Quotes about consist (1784 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

Sleep , Happiness

“Where is the book in which the teacher can read about what teaching is? The children themselves are this book. We should not learn to teach out of any book other than the one lying open before us and consisting of the children themselves.”

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) Austrian esotericist

Source: Rhythms of Learning

Children , Books , Lying , Learning

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”

Joseph Conrad book Chance

Source: Chance (1913) part II, Ch. 5

For women , Men

“Success in life consists of standing without shame before God.”

Charbel Makhlouf (1828–1898) Lebanese Maronite monk and saint

Love is a Radiant Light: The Life & Words of Saint Charbel (2019)

God , Life , Success

“Dr. Watson's summary list of Sherlock Holmes's strengths and weaknesses:

"1. Knowledge of Literature: Nil.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy: Nil.
3. Knowledge of Astronomy: Nil.
4. Knowledge of Politics: Feeble.
5. Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Knowledge of Geology: Practical but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7. Knowledge of Chemistry: Profound.
8. Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate but unsystematic.
9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

Law , Literature , Knowledge , Appearance

“Why do we think love is a magician? Because the whole power of magic consists in love. The work of magic is the attraction of one thing by another because of a certain affinity of nature.”

Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) Italian philosopher

Love , Nature , Thinking

“The will for victory which gives a commander the strength to see a grave crisis through is something very different from Hitler's will, which in the last analysis stemmed from a belief in his own 'mission'. Such a belief makes a man impervious to reason and leads him to think that his own will can operate even beyond the limits of hard reality - whether these consist in the presence of far superior enemy forces, in the conditions of space and time, or merely in the fact that the enemy also happens to have a will of his own.”

Erich von Manstein (1887–1973) German general

Lost Victories, Hitler As Supreme Commander

Thinking , Reality , Time , Victory

“The rarest of all human qualities is consistency.”

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer

Source: Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Chapter 1
Context: Not that there is or ever has been that human creature at breathing, however stupid or perverse, who has not on many, perhaps on most occasions of his life, deferred to it. By the natural constitution of the human frame, on most occasions of their lives men in general embrace this principle, without thinking of it: if not for the ordering of their own actions, yet for the trying of their own actions, as well as of those of other men. There have been, at the same time, not many perhaps, even of the most intelligent, who have been disposed to embrace it purely and without reserve. There are even few who have not taken some occasion or other to quarrel with it, either on account of their not understanding always how to apply it, or on account of some prejudice or other which they were afraid to examine into, or could not bear to part with. For such is the stuff that man is made of: in principle and in practice, in a right track and in a wrong one, the rarest of all human qualities is consistency.

“Love consists in desiring to give what is our own to another and feeling his delight as our own”

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) Swedish 18th century scientist and theologian

Love , Feeling

“The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography

Life , Exercises , Change , Joy

“Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved.”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

The Sayings of Light and Love

Love , Feeling , Suffering

“The world does not consist of subjects and objects, the “subject” and the “object” are metaphysical abstractions of the single and indivisible Wholeness. Man’s finite knowledge separates the Whole into parts and studies fragmentarily the beings. The Wholeness is manifested in multiple forms and each form encapsulates the Wholeness.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: Cosmology, philosophy and physics

“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Death , People , Hope , Heart

“Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Love , Solitude

“A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

As quoted in "A View from the Asylum" in Philosophical Investigations from the Sanctity of the Press (2004), by Henry Dribble, p. 87
Attributed from posthumous publications

“The deeper education consists in unlearning one's first education.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Source: An Anthology

Education

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

Antonio Gramsci Prison Notebooks

Source: :s:Pagina:Gramsci - Quaderni del carcere, Einaudi, I.djvu/318 § (34). Passato e presente.
English translation Selections from the Prison Notebooks, “Wave of Materialism” and “Crisis of Authority” (NY: International Publishers), (1971), pp. 275-276.
Prison Notebooks Volume II, Notebook 3, 1930, (2011 edition) SS-34, Past and Present 32-33,

Appearance

“Consistency is the hallmark of the unimaginative.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

"The Relation of Dress to Art," The Pall Mall Gazette http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14062/14062-h/14062-h.htm (February 28, 1885)
reprinted in Aristotle at Afternoon Tea:The Rare Oscar Wilde (1991).
Variant: Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

“Revolution consists not in the new class commanding, governing with the aid of the old state machine, but in this class smashing this machine and commanding, governing with the aid of a new machine.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: State and Revolution

“"Nasruddin, four years ago you were here, and I asked that time also what is your age, and you told me forty years. Now this is absolutely inconsistent – how can you still be forty?"
Nasruddin said, "I am a man of consistency. Once forty, I remain forty always. When I have answered once, I have answered forever! You cannot lead me astray. I am forty, and whenever you ask you will get the same answer."”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

Osho, And The Flowers Showered (2003), , p. 204

Age , Time

“Technically he was highly gifted, but also severely limited. His music is well constructed and effective, but monotonous in texture, which consists in essence mainly of artificial and gushing tunes accompanied by a variety of figures derived from arpeggios. The enormous popular success some few of Rakhmaninoff's works had in his lifetime is not likely to last, and musicians never regarded it with much favour.”

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) Russian composer, pianist, and conductor

Eric Blom (ed.) Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th edn. (London: Macmillan, 1954) vol. 7, p. 27.
Criticism

Music , Success

“The liberty of man consists solely in this: that he obeys natural laws because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective or individual.”

Mikhail Bakunin book God and the State

God and the State (1871; publ. 1882)

Law , Nature

“This laudable quality is commonly known by the name of Manners and Good-breeding, and consists in a Fashionable Habit, acquir'd by Precept and Example, of flattering the Pride and Selfishness of others, and concealing our own with Judgment and Dexterity.”

Bernard Mandeville book The Fable of the Bees

Remark C, p. 69
The Fable of the Bees (1714)

Fashion , Selfishness

“Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, "tradition" should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year…”

T.S. Eliot book Tradition and the Individual Talent

Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

Way , Sense , Success

““The kingdom of heaven is within you.” And concerning the inner man, it consists of nothing but contemplation. Therefore the kingdom of heaven must be contemplation.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

Source: Letters, p. 89

“I absolutely insist on protecting private property. It is natural and salutary that the individual should be inspired by the wish to devote a part of the income from his work to building up and expanding a family estate. Suppose the estate consists of a factory. I regard it as axiomatic, in the ordinary way, that this factory will be better run by one of the members of the family that it would be by a State functionary—providing, of course, that the family remains healthy. In this sense, we must encourage private initiative.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

A private statement made on March 24, 1942.
Disputed, (1941-1944) (published 1953)

Family , Way , Nature , Sense

“Of all the fathers, as many as you can name, not one has ever spoken about the sacrament as these fanatics do. None of them uses such an expression as, 'It is simply bread and wine,' or, 'Christ’s body and blood are not present.' Yet since this subject is so frequently discussed by them, it is impossible that they should not at some time have let slip such an expression as, 'It is simply bread,' or, 'Not that the body of Christ is physically present,' or the like, since they are greatly concerned not to mislead the people; actually, they simply proceed to speak as if no one doubted that Christ’s body and blood are present. Certainly among so many fathers and so many writings a negative argument should have turned up at least once, as happens in other articles; but actually they all stand uniformly and consistently on the affirmative side.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

That These Words of Christ, 'This is My Body' Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, 1527, in Luther's Works, Word and Sacrament III, 1961, Fortress Press, , volume 37, p. 54. http://books.google.com/books?ei=PxdBTeK6F4PogQe9lKizAw&ct=result&id=J-0RAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Nicodemus%2C+joseph%2C+Paul%22&q=%22Still+Stand+Firm+Against+the+Fanatics%22#search_anchor This work appeared in vol. 2 of the Wittenberg ed. of Luther's Works (in German) and was later translated into Latin by Matthew Judex (Matthaeum Iudicem) under the title: Defensio τοῦ ρητοῦ Verborum Cenae: Accipite, Comedite: Hoc est Corpus Meum: Contra Phanaticos Sacramentariorum Spiritus. http://solomon.tcpt.alexanderstreet.com/cgi-bin/asp/philo/cpt/getobject.pl?c.121:1.cpt
Luther's Latin: “Nullus ex patribus, quorum infinitus est numerus, de Sacramento sic loquutus est, ut Sacramentarii. Nam nemo ex iis talibus verbis utitur Tantum panis & vinum est: Vel Corpus & Sanguis Christi non adestProfecto non est credibile, nec possibile cum toties ab iis res ista agatur & repetatur, quod non aliquando, vel semel tantum excidissent haec verba. Est merus Panis, aut, non quod Christi corpus corporaliter adsit, aut his similia, cum tamen multum referat ne homines seducantur, Sed omnes praecise ita loquuntur, quasi nullus dubitet, quin ibi praesto sit corpus & sanguis Christi. Sane ex tot patribus, & tot scriptis, ab aliquibus, vel saltem ab uno potuisset negativa sententia proferri, ut in aliis articulis usitatum & frequens est, si non sensissent, corpus & sanguinem Christi vere inesse. Verum omnes concordes & constantes uno ore affirmatium proferunt.” See Luther's Opera Omnia, Wittenberg ed., (1558), vol., 7, p. 391. http://books.google.com/books?id=jrpjO-K_kQYC&pg=PR10&dq=Accipitae+Hoc+%22corpus+meum%22+luther&hl=en&ei=9iFBTeOqIonbgQeJ4IXmAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=coenae&f=false

People , Wine , Time , Christ

“A firm consist of the system of relationships which comes into existence when the direction of resources is dependent on an entrepreneur.”

Ronald H. Coase (1910–2013) British economist and author

Source: 1930s-1950s, "The Nature of the Firm" (1937), p. 393

Dependency

“A nation's strength ultimately consists in what it can do on its own, and not in what it can borrow from others.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

"Preface, 4th Five Year Plan" http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/4th/4ppre.htm, Government of India Planning Commission (July 18, 1970).

“The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and simple, and consists but of two points. His duty to God, which every man must feel; and with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by. If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected: if not, they will be despised; and with regard to those to whom no power is delegated, but who assume it, the rational world can know nothing of them.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

God , World , Feeling

“Now one could say, at the risk of some superficiality, that there exist principally two types of scientists. The ones, and they are rare, wish to understand the world, to know nature; the others, far more frequent, wish to explain it. The first are searching for truth, often with knowledge that they will not attain it; the second strive for plausibility, for the achievement of an intellectually consistent, and hence successful, view of the world.”

Erwin Chargaff (1905–2002) Ukrinian-born biochemist who emigrated to the United States

Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature, Paul & Co Pub Consortium, June, 1978.

Truth , World , Search , Understanding

“Pornography reveals that male pleasure is inextricably tied to victimizing, hurting, exploiting; that sexual fun and sexual passion in the privacy of the male imagination are inseparable from the brutality of male history. The private world of sexual dominance that men demand as their right and their freedom is the mirror image of the public world of sadism and atrocity that men consistently and self-righteously deplore. It is in the male experience of pleasure that one finds the meaning of male history.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

p 69.
Pornography, Men Possessing Women (1979)

Men , Pleasure , World , Imagination

“Maxwell's equations… originally consisted of eight equations. These equations are not "beautiful." They do not possess much symmetry. In their original form, they are ugly…. However, when rewritten using time as the fourth dimension, this rather awkward set of eight equations collapses into a single tensor equation. This is what a physicist calls "beauty," because both criteria are now satisfied.”

Michio Kaku book Hyperspace

Source: Hyperspace (1995), Ch.5 Quantum Heresy

Beauty , Time

“During the Spanish civil war I found myself feeling very strongly that a true history of this war never would or could be written. Accurate figures, objective accounts of what was happening, simply did not exist. And if I felt that even in 1937, when the Spanish Government was still in being, and the lies which the various Republican factions were telling about each other and about the enemy were relatively small ones, how does the case stand now? Even if Franco is overthrown, what kind of records will the future historian have to go upon? And if Franco or anyone at all resembling him remains in power, the history of the war will consist quite largely of "facts" which millions of people now living know to be lies.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please" (1943–1947)

War , People , Feeling , History

“Chemical analysis and synthesis go no farther than to the separation of particles one from another, and to their reunion. No new creation or destruction of matter is within the reach of chemical agency. We might as well attempt to introduce a new planet into the solar system, or to annihilate one already in existence, as to create or destroy a particle of hydrogen. All the changes we can produce, consist in separating particles that are in a state of cohesion or combination, and joining those that were previously at a distance.”

John Dalton book A New System of Chemical Philosophy

Source: A New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808), Ch. III. On Chemical Synthesis

Change

“Our design, not respecting arts, but philosophy, and our subject, not manual, but natural powers, we consider chiefly those things which relate to gravity, levity, elastic force, the resistance of fluids, and the like forces, whether attractive or impulsive; and therefore we offer this work as mathematical principles of philosophy; for all the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist in this — from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena…”

Isaac Newton book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Preface
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)

Art , Mathematics , Nature

“The glory of life is not never falling. The true glory consists in rising each time we fall.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

Life , Time

“The duration of the life of men may be considerably increased. It would be true progress to go back to the simple dishes of our ancestors. … Progress would consist in simplifying many sides of the lives of civilised people.”

Élie Metchnikoff (1845–1916) Russian-French immunologist, embriologist, biologist, Nobel laureat

Quoted in Strength and Diet https://books.google.it/books?id=uexsAAAAMAAJ by Francis Albert Rollo Russell (London: Longmans, Green, & Co, 1905), p. 2.

Life , Men , People

“Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun" http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/essays/fun.html, Tribune (20 December 1943)
Context: Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary. The wider course would be to say that there are certain lines along which humanity must move, the grand strategy is mapped out, but detailed prophecy is not our business. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.

Thinking , Happiness

“Art consists of the persistence of memory.”

Stephen King book Misery

Misery (1987)
Context: Writers remember everything... especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar.
Art consists of the persistence of memory.

Art , Memory

“The theory of chance consists in reducing all the events of the same kind to a certain number of cases equally possible”

Pierre-Simon Laplace book Philosophical Essay on Probabilities

Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (1902)
Context: The theory of chance consists in reducing all the events of the same kind to a certain number of cases equally possible, that is to say, to such as we may be equally undecided about in regard to their existence, and in determining the number of cases favorable to the event whose probability is sought.<!--p.6

Chance

“In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Interview with Joseph Pearce, Sr. (2003)
Context: In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as "we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology". The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion. This is one point.
Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive.

Justice

“No, I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being — they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

Source: "La Commune de Paris et la notion de l'état" (The Commune of Paris and the notion of the state) http://libcom.org/library/paris-commune-mikhail-bakunin as quoted in Noam Chomsky: Notes on Anarchism (1970) http://pbahq.smartcampaigns.com/node/222
Context: I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity and human happiness can develop and grow; not the purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the State, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest; not the individualistic, egoistic, shabby, and fictitious liberty extolled by the School of J.-J. Rousseau and other schools of bourgeois liberalism, which considers the would-be rights of all men, represented by the State which limits the rights of each — an idea that leads inevitably to the reduction of the rights of each to zero. No, I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being — they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom.

Law , Nature , Freedom , Personality

“The proper education of the young does not consist in stuffing their heads with a mass of words, sentences, and ideas dragged together out of various authors, but in opening up their understanding to the outer world, so that a living stream may flow from their own minds, just as leaves, flowers, and fruit spring from the bud on a tree.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

Tree , Understanding , Spring , Flowers

“Let us examine in what true wisdom consists, and we shall see, in the first point, that sinners are truly foolish, and, in the second, that the saints are truly wise.”

Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori (1696–1787) Italian Catholic bishop, spiritual writer, composer, musician, artist, poet, lawyer, scholastic philosopher…

Liguori, A. M. (1882). Sunday within the Octave of the Nativity: In What True Wisdom Consists. In N. Callan (Trans.), Sermons for All the Sundays in the Year (Eighth Edition, p. 43). Dublin; London: James Duffy & Sons.

Wisdom

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

Albert Camus (1913–1960) French author and journalist

Source: "Intuitions" (October 1932), published in Youthful Writings (1976)

Happy , Life , Happiness , Search

“Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary. The wider course would be to say that there are certain lines along which humanity must move, the grand strategy is mapped out, but detailed prophecy is not our business. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: "Can Socialists Be Happy?" https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/can-socialists-be-happy/, Tribune (20 December 1943). Published under the name ‘John Freeman’.

Imagination , Business , Happiness , Perfection

“Imitate the oak trees, stripped naked by the dark winter frost; who recover in the spring to resemble a powerful towering statue of emerald; and relate to its origin, consisting of soil, clouds, and dead plants.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1979

Tree , Dead , Spring , Relation ships

“A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain durability. "One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever." It is of the first importance to duly consider and estimate this ever-enduring part.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Source: 1860s, Second State of the Union address (1862)

People , Law , Parting

“I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow creatures happy.”

Thomas Paine book The Age of Reason

1790s, The Age of Reason, Part I (1794)

God , Happiness , Justice , Hope

“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.”

Thomas Paine book The American Crisis

The Crisis No. V
Source: 1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

Dead

“To act—that is true wisdom. I can be what I want to be, but I have to want whatever it is. Success consists in being successful, not in having the potential for success.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Wisdom , Success

“Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts or happenings. It consist mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one's head.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Life

“Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots.”

Jared Diamond book Guns, Germs, and Steel

Source: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

History

“We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at least, completely, who and what, and that we are. The greatest tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined.”

N. Scott Momaday (1934) American author

Imagination

“Solid character will reflect itself in consistent behavior, while poor character will seek to hide behind deceptive words and actions.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Source: Waiting and Dating

Behavior

“Conversations consist for the most part of things one does not say.”

Cees Nooteboom (1933) Dutch writer

Parting

“You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Way

“Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Envy

“True happiness
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice.”

Ben Jonson Cynthia's Revels

Cynthia's Revels (1600), Act III, scene ii

Happy , Happiness

“It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Perfection

“True wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 1 Chapter 1, p. 44
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)
Context: Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.
Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.

Wisdom , God , Knowledge

“But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.”

Thomas Paine book The Age of Reason

Source: 1790s, The Age of Reason, Part I (1794)

Faith , Happiness

“The majority of my patients consisted not of believers but of those who had lost their faith.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Faith

“Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.”

Thomas Paine book The Age of Reason

Source: The Age of Reason

“true weanedness from the world don't consist in being beat off from the world by the affliction of it, but a being drawn off by the sight of something better.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

World , Affliction

“Kennedy was not impressed by military objections. The Bay of Pigs had taught the President to distrust the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The first advice I’m going to give my successor,” he once said to his journalist friend Ben Bradlee, “is to watch the generals and to avoid feeling that because they were military men their opinions on military matters were worth a damn.”4 During the missile crisis Kennedy courteously and consistently rejected the Joint Chiefs’ bellicose recommendations. “These brass hats have one great advantage in their favor,” he said. “If we…do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong.”5”

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

Source: Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Men , Feeling

“As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote from an interview by John Corbett (1989)
1980s
Source: Silence

“Morality in sexual relations, when it is free from superstition, consists essentially in respect for the other person, and unwillingness to use that person solely as a means of personal gratification, without regard to his or her desires.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Personality

“Any society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of relationships [and] conditions that the individual actor is forming.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

(1857/58)
Source: MEW Vol. 42, p. 176.
Source: Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy

“The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 191
The Gay Science (1882)

Way

“I have never thought, for my part, that man's freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Source: Reveries of the Solitary Walker

Freedom , Parting

“… happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves…. The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement….”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Life , Effort , Suffering , Happiness

“I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of daily life.”

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) English scientist

Life , Education , Nature , Strong

“Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature”

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) English scientist

Laboratory journal entry #10,040 (19 March 1849); published in The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870) Vol. II, edited by Henry Bence Jones https://archive.org/stream/lifelettersoffar02joneiala#page/248/mode/2up/search/wonderful,p.248.This has sometimes been quoted partially as "Nothing is too wonderful to be true," and can be seen engraved above the doorway of the south entrance to the Humanities Building at UCLA in Los Angeles, California. http://lit250v.library.ucla.edu/islandora/object/edu.ucla.library.universityArchives.historicPhotographs%3A67
Context: ALL THIS IS A DREAM. Still examine it by a few experiments. Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature; and in such things as these, experiment is the best test of such consistency.

Law , Nature

“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Leadership , People

“The better part of one's life consists of his friendships.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Letter to Joseph Gillespie http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:88.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext (13 July 1849)
1840s

Life , Friendship , Parting

“Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test…consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

Animals

“The spiritual experience of the philosopher is the nourishing soil of philosophy; that without it there is no philosophy; and that, even so, spiritual experience does not, or must not, enter into the intelligible texture of philosophy. The pulp of the fruit must consist of nothing but the truth.”

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) French philosopher

Source: Existence & the Existent

Truth , Intelligence

“Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Leadership

“Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 10: Recrudescence of Puritanism

Pleasure

“Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)

Thinking , Personality

“It has always seemed to me that my existence consisted purely and exclusively of nothing but the most outrageous nonsense.”

Thomas Ligotti book Teatro Grottesco

Source: Teatro Grottesco

“Much of what is today called "social criticism" consists of members of the upper classes denouncing the tastes of the lower classes (bawdy entertainment, fast food, plentiful consumer goods) while considering themselves egalitarians.”

Steven Pinker book The Blank Slate

Source: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Food

“Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Notebook
Source: Mark Twain's Notebook (1935), p. 346

Education

“Ninety percent of most magic merely consists of knowing one extra fact.”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

“There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness;…. and, to know, rather consists in opening out a way where the imprisoned splendor may escape, then in effecting entry for a light supposed to be without.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Truth , Way , Light

“I consist of body and soul - in the worlds of a child. And why shouldn't we speak like children? But the enlightened, the knowledgealbe would say: I am body through and through, nothing more; and the soul is just a word for something on the body.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Children , World , Soul

“There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature… and the thing which pleases us.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Source: Pensées

Beauty , Nature

“Universe consists of frozen light.”

David Bohm (1917–1992) American theoretical physicist

Light , Universe

“The story of how anti-Hindu laws were enacted… is long. In summary form, it consists of 1) banishing Brahmins on pain of being made prisoners on the galleys; 2) confiscating the properties of those Hindus who sent their families to neighbouring lands for fear of conversion; 3) prohibiting the performance of Hindu rites and ceremonies; 4) banning Hindu priests and preachers from doing their religious duties; 5) compelling Hindus to attend church services and listen to Christian doctrines; 6) depriving Hindus of their traditional rights and privileges in village communities; 7) forcing the baptism of Hindu orphans; and 8) ordering Hindus not to ride on horseback or in palanquins. The laws were so designed as to humiliate the Hindus in every conceivable manner… Missionary records, however, refer to many famous Hindu temples being converted into churches at these places… Even private temples in Hindu homes were prohibited and “transgressors” were severely punished…”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

St. Francis Xavier: The man and his mission. 1985.

Pain , Fear , Family , Law

“Yes, from the mountain of eternity we shall look down, and behold the whole plain spread before us. Down here we get lost and confused in the devious valleys that run off from the rdots of the hills everywhere, and we cannot make out where the streams are going, and what there is behind that low shoulder of the hill yonder. But when we get to the summit peak and look down, it will all shape itself into one consistent whole, and we shall see it all at once.
None can comprehend eternity but the eternal God.”

Thomas Boston (1676–1732) Scottish church leader, theologian and philosopher

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 212.
Secondary Sources

God , Mountain

“Management is a distinct process consisting of planning, organising, actuating and controlling; utilising in each both science and art, and followed in order to accomplish pre-determined objectives.”

George R. Terry (1909–1979)

As cited in: S.P. Singh (2003), Planning And Management For Rural Development, p. 8
Principles of Management, 1960
Variant: Management is a distinct process consisting of planning, organizing, actuating and controlling, performed to determine and accomplish the objectives by the use of people and resources.

Art , Science

“Meaning and morality of one's life come from within oneself. Healthy, strong individuals seek self-expansion by experimenting and by living dangerously. Life consists of an infinite number of possibilities, and the healthy person explores as many of them as possible. Religions that teach pity, self-contempt, humility, self-restraint and guilt are incorrect. The good life is ever-changing, challenging, devoid of regret, intense, creative, and risky.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Attributed to Nietzsche on quotes sites and on social media, the original quotation is from An Introduction to the History of Psychology by B. R. Hergenhahn (2008, page 226) and is the author's summary of Nietzsche's ideas: "The meaning and morality of one's life come from within oneself. Healthy, strong individuals seek self-expansion by experimenting, by living dangerously. Life consists of an almost infinite number of possibilities, and the healthy person (the superman) explores as many of them as possible. Religions or philosophies that teach pity, humility, submissiveness, self-contempt, self-restraint, guilt, or a sense of community are simply incorrect. [...] For Nietzsche, the good life is ever-changing, challenging, devoid of regret, intense, creative, and risky."
Misattributed

Life , Religion , Strong , Change

“Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

15 April 1978.
Saturday Review

Wisdom

“Civilization consists in giving something an unfitting name, then dream about the result. And indeed the false name and the real dream create a new reality. The object really becomes another, because we turned it into another one. We manufacture realities.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 89
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A civilização consiste em dar a qualquer coisa um nome que lhe não compete, e depois sonhar sobre o resultado. E realmente o nome falso e o sonho verdadeiro criam uma nova realidade. O objecto torna-se realmente outro, porque o tornámos outro. Manufacturamos realidades.

Dreams , Reality , Falseness