knowledge eversuperficial and imperfect.

Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought.

Absolute freedom is absolute nonsense! We gain freedom in anything through commitment, discipline, and fixed habit.

Refrain from following the example of those whose craving is for attention, not their own improvement.

If you want to be a Roman Catholic scholar and write, you've got to write in such a way that nobody understands what you're saying, and then you're thought to be profound.

If I'm watching my son play soccer, that's what I'm doing. If I'm going to a school concert, that's what I'm doing. I turn the phone off. I actively tune into whatever I'm doing. I walk every evening with one of my sons and for that half an hour, 45 minutes, that's what I'm doing.

No one achieves greatness by becoming a generalist. You don't hone a skill by diluting your attention to its development. The only way to get to the next level is focus.

No one sees further into a generalization than his own knowledge of detail extends.