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The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome. De Tocqueville points out that it is at times when passions start to govern human affairs that ideas are most obviously translated into political action. The translation of ideas into action is usually in the hands of people least likely to follow rational motives. Hence, it is that action is often the nemesis of ideas, and sometimes of the men who formulate them. One of the marks of the truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action the ability to pass directly from thought to action. Eric Hoffer		Monday Mar 23, 2026
		Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969

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Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solicitude is the enemy of well-being. John Hoyer Updike

Quote Author: John Hoyer Updike

John Hoyer Updike

John Hoyer Updike

John Hoyer Updike (born March 18, 1932 in Shillington, Pennsylvania) is an American writer. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series ( Rabbit, Run ; Rabbit Redux ; Rabbit Is Rich ; Rabbit At Rest ; and Rabbit Remembered ). Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for Updike. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is well known for his careful craftsmanship and prolific writing, having published 22 novels and more than a dozen short story collections as well as poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in The New Yorker since the 1950s.

Other John Hoyer Updike Quotes

What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.

Life is a nacho. It can be yummy-crunchy or squishy-yucky. It just depends on how long it takes for you to start eating it.

Life is a razor, you are always in hot water or a scrape.

Life is a roller coaster, you have your ups and downs unless you fall off.

Life is a video game. No matter how good you get, you are always zapped in the end.

Life is like an overlong drama through which we sit being nagged by the vague memories of having read the reviews.

Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day.

Possession diminishes perception of value, immediately.

Vagueness and procrastination are ever a comfort to the frail in spirit.

Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.

Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying.

Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or doing it better.

Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.

The crooked little tomato branches, pulpy and pale as if made of cheap green paper, broke under the weight of so much fruit; there was something frantic in such fertility, a crying-out like that of children frantic to please.

The stripped and shapely Maple grieves The ghosts of her Departed leaves. The ground is hard, As hard as stone. The year is old, The birds are flown.

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solicitude is the enemy of well-being.