Famous quotes containing the words attempt and/or fails:
“The attempt to be an ideal parent, that is, to behave correctly toward the child, to raise her correctly, not to give to little or too much, is in essence an attempt to be the ideal child—well behaved and dutiful—of one’s own parents. But as a result of these efforts the needs of the child go unnoticed. I cannot listen to my child with empathy if I am inwardly preoccupied with being a good mother; I cannot be open to what she is telling me.”
—Alice Miller (20th century)
“That hour in the life of a man when first the help of humanity fails him, and he learns that in his obscurity and indigence humanity holds him a dog and no man: that hour is a hard one, but not the hardest. There is still another hour which follows, when he learns that in his infinite comparative minuteness and abjectness, the gods do likewise despise him, and own him not of their clan.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)