“Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear.”
Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer
Quotes about center
A collection of quotes on the topic of center, world, people, other.
Quotes about center
Paul Karl Feyerabend book Science in a Free Society
pg 9.
Science in a Free Society (1978)
Context: A free society is a society in which all traditions have equal rights and equal access to the centers of power. A tradition receives these rights not because the importance the cash value, as it were) it has for outsiders but because it gives meaning to the lives of those who participate in it.
“Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher
“God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.”
Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher
For a discussion of this quotation, which is uncertain in origin but was quoted long before Voltaire, see the following: http://symbio.trick.ca/HomeSashaOnePageBible[2016-05-29] <br class="br">Misattributed
Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher
Source: Nan-Hua-Ch'en-Ching, or, the Treatise of the transcendent master from Nan-Hua
Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher
Socrates, p. 145
Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)
George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian
Las Vegas CityLife, August 9, 2007 http://www.lvcitylife.com/articles/2007/08/10/ae/stage/iq_15893857.txt <br class="br">Interviews, Print Interviews
“We're such self-centered crap we don't even notice Hell itself rising up against us.”
Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker
As heard in "Jones Iver - Alex Jones Rants as an Indie Folk Song" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWd6XgBVIcg by Nick Lutsko, released on the Super Deluxe YouTube channel (14 July 2017)
Camille Paglia (1947) American writer
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 19
Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer
The Clowns of God (1981)
Context: Once you accept the existence of God — however you define him, however you explain your relationship to him — then you are caught forever with his presence in the center of all things. You are also caught with the fact that man is a creature who walks in two worlds and traces upon the walls of his cave the wonders and the nightmare experiences of his spiritual pilgrimage.
Author's Note (at the beginning of the novel) <!-- p. 9 -->
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1950s, Loving Your Enemies (November 1957)
Context: I think the first reason that we should love our enemies, and I think this was at the very center of Jesus’ thinking, is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strongperson is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn’t cut it off. It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of [[love].
Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin
This is a variant or paraphrase of The Paradoxical Commandments, by Kent M. Keith, student activist, first composed in 1968 as part of a booklet for student leaders, which had hung on the wall of Mother Teresa's children's home in Calcutta, India, and have sometimes become misattributed to her. The version posted at his site http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com begins: <br class="br">Misattributed
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Source: A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety
Jimmy Carter book A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power
Source: A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power
“The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President
“Deep at the center of my being there is an infinite well of love.”
Louise L. Hay book You Can Heal Your Life
Source: You Can Heal Your Life
“Things fall apart;
the center cannot hold…”
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
Source: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
Ernst Bloch (1885–1977) German philosopher
Source: Man on His Own: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (1959), p. 142
Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer
BBC radio interview, The Listener (London, 1969-05-22)
General sources
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics
Letter to Edmund Halley (June 20, 1686) quoted in I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, ed.s, The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 204
Savitri Devi (1905–1982) Greek–French writer
Impeachment of Man (Calcutta: Savitri Devi Mukherji, 1959, p. x, http://www.savitridevi.org/impeachment-preface.html)
Walter Terence Stace (1886–1967) British civil servant, educator and philosopher.
p.7-6.
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher
Matt. xvi. 26
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), III : The Hunger of Immortality
Cate Blanchett (1969) Australian actress
After winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Blue Jasmine, (2 March 2014)
Bob Saget (1956) American stand-up comedian, actor and television host
Bob Saget: That Ain't Right (2007)
Nicolaus Copernicus book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
Book 1, Ch. 10
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543)
Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician
Letter to Russian Premier Gorbachev, January 1989. http://politicalquotes.org/node/68478
Foreign policy
Robert Cormier book The Rag and Bone Shop
Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 154
“This center which is here, but which we know is really everywhere, is Wakan-Tanka.”
Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader
The Sacred Pipe (1953)
Galileo Galilei Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina
Variant translation: I hold that the Sun is located at the centre of the revolutions of the heavenly orbs and does not change place, and that the Earth rotates on itself and moves around it. Moreover … I confirm this view not only by refuting Ptolemy's and Aristotle's arguments, but also by producing many for the other side, especially some pertaining to physical effects whose causes perhaps cannot be determined in any other way, and other astronomical discoveries; these discoveries clearly confute the Ptolemaic system, and they agree admirably with this other position and confirm it.
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615)
Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, 508 U.S. 384, 398-99 (1993) (concurring) (citations omitted).
1990s
Anaximander (-610–-547 BC) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher
As quoted in "Science Attests the Accuracy of the Bible" in The Watchtower (1 October 1980)
Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director
Preface: The Theater and Culture
The Theatre and Its Double (1938, translated 1958)
“Every beloved object is the center point of a paradise.”
Novalis book Blüthenstaub
Fragment No. 51; Jeder geliebte Gegenstand ist der Mittelpunkt eines Paradieses.
Variant translations:
Every beloved object is the centre of a Paradise.
As quoted by Thomas Carlyle in "Novalis" (1829)
Every beloved object is the midpoint to paradise.
Blüthenstaub (1798)
Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations
“Schopenhauer as educator,” § 3.2, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), pp. 130-131
Untimely Meditations (1876)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker
Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 22
Ted Bundy (1946–1989) American serial killer
Quoted in Michaud, Stephen; Aynesworth, Hugh (1999) The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy (Paperback; revised ed.). Irving, Texas: Authorlink Press. pg. 326
Rainer Maria Rilke book The Panther
Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehen der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.<p>Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.<p>Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf—. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille—
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.
As translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
Der Panther (The Panther) (1907)
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1900s, First Annual Message to Congress (1901)
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics
(ca. 1716) A Catalogue of the Portsmouth Collection of Books and Papers Written by Or Belonging to Sir Isaac Newton https://books.google.com/books?id=3wcjAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR18 (1888) Preface <br class="br">Also partially quoted in Sir Sidney Lee (ed.), The Dictionary of National Biography Vol.40 http://books.google.com/books?id=NycJAAAAIAAJ (1894)
William Pfaff (1928–2015) American journalist
Source: Barbarian Sentiments - How The American Century Ends (1989), Chapter 2, The Challenge of Europe, p. 63.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist
[Raffi, Khatchadourian, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian, No Secrets, The New Yorker, June 9, 2010, 2010-06-17]
Theodor W. Adorno book Minima Moralia
Das Zentrum der geistigen Selbstdisziplin als solcher ist in Zersetzung begriffen. Die Tabus, die den geistigen Rang eines Menschen ausmachen, oftmals sedimentierte Erfahrungen und unartikulierte Erkenntnisse, richten sich stets gegen eigene Regungen, die er verdammen lernte, die aber so stark sind, daß nur eine fraglose und unbefragte Instanz ihnen Einhalt gebieten kann. Was fürs Triebleben gilt, gilt fürs geistige nicht minder: der Maler und Komponist, der diese und jene Farbenzusammenstellung oder Akkordverbindung als kitschig sich untersagt, der Schriftsteller, dem sprachliche Konfigurationen als banal oder pedantisch auf die Nerven gehen, reagiert so heftig gegen sie, weil in ihm selber Schichten sind, die es dorthin lockt. Die Absage ans herrschende Unwesen der Kultur setzt voraus, daß man an diesem selber genug teilhat, um es gleichsam in den eigenen Fingern zucken zu fühlen, daß man aber zugleich aus dieser Teilhabe Kräfte zog, sie zu kündigen. Diese Kräfte, die als solche des individuellen Widerstands in Erscheinung treten, sind darum doch keineswegs selber bloß individueller Art. Das intellektuelle Gewissen, in dem sie sich zusammenfassen, hat ein gesellschaftliches Moment so gut wie das moralische Überich. Es bildet sich an einer Vorstellung von der richtigen Gesellschaft und deren Bürgern. Läßt einmal diese Vorstellung nach—und wer könnte noch blind vertrauend ihr sich überlassen—, so verliert der intellektuelle Drang nach unten seine Hemmung, und aller Unrat, den die barbarische Kultur im Individuum zurückgelassen hat, Halbbildung, sich Gehenlassen, plumpe Vertraulichkeit, Ungeschliffenheit, kommt zum Vorschein. Meist rationalisiert es sich auch noch als Humanität, als den Willen, anderen Menschen sich verständlich zu machen, als welterfahrene Verantwortlichkeit. Aber das Opfer der intellektuellen Selbstdisziplin fällt dem, der es auf sich nimmt, viel zu leicht, als daß man ihm glauben dürfte, daß es eines ist.
E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 8
Minima Moralia (1951)
Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer
Galeano (1991) Professional Life/3 p. 108; As cited in: Paul Farmer (2005) Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor.. p. 10
“I don't know a critic who penetrates the center of anything.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States
As quoted in "Arthur Miller, Moral Voice of American Stage, Dies at 89" by Marilyn Berger in The New York Times (11 February 2005)
“When the center does not hold, the circle falls apart.”
Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…
This is a paraphrase of lines in "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats.
Misattributed
Kenzaburō Ōe (1935) Japanese author
Conversations with History interview (1999)
Context: Literature must be written from the periphery toward the center, and we can criticize the center. Our credo, our theme, or our imagination is that of the peripheral human being. The man who is in the center does not have anything to write. From the periphery, we can write the story of the human being and this story can express the humanity of the center, so when I say the word periphery, this is a most important creed of mine.
James A. Michener (1907–1997) American author
Academy of Achievement interview (1991)
Context: I do believe that everyone growing up faces differential opportunities. With me, it was books and travel and some good teachers. With somebody else, it may be a boy scout master. With somebody else, it will be a clergyman. Somebody else, an uncle who was wiser than the father. I think young people ought to seek that differential experience that is going to knock them off dead center. I was a typical American school boy. I happened to get straight A's and be pretty good in sports. But I had no great vision of what I could be. And I never had any yearning.
My job was to live through Friday afternoon, get through the week, and eat something. And then along came these differential experiences that you don't look for, that you don't plan for, but, boy, you better not miss them. The things that make you bigger than you are. The things that give you a vision. The things that give you a challenge.
Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer
Nobel Prize lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1976/bellow-lecture.html (12 December 1976) <br class="br">General sources <br class="br">Context: Writers are greatly respected. The intelligent public is wonderfully patient with them, continues to read them, and endures disappointment after disappointment, waiting to hear from art what it does not hear from theology, philosophy, social theory, and what it cannot hear from pure science. Out of the struggle at the center has come an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for.
Eric Hoffer book The True Believer
Section 10
The True Believer (1951), Part One: The Appeal of Mass Movements
Context: There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.
“At the center of this sacred hoop, you have said that I should make the tree to bloom.”
Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader
Black Elk Speaks (1961)
Context: To the center of the world you have taken me and showed the goodness and the beauty and the strangeness of the greening earth, the only mother — and there the spirit shapes of things, as they should be, you have shown to me and I have seen. At the center of this sacred hoop, you have said that I should make the tree to bloom.
With tears running, O Great Spirit, Great Spirit, my Grandfather — with running tears I must say now that the tree has never bloomed. A pitiful old man, you see me here, and I have fallen away and have done nothing. Here at the center of the world, where you took me when I was young and taught me; here, old, I stand, and the tree is withered, Grandfather, my Grandfather!
Again, and maybe the last time on this earth, I recall the great vision you sent me. It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. Hear me, not for myself, but for my people; I am old. Hear me that they may once more go back into the sacred hoop and find the good red road, the shielding tree!
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer
Recantation (22 June 1633) as quoted in The Crime of Galileo (1955) by Giorgio de Santillana, p. 312 http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/recantation.html. <!-- also in Galileo's Mistake (2012) by Wade Rowland --> <br class="br">Other quotes <br class="br">Context: After an injunction had been judicially intimated to me by this Holy Office, to the effect that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center of the world, and moves, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, the said false doctrine, and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine was contrary to Holy Scripture — I wrote and printed a book in which I discuss this new doctrine already condemned, and adduce arguments of great cogency in its favor, without presenting any solution of these, and for this reason I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves:<br>Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this vehement suspicion, justly conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error, heresy, and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church, and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me; but that should I know any heretic, or person suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be. Further, I swear and promise to fulfill and observe in their integrity all penances that have been, or that shall be, imposed upon me by this Holy Office. And, in the event of my contravening, (which God forbid) any of these my promises and oaths, I submit myself to all the pains and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. So help me God, and these His Holy Gospels, which I touch with my hands.<br>I, the said Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above; and in witness of the truth thereof I have with my own hand subscribed the present document of my abjuration, and recited it word for word at Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, this twenty-second day of June, 1633.
Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader
The Sacred Pipe (1953)
Context: The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men. <!-- p. 115
Kurt Vonnegut book Player Piano
Source: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 9 (p. 86)
Context: "You think I'm insane?" said Finnerty. Apparently he wanted more of a reaction than Paul had given him.
"You're still in touch. I guess that's the test."
"Barely — barely."
"A psychiatrist could help. There's a good man in Albany."
Finnerty shook his head. "He'd pull me back into the center, and I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." He nodded, "Big, undreamed-of things — the people on the edge see them first."
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Principles of Social Reconstruction [Originally titled Why Men Fight : A Method Of Abolishing The International Duel], Ch. VIII : What We Can Do, p. 257
1910s
Context: It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly. The State and Property are the great embodiments of possessiveness; it is for this reason that they are against life, and that they issue in war. Possession means taking or keeping some good thing which another is prevented from enjoying; creation means putting into the world a good thing which otherwise no one would be able to enjoy. Since the material goods of the world must be divided among the population, and since some men are by nature brigands, there must be defensive possession, which will be regulated, in a good community, by some principle of impersonal justice. But all this is only the preface to a good life or good political institutions, in which creation will altogether outweigh possession, and distributive justice will exist as an uninteresting matter of course.
The supreme principle, both in politics and in private life, should be to promote all that is creative, and so to diminish the impulses and desires that center round possession.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Letter to Carl Fuchs (14 December 1887)
Context: In Germany there is much complaining about my "eccentricities." But since it is not known where my center is, it won't be easy to find out where or when I have thus far been "eccentric." That I was a philologist, for example, meant that I was outside my center (which fortunately does not mean that I was a poor philologist). Likewise, I now regard my having been a Wagnerian as eccentric. It was a highly dangerous experiment; now that I know it did not ruin me, I also know what significance it had for me — it was the most severe test of my character.
“The arts put man at the center of the universe, whether he belongs there or not.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer
Bennington College address (1970)
Context: The arts put man at the center of the universe, whether he belongs there or not. Military science, on the other hand, treats man as garbage — and his children, and his cities, too. Military science is probably right about the contemptibility of man in the vastness of the universe. Still — I deny that contemptibility, and I beg you to deny it, through the creation of appreciation of art.
“People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway!”
Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin
Manly P. Hall (1901–1990) Canadian writer and mystic
The Secret Teachings of All Ages p.306 https://ia800809.us.archive.org/15/items/Thesecretteachingsofallages2/The%20Secret%20Teachings%20Of%20All%20Ages%20-%20Manly%20P.%20Hall.pdf <br class="br">The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928)
Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister
Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Indira Gandhi in New Delhi, February 1972
“At the center of all achievement is personal growth.”
Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker
Source: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11882368/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_qt_sm#quotes
“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”
Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…
This quote waiting for review.
“School is not a daycare center.”
José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor
Source: 1480 AM Rock&Pop.
“Find your quiet center of life and write from that to the world.”
Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909) American novelist, short story writer and poet
Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA
Cordelia's Honor (1996), "Author's Afterword"
Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008) American political scientist
Source: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist
Source: Immortal Beloved
Flora Rheta Schreiber (1918–1988) American journalist
Source: Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities
“Woman must come of age by herself…
She must find her true center alone.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh book Gift from the Sea
Source: Gift from the Sea
