“Bears when first born are shapeless masses of white flesh a little larger than mice, their claws alone being prominent. The mother then licks them gradually into proper shape.”

Book VIII, sec. 126.
Naturalis Historia

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Pliny the Elder31

Roman military commander and writer 23–79

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“Not unlike the bear which bringeth forth
In the end of thirty dayes a shapeless birth;
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To a perfect beast that first deformed thing.”

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“They (mothers-in-law) never leave when they say they will. When my mother-in-law visits, the mice throw themselves at the cat, begging to be eaten.”

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“Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are. For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person”

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“I'm a girl of extremes. When I love something, I'm like a puppy dog (without all the licking). When I'm cranky, I'm a wasp (like a whole hive of 'em). And when I'm angry, I'm a Mother Bear with a predator after her cubs: Dangerous.”

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“In the fact of being born there is such an absence of necessity that when you think about it a little more than usual, you are left…with a foolish grin.”

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“…that shapeless, formless, fibreless mass of platitudes which in official cant is called "unsectarian religion."”

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Quarterly Review, 113, 1863, p. 266
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“It was much pleasanter at home," thought poor Alice, "when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down the rabbit-hole--and yet--and yet--…”

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“Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass.”

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Source: Course in General Linguistics
Context: Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass. Philosophers and linguists have always agreed in recognizing that without the help of signs we would be unable to make a clear-cut, consistent distinction between two ideas. Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula. here are no pre-existing ideas, and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language.

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The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952)

“Bears when first born are shapeless masses of white flesh a little larger than mice, their claws alone being prominent. The mother then licks them gradually into proper shape.”

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Pliny the Elder31

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