Quotes about feelings
page 92

“The focus of prayer is not the self. … It is the momentary disregard of our personal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute the art of prayer. Feeling becomes prayer in the moment in which we forget ourselves and become aware of God. … Thus, in beseeching Him for bread, there is one instant, at least, in which our mind is directed neither to our hunger nor to food, but to His mercy. This instant is prayer. We start with a personal concern and live to feel the utmost.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

As quoted in Judaism (1998) by Arthur Hertzberg, p. 300
Variant: "It is the momentary disregard of our personal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute the act of prayer."

Hunger, God, Food, Art

“Gradually… during the second half of the nineteenth century, the uncomfortable feeling of dislike of the action at a distance, which had been so strong in Huygens and other contemporaries of Newton, but had subsided during the eighteenth century, began to emerge again, and gained strength rapidly.
This was favoured by the purely mathematical transformation (which can be compared in a sense with that from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican system), replacing Newton's finite equations by the differential equations, the potential becoming the primary concept, instead of the force, which is only the gradient of the potential. These ideas, of course, arose first in the theory of electricity and magnetism or perhaps one should say in the brain of Faraday.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932)

Mathematics, Idea, Sense, Strong

“It was in vain. I brought my hardest right angle into violent collision with the Stranger, pressing on him with a force sufficient to have destroyed any ordinary Circle: but I could feel him slowly and unarrestably slipping from my contact; no edging to the right nor to the left, but moving somehow out of the world, and vanishing to nothing. Soon there was a blank. But still I heard the Intruder's voice.

SPHERE. Why will you refuse to listen to reason? I had hoped to find in you — as being a man of sense and an accomplished mathematician — a fit apostle for the Gospel of the Three Dimensions, which I am allowed to preach once only in a thousand years: but now I know not how to convince you. Stay, I have it. Deeds, and not words, shall proclaim the truth.”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART II: OTHER WORLDS, Chapter 17. How the Sphere, Having in Vain Tried Words, Resorted to Deeds

Truth, World, Hope, Sense

“Changing behavior is less a matter of giving people analysis to influence their thoughts than helping them to see a truth to influence their feelings.”

John P. Kotter (1947) author of The heart of Change

Introduction to the 2002 edition, p. 2
The Heart of Change, (2002)

People, Truth, Behavior, Change

“The same feeling of not belonging, of futility, wherever I go: I pretend interest in what matters nothing to me, I bestir myself mechanically or out of charity, without ever being caught up, without ever being somewhere. What attracts me is elsewhere, and I don't know where that elsewhere is.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“Happiness is the moment when one doesn't feel pain.”

Bobbejaan Schoepen (1925–2010) musician, performer

HUMO, (2005)

Pain, Happiness

“He doesn't believe that public swimming-pools and a kind word in time will right the wrongs of the world; moreover, he takes a drink whenever he feels like it.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Quoted, This Side of Paradise (1920)

World, Drink, Time

“The Imamah (religious leadership) and ummah (religious community) shed light on…the principle of progress [which society should strive towards], of reforming the relations of society, ideology, belief, life, and the pulling and driving of society and the souls, thoughts, and minds that make up this society to the best possible form. The ummah is not a society where human individuals feel a stagnant form of confort and happiness, or feel a free, carelss sense of irresponsibility and make static comfort the goal of life.”

Ali Shariati (1933–1977) Iranian academic and activist

On the Role of Leadership in the West vs Role of Leadership in Shi'ism (date of speech unknown). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0evSkdzXF_4
Speeches: On Religious Government and Islamic Leadership

Life, Happiness, Soul, Communication

“I have never known any man who could do such ample justice to his best thoughts in colloquial discussion. His perfect command over his great mental resources, the terseness and expressiveness of his language and the moral earnestness as well as intellectual force of his delivery, made him one of the most striking of all argumentative conversers: and he was full of anecdote, a hearty laugher, and, when with people whom he liked, a most lively and amusing companion. It was not solely, or even chiefly, in diffusing his merely intellectual convictions that his power showed itself: it was still more through the influence of a quality, of which I have only since learnt to appreciate the extreme rarity: that exalted public spirit, and regard above all things to the good of the whole, which warmed into life and activity every germ of similar virtue that existed in the minds he came in contact with: the desire he made them feel for his approbation, the shame at his disapproval; the moral support which his conversation and his very existence gave to those who were aiming to the same objects, and the encouragement he afforded to the fainthearted or desponding among them, by the firm confidence which (though the reverse of sanguine as to the results to be expected in any one particular case) he always felt in the power of reason, the general progress of improvement, and the good which individuals could do by judicious effort.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/101/mode/1up pp. 101-102

Life, People, Justice, Confidence

“Let a man get once fairly possessed of any peculiar notion, whether it be on religion, political economy, morals, politics, arts, or anything else, and he sees little beside his beloved principle, which he is at all times ready to advance, defend, demonstrate, or expatiate on. Nothing can be simpler than the two great dogmas of Christianity, which are so plain that all can both comprehend them and feel their truth. They teach us to love God, the surest way to obey him, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Any one can understand this; all can see how just it is, and how much of moral sublimity it contains. It is Godlike, and brings us near the very essence of the Divinity, which is love, mercy, and truth. Yet how few are content to accept the teachings of the Saviour in this respect, without embarrassing them with theories that have so much of their origin in human fancies.”

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American author

Source: Oak Openings or The bee-hunter (1848), Ch. XVI

Love, God, Truth, Religion

“And when I say the world is governed by nothing but demons, who will continue to be demons until they have destroyed the world, I am not using profanities; on the contrary, demon is a scientific term, a formula covering a specific chemical composition without connotations from politics, religion, or moral philosophy.... Here among us on the lowest rung of the world of life, no attention is paid to books unless they are written by chemically analyzed demons, or at least for them. Poets and philosophers are respected in proportion to the contempt and disgust they feel for the creation of life. Give this day our daily war is the prayer of those who govern countries. Kill, kill, said the outlaw Skuggasveinn...”

Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)

Dr. Sýngmann
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)

Life, War, Books, World

“But if I had someone I would do anything and never never never never let you feel alone.”

James Morrison (1984) English singer-songwriter and guitarist

Wonderful World
Song lyrics, Undiscovered (James Morrison album) (2006)

“If you are anxious about death, then you don't have a sense of the oneness of things—you feel that after death, you will be no more.”

Sidney Poitier (1927) American-born Bahamian actor, film director, author, and diplomat

"Oprah Talks to Sidney Poitier", http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Oprah-Interviews-Sidney-Poitier/1 O Magazine, October 2000

Death, Sense

“My parents have lived in the United States since 1964 and they have never voted. They don't feel they have a right to. They don't feel this is their country. Even though they are citizens, they pay taxes, they watch the news and keep up with current events, they still don't feel comfortable enough with their American life to fully participate in it…Any attempt to argue is thwarted by dismissal…I guess he doesn't want to explain, because how can you explain something as intangible as invisibility?”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, INVISIBILITY

Life, Parent, Country

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Speech on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)

Love, Wisdom, Justice, Suffering

“It was good to be back in the wilderness again, where everything seems as peace. I was alone - just me and the animals. It was a great feeling - free once more to plan and do as I pleased. Beyond was all around me. My dream was a dream no longer. I suppose I was here because this was something I had to do - not just dream about it but do it. I suppose too I was here to test myself - not that I had never done it before but this time it was to be a more thorough and lasting examination. What was I capable of that I didn't know yet? Could I truly enjoy my own company for an entire year? And was I equal to everything this wild land could throw at me? I had seen its moods in late spring, summer, and early fall but what about the winter? Would I love the isolation then, with its bone-stabbing cold, its ghostly silence? At age 51, I intended to find out.”

Richard Proenneke (1916–2003) American hermit

Alone in the Wilderness DVD, Bob Swerer Productions
Paraphrase by Sam Keith for One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey Dick's exact words are not known.

Love, Age, Peace, Dreams

“I do not consider myself a Cubist either because I have come to the conclusion that cubes are not always made for expressing the thought of the brain and of the feeling of the spirit... I capture all these impressions [the visual sensations, Picabia sensed in the modern city] without any hurry to transfer to the canvas. I let them rest in my brain and then, when I'm visited by the spirit of creation, I improvise my paintings just as a musician improvises his music.”

Francis Picabia (1879–1953) French painter and writer

1910's
Source: 'How I see New York', in 'The New York American', New York 30 March 1913, p. 11

Music, Sense, Painting

“Daberlohn's diagnosis [about the etching she made as his portrait] holds encouragement for Charlotte…. Daberlohn (in his letter) 'In my opinion you are destined to create something above average.'
….'Above average.' She is elated by his letter and really feels quite proud… While beginning to paint the buttercup-strewn meadow where she happens to be sitting, she decides to make his prophecy come true and actually create something 'above average'.”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

written text with brush, in her paintings JHM no. 4599 https://charlotte.jck.nl/detail/M004599/part/character/theme/keyword/M004599 + 4600 https://charlotte.jck.nl/detail/M004600/part/character/theme/keyword/M004600: in 'Life? or Theater..', p. 482-483 Charlotte Salomon - Life? or Theater?

Painting

“Little kids are that way; they feel if their parents aren't watching what they do then what they do isn't real.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle (1962)

Way, Parent

“Put your hand over the side of the boat
What do you feel?”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sea of Honey (Disc 1)

“I would say that, whenever religion has rule over law, that madness will reign, with automatic violations of human rights, but maybe I'm being alarmist. What do they say? How can we know what sort of society they envision?.. We know that they are nearly all republicans, and that that party has been virtually assimilated by them, and we know they will speak more freely when they feel the safety of numbers. So let's look at the Republican Party platform of one of the red states, a very red state… Of course, they want to make pornography illegal (no surprises there), they also want to be able to filibuster the US senate again… Regarding the environment, they strongly support the immediate repeal and abolishment of the Endangered Species Act. Remember that these people don't believe in evolution, so they don't understand the importance of biodiversity and they don't care about the rights of animals either. They want to dominate and subdue the earth, just like their abominable doctrine demands, so they strongly oppose all efforts of environmental groups that stymie business interests, especially those of the oil and gas industry… Texas republicans not only want marriage to be restricted to one man and one woman (despite what the Bible says), but they insist it must be a natural man and a natural woman… So transgender people would be completely ostracized under the law should they get their way. There's no civil union options for gay couples either, because the platform also opposes the creation, recognition or benefits of partnerships outside marriage that are provided by some political subdivisions. As if that weren't enough, they also want to define the word "family" such that it excludes homosexual couples. They say they deplore sensitivity training (think about that for a moment), and they state very clearly that they want homosexuality condemned as unacceptable. They mean that very strongly too, so strongly in fact that they oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality as a reaction of religious faith. In fact, they go so far as to urge the immediate repeal of the hate crimes law specifically where that relates to sexual orientation… If you're uncertain whether that includes acts of violence, there at least two members of the current State Board of Education who implied that it should, and we know of a few Tea Partiers who insist that homosexuals should be executed, murdered by the state. I am alarmed at how popular this abominable sentiment is… Under the heading "supporting motherhood", they strongly support women who "choose" to devote their lives to their families and raising their children, but they implicitly object to women choosing other options such as college, careers, or not having children at all. A woman's ambition beyond the confines of the kitchen and obeisance to her husband is decried by conservatives as a deplorable assault on the family which, of course, they blame on liberals. Regarding the right to life, they say that all innocent human life must be respected and safeguarded from fertilization to natural death. Notice a few subtle caveats here: the qualifier of protecting only innocent life is how Texas republicans justify having executed more prisoners than any other state in the union, nearly five times as many as the next deadliest state in fact. Says something about Christian forgiveness, doesn't it!”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Republican Theocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjNg7nQvB0 (November 4, 2012)

Life, Death, Women, Hate

“Revision is a dangerous word. Revision should never appear, I venture to think, in the mouth of a statesman or in the policy of a Government until they are prepared to define very closely the limits within which they think revision should take place. The long history of this country has in one sense been a history of the revision of Treaties. We have revised and revised and what have we got for it? What concession once made has any longer kept the value it had before it was revised? Of which of these concessions can it be said at this present moment that it has tempered feeling in Germany, that it has produced that friendly spirit that those who made it desired to promote? What is passing in Germany seems to me to render this a singularly inopportune moment to talk about the revision of Treaties.”

Austen Chamberlain (1863–1937) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1933/apr/13/adjournment-easter-1 in the House of Commons (13 April 1933) questioning revisions of the Treaty of Versailles 1930s

History, Thinking, Sense, Appearance

“I believe in being with someone for ever. Even though my marriage to Chris didn't work, I still don't consider it a failed marriage — it just came to its natural end. It didn't make me feel like I never wanted to get married again. I like sharing things with somebody.”

Billie Piper (1982) English singer, dancer and actress

On her marriage to Chris Evans, and marriage generally.
Guardian interview (2008)

Marriage, Nature

“All those people who derided me did me a favour, because now I don't care what anyone says about me. I feel I am now able to be a really powerful painter, to take on the mantle of the US male expressionist.”

Stella Vine (1969) English artist

Eyre, Hermione. "Completing my new show was the only thing that saved me from suicide" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/stella-vine-completing-my-new-show-was-the-only-thing-that-saved-me-from-suicide-457090.html, The Independent, (2007-07-15) On criticism.

People

“I feel that in order to truly be an actor, you have to differentiate yourself and your roles.”

Michelle Trachtenberg (1985) American actress

Interview by Michael J. Lee, Executive Editor for Radio Free Entertainment May 24, 2005 http://www.radiofree.com/profiles/michelle_trachtenberg/interview01.shtml

“We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Le commencement et le déclin de l'amour se font sentir par l'embarras où l'on est de se trouver seuls.
Aphorism 33
Les Caractères (1688), Du Coeur

Love

“Judy: [after catching defendant in a lie; he admitted that he was living with his witness when a few moments earlier he had said he wasn't] PERFECT! So now you're living back together again. And why, Nick, did you feel as if it was necessary to lie to me a moment ago?
Defendant: I… have been staying in Minneapolis every now and then… but I… didn't mean to lie to you.
Judy: There's another reason, Nick.
Defendant: There's no reason to lie. I'm sorry.
Judy: Well…
Defendant's Witness: Not many people know that he is staying there with me.
Judy: Now ten million people know that he's staying with you.”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

Audience laughs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8B09JYv4Hs&feature=channel_video_title
Dialogue

People, Lie, Perfection

“The time has now come for every Latter-day Saint, who calculates to be prepared for the future and to hold his feet strong upon a proper foundation, to do the will of the Lord and to pay his tithing in full. That is the word of the Lord to you, and it will be the word of the Lord to every settlement throughout the land of Zion. After I leave you and you get to thinking about this, you will see yourselves that the time has come when every man should stand up and pay his tithing in full. The Lord has blessed us and has had mercy upon us in the past; but there are times coming when the Lord requires us to stand up and do that which He has commanded and not leave it any longer. What I say to you in this stake of Zion I will say to every stake of Zion that has been organized. There is no man or woman that now hears what I am saying who will feel satisfied if he or she fails to pay a full tithing.”

Lorenzo Snow (1814–1901) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Tithing (see also: Tithe) [citation needed]

Thinking, Strong, Time, Past

“The unremitting division of labour resulted in admirable levels of productivity. The company’s success appeared to bear out the principles of efficiency laid down at the turn of the twentieth century by the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who theorized that a society would grow wealthy to the extent that its members forfeited general knowledge in favour of fostering individual ability in narrowly constricted fields. In an ideal Paretan economy, jobs would be ever more finely subdivided to allow for the accumulation of complex skills, which would then be traded among workers. … But however great the economic advantages of segmenting the elements of an afternoon’s work into a range of forty-year-long careers, there was reason to wonder about the unintended side effects of doing so. In particular, one felt tempted to ask … how meaningful the lives might feel as a result.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009)

Knowledge, Appearance, Success

“It is dark in my favorite dream. Someone is following me. I don't know why. I'm scared. Then suddenly I lift off. Far away. How do I feel? As if I am swimming in the air. Free. Weightless. Nobody can reach me. Nobody can touch me. It's a wonderful feeling.”

Aaliyah (1979–2001) American singer, actress and model

Interview in Die Zeit newspaper (2001) http://www.eonline.com/news/42093/aaliyah-funeral-set-pilot-probed

Dreams

“I can feel everything you do
Hear everything you say
Even when you're miles away
Coz I am me, the universe and you.”

KT Tunstall (1975) Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist

"Universe & U".
Eye to the Telescope (2004)

Universe

“Among others, Doctor Caritens died during a momentary absence of my father, who recommended while stepping into his travelling chariot, to bleed the Doctor a second time. I did as he bid me, although convinced that emetics and opening medicine would cure the patient without fail; the Doctor died, and you may easily imagine the state of my feelings. I had just begun to publish a work on practical physic, but had no heart to finish it after this sad catastrophe. I betook myself again to philosophy. I wished daily to return to Gottingen, if I could do so with honour. I passed three years under such painful circumstances, when my friend Leisewitz invited me to go with him to Berlin, for which purpose his brother-in-law in Brunswick would advance me money to defray my expenses. Without much consideration, I accepted the invitation, and my portmanteau was soon ready.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Money, Pain, Sadness, Law

“A kiss is a contact, a union, an exchange. It is unknown to certain races and tribes, while others know it and consider it with disgust. They all suffer a loss. A kiss can be a cold formula, or a token of familial relationship or a prelude to the act of love. It can also be a revelation in an unspoken, secret language of feelings that have never been expressed in words.”

Harry Harrison (1925–2012) American science fiction author

Source: Plague from Space (1965), Chapter 9 (pp. 81-82)

Love, Secret, Family, Kiss

“Truth is a rock, and on that rock faith plants its foot, and feels secure. But even on the rock you cannot live long without an atmosphere, and the believer's atmosphere is love. That atmosphere, is viewless, invisible, often forgotten; still it is real, and it is vital. " The words that I speak are spirit," says the Saviour. Over and above the resting place which weary spirits have found at His feet, which guilty consciences have found in His arms, there is an afflatus gone forth from those words of His, which to inhale and be surrounded with is like entering heaven's vestibule.”

James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 92.

Love, Truth, Faith

“Tears never yet saved a soul. Hell is full of weepers weeping over lost opportunities, perhaps over the rejection of an offered Saviour. Your Bible does not say " Weep, and be saved." It says, "Believe, and be saved."”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Faith is better than feeling.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 244.

Faith, Soul, Hell, Tear

“His chapters inspire me with more enthusiasm than even poetry itself. And the noble canon, with what true chivalrous feeling he confines his beautiful expressions of sorrow to the death of the gallant and high-bred knight, of whom it was a pity to see the fall, such was his loyalty to his king, pure faith to his religion, hardihood towards his enemy, and fidelity to his lady-love! – Ah, benedicite! how he will mourn over the fall of such a pearl of knighthood, be it on the side he happens to favour, or on the other. But, truly, for sweeping from the face of the earth some few hundreds of villain churls, who are born but to plough it, the high-born and inquisitive historian has marvellous little sympathy.”

Jean Froissart (1337–1405) French writer

Claverhouse, in Walter Scott's Old Mortality (1816), ch. 35.
Criticism

Love, Death, Faith, Religion

“How oddly situated a man is apt to find himself at the age of thirty-eight! His youth belongs to the distant past. Yet the period of memory beginning with the end of youth and extending to the present has left him not a single vivid impression. And therefore he persists in feeling that nothing more than a fragile barrier separates him from his youth. He is forever hearing with the utmost clarity the sounds of this neighboring domain, but there is no way to penetrate the barrier.”

Yukio Mishima book Runaway Horses

Runaway Horses (1969), as translated by Michael Gallagher (1973).

Youth, Age, Way, Distant

“Fortunately, a sculptor's style and aim are, to a great extent, dictated to him by his materials. To make a sculpture seem at all moving or inspiring, an artist must, of course, be gifted with a certain personality that speaks movingly through the subject and materials of his work. But he must select appropriate materials, and use them appropriately, too... My materials often dictate my change of aims, and I choose to work in a different material much as a man may suddenly feel an appetite for a change in diet.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

c. 1960
Source: 1960 - 1968, Dialogues – conversations with.., quotes, c. 1960, pp. 154-155

Change, Personality

“In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life. (It has always struck me as strange, by the way, that Alfred Nobel did not institute a philosophy prize, or for that matter that he instituted a physics prize but not a mathematics prize, to say nothing of a music prize - music is, after all, more universal than literature, which is bound to a particular language.) The idea of writer as sage is pretty much dead today. I would certainly feel very uncomfortable in the role.”

J.M. Coetzee (1940) South African writer

Dagens Nyheter http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/an-exclusive-interview-with-j-m-coetzee interview with David Attwell (December 8, 2003)

Life, Music, Way, Literature

“Found this picture of Angie laughing in a restaurant with some other people, everybody pretty but beyond that it was like they had this glow, not really in the photograph but it was there anyway, something you feel. Look, she said to Lanette, showing her the picture, they got this glow.
It’s called money, Lanette said.”

William Gibson book Mona Lisa Overdrive

Source: Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988), Ch. 19

Money, People

“The pictures [De Kooning had] done since the 'Women', they're emotions, most of them. Most of them are landscapes and highways and sensations of that, outside the city – with the feeling of going to the city or coming from it. I am not a pastoral character. I'm not a – how do you say that? – 'country dumpling'. I am here and I like New York City. But I love to go out in a car… I'm just crazy about going over the roads and highways.”

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) Dutch painter

Interview conducted by David Sylvester for the BBC, 1962; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrahams Publishers, New York 1990, p. 48.
1960's

Love, Women, Cars, Country

“Sometimes it is hard to avoid a certain feeling of sadness: when realizing that everything sensible has already, many times over, been excellently expressed—and expressed in vain. And note how well-hidden, pushed into obscurity, drowned by triviality's overwhelming mass—therefore, how important it is that the sensible be repeated again and again, experienced in new individuals over and over with new variations, with a new emphasis, in a new voice—continuously kept alive.”

Vilhelm Ekelund (1880–1949) Swedish poet

Source: The Second Light (1986), p. 71

Sadness, Time

“Pure love is in the will alone; it is no sentimental love, for the imagination has no part in it; it loves, if we may so express it, without feeling, as faith believes without seeing.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 399.

Love, Faith, Imagination, Parting

“[Before the prostate operation] I feel gay and calm, but have an open mind as to whether I shall get through or not[. ] I don't say this to anyone else, but I love you too much to say anything but the truth. I don't feel afraid of anything and it is your love that has made me be like this. I hope to come back to you and everything and be as before, and I will try my best to do so.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Letter 311, to Robert J. Buckingham, 17 December 1935
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

Love, Truth, Hope

“I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living, and I call no man wise until he has made the progress from the wisdom of knowledge to the wisdom of foolishness, and become a laughing philosopher, feeling first life's tragedy and then life's comedy. For we must weep before we can laugh. Out of sadness comes the awakening, and out of the awakening comes the laughter of the philosopher, with kindliness and tolerance to boot.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 13

Life, Wisdom, Sadness, Knowledge

“War arises from both sides feeling they have a hope of victory.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The King's Twenty-Five Years. III. The Coronation and the Agadir Crisis. The Evening Standard, 4 May 1935
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol III, Churchill and People, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 351-2. ISBN 0903988445
The 1930s

War, Hope, Victory

“[Blogging] helps me to get out my feelings, get out my emotions. [When I started] I was mainly writing for my own sake. It really helped me articulate what I think, to get my thoughts out. I like to get feedback sometimes—although there’s a lot of hate, there’s always good advice. I found it really helpful for myself. Writing always helps.”

Abby Stein (1991) Trans activist, speaker, and educator

Interview with Daily Dot, December 8, 2015 http://www.dailydot.com/irl/transgender-orthodox-jew-abby-stein/ 2015

Hate, Thinking, Help

“There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilisation. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay book Critical and Historical Essays

"Essay on Ludwig von Ranke's 'History of the Popes', in "Critical and Historical Essays", iii, (London; Longman, 7th Edn. 1952), 100-1.
Attributed

Life, Hostility, Children, Lie

“I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down — tumbling down
I feel my heart start to trembling
Whenever you're around.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

I Feel the Earth Move · performance on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoHuxpa4h48 Song lyrics, Tapestry (1971)

Heart

“I've just been reading -- stuff to make your hair curl -- you go in that toilet -- that's the sort of stuff people read -- not this sort of thing -- don't you feel out of touch? Does this stuff make money? I bet you're the only person to have read this book -- but I bet you every man in this restaurant has had a read of that stuff in there… makes you think, doesn't it?”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Albert
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

Money, People, Books, Thinking

“Yeah, congratulations. Way to go, Punk, way to go. Congratulations on your big win. You need to enjoy them while you can. You see, you can smirk if you want to, but I see straight through you. When I look at you, I see a fraud. And I'm not talking about the fact that you call yourself the best in the world, I'm talking about you as a person. Because I did a little research this week, Punk, and I found something, a little deep, dirty, dark secret about you. You've been straight edge ever since you came to the WWE, but you've never explained the reasons why. I wanna tell all of these wannabes why you're straight edge. I wanna tell them that you're straight edge because your father is an alcoholic.
Yeah, that's right. Your father was an alcoholic who let you down every step of the way when you were growing up, and it terrifies you. You don't want to end up like him. But it's inevitable that you will, because alcohol is in your blood, it's in your genes, it's part of who you are, and that tortures you. I know you've built this facade, this wall that you're a sarcastic antihero with not a care in the world, but I think I've found something that you care about. I've found something that gives you nightmares, something that terrifies you.
And isn't it ironic that the very alcohol that you crave is the same thing that ruined your childhood? Oh, the nightmares you must have about your father; I almost feel bad for you, Punk. Is that the reason why you have all those tattoos? Was the pain of wanting to drink so bad that you needed the pain of a tattoo needle to take it out of your mind? Was that your only solace?
It doesn't matter if it is, Punk, because you are going to drink eventually, and I'm the one who is going to make you drink. At WrestleMania XXVIII, I'm going to take away your title, I'm gonna take away your claims of being the best in the world, I'm gonna take away your bravado, and I'm gonna leave you a broken man. You're gonna hit bottom, Punk, and when you do, you're going to embrace your destiny, and you're gonna take a drink. And it's gonna taste so good that you're gonna wanna take another one, and another one, and another one. After April 1st, I'm gonna be recognized for who I am—the undisputed best in the world and the new WWE Champion. And you're gonna be recognized for who you are, who your father was—a pathetic damn drunk!”

Chris Jericho (1970) American professional wrestler, musician, television host, podcast host and author

March 12, 2012 - WWE Raw

Pain, Alcohol, Secret, World

“I think right now is the moment. This is the beginning. We don’t know what is it the moment of, and maybe something much crazier will happen. But really, we see the sunshine coming in. It was clouded for maybe a hundred years. Our whole condition was very sad, but we still feel warmth, and the life in our bodies can still tell that there is excitement in there, even though death is waiting. We had better not enjoy the moment, but create the moment.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Tinari, Philip, and Angie Baecker, eds. Hans Ulrich Obrist: The China Interviews. Beijing: Office for Discourse Engineering, 2009.
2000-09, 2009

Life, Death, Sadness, Thinking

““But sociopaths don’t see other people as people. Something’s wrong with their wiring,” Nicole said. “They don’t have any empathy, and they don’t feel fear. So they don’t feel guilty when they kill. If anything, they feel powerful.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), p. 14

People, Fear

“To hear never-heard sounds,
To see never-seen colors and shapes,
To try to understand the imperceptible
Power pervading the world;
To fly and find pure ethereal substances
That are not of matter
But of that invisible soul pervading reality.
To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul;
To be a lantern in the darkness
Or an umbrella in a stormy day;
To feel much more than know.
To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain;
To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon;
To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves;
To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets
Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching.
To be a smile on the face of a woman
And shine in her memory
As a moment saved without planning.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Task of a Poet http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21367/Task_of_a_Poet From the poems written in English

World, Smile, Color, Soul

“This shared concern with continuity accounts for a good part of the affinity I feel with Schoenberg, an affinity I have openly claimed in drawing from him both the title and the subtitle of the present volume. To me, as to Schoenberg, such continuity constitutes important evidence that the essentially aesthetic act of constructing a 'text,' whether on paper or in one's professional life, has been subjected to rational restraints, in all the Kantian senses of 'rationality.' From this viewpoint, continuity is valued as a sign that a text has been carefully constructed to meet rigorous standards not only of formal coherence but also of logical precision and, espeically crucial, of moral scrupulousness.”

Rose Rosengard Subotnik (1942) American musicologist

Subotnik, Rose Rosengard (1991). Developing Variations: Style and Ideology in Western Music, p.xx. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. .

Life, Sense, Parting, Drawing

“As an introduction to America, my ten months in Baltimore were superb. I find it difficult to find words to convey the feeling of decompression, of freedom, of being caught in a sweep of unimagined and unimaginable grandeur. It was a life on a different scale with more of everything - more air to breathe, more things to see, more people to know.”

Mark Kac (1914–1984) Polish-American mathematician

Source: Enigmas Of Chance (1985), Chapter 4, On Toast!, p. 85.

Life, People, Freedom

“When your suffering is a little greater than my suffering, I feel like I am a little cruel.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Cuando tu dolor es un poco mayor que mi dolor, me siento un poco cruel.
Voces (1943)

Suffering

“One is left with the uneasy feeling that even if supersymmetry is actually false, as a feature of nature, and that accordingly no supersymmetry partners are ever found by the LHC or by any later more powerful accelerator, then the conclusion that some supersymmetry proponents might come to would not be that supersymmetry is false for the actual particles of nature, but merely that the level of supersymmetry breaking must be greater even that the level reached at that moment, and that a new even more powerful machine would be required to observe it!”

Roger Penrose book Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe

Source: Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe (2016), Ch. 1, Mathematical Elegance as a Driving Force, pp. 102–103

Nature, Falseness

“I feel better than I have in years—no leg problems at all. But if I'm to get three more home runs, I'm afraid I'll have to get them right-handed. I don't know what's the matter. I've lost my confidence from that side. I've always been a better right-handed hitter than left, but it wasn't until recently that I really got into a left-handed slump. I just don't seem able to pull the trigger, hitting left-handed. I have no excuse for it. It's not my legs or anything. The ball just gets up to me before I know it.”

Mickey Mantle (1931–1995) Professional baseball player

Speaking after Game 2 of the 1960 World Series, regarding his worsening left-handed batting woes—in particular, as regarded his chances of breaking Babe Ruth's World Series HR mark of 15; as quoted in "Mantle Figures He Can Break Babe's Series HR Mark if the Bucs Throw Southpaws" http://www.mediafire.com/view/6cqvl5q8trgqtg8/%20.png by Associated Press, in The Atlanta Constitution (Friday, October 7, 1960), p. 49.

Home, Confidence, Problem

“I have a two-year-old who just turned three, and my four-year-old just turned five. I have the same irrational feelings taking them to pre-school. It's this charged combination of stress and joy and anxiety and excitement. When they're away, you've got a sudden loss of purpose and this ever-present fear about the kid's welfare. The departure of our children from our nest is not an easy thing.”

Vera Farmiga (1973) American actress

As quoted in " Q&A: Bates Motel's Vera Farmiga on the Terrors of Parenthood http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a27056/vera-farmiga-interview/" by Eric Spitznagel at Esquire (February 1, 2014)

Children, Fear, School, Departure

“In order to create an image almost similar to that of a pencil case standing up and walking, I try to eliminate all excess by cutting. I have the feeling that this process (of "cutting off") is linked in some way to "elegance". Elegance and so-called "eliminating excess", or the beauty that remains after excess has beeen eliminated…”

Yohji Yamamoto (1943) Japanese fashion designer

Kiyokazu Washida. The Past, the Feminine, the Vain in Talking to Myself (2002), Ch. 3: Feedom or the Vain.

Beauty, Way

“I feel as comfortable anywhere as I feel uncomfortable anywhere”

Kiran Desai (1971) Indian author

Interview http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/oct/12/bookerprize2006.thebookerprize (12 October 2006), The Guardian

“I was never into the powders or pills. I tried it all but didn't like that clenched-teeth feeling. I didn't like the "I'm a palpitating rabbit and I'm gonna solve the world's problems" feeling either. I drank some beer. I'm still here.”

Dan Aykroyd (1952) Canadian film actor

On drug use, in "I'm still haunted by Belushi" by Sean O'Hagan in The Observer (28 September 2003)

World, Beer, Problem

“Those that are hunted
Know this as their life,
Their reward: to walk
Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them,
And to feel no fear.”

James Dickey (1923–1997) American writer

The Heaven of Animals (l. 29–34).
The Whole Motion; Collected Poems, 1945-1992 (1992)

Life, Fear, Knowledge, Tree

“America needs to be a place where all of us can feel a part of the American dream. But it will not happen by dividing us into racial groups. It will not happen by trying to turn the poor against the rich. It will not happen by asking Americans to accept what is immoral and wrong in the name of tolerance.”

J. C. Watts (1957) American politician

Delivering the Republican Party response to President Bill Clinton's "State of the Union" Address (1997-02-04)

Dreams, Parting

“Dear Habicht, / Such a solemn air of silence has descended between us that I almost feel as if I am committing a sacrilege when I break it now with some inconsequential babble… / What are you up to, you frozen whale, you smoked, dried, canned piece of soul…?”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Lieber Habicht! / Es herrscht ein weihevolles Stillschweigen zwischen uns, so daß es mir fast wie eine sündige Entweihung vorkommt, wenn ich es jetzt durch ein wenig bedeutsames Gepappel unterbreche... / Was machen Sie denn, Sie eingefrorener Walfisch, Sie getrocknetes, eingebüchstes Stück Seele...? Opening of a letter to his friend Conrad Habicht in which he describes his four revolutionary Annus Mirabilis papers (18 or 25 May 1905) Doc. 27 http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol5-doc/81?ajax 1900s

Soul, Silence

“The primary meaning of the words "modern," "modernity," with which recent times have baptised themselves, brings out very sharply that feeling of "the height of time" which I am at present analysing. "Modern" is what is "in the fashion, "that is to say, the new fashion or modification which has arisen over against the old traditional fashions used in the past. The word "modern" then expresses a consciousness of a new life, superior to the old one, and at the same time an imperative call to be at the height of one's time. For the "modern" man, not to be "modern" means to fall below the historic level.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Chap. III: The Height Of The Times
The Revolt of the Masses (1929)

Life, Fashion, Time, Past

“My neighbor's poverty makes me feel poor; my own does not.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

La pobreza ajena me basta para sentirme pobre; la mía no me basta.
Voces (1943)

“He had enormous and poetic admiration, though very little understanding, of all mechanical devices. They were his symbols of truth and beauty. Regarding each new intricate mechanism—metal lathe, two-jet carburetor, machine gun, oxyacetylene welder—he learned one good realistic-sounding phrase, and used it over and over, with a delightful feeling of being technical and initiated.”

Sinclair Lewis book Babbitt

Babbitt (1922), Ch. 6

Truth, Beauty, Understanding, Learning

“One must realize that, apart from considerations of color and form, there are two fundamentally different ways of regarding a medium of expression: one is based on taste only — an approach in which the external physical elements of expression are merely pleasingly arranged. This way results in decoration with no spiritual reaction. Arrangement is not art. The second way is based on the artist’s power of empathy, to feel the intrinsic qualities of the medium of expression. Through these qualities the medium comes to life... In this life, an intuitive artist discovers the emotive and vital substance which makes a work of art.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

'Search for the Real in the Visual Arts', p. 46
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

Life, Art, Color, Way

“As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before me in embryo, I would almost like to try to say it all in a single word.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

E 52
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)

Books

“What to say? That the end of love is a haunting. A haunting of dreams. A haunting of silence. Haunted by ghosts it is easy to become a ghost. Life ebbs. The pulse is too faint. Nothing stirs you. Some people approve of this and call it healing. It is not healing. A dead body feels no pain.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

The Powerbook (2000)

Love, Life, Pain, People

“I'm increasingly convinced that the principal moral errors of contemporary western societies, especially among elites, are rooted in the triumph of Hobbes' view of human beings as basically machines for having experiences. It's the anthropology underwriting the Age of Feeling.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

Twitter post https://twitter.com/McCormickProf/status/947851434816655361 (1 January 2018) 2018

Age, Error

“And see! she stirs!
She starts,—she moves,—she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel,
And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the ocean's arms!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Building of the Ship

Source: The Building of the Ship (1849), Lines 349-354.

Life

“Not to feel exasperated, or defeated, or despondent because your days aren't packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human--however imperfectly--and fully embrace the pursuit that you've embarked on.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Hays translation
Flinch not, neither give up nor despair, if the achieving of every act in accordance with right principle is not always continuous with thee.
V, 9
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book V

“The idea for each of the stories in this book came in a moment of belief and was written in a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism. Those positive feelings have their dark analogues, however, and the fear of failure is a long way from the worst of them. The worst—for me, at least—is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky.”

Stephen King book Nightmares & Dreamscapes

Nightmares & Dreamscapes (1993), Introduction

Happiness, Books, Fear, Faith

“And the second thing fiction does is to build empathy. When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed. Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming (2013)

People, World, Imagination, Learning

“When someone forgets himself, this by no means makes him altruistic; when a thinking person forgets himself, he immediately also forgets his fellowman, he loses himself and his humanity by becoming engrossed in his subject. Thus he is in a sense more contemplative than a feeling person.”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

1950's, On Being a Graphic Artist', 1953

Thinking, Sense, Personality, Forgetting

“The Democratic power elite on some level feels delegitimized by its working-class, black and female constituencies. What it wants are the "legitimate" votes of suburban, white, middle-class, affluent males. Even liberal voters and organizations tend on some tacit level to accept the idea that they are not the "real" Americans the Democrats must pursue.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"The Democrats and Left Masochism", New Politics, Vol. 8, No. 3, issue #31 (Summer 2001) http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue31/willis31.htm

Idea

“I feel that we are all philosophers, and that those who describe themselves as a ‘philosopher’ simply do not have a day job to go to.”

Kevin Warwick (1954) British robotics and cybernetics researcher

in Hendricks, V: “Feisty Fragments for Philosophy”, King’s College Publications, London,2004.

“[T]ake the Bible just as it reads; and if it be translated incorrectly, and there is a scholar on the earth who professes to be a Christian, and he can translate it any better than King James's translators did it, he is under obligation to do so, or the curse is upon him. If I understood Greek and Hebrew as some may profess to do, and I knew the Bible was not correctly translated, I should feel myself bound by the law of justice to the inhabitants of the earth to translate that which is incorrect and give it just as it was spoken anciently. Is that proper? Yes, I would be under obligation to do it. But I think it is translated just as correctly as the scholars could get it, although it is not correct in a great many instances. But it is no matter about that. Read it and observe it and it will not hurt any person in the world. If we are not to believe the whole of the Bible, let the man, whoever he may be, among the professed Christians, who thinks he knows, draw the line between the true and the false, so that the whole sectarian world may be able to take the right and leave the wrong. But the man Christ Jesus, who has revealed himself in the latter days, says the Bible is true and the people must believe it. Let us believe it, and then obey it.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 14:226-227 (August 27, 1871)
1870s

People, World, Justice, Law

“Our magnanimous Imam (r. a.) managed to restore our dignity and eliminate the long-standing hegemony of autocracy and colonialism by returning to Islam, by adhering to Islam. He managed to give our people a sense of identity and made them feel that they can stand on their own feet, that they can say "yes" or "no" in the case of essential matters. Our people had been deprived of such things for centuries. It was Islam that gave these things to our people. In any country in any part of the world where the waves of Islamic Awakening are strengthened or started and the people and youth of that country feel that they are moving closer to Islam, there will be this renewed sense of identity and dignity.”

Ali Khamenei (1939) Iranian Shiite faqih, Marja' and official independent islamic leader

Supreme Leader's Speech to Officials on Occasion of Birthday Anniversary of Holy Prophet (s.w.a.) 19/05/2003 http://english.khamenei.ir//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1872&Itemid=4 2003

People, Youth, World, Sense

“I think it’s more difficult to be vegan than gay. I think people have a harder time accepting it; people feel more uncomfortable with a vegan at their dinner table than they do a lesbian. It’s confronting. It’s kind of suggesting that what someone else is doing is bad or wrong, and it hits them on a more personal level. … If somebody is setting there eating a steak watching you eat polenta, they’re thinking that you’re trying to preach to them or you’re trying to convert them in some way. Whereas with being gay, I don’t think anyone’s concerned that that’s the agenda. “Hey, Mom, you also have to be gay. I’m gay and so should you be!””

Portia de Rossi (1973) Australian-American actress

Certainly when I told her that I was vegan, it forced her to look at her habits. Interview for VegNews magazine, July/August 2011 issue. Quoted in VegetarianStar.com http://vegetarianstar.com/2011/07/07/portia-de-rossi-on-vegnews-julyaugust-2011-issue/.

People, Way, Moms, Thinking

“It all has to do with my feelings, my mood or state of mind. Most times my experiences, things I desire, it could be good depends on how the listener’s level of perception is structured.”

Slim Burna (1988) Nigerian singer and record producer

On what inspires his lyrics During an interview with Africa Upcoming http://www.africaupcoming.com/exclusive-interview-meet-gabriel-soprinye-halliday-idaomienyenimim-a-k-a-slim-burna/ (September 12, 2013)

Mood, Time, Dependency

“The sheer decibel level of unreason surrounding the issue of abortion in academic writing about animal rights tells us something interesting. It suggests that, contrary to what the utilitarians and feminists working this terrain wish, the dots between sympathy for animals and sympathy for unborn humans are in fact quite easy to connect—so easy, you might say, that a child could do it. … Since ethical vegetarianism as a practice appears commonly rooted in an a priori aversion to violence against living creatures, so does it often appear to begin in the young. … A sudden insight, igniting empathy on a scale that did not exist before and perhaps even a life-transforming realization—this reaction should indeed be thought through with care. It is not only the most commonly cited feature of the decision to become a vegetarian. It is also the most commonly cited denominator of what brings people to their convictions about the desperate need to protect unborn, innocent human life. … Despite those who act and write in their name, actual vegetarians and vegans are far more likely to be motivated by positive feelings for animals than by negative feelings for human beings. As a matter of theory, the line connecting the dots between “we should respect animal life” and “we should respect human life” is far straighter than the line connecting vegetarianism to antilife feminism or antihumanist utilitarianism.”

Mary Eberstadt American writer

"Pro-Animal, Pro-Life" https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/pro-animal-pro-life, in First Things (June 2009).

Life, People, Motivation, Decision

“Plants and plant-eaters co-evolved. And plants aren't the passive partners in the chain of terrestrial life. Hence today's Pop Ecology movement is quite wrong in believing that plants are happy to fill their role as fodder for herbivores in a harmonious and perfectly balanced ecosystem. A birch tree doesn't feel cosmic fulfillment when a moose munches its leaves; the tree species, in fact, evolves to fight the moose, to keep the animal's munching lips away from vulnerable young leaves and twigs. In the final analysis, the merciless hand of natural selection will favor the birch genes that make the tree less and less palatable to the moose in generation after generation. No plant species could survive for long by offering itself as unprotected fodder.”

Robert T. Bakker book The Dinosaur Heresies

The Dinosaur Heresies: A Revolutionary View of Dinosaurs (1986), Longman Scientific & Technical, p. 179
The Dinosaur Heresies (1986)

Life, Happiness, Nature, Tree

“Without much preliminary exposition and without feeling himself to be out of touch with his contemporaries, Darwin set to work to explain species in terms of the process out of which they have arisen, rather than out of the prime cause to which the distinction between them may he due.”

Thorstein Veblen book The Theory of Business Enterprise

Source: The Theory of Business Enterprise, 1904, p. 369

“Love is Human: Own it/ Love is Bodily: Feel it/ Love is Divine: Revere it/ Love is Surrender: Transcend it/ Love is Life: Be!”

Kuruvilla Pandikattu (1957) Indian philosopher

Life: Relish It! Back Cover
Love: Be it! (2001)

Love, Life

“April 21. My birthday — I am told the fifty-seventh, and yet I feel only a boy. Must make haste and get my work done ere the night falls. Made an excursion with the babes to Mount Wanda.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

21 April 1895, page 340
John of the Mountains, 1938

Boy, Birthday, Night

“The forces going on in the society are not things the media can prevent or change. But we can and should help understand this crisis and warn against false solutions. If feelings are trumping arguments — the pun is fully intended — it doesn’t mean that arguments don’t still have to be made. It may not win the news cycle. It may not even win this election cycle. But it’s a critical task.”

Andrew Sullivan (1963) Journalist, writer, blogger

As quoted in "Andrew Sullivan on His Brief Return to the Online Political Fray" by Jennifer Schuessler, in The New York Times (29 July 2016) http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/arts/andrew-sullivan-dish-convention-trump-clinton.html

Understanding, Change, Help, Falseness

“And thus the soul pities God and feels itself pitied by him; loves Him and feels loved by Him, sheltering its misery in the bosom of the eternal and infinite misery, which, in eternalizing itself and infinitizing itself, is the supreme happiness itself.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VII : Love, Suffering, Pity

Love, God, Happiness, Soul

“You must forgive me for continually coming back to the same thing; but I believe in the logical development of everything we see and feel through the study of nature and turn my attention to technical questions later.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote of 1906 from a letter; cited in Paul Cézanne, Letters ed. John Rewald, New York, Da Capro Press, 1995, p. 313
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900

Forgiveness, Question, Nature, Study