Quotes about eye
page 35

“There was a time, and not so long ago, when one could score a success also here with a bit of irony, which compensated for all other deficiencies and helped one get through the world rather respectably, gave one the appearance of being cultured, of having a perspective on life, an understanding of the world, and to the initiated marked one as a member of an extensive intellectual freemasonry. Occasionally we still meet a representative of that vanished age who has preserved that subtle, sententious, equivocally divulging smile, that air of an intellectual courtier with which he has made his fortune in his youth and upon which he had built his whole future in the hope that he had overcome the world. Ah, but it was an illusion! His watchful eye looks in vain for a kindred soul, and if his days of glory were not still a fresh memory for a few, his facial expression would be a riddle to the contemporary age, in which he lives as a stranger and foreigner. Our age demands more; it demands, if not lofty pathos then at least loud pathos, if not speculation then at least conclusions, if not truth then at least persuasion, if not integrity then at least protestations of integrity, if not feeling then at least verbosity of feelings. Therefore it also coins a totally different kind of privileged faces. It will not allow the mouth to be defiantly compressed or the upper lip to quiver mischievously; it demands that the mouth be open, for how, indeed, could one imagine a true and genuine patriot who is not delivering speeches; how could one visualize a profound thinker’s dogmatic face without a mouth able to swallow the whole world; how could one picture a virtuoso on the cornucopia of the living world without a gaping mouth? It does not permit one to stand still and to concentrate; to walk slowly is already suspicious; and how could one even put up with anything like that in the stirring period in which we live, in this momentous age, which all agree is pregnant with the extraordinary? It hates isolation; indeed, how could it tolerate a person’s having the daft idea of going through life alone-this age that hand in hand and arm in arm (just like itinerant journeymen and soldiers) lives for the idea of community.”

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

Source: 1840s, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (1841), p. 246-247

Life, Hate, Truth, Youth

“It was easy to share when there was enough, even barely enough, to go round. But when there was not enough? Then force entered in; might making right; power, and its tool, violence, and its most devoted ally, the averted eye.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 8 (p. 256)

“My eyes are so bleary
I guess I'm young but I feel so weary
I've tried to express it
But I think its all a bore
Its at the heart of me,
A very part of me”

Zooey Deschanel (1980) American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter

"Black Hole".
She & Him : Volume One (2008)

Feeling, Thinking, Heart, Parting

“Animals are among the first inhabitants of the mind's eye. They are basic to the development of speech and thought. Because of their part in the growth of consciousness, they are inseparable from the series of events in each human life, indispensable to our becoming human in the fullest sense.”

Paul Shepard (1925–1996) American human ecologist

Thinking Animals: Animals and the Development of Human Intelligence (1978), University of Georgia Press, 1998, Chapter 1, p. 2 https://books.google.it/books?id=rSu9AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA2.

Life, Sense, Animals, Parting

“Your eyes, your eyes
They tell me how much you care
Ooh yes, you will always be
My endless love.”

Lionel Richie (1949) American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer and actor

Endless Love (1981).
Song lyrics

Love

“The duties of kingship among the anthropoids are not many or arduous. … But Tarzan tired of it, as he found that kingship meant the curtailment of his liberty. He longed for the little cabin and the sun-kissed sea — for the cool interior of the well-built house, and for the never-ending wonders of the many books.
As he had grown older, he found that he had grown away from his people. Their interests and his were far removed. They had not kept pace with him, nor could they understand aught of the many strange and wonderful dreams that passed through the active brain of their human king. So limited was their vocabulary that Tarzan could not even talk with them of the many new truths, and the great fields of thought that his reading had opened up before his longing eyes, or make known ambitions which stirred his soul.
Among the tribe he no longer had friends as of old. A little child may find companionship in many strange and simple creatures, but to a grown man there must be some semblance of equality in intellect as the basis for agreeable association.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 12 : Man's Reason

People, Truth, Books, Dreams

“It must be admitted that many people were conscious and willing dupes. But many more were unconscious and were sincere in their patriotic zeal. Finding now that elaborately and carefully staged deceptions were practised on them, they feel a resentment which has not only served to open their eyes but may induce them to make their children keep their eyes open when next the bugle sounds.”

Arthur Ponsonby (1871–1946) British Liberal and later Labour politician and pacifist

Falsehood in Wartime (1928), Introduction

Children, People, Feeling, Sincerity

““Don’t you have a religion?” Dorolow asked Horza.
“Yes,” he replied, not taking his eyes away from the screen on the wall above the end of the main mess-room table. “My survival.””

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Consider Phlebas (1987), Chapter 5 “Megaship” (p. 102).

Religion

“He should be thrown alive to the crocodiles! An anaconda should strangle him slowly! A poisonous spider should sting him and paralyze his lungs! The most venomous serpent should bite him and make his brain explode! No — panther claws should rip open his throat — that would be much too good for him! Huge red ants should piss into his lying eyes and gobble up his balls and his guts! He should catch the plague! Syphilis! Yellow fever! Leprosy! It's no use; the more I wish him the most gruesome deaths, the more he haunts me.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

On Werner Herzog, p. 220-21
Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996)

Death, Lying

“It was a bright September afternoon, and the streets of New York were brilliant with moving men…. He was pushed toward the ticket-office with the others, and felt in his pocket for the new five-dollar bill he had hoarded…. When at last he realized that he had paid five dollars to enter he knew not what, he stood stock-still amazed…. John… sat in a half-maze minding the scene about him; the delicate beauty of the hall, the faint perfume, the moving myriad of men, the rich clothing and low hum of talking seemed all a part of a world so different from his, so strangely more beautiful than anything he had known, that he sat in dreamland, and started when, after a hush, rose high and clear the music of Lohengrin's swan. The infinite beauty of the wail lingered and swept through every muscle of his frame, and put it all a-tune. He closed his eyes and grasped the elbows of the chair, touching unwittingly the lady's arm. And the lady drew away. A deep longing swelled in all his heart to rise with that clear music out of the dirt and dust of that low life that held him prisoned and befouled. If he could only live up in the free air where birds sang and setting suns had no touch of blood! Who had called him to be the slave and butt of all?… If he but had some master-work, some life-service, hard, aye, bitter hard, but without the cringing and sickening servility…. When at last a soft sorrow crept across the violins, there came to him the vision of a far-off home — the great eyes of his sister, and the dark drawn face of his mother…. It left John sitting so silent and rapt that he did not for some time notice the usher tapping him lightly on the shoulder and saying politely, 'will you step this way please sir?'… The manager was sorry, very very sorry — but he explained that some mistake had been made in selling the gentleman a seat already disposed of; he would refund the money, of course… before he had finished John was gone, walking hurriedly across the square… and as he passed the park he buttoned his coat and said, 'John Jones you're a natural-born fool.”

W.E.B. Du Bois book The Souls of Black Folk

Then he went to his lodgings and wrote a letter, and tore it up; he wrote another, and threw it in the fire....
Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. XIII: Of the Coming of John

Life, Men, Money, World

“That life had been one without excitement, with no adventure. It had been too safe. All the elements that made it up were right there before his eyes, and nothing new could ever be expected. It was like, he had once thought, a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 4 (p. 64)

Life, Secret

“The chessboard was reflected in her eyes.
Eager to beat her, first I looked on her eyes.
I made a Spanish move, an ancient one,
and broken was the red rank of pawns in her light eyes.
Then I lowered my eyes from that chessboard
and Love said, "Oh not her; conquer the king if you can."”

Paul Goodman book Collected Poems

"A Chess Game" St. 1, Collected Poems, Random House, 1973, ISBN 0394483588.

Love, Light

“That well by reason men it call may
The daisie, or els the eye of the day,
The emprise, and floure of floures all.”

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) English poet

Prologue of the Legend of Good Women, line 183
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Men

“Rocking on a lazy billow
With roaming eyes,
Cushioned on a dreamy pillow,
Thou art now wise.
Wake the power within thee slumbering,
Trim the plot that's in thy keeping,
Thou wilt bless the task when reaping
Sweet labour's prize.”

John Stuart Blackie (1809–1895) Scottish scholar and man of letters

Address to the Edinburgh Students. Quoted by Lord Iddlesleigh, Desultory Reading; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 756.

Art

“I find the totality of metamorphosis most terrifying when I'm Woyzeck… Suffering through that had as devastating an impact on me as if I hadn't only always suffered as Woyzeck but continue to do so over and over. Malaria of the soul, recurring again and again. My total being is one large breeding ground for the shocks of the world past, present and future. All living and dying, all vibrations pass through me. The entire universe pours into me, rages in me, rampages through and over me. Annihilates me. It comes and goes whenever it likes. It rules me, commands me, envelops me, threatens me, and waits for me everywhere and all the time. It sucks me up, sucks me dry, grows through me. It's in my spinal marrow. In my brain mass. In my blood, in my bones. My muscles. Guts. Genitals. Sperm. Flesh. Eyes. Hearing. Taste. Smell. Balance. Laughter. Tears. In my days and nights. In my thoughts. In my feelings. In my courage and my fear. In my despair and my hope. In my weakness and my strength. Everywhere and all the time.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

On his performance in Woyzeck. p. 315
Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996)

World, Fear, Hope, Feeling

“What moral obligation do you have to those who willfully refuse to open their eyes and deem you mad for seeing?”

Norman Spinrad book The Void Captain's Tale

Source: The Void Captain's Tale (1983), Chapter 14 (p. 189)

Madness

“blockquote>Quien Soy? (Who Am I?)I am a small point in the eye of the full moon.
I only need one ray of the sun to warm my face.
I need only one breeze from the Alisios to refresh my soul.
What else can I ask if I know that my sons love really love me?.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Written on Father's Day at Three Rivers Stadium, 1971 or 1972, reproduced in "A Rematch With the Machine" https://books.google.com/books?id=03XsO25A3I8C&pg=PA302 from Roberto Clemente: The Great One (1998) by Bruce Markusen, p. 302 <br class="br">Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Love, Soul, Sun

“Katsumi Tezuka and I both tried on the Godzilla costume during the first day of shooting. The costume was very stiff and heavy. I could walk about thirty feet in it, but Mr. Tezuka could only walk about ten feet in it. There were three cables coming out of the back of the costume. Two were for the operation of the eyes, and one was for the operation of the mouth. Eizo Kaimai was responsible for the movement of the eyes and the mouth. The ASA speed of the film that was used at the time was very slow, so the set had to be very brightly lit. Another actor complained that the lights made it too hot inside the costume, but I never complained. Batteries were installed in the Godzilla costume that was made for the second Godzilla movie. They were for the operation of the eyes and the mouth. The batteries made the costume even heavier than the one that had been constructed for the first Godzilla film.”

Haruo Nakajima (1929–2017) Japanese actor

As quoted by David Milner, "Haruo Nakajima Interview" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/nakajima.htm, Kaiju Conversations (March 1995)

Light, Time, Speed

“"Did you ever taste beer?" "I had a sip of it once," said the small servant. "Here's a state of things!" cried Mr Swiveller, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "She never tasted it — it can't be tasted in a sip!"”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 57

Beer

“Let us not today cast blame on the murderers. Who are we to argue against their potent hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been turning the land and villages in which they and their forefathers lived into our own inheritance… We are the generation of settlement, and without steel helmets and the maw of the cannon we will not be able to plant a tree or build a home. Our children will not live if we do not dig shelters, and without barbed wire fences and machine guns we will not be able to pave roads or drill for water. Millions of Jews, annihilated because they had no country, gaze at us from the dust of Jewish history and command us to settle and raise up a land for our people.”

Moshe Dayan (1915–1981) Israeli military leader and politician

Rise and Kill First (2018) by Ronen Bergman, p. 49. Citing Moshe Dayan by Mordechai Bar-On, p. 128-129

Children, People, Home, History

“She closes her eyes and wordlessly thinks of all the misery sex has caused the world…”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

World, Sex, Thinking

“I have likewise made many 'skies' and effects — for I wish it could be said of me as Fuselli says of Rembrandt, 'he followed nature in her calmest abodes and could pluck a flower on every hedge — yet he was born to cast a steadfast eye on the bolder phenomena of nature'… We have had noble clouds & effects of light & dark & color.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quote from a letter to Rev. John Fisher in 1821 on his oil-sketches of stormy weather, as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London 1993), p. 222
1820s

Color, Flowers, Nature, Light

“The Communists have created the illusion in free men's minds that "the way to peace is through disarmament." We must not forget that this originated as a Communist slogan. Now free men have adopted it as their own and are even setting up special commissions to explore ways and means to carry it out. In this action we are deliberately closing our eyes to everything we promised ourselves at the close of World War II and again at the end of the Korean War. Experts tell us that to disarm in the face of an obvious and present danger is an immoral act. It is an act of self-destruction.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Men, War, World, Peace

“The universalists, the idealists, the Utopians all aim too high. They give promises of an unattainable paradise, and by doing so they deceive mankind. Whatever label they wear, whether they call themselves Christians, Communists, humanitarians, whether they are merely sincere but stupid or wire-pullers and cynics, they are all makers of slaves. I myself have always kept my eye fixed on a paradise which, in the nature of things, lies well within our reach. I mean an improvement in the lot of the German people.”

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

21 February 1945.
Disputed, The Testament of Adolf Hitler (1945)

People, Stupidity, Nature, Sincerity

“Although every part of the human frame has been fashioned by the same Divine hand and exhibits the most marvellous and beneficent adaptions for the use of men, the human eye stands pre-eminent above them all as the light of the body and the organ by which we become acquainted with the minutest and the nearest, the largest and most remote of the Creator’s work”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

As quoted in Good Words (1862), Volume 3. p. 170.
Also quoted in Martyr of science, Royal Scottish Museum (1984), p. 80.

Men, Fashion, Light, Parting

“On the other hand, the cheapest form of pride is national pride; for the man affected therewith betrays a want of individual qualities of which he might be proud, since he would not otherwise resort to that which he shares with so many millions. The man who possesses outstanding personal qualities will rather see most clearly the faults of his own nation, for he has them constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool, who has nothing in the world whereof he could be proud, resorts finally to being proud of the very nation to which he belongs. In this he finds compensation and is now ready and thankful to defend, … all the faults and follies peculiar to it.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

From 'Parerga and Paralipomena', Vol. 1, Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, 'What A Man Represents', pp. 360
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Life, Wisdom, World, Fools

“He shows Himself to the soul in the living mirror of her intelligence;
Not as He is in His nature,
But in images and similitudes,
And in the degree in which the illuminated reason can grasp and understand Him.
And the wise reason, enlightened of God, sees clearly
And without error in images of the understanding
All that she has heard of God,
Of faith, of truth, according to her longing.
But that image which is God Himself,
Although it is held before her, she cannot comprehend;
For the eyes of her understanding
Must fail before that Incomparable Light.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Twelve Beguines

God, Truth, Faith, Error

“Yet again - visible and invisible. The panic of loneliness - not physical, far more moral - arises from the fact that every lonely person is wearing a tarnkappe, a magic hood, (in German fairy tales, a magic cap which makes the wearer invisible) against his will: which is tantamount to saying: "If people don't bother about me, it's because nobody is seeing me - seeing me. I'm just a piece of furniture in their eyes." … Newcomers in a strange world suffer this fate especially, what's more in a doubly unpleasant way: first because no one takes any notice of them since they don't belong, i. e. they're nobodies, yet at the same time they're conspicuous, in the way, a nuisance, desperately conscious of being just awkward lumps of furniture.”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Diaries 1957-59

Fate, People, World, Way

“Some individuals may themselves be deceived by the compelling words of other individuals, but a much more significant number fall into the same state after being hypnotised by continuous eye-fixation upon an object and concentration of mind. This state can even be established before the eyelids are closed or a pronounced tendency to sleep has been felt. Suggestibility can also be increased by the sight of other patients in the experiment, and that by virtue of the laws of sympathy and imitation.”

James Braid (1795–1860) Scottish surgeon, hypnotist, and hypnotherapist

Original Philosophy of Hypnotism The International College of Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy

Law, Sleep

“Let me but feel thy look's embrace,
Transparent, pure, and warm,
And I'll not ask to touch thy face,
Or fold thee in mine arm.
For in thine eyes a girl doth rise,
Arrayed in candid bliss,
And draws me to her with a charm
More close than any kiss.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

Love in a Look.

Feeling, Girl, Kiss, Drawing

“I before Thy greatness
Stand, and am afraid
All my secret thoughts Thine eye beholdeth
Deep within my bosom laid.”

Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021–1058) Avicebron

Morning song, trans. Nina Davis http://medievalhebrewpoetry.org/ibngabirolselection1.html.

Secret

“Humans… entered the 'cognitive niche.' Remember the definition of intelligence from Chapter 2: using knowledge of how things work to attain goals in the face of obstacles. By learning which manipulations achieve which goals, humans have mastered the art of the surprise attack. They use novel, goal-oriented courses of action to overcome the Maginot Line defenses of other organisms, which can respond only over evolutionary time. The manipulations can be novel because human knowledge is not just couched in concrete instructions like 'how to catch a rabbit.' Humans analyze the world using intuitive theories of objects, forces, paths, places, manners, states, substances, hidden biochemical essences, and, for other animals and people, beliefs and desires…. People compose new knowledge and plans by mentally playing out combinatorial interactions among these laws in their mind's eye.”

Steven Pinker book How the Mind Works

Source: How the Mind Works (1997), p. 188

People, World, Law, Art

“Let the butterflies cry
Let them cry for you
And you just dry your eyes
Because the world is wonderful.”

Kerli (1987) Estonian singer

Butterfly Cry
Love is Dead (2008)

World, Cry

“Starry starry night,
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer's day with eyes that know the darkness in my soul…”

Don McLean (1945) American Singer and songwriter

Song lyrics, American Pie (1971), Vincent

Soul, Summer, Painting, Night

“If the young are watched too closely, if they are kept habitually under surveillance, the spring of action is weakened, the power of initiative is destroyed, and they become mediocre, commonplace, mechanical men and women, from whom nothing excellent or distinguished may be expected. Parents and teachers … must so deal with the young as to bring them little by little under the control of reason and conscience; and in this, nothing thwarts more surely than excessive supervision, for it draws attention from the inner view and voice to the eyes of the watchers. It may cultivate a love of decency and propriety, but not the creative feeling that we live with God and that righteousness is life.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 257-258

Love, Life, Women, Men

“Well, if you told me you were drowning,
I would not lend a hand.
I've seen your face before my friend
But I don't know if you know who I am.
Well, I was there and I saw what you did
I saw it with my own two eyes.
So you can wipe off that grin,
I know where you've been.
It's all been a pack of lies”

Phil Collins (1951) English musician, songwriter and actor

"In the Air Tonight"
Face Value (1981)

“… [Y]our observer's camera is clicking steadily. It's beautiful up above the sunlit clouds. The smooth drone of your twin motors makes you happy. You feel like singing and then you do. Then out of the corner of your eye, you see four black dots, growing larger momentarily. It's an enemy patrol of German Messerschmitts. Your gunner has seen them too. You hear the rattle of the machine gun as you put your bomber in a fast climbing turn, but the Messerschmitt fighters climb faster. They form under your tail, two on each side. One by one, they attack. A yellow light flashes in front of you. The first fighter slips away while the next comes on at you. Again that smashing yellow flame. Your observer falls over unconscious. Before you can think, the next Messerschmitt is upon you. A terrific jolt. Your port engine belches smoke. It's been hit…. You force-land on the first Allied airfield. That night, seated next to a hospital bed where your observer nurses a scalp wound, you hear an enemy communique. A British bomber was shot down over the lines today. Well, you puff a cigarette and grin.”

Larry LeSueur (1909–2003) American journalist

Woo, Elaine. " Larry LeSueur/'Murrow Boy' former war correspondant http://articles.latimes.com/2003/feb/07/local/me-lesueur7", (obituary), Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2003, accessed June 21, 2011. As quoted by Stanley W. Cloud and Lynne Olson in The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism, ISBN 0395877539. LeSueur just "after interviewing a young British pilot who had just flown a reconnaissance mission over Germany.

Beauty, Feeling, Thinking, Light

“Would you kill someone for that?…I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore…I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it,…No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out. Is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus — band — Do, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, "Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore," and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realize, "Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

And you know, well, I'm not sure.
The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2005-05-17
Radio host Glenn Beck "thinking about killing Michael Moore"
Media Matters for America
2005-05-18
http://mediamatters.org/items/200505180008
Posed question: What would people do for $50 million?
2000s

Life, Death, Thinking, Sense

“Here was the worldly environment with which Fauchery is so often reproached. But the books and papers that littered the table bore witness that the present occupant of this charming retreat remained a substantial man of letters. His habit of constant work was still further attested by his face, which I admit, gave me all at once a feeling of remorse for the trick I was about to play him. If I had found him the snobbish pretender whom the weekly newspapers were in the habit of ridiculing, it would have been a delight to outwit his diplomacy. But no! I saw, as he put down his pen to receive me, a man about fifty-seven years old, with a face that bore the marks of reflection, eyes tired from sleeplessness, a brow heavy with thought, who said as he pointed to an easy chair, "You will excuse me, my dear confrère, for keeping you waiting."”

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer

I, his dear confrère! Ah! if he had known!
The Age for Love

Books, Feeling, Waiting

“Each strand of her hair
Is really insect eyes
And each hole in her tongue
Is always occupied
By the milk of the sun”

Devendra Banhart (1981) American folk singer

-Insect Eyes
From Rejoicing in the Hands

Sun

“Since the universe must contain millions of appropriate planets, consciousness in some form - but not with the paired eyes and limbs, and the brain built of neurons in the only example we know - may evolve frequently. But if only one origin of life in a million ever leads to consciousness, then Martian bacteria most emphatically do not imply Little Green Men.)”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"War of the Worldviews", p. 351
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Life, Men, Universe

“Descend where you will into the lower class, in Town or Country, by what avenue you will, by Factory Inquiries, Agricultural Inquiries, by Revenue Returns, by Mining-Labourer Committees, by opening your own eyes and looking, the same sorrowful result discloses itself: you have to admit that the working body of this rich English Nation has sunk or is fast sinking into a state, to which, all sides of it considered, there was literally never any parallel.”

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

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Country

“The clearsighted eye turns the light back
to see its own Original Nature…”

Frederick Franck (1909–2006) Dutch painter

Source: Echoes from the Bottomless Well (1985), p. 38

Nature, Light

“[were I] not detained here by age and by the gout which renders me useless, I should go there to enjoy with my own eyes and admire the perfection of such worthy works.... [I pray] look upon all the marvels of your hand.... before I close my eyes forever.”

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) Flemish painter

In a letter to Francois Duquesnoy, 1639-1640 ; as quoted in Rembrandts Eyes', by w:Simon Schrama, Alfred A. Knopf, Borzoi Books, New York 1999, p. 180
The sculptor Francois Duquesnoy, then living drawing heightened with in Rome, had sent him models of work done for a tomb monument, Windsor Castle, Rubens praised them with his usual expansive generosity. Rubens had begun to resign himself to his end, but could write still some letters
1625 - 1640

Age, Perfection

“Mexican kids were now speaking quite a bit of English. Even Ramón. But he was a changed kid. There was a darkness in his eyes like a horse that had just been beaten one too many times.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Change, Time, Horse

“There's never a perfect bipartisan bill in the eyes of a partisan.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

The Economist, December 18, 2010, p. 74
2010s

Perfection

“For with what eyes of the mind was your Plato able to see that workhouse of such stupendous toil, in which he makes the world to be modelled and built by God? What materials, what bars, what machines, what servants, were employed in so vast a work? How could the air, fire, water, and earth, pay obedience and submit to the will of the architect? From whence arose those five forms, of which the rest were composed, so aptly contributing to frame the mind and produce the senses? It is tedious to go through all, as they are of such a sort that they look more like things to be desired than to be discovered.”
Quibus enim oculis animi intueri potuit vester Plato fabricam illam tanti operis, qua construi a deo atque aedificari mundum facit; quae molitio, quae ferramenta, qui vectes, quae machinae, qui ministri tanti muneris fuerunt; quem ad modum autem oboedire et parere voluntati architecti aer, ignis, aqua, terra potuerunt; unde vero ortae illae quinque formae, ex quibus reliqua formantur, apte cadentes ad animum afficiendum pariendosque sensus? Longum est ad omnia, quae talia sunt, ut optata magis quam inventa videantur.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book I, section 19
De Natura Deorum – On the Nature of the Gods (45 BC)

God, World, Sense, Water

“For a song I was bought
Now I lie when I talk
With a careful eye on the cue card.
Onto a stage I was pushed,
With my sorrow well rehearsed.
So give me all your pity and your money, now (all of it).”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

False Advertising
Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

Money, Lie

“Neo-Impressionist method is an attempt is made to achieve the richness of the sunlight spectrum with all its tones. An orange that blends with yellow and red, a violet that tends toward red and blue, a green between blue and yellow are, with white the sole elements. Through mixture (in the eye of the observer) of these pure colours, whose relationship can be varied at will, from the most brilliant to the greyish. Every brush stroke that is taken from the palette remains pure on the canvas.”

Paul Signac (1863–1935) French painter

From Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, 1899

“e as you, but he couldn’t see me, because I was dark and Indian-looking and didn’t have blue eyes like him. Your mother and me, we are not going to forget you and your sisters like my father forgot me. I swear it!”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Sister, Forgetting

“Young Schopenhauer, a zealous and thorough-going Kantian, tried to explain that light would cease to exist along with the seeing eye. "What!" he said, according to Schopenhauer's own report, "looking at him with his Jove-like eyes,"—"You should rather say that you would not exist if the light could not see you?"”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

As quoted by Friedrich Jodl, "Goethe and Kant," The Monist (1901) f. , ed. Paul Carus, Vol. 11, p. 264 https://books.google.com/books?id=gnQKAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA264. As translated from Professor Jodl's MS. by W. H. Carruth, of the University of Kansas.

Light

“In the twinkling of an eye I found myself without an office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix.”

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

"Election Memories", The Strand Magazine (September 1931).
Reproduced in Thoughts and Adventures, 1932.
The 1930s

“No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.”

David Livingstone (1813–1873) Scottish explorer and missionary

Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1039/1039-h/1039-h.htm

Love, Beauty, Angels, Imagination

“For me, poetry is the colour of Elizabeth Taylor's eyes, or the pauses in Pinter's plays - only the pauses, not the words.”

Roger Lewis (1960) Welsh academic and biographer

Evening Standard, Mon 31 Oct 2011, p16

““Actually, the answer’s quite simple.” Two red eyes floated in the mist.
“Really? Tell me. Why does God allow evil?”
The red eyes vanished, leaving only the lantern and the night. “Because power corrupts,” said Wyvern’s disembodied voice. “And absolute power corrupts absolutely.””

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 4 (p. 85)

God, Evil, Night

“Her position before was sheltered from the light: now, I had a distinct view of her whole figure and countenance. She was slender, and apparently scarcely past girlhood: an admirable form, and the most exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding: small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging loose on her delicate neck; and eyes — had they been agreeable in expression, they would have been irresistible.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Mr. Lockwood on Catherine Linton (Ch. II).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Pleasure, Light, Past

“Toronto is already in the toils of Christmas, and from several windows the hollow Ho Ho! of a mechanical Santa Claus may be heard. Children watch these creatures with hard, calculating eyes, wondering if the old man is really crazy, or only pretending to be, like Hamlet…”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

Children, Christmas

“Light like the wan blue flames that wave
Their death-torch o'er the murderer's grave;
And flickering shapes beset the way,
Watching in gloom to seize their prey,
Most terrible, for that the eye
Wander'd in dim uncertainty;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Golden Violet - The Broken Spell
The Golden Violet (1827)

Death, Way, Light

“Miss Frobisher smiles, with little cause that I know of. If Jesus of Nazareth had had before him the example of Miss Frobisher getting through the Latin degree papers of the London University Examinations Board he wouldn’t have had to fall back on camels and the eyes of needles, and Miss Frobisher’s name would be a delightful surprise to encounter in Matthew, Chapter 19; as would, even more surprisingly, the London University Examinations Board. Your name is not Miss Frobisher? What is your name? Miss Burton. I’m very sorry. I stand corrected. If Jesus of Nazareth had had before him the example of Miss Burton getting through the… Oh, dear, I hope it is not I who have made you cry.”

Tom Stoppard The Invention of Love

Housman, Act I.
The Invention of Love (1997)

Smile, Hope, Universe, Cry

“The deaf eye sees what is invisible to the hearing eye.”

Emilio Insolera (1979) Actor and film producer

Source: As quoted in https://twitter.com/emilioinsolera/status/725116275349950465(April 26, 2016)

“Process-chart notes and information should be collected and set down in sketch form by a highly intelligent man, preferably with an engineering training and experience, but who need not necessarily have been previously familiar with the actual details of the processes. In fact, the unbiased eye of an intelligent and experienced process-chart maker usually brings better results than does the study of a less keen man with more special information regarding present practices of the processes. The mere act of investigating sufficiently to make the notes in good enough condition for the draftsman to copy invariably results in many ideas and suggestions for improvement, and all of these suggestions, good and bad, should be retained and filed together with the description of the process chart. These suggestions and proposed improvements must be later explained to others, such as boards of directors, managers and foremen, and for best results also to certain workmen and clerks who have special craft or process knowledge. To overcome the obstacles due to habit, worship of tradition and prejudice, the more intelligence shown by the process-chart recorder, the sooner hearty cooperation of all concerned will be secured. Anyone can make this form of process chart with no previous experience in making such charts, but the more experience one has in making them, the more certain standard combinations of operations, inspection and transporting can be transferred bodily to advantage to the charts of proposed processes.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

Source: Process charts (1921), p. 5-6.

Intelligence, Idea, Knowledge, Study

“I was born ambitious, I suppose I shall die ambitious. I can no more change it than the colour of my eyes.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Russell Harty Plus, ITV (1973), excerpted in "Odd Man Out", BBC TV profile by Michael Cockerell transmitted on 11 November 1995
1970s

Change

“Some devout Christians are among the most fervent advocates of the death penalty, contradicting Jesus Christ and justifying their belief on an erroneous interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures. "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," their most likely response, overlooks the fact that this was promulgated by Moses as a limitation- a prohibition against taking both eyes or all of an offender's teeth in retribution.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Page 82
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)

Death, Penalty, Christ

“If men possessed wisdom, which stands in the same relation to the form of man as the sight to the eye, they would not cause any injury to themselves or to others, for the knowledge of the truth removes hatred and quarrels, and prevents mutual injuries.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.11

Wisdom, Men, Truth, Knowledge

“The things I haven't seen with my own eyes are for me unknown.”

Eugène Fromentin (1820–1876) French painter

Quote of Fromentin, as cited by Sarah Anderson in Between Sea and Sahara: An Orientalist Adventure, Eugène Fromentin, (1859) - in 'Preface'; transl. Blake Robinson; publisher I.B. Tauris 2004, p. 21

“In the opposition proper, both among the liberal conservatives and among the Populares, the storms of revution had made fearful havoc…. In the 'democractic' party, among the rising youth, Gaius Julius Caesar, who was twenty-four years of age (born 12 July 102 B. C.) drew towards him the eyes of friend and foe. His relationship with Marius and Cinna (his father's sister had been the wife of Marius, he himself had married Cinna's daughter); the courageous refusal of the youth who had scrace outgrown the age of boyhood to send a divorce to his young wife cornelia at the biddining of the Dictator, as P(ompeius had in the like case done; his bold persistence in the priesthood conferred upon him by Marius, but revoked by Sulla; his wanderings during the proscription with which he was threatened, and which was with difficulty”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 1

Youth, Age, Fear, Courage

“!-- I come from the Arts Lab. Most of the writing I used to do was used for performance, so consequently I learnt that when you are reading a poem it has to read properly, which is to do with syllables and stresses. What takes me the longest with my fine writing, like say Voice of the Fire, is reading it through and finding the bits where it clunks, where it’s one syllable too long, and once you find that rhythm – the reader probably won’t be aware of it, consciously, but there is a tidal wave embedded in the prose that the reader is responding to. In the last chapter of Voice in the Fire, where it is actually me talking in my own voice, I don’t use the word ‘I’ or ‘me’ or ‘mine’. I don’t know why – perhaps I had been reading that Private Eye column where it is all ‘I’ ‘I’ ‘I’ and started to feel a bit self-conscious about it – but --> I thought if I can still be the central voice but without having an ‘I’ there, and by not having it there, it makes it easier for the reader to slip into the consciousness of the narrator. If you remove the letter ‘I’ it becomes a universal I. Everybody is the author walking down those streets while they are in the prose.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)

Art, Feeling, Universe, Reading

““The Void Which Binds is touched by all of us who have wept with happiness, bidden a lover good-bye, been exalted with orgasm, stood over the grave of a loved one, or watched our baby open his or her eyes for the first time.”
Aenea is looking at me as she speaks, and I feel the gooseflesh rise along my arms.
“The Void Which Binds is always under and above the surface of our thoughts and senses,” she continues, invisible but as present as the breathing of our beloved next to us in the night. Its actual but unaccessible presence in our universe is one of the prime causes for our species elaborating myth and religion, for our stubborn, blind belief in extrasensory powers, in telepathy and precognition, in demons and demigods and resurrection and reincarnation and ghosts and messiahs and so many other categories of almost-but-not-quite satisfying bullshit.””

Dan Simmons book The Rise of Endymion

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 20 (p. 400)

Love, Religion, Feeling, Lovers

“I get up, go out, and everything is changed. The blood drains from my head, the noise of things bursting, merging, avoiding one another, assails me on all sides, my eyes search in vain for two things alike, each pinpoint of skin screams a different message, I drown in the spray of phenomena.”

Samuel Beckett book Molloy

Molloy (1951)

Search, Change

“I felt so good, like anything was possible.
I hit cruise control and rubbed my eyes.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Runnin' Down a Dream
Lyrics, Full Moon Fever (1989)

“Like a marble statue placed,
Looking o'er the watery waste,
With its white fixed gaze;
There the Goddess sits, her eye
Raised to the unpitying sky;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

“I knew nothing when I first met him. He taught me to see things through his eyes. Dalí was my teacher. He let me use his brushes, his paint and his canvas, so that I could play around while he was painting for hours and hours in the same studio. Surrealism was a good school for me. Listening to Dalí talk was better than going to any art school.”

Amanda Lear (1939) singer, lyricist, composer, painter, television presenter, actress, model

http://www.3d-dali.com/centennial-magazine/e-9-muse.htm, Salvador Dali Centennial Magazine – Amanda Lear, 15 June 2004, 3d-dali.com, 15 July 2018

School, Art, Teachers, Painting

“Orpheus' mistake wasn't that he turned and looked back towards Eurydice and Hell, but that he ever thought he could escape. Same with Lot's wife. Averting our eyes does not change the fact that we are marked.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer

Houses Under the Sea (2007)

Hell, Change

“My heart stopped, my breast frozen, my lips and eyes barred. Still in the world, but not of the world. Here, yet already departed.”

Adam Mickiewicz book Dziady

Serce ustało pierś już lodowata, ścięły się usta i oczy zawarły; Na świecie jeszcze, lecz już nie dla świata. Cóż to za człowiek - Umarły <br class="br">Part one. <br class="br">Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) http://www.ap.krakow.pl/nkja/literature/polpoet/mic_fore.htm

World, Heart

“It is only the basest writer who cannot speak of the sea without talking of "raging waves," "remorseless floods," "ravenous billows," etc.; and it is one of the signs of the highest power in a writer to check all such habits of thought, and to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the pure fact, out of which if any feeling comes to him or his reader, he knows it must be a true one.”

John Ruskin book Modern Painters

Volume III, part IV, chapter XII (1856).
Modern Painters (1843-1860)

Feeling, Rage, Sea

“To feminine eyes a man's prestige, or his fame, envelops him in a luminous haze which obscures his faults. The triumphs of an aviator, an actor, a football player, an orator are often responsible for the beginning of a love affair.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving

Love, Football

“The Way to ſee by Faith is to ſhut the Eye of Reaſon: The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle.”

Benjamin Franklin book Poor Richard's Almanack

"July. VII Month.", Poor Richard's Almanack (1758), Philadelphia: B. Frankin and D. Hall
Poor Richard's Almanack

Faith, Way, Appearance

“What see we here? Forms, nothing more! Forms fill the brightest, strongest eye,
We know not substance; 'mid the shades shadows ourselves we live and die.”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

“I'd stand in front of the mirror and talk to myself until I fell asleep, you know. I'd interview myself as women with problems, you know, like, women in documentaries who had three kids and chainsmoked and husbands in prison that hit them! I'd be in the mirror going, [lowers voice] yeah well, you know, it's not easy since Derrin went into prison. My eyes aren't black anymore, but the twins, Tilly and Wayne, you know, they don't stop crying. SHUT UP TILLY SHUT UP TILLY!”

Tracey Ullman (1959) English-born actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, director, author and businesswoman

Tracey Ullman: Live and Exposed (2005)

Women, Problem, Cry

“My eyes close and uncomprehendingly see the dream in the infinite space that stretches away, elusive, before me.”

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist

Original: Mes yeux se ferment pour voir sans comprendre le rêve dans l'espace infini qui fuit devant moi.
Source: 1890s - 1910s, The Writings of a Savage (1996), pp. 184-185: Letter to André Fontainas, March 1899

Dreams

“My words like eyes that flinch from light, refuse
And shut upon obscurity; my acts
Cast to their opposites by impatient violence
Break up the sequent path; they fly
On a circumference to avoid the centre.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"Darkness And Light"
The Still Centre (1939)

Light, Flying

“If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, it's not of the Father, it's of the world. The world passeth away. It's all going to be gone. It's all going to burn. Do you know how much Howard Hughes left behind when he died? All of it, every penny. You're going to do the very same thing. Don't invest your life in things that are going to burn. The last thing we need to do, almost last thing, listen for the trumpet.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

Love, Life, World

“It is the cold glitter of the attacker's eye not the point of the questing bayonet that breaks the line.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Quoted in How We Are Changed by War: A Study of Letters and Diaries from Colonial Conflicts to Operation Iraqi Freedom (2010) http://books.google.com/books?id=h-Fens34378C&pg=PA70 by D.C. Gill, p. 70

“In your eyes,
The light, the heat.
In your eyes,
I am complete.
In your eyes,
I see the doorway to a thousand churches.
In your eyes,
The resolution of all the fruitless searches.In your eyes,
I see the light and the heat.
In your eyes,
Oh, I want to be that complete.
I want to touch the light, the heat I see in your eyes.”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

In Your Eyes
Song lyrics, So (1986)

Light

“But whoever thinks that beauty is something he can enjoy exclusively for himself just by abandoning other people and closing his eyes to the human life of which he is part—he is not the friend of beauty. He ends up either as Pétur Þríhross's poet, or his secretary. He who doesn't fight every day of his life to the last breath against the representatives of evil, against the living images of evil who rule Sviðinsvík—he blasphemes by taking the word beauty into his mouth.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Örn Úlfar
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

Parting, Evil, Thinking, Beauty

“Tis strange with how much power and pride
The softness is of love allied;
How much of power to force the breast
To be in outward show at rest,—
How much of pride that never eye
May look upon its agony!
Ah! little will the lip reveal
Of all the burning heart can feel.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Canto IV
The Troubadour (1825)

Love, Feeling, Heart

“Cultural History suggests that men have always had a greater inclination to close their eyes than to open them, to believe comforting lies rather than disconcerting truths. ** The Rules of Chaos (1969), p. 113”

Stephen Vizinczey (1933) Hungarian-Canadian writer

Men, Truth, History

“Shut your eyes, there are bluer skies
For you're embraced in my heart”

Zooey Deschanel (1980) American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter

"If You Can't Sleep".
Volume Two (2010)

Heart

“We are observing ourselves being observed by the painter, and made visible to his eyes by the same light that enables us to see him. And just as we are about to apprehend ourselves, transcribed by his hand as though in a mirror, we find that we can in fact apprehend nothing of that mirror but its lusterless back. The other side of a psyche.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Las Menias
The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (1970)

Light

“"It's twilight," Edward murmured. […] "It's the safest time of day for us," he said, answering the unspoken question in my eyes. "The easiest time. But also the saddest, in a way … the end of another day, the return of the night. Darkness is so predictable, don't you think?" He smiled wistfully.
"I like the night. Without the dark, we'd never see the stars."”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, pp. 232-233
Twilight series, Twilight (2005)

Smile, Way, Star, Question

“The struggle begins, to harmonize canvas, eye, hand, forms. New apparitions stalk the earth.”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

Karel Appel's excerpt', c. 1953

“From earliest childhood the boy was accustomed to feel that, for him, life was double. Winter and summer, town and country, law and liberty, were hostile, and the man who pretended they were not, was in his eyes a schoolmaster — that is, a man employed to tell lies to little boys.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Life, Hostility, Law, Feeling

“I remember a tutor who told me that all the world's hunters have eyes that faced front: lions, hawks, wolves, men … He said man was no different from the tiger. We are nature's killers, and we have great appetites for it … Listen, Rayvan, the beast is in all of us. We do our best in life, but often we are mean, or petty, or needlessly cruel. We don't mean to be, but that's the way we are.”

David Gemmell book The King Beyond the Gate

Source: Drenai series, The King Beyond the Gate, Ch. 14

Life, Men, World, Way

“It is well known that I have not always seen eye to eye with Nigel, but I salute his very significant achievements. UKIP has a massive continuing role to play in British politics and, under a new leader, we will reach out to an even wider constituency. Nigel Farage deserves the thanks of every Brexiteer. There would have been no referendum without him. He is a controversial figure but, like him or loathe him, he is a dynamic force and one of the great figures in British politics today. He clearly has much still to offer in the continuing campaign for an independent Britain. He should be given a peerage.”

Neil Hamilton (politician)

Statement on the resignation of Nigel Farage http://www.neilhamiltonukip.com/blog/statement-on-the-resignation-of-nigel-farage (July 4, 2016)

“It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man, to contemplate what it would be like without man, as it was in a great part of its long history and as it is in a great majority of places. When this objective view is finally attained, and the mystery and majesty of matter are fully appreciated, to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, to view life as part of this universal mystery of greatest depth, is to sense an experience which is very rare, and very exciting. It usually ends in laughter and a delight in the futility of trying to understand what this atom in the universe is, this thing — atoms with curiosity — that looks at itself and wonders why it wonders. Well, these scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.”

Richard Feynman book The Meaning of It All

lecture II: "The Uncertainty of Values"
The Meaning of It All (1999)

Life, God, History, Understanding

“On the day that you were born
The angels got together
And decided to create a dream come true
So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold
And starlight in your eyes of blue.”

Hal David (1921–2012) American lyricist

Song (They Long to be) Close to You

Dreams, Angels

“And today many artists like myself refuse to be involved in some ideas. In painting – for me – no fooling-the-eye, no window-hole-in-the wall, no illusions, no representations, no associations, no distortions, no paint-caricaturing, no dream pictures of dripping, no delirium trimmings, no sadism or slashing, no therapy, no kicking-the-effigy, no clowning, no acrobatics, no heroics, no self-pity, no guilt.... no abstraction of everything, no nonsense, no involvements, no confusing painting with everything that is no painting.”

Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) American painter

1940 - 1955
Source: Contemporary American Painting, University of Illinois, Urbana 1952, p. 226-227

Dreams, Fools, Idea, Painting

“Well, my mother and I were discussing how my father left when I was nine months old, and then she remarried and divorced again. I feel like I had blocked out that part of my childhood. I went back with her trying to piece it all back together. I was looking at it through 46 year-old eyes and thinking it was basically ten years of bullshit.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Erika Jayne interview to Iris Covet Book https://iriscovetbook.com/exclusive-erika-jayne/ (2018)

Feeling, Thinking, Parting, Childhood

“University professors, restricted in this way, are quite happy about the matter, for their real concern is to earn with credit an honest livelihood for themselves and also for their wives and children and moreover to enjoy a certain prestige in the eyes of the public. On the other hand, the deeply stirred mind of the real philosopher, whose whole concern is to look for the key to our existence, as mysterious as it is precarious, is regarded by them as something mythological, if indeed the man so affected does not even appear to them to be obsessed by a monomania, should he ever be met with among them. For that a man could really be in dead earnest about philosophy does not as a rule occur to anyone, least of all to a lecturer thereon; just as the most sceptical Christian is usually the Pope. It has, therefore, been one of the rarest events for a genuine philosopher to be at the same time a lecturer in philosophy.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Inzwischen bleiben die solchermaaßen beschränkten Universitätsphilosophie bei der Sache ganz wohlgemuth; weil ihr eigentlicher Ernst darin liegt, mit Ehren ein redliches Auskommen für sich, nebst Weib und Kind, zu erwerben, auch ein gewisses Ansehn vor den Leuten zu genießen; hingegen das tiefbewegte Gemüth eines wirklichen Philosophen, dessen ganzer und großer Ernst im Aufsuchen eines Schlüssels zu unserm, so rätselhaften wie mißlichen Daseyn liegt, von ihnen zu den mythologischen Wesen gezählt wird; wenn nicht etwa» gar der damit Behaftete, sollte er ihnen je vorkommen, ihnen als von Monomanie besessen erscheint. Denn daß es mit der Philosophie so recht eigentlicher, bitterer Ernst seyn könne, läßt wohl, in der Regel, kein Mensch sich weniger träumen, als ein Docent derselben; gleichwie der ungläubigste Christ der Papst zu seyn pflegt. Daher gehört es denn auch zu den seltensten Fällen, daß ein wirklicher Philosoph zugleich ein Docent der Philosophie gewesen wäre.
Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 153, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 141
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), On Philosophy in the Universities

Children, Way, Universe, Appearance

“All who wait upon the Lord shall rise higher and higher upon the mighty pinions of strong devotion, and with the unblinking eye of faith, into the regions of heavenly-mindedness; and shall approach nearer and nearer to God, the Sun of our spiritual day.”

John Angell James (1785–1859) British abolitionist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 192.

God, Faith, Strong, Waiting

Quotes about eye page 35

Quotes about eye
page 35