Quotes about deep
page 21

Sri Aurobindo photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Thomas Gainsborough photo

“.. as I met with Mr. (Dunning there. There is something exclusive of the clear and deep understanding of that gentleman most exceedingly pleasing to me. He seems the only man who talks as Giardini plays, if you know what I mean; he puts no more motion than what goes to the real performance, which constitutes that ease and gentility peculiar to damned clever fellows... He is an amazing compact man in every respect.... and besides this neatness in outward appearance, his storeroom seems cleared of all French ornaments and gingerbread work, everything is simplicity and elegance and in its proper place, no disorder or confusion in the furniture.... Sober sense and great acuteness are marked very strong in his face.... but there is genius (in our sense of the word). (It) shines in all he says. In short, Mr. Jackson of Exeter [his friend], I begin to think there is something in the air of Devonshire that grows clever fellows. I could name four or five of you, superior to the product of any other county in England.”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote from Gainsborough's letter to his friend William Jackson of Exeter, from Bath, 2 Sept. 1768; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 384 (Appendix A - Letter VII)
1755 - 1769

James Freeman Clarke photo
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo

“The Buddhists maintain that there is no Creator but an infinitude of creative powers, which collectively form the one eternal substance, the essence of which is inscrutable — hence not a subject for speculation for any true philosopher. Socrates invariably refused to argue upon the mystery of universal being, yet no one would ever have thought of charging him with atheism, except those who were bent upon his destruction. Upon inaugurating an active period, says the Secret Doctrine, an expansion of this Divine essence, from within outwardly, occurs in obedience to eternal and immutable law, and the phenomenal or visible universe is the ultimate result of the long chain of cosmical forces thus progressively set in motion. In like manner, when the passive condition is resumed, a contraction of the Divine essence takes place, and the previous work of creation is gradually and progressively undone. The visible universe becomes disintegrated, its material dispersed; and "darkness," solitary and alone, broods once more over the face of the "deep." To use a metaphor which will convey the idea still more clearly, an outbreathing of the "unknown essence" produces the world; and an inhalation causes it to disappear. This process has been going on from all eternity, and our present universe is but one of an infinite series which had no beginning and will have no end.”

Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume II, Chapter VI

Peter Greenaway photo
Michel Seuphor photo
Edwin Abbott Abbott photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Rudy Rucker photo
Kent Hovind photo
Erich Fromm photo

“Neurosis can be understood best as the battle between tendencies within an individual; deep character analysis leads, if successful, to the progressive solution.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), p. 264

Susan Faludi photo
William Julius Mickle photo
Hartley Coleridge photo
Edward Thomson photo
Nelson Mandela photo
Hoyt Axton photo

“Joy to the world
All the boys and girls, now,
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me”

Hoyt Axton (1938–1999) American country singer

Joy to the World
Joy To The World (1971)

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“I know that the American people share my deep belief that if a danger exists in the world, it is a danger shared by all; and equally, that if hope exists in the mind of one nation, that hope should be shared by all.”

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

1950s, Atoms for Peace (1953)

Thae Yong-ho photo

“I often was asked questions by my British friends which caught me flat footed. Trying to justify the North Korean system when, deep down, I knew their concerns were fair and legitimate.”

Thae Yong-ho (1961) former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea

Remarks to the U.S. Congress (November 2017)

Thomas Carlyle photo

“The Great Man here too, as always, is a Force of Nature. Whatsoever is truly great in him springs up from the inarticulate deeps.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

Christopher Pitt photo
Derek Parfit photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Blackie Lawless photo
Ta-Nehisi Coates photo
Allen Ginsberg photo

“I could issue manifestos summoning seraphim to revolt against the Haavenly State we're in, or trumpets to summon American mankind to rebellion against the Authority which has frozen all skulls in the cold war, That is, I could, make sense, invoke politics and try organize a union of opinion about what to do to Cuba, China, Russia, Bolivia, New Jersey, etc. However since in America the folks are convinced their heaven is all right, those manifestos make no dent except in giving authority & courage to the small band of hipsters who are disaffected like gentle socialists. Meanwhile the masses the proletariat the people are smug and the source of the great Wrong. So the means then is to communicate to the grand majority- and say I or anybody did write a balanced documented account not only of the lives of America but the basic theoretical split from the human body as Reich has done- But the people are so entrenched in their present livelihood that all the facts in the world-such as that China will be 1/4 of world pop makes no impression at all as a national political fact that intelligent people can take counsel on and deal with humorously & with magnificence. So that my task as a politician is to dynamite the emotional rockbed of inertia and spiritual deadness that hangs over the cities and makes everybody unconsciously afraid of the cops- To enter the Soul on a personal level and shake the emotion with the Image of some giant reality-of any kind however irrelevant to transient political issue- to touch & wake the soul again- That soul which is asleep or hidden in armor or unable to manifest itself as free life of God on earth- To remind by chord of deep groan of the Unknown to most Soul- then further politics will take place when people seize power over their universe and end the long dependence on an external authority or rhetorical set sociable emotions-so fixed they don't admit basic personal life changes-like not being afraid of jails and penury, while wandering thru gardens in high civilization.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Gordon Ball (1977), Journals: Early Fifties Early Sixties, Grove Press NY
Journals: Early Fifties Early Sixties

Michael Moorcock photo
Larry Hogan photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Paul Krugman photo
Ben Carson photo

“Maybe that's how I learned to handle my deep hurt—by forgetting.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (1990), p. 15

Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
James MacDonald photo
Talcott Parsons photo
Leonard Cohen photo

“And sometimes when the night is slow
The wretched and the meek
We gather up our hearts and go
A Thousand Kisses Deep.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"A Thousand Kisses Deep" (2001)
Other Lyrics

Joel Barlow photo

“No! 'tis the present world that prompts the song,
The world we see, the world that feels the wrong,
The world of men, whose arguments ye know,
Of men, long curb'd to servitude and wo,
Men, rous'd from sloth, by indignation stung,
Their strong hands loos'd, and found their fearless tongue;
Whose voice of fire, whose deep-descending steel
Shall speak to souls, and teach dull nerves to feel.”

Joel Barlow (1754–1812) American diplomat

The Conspiracy of Kings (1792)
Context: Think not, ye knaves, whom meanness styles the Great,
Drones of the Church and harpies of the State, —
Ye, whose curst sires, for blood and plunder fam'd,
Sultans or kings or czars or emp'rors nam'd,
Taught the deluded world their claims to own,
And raise the crested reptiles to a throne, —
Ye, who pretend to your dark host was given
The lamp of life, the mystic keys of heaven;
Whose impious arts with magic spells began
When shades of ign'rance veil'd the race of man;
Who change, from age to age, the sly deceit
As Science beams, and Virtue learns the cheat;
Tyrants of double powers, the soul that blind,
To rob, to scourge, and brutalize mankind,
Think not I come to croak with omen'd yell
The dire damnations of your future hell,
To bend a bigot or reform a knave,
By op'ning all the scenes beyond the grave.
I know your crusted souls: while one defies
In sceptic scorn the vengeance of the skies,
The other boasts, — “I ken thee, Power divine,
“But fear thee not; th' avenging bolt is mine." No! 'tis the present world that prompts the song,
The world we see, the world that feels the wrong,
The world of men, whose arguments ye know,
Of men, long curb'd to servitude and wo,
Men, rous'd from sloth, by indignation stung,
Their strong hands loos'd, and found their fearless tongue;
Whose voice of fire, whose deep-descending steel
Shall speak to souls, and teach dull nerves to feel.

Octavio Paz photo

“I want to go on, to go beyond; I cannot;
the moment scatters itself in many things,
I have slept the dreams of the stone that never dreams
and deep among the dreams of years like stones
have heard the singing of my imprisoned blood,
with a premonition of light the sea sang,
and one by one the barriers give way,
all of the gates have fallen to decay”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Sun Stone (1957)
Context: I want to go on, to go beyond; I cannot;
the moment scatters itself in many things,
I have slept the dreams of the stone that never dreams
and deep among the dreams of years like stones
have heard the singing of my imprisoned blood,
with a premonition of light the sea sang,
and one by one the barriers give way,
all of the gates have fallen to decay,
the sun has forced an entrance through my forehead,
has opened my eyelids at last that were kept closed,
unfastened my being of its swaddling clothes,
has rooted me out of my self, and separated
me from my animal sleep centuries of stone
and the magic of reflections resurrects
willow of crystal, a poplar of water,
a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over,
tree that is firmly rooted and that dances,
turning course of a river that goes curving,
advances and retreats, goes roundabout,
arriving forever:

Alan Watts photo

“What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

The Nature of Consciousness http://deoxy.org/w_nature.htm; also published as What Is Reality? (1989)
Context: If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death — or shall I say, death implies life — you can conceive yourself. Not conceive, but feel yourself, not as a stranger in the world, not as someone here on sufferance, on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke, but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental. What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself. So, say in Hindu mythology, they say that the world is the drama of God. God is not something in Hindu mythology with a white beard that sits on a throne, that has royal perogatives. God in Indian mythology is the self, Satcitananda. Which means sat, that which is, chit, that which is consciousness; that which is ananda is bliss. In other words, what exists, reality itself is gorgeous, it is the fullness of total joy.

Helen Keller photo

“Love like Ruth's, love which can rise above conflicting creeds and deep-seated racial prejudices, is hard to find in all the world.”

Source: The Story of My Life (1903), Ch. 21
Context: Ruth is so loyal and gentle-hearted, we cannot help loving her, as she stands with the reapers amid the waving corn. Her beautiful, unselfish spirit shines out like a bright star in the night of a dark and cruel age. Love like Ruth's, love which can rise above conflicting creeds and deep-seated racial prejudices, is hard to find in all the world.

Felix Frankfurter photo

“Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

Speech accepting an award from the National Institute for Immigrant Welfare, Biltmore Hotel, New York (May 11, 1933).
Other writings
Context: Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep. I can express with very limited adequacy the passionate devotion to this land that possesses millions of our people, born, like myself, under other skies, for the privilege that that this county has bestowed in allowing them to partake of its fellowship.

Andrei Sakharov photo

“We regard as "scientific" a method based on deep analysis of facts, theories, and views, presupposing unprejudiced, unfearing open discussion and conclusions.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968)
Context: We regard as "scientific" a method based on deep analysis of facts, theories, and views, presupposing unprejudiced, unfearing open discussion and conclusions. The complexity and diversity of all the phenomena of modern life, the great possibilities and dangers linked with the scientific-technical revolution and with a number of social tendencies demand precisely such an approach, as has been acknowledged in a number of official statements.

Thich Nhat Hanh photo

“Our ecology should be a deep ecology—not only deep, but universal.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

The Sun My Heart (1996)
Context: Birds' songs express joy, beauty, and purity, and evoke in us vitality and love. So many beings in the universe love us unconditionally. The trees, the water, and the air don't ask anything of us; they just love us. Even though we need this kind of love, we continue to destroy them. By destroying the animals, the air, and the trees, we are destroying ourselves. We must learn to practice unconditional love for all beings so that the animals, the air, the trees, and the minerals can continue to be themselves.
Our ecology should be a deep ecology—not only deep, but universal. There is pollution in our consciousness. Television, films, and newspapers are forms of pollution for us and our children. They sow seeds of violence and anxiety in us and pollute our consciousness, just as we destroy our environment by farming with chemicals, clear-cutting the trees, and polluting the water. We need to protect the ecology of the Earth and the ecology of the mind, or this kind of violence and recklessness will spill over into even more areas of life.

Johannes Tauler photo

“Become a fertile ground for the divine birth. Cherish this deep silence within, nourish it”

Johannes Tauler (1300–1361) German theologian

Quoted in "Johannes Tauler: Sermons" translated by Maria Shardy
Context: Become a fertile ground for the divine birth. Cherish this deep silence within, nourish it Cherish this deep silence within, nourish it frequently frequently.

Katherine Mansfield photo

“I feel happy — deep down. All is well.”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

Entry in her journal (10 October 1922) which she tore out to send to John Middleton Murry, before changing her mind. This later became the last published entry in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927) edited by J. Middleton Murry
Context: Warm, eager, living life — to be rooted in life — to learn, to desire to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for. … This all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, it’s no longer so. I feel happy — deep down. All is well.

Edward R. Murrow photo

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

The reference to Cassius is that of the character in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. Listen to an mp3 sound file http://www.otr.com/murrow_mccarthy.shtml of parts of this statement.
See It Now (1954)
Context: No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind as between the internal and the external threats of communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Good night, and good luck.

Alan Watts photo
Julian Huxley photo

“In developing a full, deep and rich personality the individual ceases to be a mere cog or cipher, and makes his own particular contribution to evolutionary fulfilment.”

Julian Huxley (1887–1975) English biologist, philosopher, author

The New Divinity (1964)
Context: Human potentialities constitute the world's greatest resource, but at the moment only a tiny fraction of them is being realized. The possibility of tapping and directing these vast resources of human possibility provide the religion of the future with a powerful long-term motive. An equally powerful short-term motive is to ensure the fullest possible development and flowering of individual personalities. In developing a full, deep and rich personality the individual ceases to be a mere cog or cipher, and makes his own particular contribution to evolutionary fulfilment.

“The words "God is love" have this deep meaning: that everything that is against love is ultimately doomed and damned.”

Halford E. Luccock (1885–1960) American Methodist minister

Keeping Life Out of Confusion (1938)
Context: We ought to recognize that uncertainty of mind is not all a bad thing. It is a sign that your mind is still alive, still sensitive. If you are not at all confused in this day you are dead mentally and spiritually.
There is of course the peace of the cemetery. If you want that you can have it. But you will pay for such complacent serenity with blind eyes which do not see the world's fear and agony; with deaf ears, into which the still sad music of humanity never comes; with deadened nerves and unsensitized conscience.
We will never be brought to confusion, even in such a baffling and muddled world as ours, if we have a faith in a God of love as the ultimate power in the universe. The words "God is love" have this deep meaning: that everything that is against love is ultimately doomed and damned.

“We are just this blessed consciousness, nothing more, nothing less. We are the light inside light that fuses into the atoms of our bodies; we are the fire that whirls across the stellar deeps and dances all things into being.”

David Zindell (1952) American writer

Source: War in Heaven (1998), p. 599
Context: The memory of all things is in all things, Danlo remembered. Nothing is ever truly lost.
"The true Elder Eddas," he said "are universal memories. The One memory is just the memory of the universe itself. The way the universe evolves in conscioiusness of itself and causes itself to be. We are just this blessed consciousness, nothing more, nothing less. We are the light inside light that fuses into the atoms of our bodies; we are the fire that whirls across the stellar deeps and dances all things into being."
"Now you are speaking mystically again, Little Fellow."
"About some things there is no other way to speak."

James Anthony Froude photo

“Say not they have their reward on earth in the calm satisfaction of noble desires, nobly gratified, in the sense of great works greatly done; that too may be, but neither do they ask for that. They alone never remember themselves; they know no end but to do the will which beats in their hearts' deep pulses.”

Confessions Of A Sceptic
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: Say not they have their reward on earth in the calm satisfaction of noble desires, nobly gratified, in the sense of great works greatly done; that too may be, but neither do they ask for that. They alone never remember themselves; they know no end but to do the will which beats in their hearts' deep pulses. Ay, but for these, these few martyred heroes, it might be after all that the earth was but a huge loss-and-profit ledger book; or a toy machine some great angel had invented for the amusement of his nursery; and the storm and the sunshine but the tears and the smiles of laughter in which he and his baby cherubs dressed their faces over the grave and solemn airs of slow-paced respectability.
Yes, genius alone is the Redeemer; it bears our sorrows, it is crowned with thorns for us; the children of genius are the church militant, the army of the human race. Genius is the life, the law of mankind, itself perishing, that others may take possession and enjoy. Religion, freedom, science, law, the arts, mechanical or heautiful, all which gives respectability a chance, have heen moulded out by the toil and the sweat and the blood of the faithful; who, knowing no enjoyment, were content to he the servants of their own born slaves, and wrought out the happiness of the world which despised and disowned them.

Ursula Goodenough photo

“I am convinced that the project can be undertaken only if we all experience a solemn gratitude that we exist at all, share a reverence for how life works, and acknowledge a deep and complex imperative that life continue.”

Source: The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), p. xvi
Context: Any global tradition needs to begin with a shared worldview — a culture-independent, globally accepted consensus as to how things are. From my perspective, this part is easy. How things are is, well, how things are; our scientific account of Nature, an account that can be called the Epic of Evolution… This is the story, the one story, that has the potential to unite us, because it happens to be true.
If religious emotions can be elicited by natural reality — and I believe that they can — then the story of Nature has the potential to serve as the cosmos for the global ethos that we need to articulate. I will not presume to suggest what this ethos might look like. Its articulation must be a global project. But I am convinced that the project can be undertaken only if we all experience a solemn gratitude that we exist at all, share a reverence for how life works, and acknowledge a deep and complex imperative that life continue.

Joyce Kilmer photo

“And now deep in his weary heart
Are sacred flames that whitely burn.
He has of Heaven's grace a part
Who loves, who is beloved in turn.”

Trees and Other Poems (1914), Delicatessen
Context: For, once he thrilled with high romance
And tuned to love his eager voice.
Like any cavalier of France
He wooed the maiden of his choice.
And now deep in his weary heart
Are sacred flames that whitely burn.
He has of Heaven's grace a part
Who loves, who is beloved in turn.

Thomas Merton photo

“This new language of prayer has to come out of something which transcends all our traditions, and comes out of the immediacy of love. We have to part now, aware of the love that unites us, the love that unites us in spite of real differences, real emotional friction… The things on the surface are nothing, what is deep is the Real. We are creatures of Love. Let us therefore join hands, as we did before, and I will try to say something that comes out of the depths of our hearts. I ask you to concentrate on the love that is in you, that is in us all. I have no idea what I am going to say. I am going to be silent a minute, and then I will say something…
O God, we are one with You. You have made us one with You. You have taught us that if we are open to one another, You dwell in us. Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection. O God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we accept You, and we thank You, and we adore You, and we love You with our whole being, because our being is Your being, our spirit is rooted in Your spirit. Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one spirit which makes You present in the world, and which makes You witness to the ultimate reality that is love. Love has overcome. Love is victorious. Amen.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Closing statements and prayer from an informal address delivered in Calcutta, India (October 1968), from The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (1975); quoted in Thomas Merton, Spiritual Master : The Essential Writings (1992), p. 237.

Thomas Campbell photo

“Let Winter come! let polar spirits sweep
The darkening world, and tempest-troubled deep!”

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer

Part II, line 115–124
Pleasures of Hope (1799)
Context: Let Winter come! let polar spirits sweep
The darkening world, and tempest-troubled deep!
Though boundless snows the withered heath deform,
And the dim sun scarce wanders through the storm,
Yet shall the smile of social love repay,
With mental light, the melancholy day!
And, when its short and sullen noon is o'er,
The ice-chained waters slumbering on the shore,
How bright the fagots in his little hall
Blaze on the hearth, and warm the pictured wall!

Thomas Carlyle photo

“Your born genius, therefore, will first have to ask himself, Whether he can hold his tongue or cannot? True, all human talent, especially all deep talent, is a talent to do, and is intrinsically of silent nature; inaudible, like the Sphere Harmonies and Eternal Melodies, of which it is an incarnated fraction.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)
Context: Our English careers to born genius are twofold. There is the silent or unlearned career of the Industrialisms, which are very many among us; and there is the articulate or learned career of the three professions, Medicine, Law (under which we may include Politics), and the Church. Your born genius, therefore, will first have to ask himself, Whether he can hold his tongue or cannot? True, all human talent, especially all deep talent, is a talent to do, and is intrinsically of silent nature; inaudible, like the Sphere Harmonies and Eternal Melodies, of which it is an incarnated fraction.

“Gradually it dawned on me that I was painting my own inner emotions. Those children were asking: "Why are we here? What is life all about? Why is there sadness and injustice?" All those deep questions. Those children were sad because they didn't have the answers. They were searching.”

Margaret Keane (1927) American artist

1999, Cited by Amy M. Spindler
Context: Gradually it dawned on me that I was painting my own inner emotions. Those children were asking: "Why are we here? What is life all about? Why is there sadness and injustice?" All those deep questions. Those children were sad because they didn't have the answers. They were searching.

Richard Wright photo

“This ascent will be betrayed to Gravity. But the Rocket engine, the deep cry of combustion that jars the soul, promises escape. The victim, in bondage to falling, rises on a promise, a prophecy, of Escape….”

Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
Context: This ascent will be betrayed to Gravity. But the Rocket engine, the deep cry of combustion that jars the soul, promises escape. The victim, in bondage to falling, rises on a promise, a prophecy, of Escape....
Moving now toward the kind of light where at last the apple is apple-colored. The knife cuts through the apple like a knife cutting an apple. Everything is where it is, no clearer than usual, but certainly more present. So much has to be left behind now, so quickly.

Adrienne Rich photo

“Of course, like the consciousness behind it, behind any art, a poem can be deep or shallow, glib or visionary, prescient or stuck in an already lagging trendiness.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

"Legislators of the world" in The Guardian (18 November 2006)
Context: Of course, like the consciousness behind it, behind any art, a poem can be deep or shallow, glib or visionary, prescient or stuck in an already lagging trendiness. What's pushing the grammar and syntax, the sounds, the images — is it the constriction of literalism, fundamentalism, professionalism — a stunted language? Or is it the great muscle of metaphor, drawing strength from resemblance in difference? Poetry has the capacity to remind us of something we are forbidden to see. A forgotten future: a still uncreated site whose moral architecture is founded not on ownership and dispossession, the subjection of women, outcast and tribe, but on the continuous redefining of freedom — that word now held under house arrest by the rhetoric of the "free" market. This on-going future, written-off over and over, is still within view. All over the world its paths are being rediscovered and reinvented.
There is always that in poetry which will not be grasped, which cannot be described, which survives our ardent attention, our critical theories, our late-night arguments. There is always (I am quoting the poet/translator Américo Ferrari|) "an unspeakable where, perhaps, the nucleus of the living relation between the poem and the world resides".

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo
Jean Piaget photo

“The discussion of the game of marbles seems to have led us into rather deep waters. But in the eyes of children the history of the game of marbles has quite as much importance as the history of religion or of forms of government.”

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic

Source: The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932), Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism <!-- p. 95 -->
Context: The discussion of the game of marbles seems to have led us into rather deep waters. But in the eyes of children the history of the game of marbles has quite as much importance as the history of religion or of forms of government. It Is a history, moreover, that is magnificently spontaneous; and it was therefore perhaps not entirely useless to seek to throw light on the child's judgment of moral value by a preliminary study of the social behaviour of children amongst themselves.

Franz Kafka photo

“It is entirely conceivable that life’s splendour forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

(18 October 1921)
The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1923 (1948)
Context: Eternal childhood. Life calls again.
It is entirely conceivable that life’s splendour forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. This is the essence of magic, which does not create but summons.

George Holmes Howison photo

“Who Feel a Deep Concern”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Dedication

Carl Sagan photo

“This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995), Ch. 17 : The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder
Context: At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes - an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking, working together, keeps the field on track. Those two seemingly contradictory attitudes are, though, in some tension.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo
David Bohm photo

“In our view this condition points to a deep and pervasive defect in the process of human thought.”

David Bohm (1917–1992) American theoretical physicist

Dialogue: A Proposal (1991) http://www.david-bohm.net/dialogue/dialogue_proposal.html David Bohm, Don Factor, and Peter Garrett
Collaborations with others
Context: Dialogue, as we are choosing to use the word, is a way of exploring the roots of the many crises that face humanity today. It enables inquiry into, and understanding of, the sorts of processes that fragment and interfere with real communication between individuals, nations, and even different parts of the same organization. In our modern culture men and women are able to interact with one another in many ways: they can sing, dance, or play together with little difficulty, but their ability to talk together about subjects that matter deeply to them seems invariably to lead to dispute, division, and often to violence. In our view this condition points to a deep and pervasive defect in the process of human thought.

“Music is like a mirror in front of you. You're exposing everything, but surely that's better than suppressing. … You have to dig deep and that can be hard for anybody, no matter what profession. I feel that I need to actually push myself to the limit to feel happy with the end result.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

The Telegraph interview (2005)
Context: The word workaholic is so severe, but I do focus a lot on my work... I think a lot about what I'm doing in all aspects of my life, what am I trying to achieve here, am I happy with this? Music is like a mirror in front of you. You're exposing everything, but surely that's better than suppressing.... You have to dig deep and that can be hard for anybody, no matter what profession. I feel that I need to actually push myself to the limit to feel happy with the end result.

Lucy Larcom photo

“It is not a system at all that we want: it is Christ, the "wisdom of God and the power of God," Christ, the loving, creating, and redeeming friend of the world, Christ, whose large, free being enfolds all that is beautiful in nature and in social life; and all that is strong and deep and noble in the sanctuary of every living soul. When Christians have truly learned Christ, they can be true teachers.”

Lucy Larcom (1824–1893) American teacher, poet, author

Journal entry (18 November 1861), Ch. 5 : The Beginning of the War.
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)
Context: Much of our Christianity is not of a sufficiently enlarged type to satisfy an educated Hindoo; not that Unitarianism is necessary, for that system has but a surface-liberalism which can become very hard, and finally very narrow, as its history among us has often proved. It is not a system at all that we want: it is Christ, the "wisdom of God and the power of God," Christ, the loving, creating, and redeeming friend of the world, Christ, whose large, free being enfolds all that is beautiful in nature and in social life; and all that is strong and deep and noble in the sanctuary of every living soul. When Christians have truly learned Christ, they can be true teachers.

Gershom Scholem photo

“The process which the Kabbalists described as the emanation of divine energy and divine light was also characterized as the unfolding of the divine language. This gives rise to a deep-seated parallelism between the two most im­portant kinds of symbolism used by the Kabbalists to communi­cate their ideas. They speak of attributes and of spheres of light; but in the same context they speak also of divine names and the letters of which they are composed. From the very beginnings of Kabbalistic doctrine these two manners of speaking appear side by side.”

Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) German-born Israeli philosopher and historian

Source: On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (1960), Ch. 2 : The Meaning of the Torah in Jewish Mysticism<!-- , p. 35 -->
Context: Here I need not go into the paradoxes and mysteries of Kabbalis­tic theology concerned with the seflroth and their nature. But one important point must be made. The process which the Kabbalists described as the emanation of divine energy and divine light was also characterized as the unfolding of the divine language. This gives rise to a deep-seated parallelism between the two most im­portant kinds of symbolism used by the Kabbalists to communi­cate their ideas. They speak of attributes and of spheres of light; but in the same context they speak also of divine names and the letters of which they are composed. From the very beginnings of Kabbalistic doctrine these two manners of speaking appear side by side. The secret world of the godhead is a world of language, a world of divine names that unfold in accordance with a law of their own. The elements of the divine language appear as the letters of the Holy Scriptures. Letters and names are not only conventional means of communication. They are far more. Each one of them represents a concentration of energy and expresses a wealth of meaning which cannot be translated, or not fully at least, into human language. There is, of course, an obvious dis­crepancy between the two symbolisms. When the Kabbalists speak of divine attributes and sefiroth, they are describing the hid­den world under ten aspects; when, on the other hand, they speak of divine names and letters, they necessarily operate' with the twenty-two consonants of the Hebrew alphabet, in which the Torah is written, or as they would have said, in which its secret essence was made communicable.

Umberto Eco photo

“As subjects, we are what the shape of the world produced by signs makes us become.
Perhaps we are, somewhere, the deep impulse which generates semiosis. And yet we recognize ourselves only as semiosis in progress, signifying systems and communicational processes.”

[I] Signs, 1.13 : Sign and subject
Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984)
Context: !-- The subject is constantly reshaped by the endless resegmentation of the content. In this way (even though the process of resegmentation must be activated by someone, who is probably the collectivity of subjects), the subject is spoken by language (verbal and nonverbal), by the dynamic of sign-functions rather than by the chain of signifiers. --> As subjects, we are what the shape of the world produced by signs makes us become.
Perhaps we are, somewhere, the deep impulse which generates semiosis. And yet we recognize ourselves only as semiosis in progress, signifying systems and communicational processes. The map of semiosis, as defined at a given stage of historical development (with the debris carried over from previous semiosis), tells us who we are and what (or how) we think.

Theodor Reuss photo

“Contemporaneous with the awakening of the interest of the great masses of the German people in Parsifal, a flood of newspaper articles about Parsifal have begun, of which, most have no trace of a hint of the deep deep mystical meaning of the plot and the symbology of the play is lost.”

Theodor Reuss (1855–1923) German singer

I. Introduction : Struggle of Spirits.
Parsifal and the Secret of the Graal Unveiled (1914)
Context: Contemporaneous with the awakening of the interest of the great masses of the German people in Parsifal, a flood of newspaper articles about Parsifal have begun, of which, most have no trace of a hint of the deep deep mystical meaning of the plot and the symbology of the play is lost. The great masses of the Parsifal-critics and Parsifal-commentators, who have not a trace of a hint of the deep mystical meaning of the secret of the graal, are not even the worst enemies of Wagner and the Idea of Parsifal. The real worst, by which I mean here, the dangerous enemies of Wagner's are those people — columnists, critics, interpreters etc. — who surely have no clue of deep mystical meaning of Parsifal — and the idea of the Graal, but go against the recognized meaning, or purposely change the true and only really deep meaning of the Parsifal idea into its exact opposite meaning. The worst of the last category are the sexual-ascetics. For they understand the meaning of the Parsifal-Symbology very well, but they reverse Wagners idea into its exact opposite. They are those, who on the basis of the plot of the play Parsifal and on the false understanding of its underlying mystery, proclaim sexual abstinence to the German people, far and wide as the gospel of renunciation, and they knowingly lay the foundation for the decline of the virulent German people. If it has not yet succeeded, it is high time to pull the carpet out from under the feet of these false prophets.

Gregory Benford photo

“Deep ignorance, but still a kind that knew its limits. The limits were crucial.”

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 31 (p. 360)
Context: You had to form for yourself a lucid language for the world, to overcome the battering of experience, to replace everyday life’s pain and harshness and wretched dreariness with — no not with certainty but with an ignorance you could live with. Deep ignorance, but still a kind that knew its limits. The limits were crucial.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“Across the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day
The happy princess follow'd him.”

The Departure, st. 1
The Day-Dream (1842)
Context: And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old:
Across the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day
The happy princess follow'd him.

Benjamin N. Cardozo photo

“Deep below consciousness are other forces, the likes and the dislikes, the predilections and the prejudices, the complex of instincts and emotions and habits and convictions”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Page 167
Other writings, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)
Context: I have spoken of the forces of which judges avowedly avail to shape the form and content of their judgments. Even these forces are seldom fully in consciousness. They lie so near the surface, however, that their existence and influence are not likely to be disclaimed. But the subject is not exhausted with the recognition of their power. Deep below consciousness are other forces, the likes and the dislikes, the predilections and the prejudices, the complex of instincts and emotions and habits and convictions, which make the man, whether he be litigant or judge.

“If I hadn't been lying in a hole I'd dug with my hands and helmet, that shell would probably have finished me off. The hole was only six or eight inches deep, but that makes an awful lot of difference, and it looked like a canyon.”

James Jones (1921–1977) American author

Letter to his brother Jeff from Guadalcanal (28 January 1943); p. 25
To Reach Eternity (1989)
Context: I wasn't hit very badly — a piece of shrapnel went thru my helmet and cut a nice little hole in the back of my head. It didn't fracture the skull and is healed up nicely now. I don't know what happened to my helmet; the shell landed close to me and when I came to, the helmet was gone. The concussion together with the fragment that hit me must have broken the chinstrap and torn it off my head. It also blew my glasses off my face. I never saw them again, either, but I imagine they are smashed to hell. If I hadn't been lying in a hole I'd dug with my hands and helmet, that shell would probably have finished me off. The hole was only six or eight inches deep, but that makes an awful lot of difference, and it looked like a canyon.

James D. Watson photo

“To make a huge success, a scientist must be prepared to get into deep trouble.”

James D. Watson (1928) American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist.

Succeeding in Science: Some Rules of Thumb (1993)
Context: To make a huge success, a scientist must be prepared to get into deep trouble. Sometime or another, someone will tell you that you are not ready to do something. … If you are going to make a big jump in science, you will very likely be unqualified to succeed by definition. The truth, however, won't save you from criticism. Your very willingness to take on a very big goal will offend some people who will think that you are too big for your britches and crazy to boot.

Bill Downs photo

“At the wide shallow ravine, their valuable and part of their clothing were removed and heaped into a big pile. Then groups of these people were led into a neighboring deep ravine where they were machine-gunned. When bodies covered the ground in more or less of a layer, SS men scraped sand down from the ravine walls to cover them. Then the shooting would continue. The Nazis, we were told, worked three days doing the job.”

Bill Downs (1914–1978) American journalist

Blood at Babii Yar - Kiev's Atrocity Story (1943)
Context: At the wide shallow ravine, their valuable and part of their clothing were removed and heaped into a big pile. Then groups of these people were led into a neighboring deep ravine where they were machine-gunned. When bodies covered the ground in more or less of a layer, SS men scraped sand down from the ravine walls to cover them. Then the shooting would continue. The Nazis, we were told, worked three days doing the job. However, even more incredible was the actions taken by the Nazis between Aug. 19 and Sept. 28 last. Vilkis said that in the middle of August the SS mobilized a party of 100 Russian war prisoners, who were taken to the ravines. On Aug. 19 these men were ordered to disinter all the bodies in the ravine. The Germans meanwhile took a party to a nearby Jewish cemetery whence marble headstones were brought to Babii Yar to form the foundation of a huge funeral pyre. Atop the stones were piled a layer of wood and then a layer of bodies, and so on until the pyre was as high as a two-story house. Vilkis said that approximately 1,500 bodies were burned in each operation of the furnace and each funeral pyre took two nights and one day to burn completely. The cremation went on for 40 days, and then the prisoners, who by this time included 341 men, were ordered to build another furnace. Since this was the last furnace and there were no more bodies, the prisoners decided it was for them. They made a break but only a dozen out of more than 200 survived the bullets of the Nazi tommy guns.

Richard Wright photo
Richard Wright photo

“Richard Wright’s outstanding characteristics are two seemingly opposite tendencies. One is an overwhelming need for association and integration with humanity at large. The other is a tragic, highly individualized loneliness. Except that he is a Negro in 20th century America he might have been a lyric poet. Whenever he describes the life he wants for mankind he rises to great heights of lyric beauty. At the same time when he doubts that a new life can ever be achieved he writes with the same beauty but in tragic despair. Wright wants a new world; men working freely together in social relationships that not only realize a complete personality but develop every potential and result in new associations and new men altogether. He wants to share a common life, not in a regimented sense but in a free interchange of ideas and experience; a relationship which will be the blending of a common belief and a solidarity of ideals. He wants a life in which basic emotions are shared; in which common memory forms a common past; in which collective hope reflects a national future. He has a vision of life where man can reveal his destiny as man by grappling with the world and getting from it the satisfactions he feels he must have. He wants a life where man’s inmost nature and emotional capacities will be used. He has a passionate longing to belong, to be identified with the world at large; he wants the "deep satisfaction of doing a good job in common with others."”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

He doesn’t want a society where he is separate as Negro, but one where he is just another man.
Constance Webb, "Notes preliminary to a full study of the work of Richard Wright" (privately published, 1946)

Ray Bradbury photo

“On the way I drank in the words of A.E. Van Vogt and was stunned by what I saw there. He became a deep influence for the next year.
As it turned out, I didn't become A.E. Van Vogt, no one else could, and when I finally met him was pleased to see that the man was as pleasant to be with as were his stories.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

As quoted in SF Authors Remember A.E. van Vogt (2000) http://www.sfrevu.com/ISSUES/2000/ARTICLES/20000128-03.htm#SF%20Authors%20Remeber%20A.E.%20van%20Vogt
Context: At the end of June in 1939 I took a bus east to New York to attend the first World Science Fiction convention. On the bus with me I took the June of Astounding Science-Fiction in which the short story by A. E. van Vogt appeared. It was an astonishing encounter. In that same issue with him were C. L. Moore and Ross Rocklynne, a fantastic issue to take with me on that long journey, for I was still a poor unpublished writer selling newspapers on a street corner for ten dollars a week and hoping, someday, to be an established writer myself, but that was still two years off. On the way I drank in the words of A. E. Van Vogt and was stunned by what I saw there. He became a deep influence for the next year.
As it turned out, I didn't become A. E. Van Vogt, no one else could, and when I finally met him was pleased to see that the man was as pleasant to be with as were his stories. I knew him over a long period of years and he was a kind and wonderful gentleman, a real asset to the Science Fantasy Society in L. A., where there are a lot of strange people. A. E. Van Vogt was not strange, he was kind. He gave me advice and helped me along the road to becoming what I wanted to become.

John Denham photo

“Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.”

Cooper's Hill, Line 189.
Context: Oh, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.

Tao Yuanming photo

“Distant, distant I gaze at the white clouds:
With a deep yearning I think of the Sages of Antiquity.”

"Shady, shady the wood in front of the Hall"
Translated by Arthur Waley
Context: My little children are playing at my side,
Learning to talk, they babble unformed sounds.
These things have made me happy again
And I forget my lost cap of office.
Distant, distant I gaze at the white clouds:
With a deep yearning I think of the Sages of Antiquity.

John D. Barrow photo
Felix Adler photo

“Deep down in every human heart is the seed of a diviner life, which only needs the quickening influence of right conditions to germinate.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 6 : Higher Life
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: There is a difficulty in the way of teaching the higher life, due to the fact that only those who have begun to lead it can understand the meaning of it. Nevertheless, all men can be induced to begin to lead it. Though they seem blind, their eyes can be opened so as to see. Deep down in every human heart is the seed of a diviner life, which only needs the quickening influence of right conditions to germinate.

Albert Camus photo

“Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living.”

The Stranger (1942)
Context: I don't know why, but something inside me snapped. I started yelling at the top of my lungs, and I insulted him and told him not to waste his prayers on me. I grabbed him by the collar of his cassock. I was pouring out on him everything that was in my heart, cries of anger and cries of joy.
He seemed so certain about everything, didn't he? And yet none of his certainties was worth one hair of a woman's head. He wasn't even sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man. Whereas it looked as if I was the one who'd come up emptyhanded. But I was sure about me, about everything, surer than he could ever be, sure of my life and sure of the death I had waiting for me. Yes, that was all I had. But at least I had as much of a hold on it as it had on me. I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn't done that. I hadn't done this thing but I had done another. And so? It was as if I had waited all this time for this moment and for the first light of this dawn to be vindicated. Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too. <!-- translated by Matthew Ward

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“When Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation it was not the act of an opportunistic politician issuing a hollow pronouncement to placate a pressure group. Our truly great presidents were tortured deep in their hearts by the race question.”

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

1960s, Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address (1962)
Context: When Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation it was not the act of an opportunistic politician issuing a hollow pronouncement to placate a pressure group. Our truly great presidents were tortured deep in their hearts by the race question. [... ] Lincoln’s torments are well known, his vacillations were facts. In the seething cauldron of ‘62 and ‘63 Lincoln was called the "Baboon President" in the North, and "coward", "assassin" and "savage" in the South. Yet he searched his way to the conclusions embodied in these words, "In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve." On this moral foundation he personally prepared the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, and to emphasize the decisiveness of his course he called his cabinet together and declared he was not seeking their advice as to its wisdom but only suggestions on subject matter. Lincoln achieved immortality because he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. His hesitation had not stayed his hand when historic necessity charted but one course. No President can be great, or even fit for office, if he attempts to accommodate to injustice to maintain his political balance.

Robert Hunter (author) photo

“The greatest obstacle that confronted Tolstoy lies rooted deep in the soul of man. It is the fear of poverty and the dread of want which”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 60
Context: The greatest obstacle that confronted Tolstoy lies rooted deep in the soul of man. It is the fear of poverty and the dread of want which ages of struggle with man and beast and with all the adverse elements of nature has bred in us. Surely history teaches us too well the nature and character of man for us to believe readily that there are many fathers and mothers who would ever consent to become Christians on the conditions set forth by Tolstoy.... who to day would fail to condemn unreservedly any father who would take his babies from a comfortable home to live hungry and shelterless in the forests and fields. From the dawn of the world the chief duty of a parent has been to keep his family secure from want.

“If you sense a deep human need, then you go back to all the basic science. If there is some missing, then you try to do more basic science and applied science until you get it.”

Edwin H. Land (1909–1991) American scientist and inventor

As quoted in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 146, no. 1, (March 2002), p. 115
Context: If you sense a deep human need, then you go back to all the basic science. If there is some missing, then you try to do more basic science and applied science until you get it. So you make the system to fulfill that need, rather than starting the other way around, where you have something and wonder what to do with it.

Stanley Baldwin photo

“Rather should they have looked deep into the hearts of their own people, relying on that common sense and political sense that has never failed our race.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at the Philip Scott College (27 September 1923), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 153-154.
1923
Context: This country of ours has been the birthplace and the home of some of the greatest movements that have yet arisen for human freedom and human progress, and the strength of our race is not yet exhausted. We have confused ourselves in Great Britain of recent years by a curious diffidence, and by a fear of relying upon ourselves. The result has been that many of those who have been eager for the progress of our country have only succeeded in befogging themselves and their fellow-countrymen, by filling their bellies with the east wind of German Socialism and Russian Communism and French Syndicalism. Rather should they have looked deep into the hearts of their own people, relying on that common sense and political sense that has never failed our race.... [That] far from following at the tail of exploded Continental theorists, is ready once more to lead the way of the world as she was destined to do from the beginning of time, and to show other peoples, many peoples who have not yet learned what real political freedom is, that the mother of political freedom is still capable of guiding the way to her children and her children's children.

Freeman Dyson photo

“It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

Disturbing the Universe (1979), Pt. 1, Ch. 1

Sören Kierkegaard photo

“Deep within every human being there still lives the anxiety over the possibility of being alone in the world”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Journals VII 1A 363
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s
Context: Deep within every human being there still lives the anxiety over the possibility of being alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among the millions and millions in this enormous household. One keeps this anxiety at a distance by looking at the many round about who are related to him as kin and friends, but the anxiety is still there, nevertheless, and one hardly dares think of how he would feel if all this were taken away.

Paul Glover photo

“All national currencies are deep in debt-- indebted to nature-- because human economies extract from nature faster than we replenish.”

Paul Glover (1947) Community organizer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; American politician

http://www.paulglover.org/0711.html (The Ithacan, “The Destiny of Dollars”), 2007-11-01

Richard Wright photo
Yevgeny Zamyatin photo
Katherine Mansfield photo

“I feel happy — deep down. May you be happy too.”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

Journal entry (14 October 1922), published in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927); these are the final words of the journal
Context: This all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, it's no longer so. I feel happy — deep down. May you be happy too. I'm going to Fontainebleau on Monday and I'll be back here Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. All is well.