Quotes about beginning
page 34

Donald J. Trump photo
Karel Appel photo
Fidel Castro photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Kapil Dev photo
Hermann Hesse photo

“In the beginning was the myth. God, in his search for self-expression, invested the souls of Hindus, Greeks, and Germans with poetic shapes and continues to invest each child's soul with poetry every day.”

Variant translation: In the beginning was the myth. Just as the great god composed and struggled for expression in the souls of the Indians, the Greeks and Germanic peoples, so to it continues to compose daily in the soul of every child.
Peter Camenzind (1904)

Carl Friedrich Gauss photo
Gloria Estefan photo
Harry Emerson Fosdick photo

“He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determine the end.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) American pastor

Source: Living Under Tension (1941), p. 111

Luciano Pavarotti photo
Peter Singer photo
David Eugene Smith photo
Robert Musil photo

“I am not only convinced that what I say is false, but also that what one might say against it is false. Despite this, one must begin to talk about it. In such a case the truth lies not in the middle, but rather all around, like a sack, which, with each new opinion one stuffs into it, changes its form, and becomes more and more firm.”

Robert Musil (1880–1942) Austrian writer

Ich bin nicht nur überzeugt, dass das, was ich sage, falsch ist, sondern auch das, was man dagegen sagen wird. Trotzdem muss man anfangen, davon zu reden. Die Wahrheit liegt bei einem solchen Gegenstand nicht in der Mitte, sondern rundherum wie ein Sack, der mit jeder neuen Meinung, die man hineinstopft, seine Form ändert, aber immer fester wird!
Helpless Europe (1922)

Jane Austen photo

“Next week I shall begin my operations on my hat, on which you know my principal hopes of happiness depend.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter (1798-10-27) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“She can find in her bewilderment no words wherewith to begin, how to order or where to end her speech; fain would she pour out all in her first utterance, but not even the first words doth fear-stricken shame allow her.”
Nec quibus incipiat demens videt ordine nec quo quove tenus, prima cupiens effundere voce omnia, sed nec prima pudor dat verba timenti.

Source: Argonautica, Book VII, Lines 433–435

G. K. Chesterton photo

“When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

The Illustrated London News (7 November 1908)

Jorge Luis Borges photo

“There is no exercise of the intellect which is not, in the final analysis, useless. A philosophical doctrine begins as a plausible description of the universe; with the passage of the years it becomes a mere chapter — if not a paragraph or a name — in the history of philosophy.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942)
Variant: There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless.

David Cronenberg photo

“All stereotypes turn out to be true. This is a horrifying thing about life. All those things you fought against as a youth: you begin to realize they're stereotypes because they're true.”

David Cronenberg (1943) Canadian film director, screenwriter and actor

As quoted at "InFuze Magazine" http://infuzemagazine.com/?p=130 (14 Dec 2011)

Angela Davis photo

“Where cultural representations do not reach out beyond themselves, there is the danger that they will function as the surrogates for activism, that they will constitute both the beginning and the end of political practice.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

"Black Nationalism: The Sixties and the Nineties." Black Popular Culture, ed. Gina Dent (Seattle, Wash: Bay Press, 1992), 324.

William Saroyan photo

“Everything begins with inhale and exhale, and never ends.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

The Resurrection of a Life (1935)

Nicolas Chamfort photo

“A man begins every stage of his life as a novice.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Reflections

“"Now I have lost all fear, and begin to draw on the black surface'" (Arp). Only love — for painting, in this instance — is able to cover the fearful void.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

Robert Motherwell, partly quoting Jean Arp, in Motherwell & black (1981) p. 94 -->
Misattributed

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Stephen Baxter photo
H. G. Wells photo
Seneca the Younger photo

“Nothing lasts forever, few things even last for long: all are susceptible of decay in one way or another; moreover all that begins also ends.”
Nihil perpetuum, pauca diuturna sunt; aliud alio modo fragile est, rerum exitus variantur, ceterum quicquid coepit et desinit.

From Ad Polybium De Consolatione (Of Consolation, To Polybius), chap. I; translation based on work of Aubrey Stewart
Other works

David Mumford photo

“On a more personal note, I see many similarities between India's Dalit problems and the African-American problems that have rocked the US since its beginnings. For this reason, I personally take Dr. Ambedkar as one of my heroes.”

David Mumford (1937) American mathematician

David Mumford. " 'All men are created equal'? http://www.dam.brown.edu/people/mumford/blog/2015/AllMen.html," at dam.brown.edu/people/mumford/blog, June 16, 2015.

Thomas Little Heath photo
Báb photo
Asger Jorn photo

“In the beginning was the image.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

Title of one of his paintings (1965)
1959 - 1973, Various sources

Gough Whitlam photo

“If I begin my book with a review of the coup, it is only to show that my abiding interests for Australia did not end with it. They shall end only with a long and fortunate life.”

Gough Whitlam (1916–2014) Australian politician, 21st Prime Minister of Australia

Abiding Interests (1997), Foreword

Jerome K. Jerome photo
Colin Wilson photo
Frank Wilczek photo
Robert Fulghum photo
Gustave Flaubert photo
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Amit Chaudhuri photo
Eric Holder photo

“Robinson (1952) pointed out some limits to approaching map symbolization and design from a purely artistic viewpoint, as he suggested was the guiding perspective at the time. Maps, like buildings that are designed primarily for artistic impact, are often not functional… Robinson (1952) argued that treating maps as art can lead to "arbitrary and capricious" decisions. He saw only two alternatives: either standardize everything so that no confusion can result about the meaning of symbols, or study and analyze characteristics of perception as they apply to maps so that symbolization and design decisions can be based on "objective" rules… Robinson's dissertation, then, signaled the beginning of a more objective approach to map symbolization and design based on testing the effectiveness of alternatives, an approach that followed the positivist model of physical science. In his dissertation, Robinson cited several aspects of cartographic method for which he felt more objective guidelines were required (e. g., lettering, color, and map design). He also suggested that this objective look at cartographic methods should begin by considering the limitations of human perception. One goal he proposed was identification of the "least practical differences" in map symbols”

Alan MacEachren (1952) American geographer

e.g., the smallest difference in lettering size that would be noticeable to most readers
Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 2-3

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“And I'm going on in believing in Him. You'd better know Him, and know His name, and know how to call His name. You may not know philosophy. You may not be able to say with Alfred North Whitehead that He's the Principle of Concretion. You may not be able to say with Hegel and Spinoza that He is the Absolute Whole. You may not be able to say with Plato that He's the Architectonic Good. You may not be able to say with Aristotle that He's the Unmoved Mover. But sometimes you can get poetic about it if you know Him. You begin to know that our brothers and sisters in distant days were right. Because they did know Him as a rock in a weary land, as a shelter in the time of starving, as my water when I'm thirsty, and then my bread in a starving land. And then if you can't even say that, sometimes you may have to say, "He's my everything. He's my sister and my brother. He's my mother and my father." If you believe it and know it, you never need walk in darkness. Don't be a fool. Recognize your dependence on God. As the days become dark and the nights become dreary, realize that there is a God who rules above. And so I’m not worried about tomorrow. I get weary every now and then. The future looks difficult and dim, but I’m not worried about it ultimately because I have faith in God.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Why Jesus Called A Man A Fool (1967)

Roger Ebert photo
Cesare Pavese photo

“Nothing can be added to the rest, to the past. We always begin afresh.
One nail drives out another. But four nails make a cross.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Nick Bostrom photo
Tom Robbins photo
Albert Jay Nock photo
Isaac Asimov photo

““That was the time to begin all-out preparations for war.”
“On the contrary. That was the time to begin all-out prevention of war.””

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Part III, The Mayors, section 1
The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation (1951)

John Polkinghorne photo

“God is not a God of the edges, with a vested interest in beginnings. God is the God of the whole show.”

John Polkinghorne (1930) physicist and priest

page 51.
Quarks, Chaos & Christianity (1995)

Willie Dixon photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo
Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein photo
Owen Lovejoy photo

“In truth, I swore to support the Constitution because I believe in it. I do not believe in their construction of it. It is as well known as any historical fact can be known, that the framers of the Constitution so worded it as that it never should recognize the idea of slave property. From the beginning to the ending of it.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA199 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 199
1860s, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (April 1860)

Adam Roberts photo

“So it ends
As it begins.
Off we climb
And no one wins.”

From Thom Gunn, “Seesaw” quoted in Part 3, “The Impossible Gun” Epigram (p. 261).
Jack Glass (2012)

Lillian Hellman photo

“Nothing, of course, begins at the time you think it did.”

Lillian Hellman (1905–1984) American dramatist and screenwriter

An Unfinished Woman (1969)

Charles Henry Fowler photo
Patricia Rozema photo
Terry Brooks photo
Menno Simons photo
Laurie Penny photo
Elmore Leonard photo
Sri Aurobindo photo
Jackson Browne photo

“Out into the cool of the evening strolls the pretender. He knows that all his hopes and dreams begin and end there.”

Jackson Browne (1948) American singer-songwriter

The Pretender from The Pretender (1976)

Melanie C photo

“No matter what they say the time has come
I'm ready now to start a new beginning
With all our hopes and all our dreams
And I know the stars will shine for you and for me
From the moment you believe.”

Melanie C (1974) British singer-songwriter, actress and businesswoman

"The Moment You Believe" (co-written with Peter-John Vettese) · YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=519yuRHApfY
This Time (2007)

“I do not know why journalists insist on calling their stuff "pieces", when they are in fact little entities, attempting to have beginnings, middles and endings.”

James Cameron (journalist) (1911–1985) British journalist

The Best of Cameron (Sevenoaks: New English Library, 1981) p. 49. ISBN 0450048810.

Tom DeLay photo
Richard Feynman photo
Cesar Chavez photo
Marcus Manilius photo

“Who can believe that all these mighty works
Have grown, unaided by the hand of God,
From small beginnings? that the law is blind
by which the world was made?”

Quis credat tantas operum sine numine moles Ex minimis, caecoque creatum foedere mundum?

Book I, line 492, as reported in Dictionary of Quotations (classical) (1897) by T. B. Harbottle, p. 240.
Astronomica

Marie-Louise von Franz photo
Isa Genzken photo
George Boole photo
Bill Hybels photo
Helen Rowland photo

“Wedding: the point at which a man stops toasting a woman and begins roasting her.”

Helen Rowland (1875–1950) American journalist

Syncopations
A Guide to Men (1922)

André Gide photo
Vanna Bonta photo

“A phoneme, an utterance, could be said to be the beginning of poetry's evolutionary chain.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

The Cosmos as a Poem (2010)

Geert Wilders photo
Paulo Freire photo

“Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2

Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Tarkan photo

“It feels wild, you know, because in the beginning I never thought it was going to really happen. It's all in Turkish, you know, and nobody understands a word. But I think it's a groove. It's the kisses that are universal.”

Tarkan (1972) Turkish singer

Tarkan finds his moves take him across borders, CNN Worldbeat, August 9, 1999 http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/Music/9908/09/tarkan.wb/index.html,
About his hit single Şımarık

Georgia O'Keeffe photo
Sarah Dessen photo

“The journey of change doesn't begin when you intend, it begins when you move.”

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 155

Donald Rumsfeld photo

“I picked up a newspaper today and I couldn't believe it. I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just was Henny Penny -- "The sky is falling." I've never seen anything like it! And here is a country that's being liberated, here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious dictator, and they're free. And all this newspaper could do, with eight or 10 headlines, they showed a man bleeding, a civilian, who they claimed we had shot —one thing after another.
From the very beginning, we were convinced that we would succeed, and that means that that regime would end. And we were convinced that as we went from the end of that regime to something other than that regime, there would be a period of transition. And, you cannot do everything instantaneously; it's never been done, everything instantaneously. We did, however, recognize that there was at least a chance of catastrophic success, if you will, to reverse the phrase, that you could in a given place or places have a victory that occurred well before reasonable people might have expected it, and that we needed to be ready for that; we needed to be ready with medicine, with food, with water. And, we have been.
Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

DOD news briefing following the fall of Baghdad (11 April 2003) http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030411-secdef0090.html

Moshe Dayan photo
Norbert Wiener photo

“What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead.”

Norbert Wiener (1894–1964) American mathematician

Source: [Wiener, N., A New Theory of Measurement: A Study in the Logic of Mathematics, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, s2-19, 1, 1921, 181–205, 0024-6115, 10.1112/plms/s2-19.1.181]

Friedrich Paulus photo