When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.
Meaning of the quote
When we make excuses for why we can't do something, we end up stuck with those limitations. Instead of trying to improve or overcome our weaknesses, we convince ourselves that we can't change. But if we're willing to challenge our own limitations, we have a better chance of growing and achieving more.
About Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh was an acclaimed English writer known for his novels, biographies, and travel books. He was a master of prose and a prolific journalist, with works like Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour trilogy cementing his status as one of the great 20th-century literary figures.
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More quotes from Evelyn Waugh
News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read. And it’s only news until he’s read it. After that it’s dead.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
My unhealthy affection for my second daughter has waned. Now I despise all my seven children equally.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
If we can’t stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
I haven’t been to sleep for over a year. That’s why I go to bed early. One needs more rest if one doesn’t sleep.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
One forgets words as one forgets names. One’s vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Other nations use ‘force’; we Britons alone use ‘Might’.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
I think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
In the dying world I come from, quotation is a national vice.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Money is only useful when you get rid of it. It is like the odd card in “Old Maid”; the player who is finally left with it has lost.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
There are no poetic ideas; only poetic utterances.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Perhaps host and guest is really the happiest relation for father and son.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Don’t hold your parents up to contempt. After all, you are their son, and it is just possible that you may take after them.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
What is youth except a man or woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
The truth is that Oxford is simply a very beautiful city in which it is convenient to segregate a certain number of the young of the nation while they are growing up.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
It is a curious thing… that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I’d sooner go to my dentist any day.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
I put the words down and push them a bit.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
There is a species of person called a ‘Modern Churchman’ who draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman and need not commit himself to any religious belief.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
Not everyone grows to be old, but everyone has been younger than he is now.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)
He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.
British writer and journalist (1903-1966)