The most bitter pain among men: to have much knowledge but little power.
Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.
I think that fear comes about when there's things in the world that we want to change, things we're scared or angry about, and we can't change them, and so we become fearful; we develop anxiety.
If I cry, it's because I'm very angry and I can't do anything about it because I've run into a dead end. That's when the tears would come down.
Andy wasn't capable of any complicated thoughts or ideas. Ideas need a verb and a noun, a subject. Andy spoke in a kind of stumbling staccato. You had to finish sentences for him. So Andy operated through people who could do things for him. He wished things into happening, things he himself couldn't do.
How could I stand by and watch my house on fire?
The pain of powerlessness is excruciating. It is the most painful experience in the earth school, and everyone shares it.
Helplessness is a mighty power.
Experience is a form of paralysis.
I was on my face. I heard the count from one to 10. I kept telling myself that I had to get up, but I couldn't move. I couldn't make myself move. It was the strangest feeling.
A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but who, as a group, can meet and decide that nothing can be done.
You find yourself in the world, without any power, immovable as a rock, stupid, so to speak, as a log of wood.
There is nothing more pitiful than a ready and willing mind but an incapable body.
Helplessness is such a rotten feeling. There's nothing you can do about it. Being helpless is like being paralyzed. It's sickness. The cure calls for a monumental effort to stand up and start walking somewhere, anywhere. But that takes some doing.
On the back benches, you can have your say but no power to do anything.
Sometimes there's nothing you can do. [...] Sometimes they don't have enough to fight with.
Not only do I not know what's going on, I wouldn't know what to do about it if I did.
Anger... it's a paralyzing emotion... you can't get anything done.
I hear them n-ggas talkin sh-t, but there ain't that much that they can do.
Most people are basically a victim of the circumstances of their life. They have things like 9/11, they have terrorism threats, they have new war threats, they have economy problems, and they think, 'What can I do? I'm basically a victim.'
American government has seemed to mean naught but impotence and unavailing words.
I had a recurring stress dream since I was a kid 10 years old. My friend Travis is driving, and I'm afraid we're going to get in trouble. We keep passing people I recognize, and no one is doing anything. Travis keeps driving faster. I've had that dream a long time.
In this world, who can do a thing, will not; And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power — And thus we half-men struggle.
How extraordinary it is that one feels most guilt about the sins one is unable to commit.
All weakness tends to corrupt, and impotence corrupts absolutely.
