“Countless people have attempted to define the absolute power of the world of nature. Some praise it as God, some call it the Buddha, others call it truth.”
Source: Book of Ki (1976), p. 106
Context: Countless people have attempted to define the absolute power of the world of nature. Some praise it as God, some call it the Buddha, others call it truth. Still others convert nature into a philosophy by which they attempt to sound its deepest truth. Such attempts to define the power of nature are no more than striving to escape its effects.
All of the forces of science have been unable to conquer nature because it is too mystic, too vast, too mighty. It intensely pervades everything around us. Like the fish that, though in the water, is unaware of the water, we are so thoroughly engulfed in the blessings of nature that we tend to forget its very existence.
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Koichi Tohei 43
Japanese aikidoka 1920–2011Related quotes
Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 15
“The Power of the Word,” p. 37.
Language is Sermonic (1970)
Variant: In recognizing that words have the power to define and to compel, the semanticists are actually testifying to the philosophic quality of language which is the source of their vexation. In an attempt to get rid of that quality, they are looking for some neutral means which will be a nonconductor of the current called “emotion” and its concomitant evaluation.
Source: Knowledge And Decisions
Otros todos son ajenos, que la necedad siempre va por demasías, y aquí infeliz: no tienen día, ni aun hora suya, con tal exceso de ajenos, que alguno fue llamado “el de todos”.
Aun en el entendimiento, que para todos saben y para sí ignoran.
Maxim 252
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)
Speech at the Al Smith Dinner for charity (October 20, 2000), as quoted in "Bush And Gore Do New York" (CBS) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/10/18/politics/main242210.shtml (October 20, 2000); also in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
2000s, 2000
Aviation, Geography, and Race (1939)
Context: Air power is new to all our countries. It brings advantages to some and weakens others; it calls for readjustment everywhere.
If only there were some way to measure the changing character of men, some yardstick to reapportion influence among the nations, some way to demonstrate in peace the strength of arms in war. But with all of its dimensions, its clocks, and weights, and figures, science fails us when we ask a measure for the rights of men. They cannot be judged by numbers, by distance, weight, or time; or by counting heads without a thought of what may lie within. Those intangible qualities of character, such as courage, faith, and skill, evade all systems, slip through the bars of every cage. They can be recognized, but not measured.
As quoted in "Man må tro at det nytter" http://www.bt.no/nyheter/--Man-ma-tro-at-det-nytter-2633333.html (31 December 2011), by Erik Fossen and Håvard Bjelland, BT (in Norwegian)
2010s