Quotes about first (10000 quotes, page 6)

“Starbucks says they are going to start putting religious quotes on cups. The very first one will say, "Jesus! This cup is expensive!”

Conan O'Brien (1963) American television show host and comedian

Quotes , Funny

“Poetry is a way of looking at the world for the first time.”

W.S. Merwin (1927–2019) American poet

World , Way , Time

“I don't want unnecessary violence, sergeant," said Blouse.
"Right you are, sir!" said the sergeant. "Carborundum! First man comes through that door runnin', I want him nailed to the wall!" He caught the lieutenant's eye, and added: "But not too hard!”

Terry Pratchett book Monstrous Regiment

Source: Monstrous Regiment

“If you want to be a doormat you have to lay yourself down first.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Don't." Clary raised a warning hand. "I'm not really in the mood right now."
"That's got to be the first time a girl's ever said that to me," Jace mused.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Girl , Mood , Time

“When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Relationship , Time

“Everywhere's been where it is ever since it was first put there. It's called geography.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

“When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to hear '27 months.' 'He's two' will do just fine. He's not a cheese. And I didn't really care in the first place.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

“Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

As quoted in "An Interview with Mark Twain" http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/seatosea/chapter37.html, From Sea to Sea: Letters of Travel (1899) by Rudyard Kipling, Ch. 37, p. 180
Commonly paraphrased as: "First get your facts, then you can distort them at your leisure."

“There is never a second opportunity to make a first impression.”

Andrzej Sapkowski book Sword of Destiny

Source: Sword of Destiny

“The first thing every mage should learn is that magic makes fools of us. Now you may call yourself a mage. You have learned the most important lesson.”

Tamora Pierce book Melting Stones

Source: Melting Stones

Fools , Learning

“One of the highlights of the first Good Omens tour was Neil and I walking through New York singing Shoehorn with Teeth. Well, we'd had a good breakfast. And you don't get mugged, either.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Singing

“If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.” - Chloe Traeger”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Head Over Heels

“There's only one degree of freshness — the first, which makes it also the last”

Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) Russian author primarily known for his novel "Master and Margarita"

“In our country we call this type of mother love teng ai. My son has told me that in men's writing it is composed of two characters. The first means pain; the second means love. That is a mother's love.”

Lisa See book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Love , Men , Pain , Country

“So my last image was as the first. A sleeping youth cloaked in light, who opened his eyes with a smile of recognition for someone who had never been a stranger.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

Youth , Smile , Sleep , Light

“To say "I love you" one must know first how to say the "I".”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Love

“For the first half of your life each minute feels like a year, but for the second half, each year feels like a minute.”

Melanie Gideon (1964)

Source: Wife 22

Life , Feeling

“Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.”

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

Source: What I Believe

Science

“I would love to be erased from our association with Pearl Jam or the Nymphs and other first time offenders.”

Kurt Cobain book Journals

Source: Journals

Love , Time

“Lord Illingworth: Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Act II
A Woman of No Importance (1893)

“Every work of art is aggressive, Isabella. And every artist's life is a small war or a large one, beginning with oneself and one's limitations. To achieve anything you must first have ambition and then talent, knowledge, and finally the opportunity.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Life , War , Art , Knowledge

“The first and fundamental law of Nature, which is, to seek peace and follow it.”

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English philosopher, born 1588

Peace , Law , Nature

“My house completed, and tried and not found wanting by a first Cape Cod year, I went there to spend a fortnight in September. The fortnight ending, I lingered on, and as the year lengthened into autumn, the beauty and mystery of this earth and outer sea so possessed and held me that I could not go. The world to-day is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot. In my world of beach and dunes these elemental presences lived and had their being, and under their arch there moved an incomparable pageant of nature and the year.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

World , Beauty , Autumn , Nature

“A baseball bat could not have hit me harder than that smile did. I was sixteen years old. In that time, how many thousands of smiles had been aimed at me? so why did this one feel like the first?”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

Smile , Feeling , Time

“Conscience is but a word that cowards use, devised at first to keep the strong in awe”

William Shakespeare Richard III

Source: Richard III

Strong

“When we were kids we always used to say, ‘Okay, whoever dies first, get a message through.’
When John died, I thought, ‘Well, maybe we’ll get a message,’ because I know he knew the deal. I haven’t had a message from John.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

“Sanguine chuckled. "I like you, boy. You got optimism in these bones. I like you so much that I ain't gonna tell you what I did to poor old Jethro, the first Jethro, may he rest in peace, may they someday find his head.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Maleficent Seven: From the World of Skulduggery Pleasant

Peace , Boy , Optimism

“There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I'd like to know. I wish someone could tell me.”

Raymond Carver book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Source: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981)

Love , Life , Hate , Time

“All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Thinking , Universe

“To have humanism we must first be convinced of our humanity. As we move further into decadence this becomes more difficult.”

Thomas Pynchon book V.

Source: V.

“Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Men , Girl , Thinking

“Ours was the first nation to be founded on the idea that all are created equal and all deserve equal treatment under the law. Despite our missteps and shortcomings, these ideals still inspire hope among the oppressed and give us pride in being Americans.”

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

Law , Hope , Idea

“The idea occurred to him when he was twenty. At first it was only a vague idea, a question looming — what should I do? — with an answer taking shape: nothing.”

Georges Perec (1936–1982) French writer

Idea , Question

“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”

Frédéric Bastiat book The Law

Source: The Law (1850)
Context: Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

Life , Men , Law

“Ninety-nine percent of the world's lovers are not with their first choice. That's what makes the jukebox play.”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

World , Lovers

“To be around someone whose self-confidence is more than what our first glance led us to expect is seductive.”

Abraham Verghese book Cutting for Stone

Source: Cutting for Stone

Confidence , Self-confidence

“Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Pleasure , Memory

“When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Women , Men

“Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe:
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
March on, join bravely, let us to't pell-mell;
If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.”

William Shakespeare Richard III

Source: Richard III

Law , Hell , Strong

“I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Books , Time

“See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Thinking , Forgetting

“The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.”

Ben Okri (1959) Nigerian writer

Source: Astonishing the Gods

Law , Suffering , Time

“I've now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Jack, Act III
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Life , Time

“I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I am for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”

Malcolm X book The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Variant: I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda… I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.
Source: The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Source: The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), p. 400
Context: I've had enough of someone else's propaganda. I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I am for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.

Truth , Justice

“The hardest thing in the world is believing someone can change. It's always easier to go along with the way things are than to admit that you might have been wrong in the first place.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

World , Way , Change

“He doesn't need my help coming up with pranks. He's got too many ideas of his own.
- Daja referring to Briar in their first year at Discipline cottage”

Tamora Pierce Tris's Book

Source: Tris's Book

Idea , Help

“Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject — the actual enemy is the unknown.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 5

“Philosophy is written in this grand book, which stands continually open before our eyes (I say the 'Universe'), but can not be understood without first learning to comprehend the language and know the characters as it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures, without which it is impossible to humanly understand a word; without these one is wandering in a dark labyrinth.”

Galileo Galilei book The Assayer

From Italian: La filosofia è scritta in questo grandissimo libro, che continuamente ci sta aperto innanzi agli occhi (io dico l'Universo), ma non si può intendere, se prima non il sapere a intender la lingua, e conoscer i caratteri ne quali è scritto. Egli è scritto in lingua matematica, e i caratteri son triangoli, cerchi ed altre figure geometriche, senza i quali mezzi è impossibile intenderne umanamente parola; senza questi è un aggirarsi vanamente per un oscuro labirinto.
Other translations:
Philosophy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes — I mean the universe — but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written. This book is written in the mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.
The Assayer (1623), as translated by Thomas Salusbury (1661), p. 178, as quoted in The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (2003) by Edwin Arthur Burtt, p. 75.
Philosophy is written in this grand book — I mean the universe — which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth.
As translated in The Philosophy of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1966) by Richard Henry Popkin, p. 65
Il Saggiatore (1623)
Source: Galilei, Galileo. Il Saggiatore: Nel Quale Con Bilancia Efquifita E Giufta Si Ponderano Le Cofe Contenute Nellalibra Astronomica E Filosofica Di Lotario Sarsi Sigensano, Scritto in Forma Di Lettera All'Illustr. Et Rever. Mons. D. Virginio Cesarini. In Roma: G. Mascardi, 1623. Google Play. Google. Web. 22 Dec. 2015. <https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=-U0ZAAAAYAAJ>.

Books , Mathematics , Understanding , Learning

“In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Love , Feeling

“If at first you don't succeed, You're not an Alpha”

Lisi Harrison (1970) Canadian writer

Source: Alphas

“Because the truth is, I do love him. I've loved him without ceasing. I've loved him since that very first day. I loved him even when I swore I didn't. I can't help it. I just do.”

Alyson Nöel book Evermore

Source: Evermore

Love , Truth , Help

“Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, since things come first and names afterwards.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

Variant translation: Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, because things came first, and their names subsequently.
Other quotes
Source: As quoted in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957) by Stillman Drake, p. 92

“Thus went my first Court Day.
I think I'm going to puke.”

Tamora Pierce book Terrier

Source: Terrier

Thinking

“If God exists, not seeking God must be the gravest error imaginable. If one decides to sincerely seek for God and doesn't find God, the lost effort is negligible in comparison to what is at risk in not seeking God in the first place.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

God , Error , Imagination , Effort

“Freedom in education has many aspects. There is first of all freedom to learn or not to learn. Then there is freedom as to what to learn. And in later education there is freedom of opinion.”

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

Source: Sceptical Essays

Education , Freedom , Learning

“The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

“The thing about witchcraft," said Mistress Weatherwax, "is that it's not like school at all. First you get the test, and then afterward you spend years findin' out how you passed it. It's a bit like life in that respect”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

Life , School

“The first time you see something that you have never seen before, you almost always know right away if you should eat it or run away from it.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Time

“No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Travel , Light , Waiting

“At sixteen, Sabina took moon baths, first of all, because everyone else took sun baths, and second, she admitted, because she had been told it was dangerous.”

Anaïs Nin book A Spy in the House of Love

Source: A Spy in the House of Love

Sun

“I've always loved the first day of school better than the last day of school. Firsts are best because they are beginnings.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Love , School

“Remorse.-- Never yield to remorse, but at once tell yourself: remorse would simply mean adding to the first act of stupidity a second.”

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

Stupidity

“I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live. What exactly made it worth it?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Context: I felt that night, on the stage, incredibly close to everything in the universe, but also extremely alone. I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live. What exactly made it worth it? What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What's so great about feeling and dreaming? (p. 145)

Life , Time

“First principle: one must need to be strong — otherwise one will never become strong. — Those large hothouses [Treibhäuser] for the strong, for the strongest kind of human being that has ever been, the aristocratic commonwealths of the type of Rome or Venice, understood freedom exactly in the sense in which I understand the word freedom: as something one has and does not have, something one wants, something one conquers…”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Twilight of the Idols

Twilight of the Idols (1888)

Understanding , Sense , Freedom , Strong

“These rules are of use only in correcting the figures; since every man makes some mistakes in his first compositions and he who knows them not, cannot amend them. But you, knowing your errors, will correct your works and where you find mistakes amend them, and remember never to fall into them again. But if you try to apply these rules in composition you will never make an end, and will produce confusion in your works.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Error

“Last name Ever/ First name Greatest/ Like a sprained ankle boy, I aint nothing to play with”

Drake (1986) Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor

"Forever" featuring Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Eminem
2000s

Boy

“When I got my first commission after Habitat, for a few weeks I couldn't draw.”

Moshe Safdie (1938) Israeli-Canadian architect

CBC television interview, used for many years in CBC Montreal's sign-on montage

Drawing

“Italian fascism was the immediate outgrowth of the betrayal by the reformists of the uprising of the Italian proletariat. From the time the [first world] war ended, there was an upward trend in the revolutionary movement in Italy, and in September 1920 it resulted in the seizure of factories and industries by the workers. The dictatorship of the proletariat was an actual fact; all that was lacking was to organize it and draw from it all the necessary conclusions. The social democracy took fright and sprang back. After its bold and heroic exertions, the proletariat was left facing the void. The disruption of the revolutionary movement became the most important factor in the growth of fascism. In September, the revolutionary advance came to a standstill; and November already witnessed the first major demonstration of the fascists”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

the seizure of Bologna
Source: Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It (1944), Ch. 2

War , World , Democracy , Betrayal

“Everything in life that deviates from the straight and, so to speak, normal line, makes people first curious and then indignant.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

Life , People

“When you are no more, only then for the first time will you be.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

Tantra: the Supreme Understanding (1984)

Time

“So what mediates between the domains of order and chaos? Consciousness, as far as I can tell. It's the hero, that's one way of thinking about it. It's the Logos, that's another way of thinking about it. It's the word that generates order out of chaos at the beginning of time. It's the consciousness that's interacting with the matter of the world produces Being. That's basically it. That's basically you, for all intents and purposes. So how do we do that? Well, the unconscious does it to some degree, because it's with our fantasy that we first meet the unknown.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

World , Way , Thinking , Time

“After the failure of his first experimental explorations around Vicksburg, a committee of abolition war managers waited upon the President and demanded the General’s removal, on the false charge that he was a whiskey drinker, and little better than a common drunkard. “Ah!” exclaimed Honest Old Abe, “you surprise me, gentlemen. But can you tell me where he gets his whiskey?” “We cannot, Mr. President. But why do you desire to know?” “Because, if I can only find out, I will send a barrel of this wonderful whiskey to every general in the army.””

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

Statement first attributed in the New York Herald, (September 18, 1863) in response to allegations his most successful general drank too much; as quoted in Wit and Wisdom of the American Presidents: A Book of Quotations (2000) by Joslyn T. Pine, p. 26.
When some one charged Gen. Grant, in the President’s hearing, with drinking too much liquor, Mr. Lincoln, recalling Gen. Grant’s successes, said that if he could find out what brand of whisky Grant drank, he would send a barrel of it to all the other commanders.
The New York Times, October 30, 1863
Major Eckert asked Mr. Lincoln if the story of his interview with the complainant against General Grant was true. The story was: a growler called on the President and complained bitterly of General Grant’s drunkenness. The President inquired very solicitously, if the man could tell him where the General got his liquor. The man really was very sorry but couldn’t say where he did get it. The President replied that he would like very much to find out so he could get a quantity of it and send a barrel to all his Major Generals. Mr. Lincoln said he had heard the story before and it would be very good if he had said it, but he did not, and he supposed it was charged to him to give it currency. He then said the original of this story was in King George’s time. Bitter complaints were made to the King against his General Wolfe in which it was charged that he was mad. “Well,” said the King, “I wish he would bite some of my other Generals then.
Authenticity of quote first refuted in “The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States” by William R. Plum, (1882).
Disputed

War , Failure , Waiting , Falseness

“The first condition of unity is a subjective principle; and this principle in the Positive system is the subordination of the intellect to the heart: Without this the unity that we seek can never be placed on a permanent basis, whether individually or collectively. It is essential to have some influence sufficiently powerful to produce convergence amid the heterogeneous and often antagonistic tendencies of so complex an organism as ours.”

Auguste Comte (1798–1857) French philosopher

Source: A General View of Positivism (1848, 1856), p. 24

Heart

“True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 15 (March 17, 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Friendship , Nature , Happiness

“I want to hang a map of the world in my house, and then I’m gonna put pins into all the locations that I’ve traveled to. But first I’m gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map, so it won’t fall down.”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Mitch All Together (2003)

World , Travel , Housing

“John is very sweet. He always mentions me in all his interviews; saying that he’s really fond of me. He says that he thinks of me as one of his favourite actors- its very nice. I’ve seen John’s growth from his first film to Baabul and beyond. I think he’s grown as an actor and of course he has become one of the most sought after stars today. I see girl fans who’re crazy about him. I feel good about that and I always believe that good people get good things in life - John is one of them Rani quotes.”

Rani Mukerji (1978) Indian film actress

http://ranimukherji.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=interviews&action=display&thread=407.
Rani On Celebrities

Life , People , Feeling , Quotes

“I'm guided by a signal in the heavens
I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.”

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

"First We Take Manhattan"
I'm Your Man (1988)

Beauty

“When a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.”

J. M. Barrie book Peter Pan

Source: Peter and Wendy (1911), Ch. 17

Girl , Boy , Tree , Time

“Our admiration for natural beauty /…/ cares not to understand either the physical theories which explain what it admires, or the psychological theories which explain its admiration. It does not deny the truth of the first, nor (within due limits) the sufficiency of the second. But it requires more. It feels itself belittled unless conscious purpose can be found somewhere in its pedigree. Physics and psycho-physics, by themselves, suffice not. It longs to regard beauty as a revelation—a revelation from spirit to spirit, not from one kind of atomic agitation to the "psychic" accompaniment of another. On this condition only can its highest values be maintained.'”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Theism and humanism

Truth , Beauty , Feeling , Understanding

“It is not a reproach but a compliment to learning, to say, that great scholars are less fit for business; since the truth is, business is so much a lower thing than learning, that a man used to the last cannot easily bring his stomach down to the first.”

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician

Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Moral Thoughts and Reflections

Truth , Business , Learning

“The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps — does anybody know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumor that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

61
Gitanjali http://www.spiritualbee.com/gitanjali-poems-of-tagore/ (1912)

Smile , Dreams , Autumn , Sleep

“The shaping of form is weak in energy in comparison with the determining of form. The final consequence of both ways of forming is form. From the ways to the end. From activity to the accomplished. From the genuinely living thing to the objective thing. In the beginning the male speciality, the energetic stimulus. Then the fleshly growth of the egg. Or: first the bright flash of lightning, then the raining cloud. When is the spirit at its purest? In the beginning. Here, work that becomes (dual). There, work that is.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Diary entry (1913), # 944; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee - Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev27.html
1911 - 1914

Way

“With trembling hands, I made a tiny breach in the upper left hand corner… widening the hole a little, I inserted the candle and peered in… at first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle to flicker. Presently, details of the room emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues and gold – everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment – an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by – I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand in suspense any longer, inquired anxiously "Can you see anything?", it was all I could do to get out the words "Yes, wonderful things".”

Howard Carter (1874–1939) British egyptologist

Tutankhamen and the Glint of Gold http://www.fathom.com/feature/190166/index.html
Diary, 26 November 1922.

Animals

“In obedience to the feeling of reality, we shall insist that, in the analysis of propositions, nothing "unreal" is to be admitted. But, after all, if there is nothing unreal, how, it may be asked, could we admit anything unreal? The reply is that, in dealing with propositions, we are dealing in the first instance with symbols, and if we attribute significance to groups of symbols which have no significance, we shall fall into the error of admitting unrealities, in the only sense in which this is possible, namely, as objects described.”

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

Source: 1910s, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919), Ch. 16: Descriptions

Error , Feeling , Reality , Sense

“Defense is the first act of war.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Your Inner Awakening

War

“Adam's temperament was the first command the Deity ever issued to a human being on this planet. And it was the only command Adam would never be able to disobey. It said, "Be weak, be water, be characterless, be cheaply persuadable." The later command, to let the fruit alone, was certain to be disobeyed. Not by Adam himself, but by his temperament”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

which he did not create and had no authority over.
"The Turning Point of my Life", §3, Harper's Bazar, February 1910, as reprinted in Essays and Sketches of Mark Twain (1995), ed. Stuart Miller, ISBN 1566198798

Water

“What we learn in kindergarten comes up again and again in our lives as long as we live. In far more complex, polysyllabic forms, to be sure. In lectures, encyclopedias, bibles, company rules, courts of law, sermons, and handbooks. Life will examine us continually to see if we have understood and have practiced what we were taught that first year of school.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1986)

Life , School , Law , Learning

“It was not until 1869 that I met him Manet again, but this time, we became friends immediately. From the first meeting, he invited me to join him every evening in a café of the 'Batignolles' where he and his friends would gather to talk at the end of a day spent at their studios. I would meet there, Fantin-Latour and Cézanne, Degas - who arrived shortly afterwards from Italy, the art critic Duranty, Emile Zola who was just starting-off in the literary world and a number of others. I would take Sisley, Bazille and Renoir. There was nothing more interesting than these discussions with their perpetual differences of opinion. Our mind and souls were stimulated... One would always leave, all the better immersed, the will stronger, our thinking more defined and clear.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in Claude Monet par lui-meme – interview by Thiébault-Sisson / translated by Louise McGlone Jacot-Descombes; published in Le Temps newspaper, 26 November 1900
about Édouard Manet, leading artist in Impressionism then, in Paris.
1900 - 1920

World , Art , Soul , Thinking

“I have loved you ever since. I know full well that you are used to hearing women say that they love you. But I am sure that no one else has ever loved you so lavishly, with such doglike fidelity, with such devotion, as I did and do. Nothing can equal the unnoticed love of a child. It is hopeless and subservient; it is patient and passionate; it is something which the covetous love of a grown woman, the love that is unconsciously exacting, can never be. Non but lonely children can cherish such a passion. The others will squander their feelings in companionship, will dissipate them in confidential talks. They have heard and read much of love, and they know that it comes to all. They play with it like a toy; they flaunt it as a boy flaunts his first cigarette. But I had no confidant; I had been neither taught nor warned; I was inexperience and unsuspecting.”

Stefan Zweig book Letter from an Unknown Woman

Letter from an Unknown Woman (1922)

Love , Women , Children , Feeling

“My first near-death experience was an accident, a botched anesthesia during a triple bypass. I had listened to several people on TV talk shows who had gone down the blue tunnel to the Pearly Gates, and even beyond the Pearly Gates, or so they said, and then come back to life again. But I certainly wouldn't have set out on such a risky expedition on purpose, without first having survived one …
To go through the Pearly Gates, no matter how tempting the interviewee on the other side, as I myself discovered the hard way, is to run the risk that crotchety Saint Peter, depending on his mood, may never let you out again. Think of how heartbroken your friends and relatives would be if, by going through the Pearly Gates to talk to Napoleon, say, you in effect committed suicide.”

Kurt Vonnegut book God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)

Life , Death , People , Way

“Beneficence is a duty. He who often practices this, and sees his beneficent purpose succeed, comes at last really to love him whom he has benefited. When, therefore, it is said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," this does not mean, "Thou shalt first of all love, and by means of love (in the next place) do him good"; but: "Do good to thy neighbour, and this beneficence will produce in thee the love of men (as a settled habit of inclination to beneficence)."”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Metaphysical Elements of Ethics (1780). Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, translation available at Philosophy.eserver.org http://philosophy.eserver.org/kant/metaphys-elements-of-ethics.txt. From section "Preliminary Notions of the Susceptibility of the Mind for Notions of Duty Generally", Part C ("Of love to men")

Love , Men

“As I was reading the extract from your paper in the geometric sum and difference… I was struck by the marvelous similarity between your results and those discoveries which I made even as early as 1832…
I conceived the first idea of the geometric sum and difference of two or more lines and also of the geometric product of two or three lines in that year (1832). This idea is in all ways identical to that presented in your paper. But since I was for a long time occupied with entirely different pursuits, I could not develop this idea. It was only in 1839 that I was led back to that idea and pursued this geometrical analysis up to the point where it ought to be applicable to all mechanics. It was possible for me to apply this method of analysis to the theory of tides, and in this I was astounded by the simplicity of the calculations resulting from this method.”

Hermann Grassmann (1809–1877) German polymath, linguist and mathematician

Letter to Saint-Venant (1845) as quoted by Michael J. Crowe, A History of Vector Analysis: The Evolution of the Idea of a Vectorial System (1967)

Way , Idea , Time , Reading

“The first cases to be adjudicated between people on the Day of Judgment will be those of bloodshed [killing and injuring]”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Narrated in Saheeh Muslim, #1678, and Saheeh Al-Bukhari, #6533.
Sunni Hadith

People

“Put the date in full. It is another aggravating thing, when you wish, years afterwards, to arrange a series of letters, to find them dated "Feb. 17", "Aug. 2", without any year to guide you as to which comes first. And never, never, dear Madam (N. B. this remark is addressed to ladies only: no man would ever do such a thing), put "Wednesday", simply, as the date!”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing (1890)

“I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lack an intellectual conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated cities as if he were in a desert. Everybody looks at you with strange eyes and goes right on handling his scales, calling this good and that evil. Nobody even blushes when you intimate that their weights are underweight; nor do people feel outraged; they merely laugh at your doubts. I mean: the great majority of people does not consider it contemptible to believe this or that and to live accordingly, without first having given themselves an account of the final and most certain reasons pro and con, and without even troubling themselves about such reasons afterward: the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this "great majority." But what is goodheartedness, refinement, or genius to me, when the person who has these virtues tolerates slack feelings in his faith and judgments and when he does not account the desire for certainty as his inmost craving and deepest distress--as that which separates the higher human beings from the lower.”

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

Sec. 2
The Gay Science (1882)

Women , Men , People , Faith

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am to talk to you about energy in the future. I will start by telling you why I believe that the energy resources of the past must be supplemented. First of all, these energy resources will run short as we use more and more of the fossil fuels. But I would […] like to mention another reason why we probably have to look for additional fuel supplies. And this, strangely, is the question of contaminating the atmosphere. […. ] Whenever you burn conventional fuel, you create carbon dioxide. […. ] The carbon dioxide is invisible, it is transparent, you can’t smell it, it is not dangerous to health, so why should one worry about it?
Carbon dioxide has a strange property. It transmits visible light but it absorbs the infrared radiation which is emitted from the earth. Its presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect […. ] It has been calculated that a temperature rise corresponding to a 10 per cent increase in carbon dioxide will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York. All the coastal cities would be covered, and since a considerable percentage of the human race lives in coastal regions, I think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe.”

Edward Teller (1908–2003) Hungarian-American nuclear physicist

As quoted in Benjamin Franta, "On its 100th birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959-edward-teller-warned-the-oil-industry-about-global-warming, The Guardian, 1 January 2018.

People , Health , Question , Thinking

“Who fain would sow the fallow field,
And see the growing corn,
Must first remove the useless weeds,
The bramble and the thorn.”
Qui serere ingenuum uolet agrum liberat arua prius fruticibus, falce rubos filicemque resecat, ut noua fruge grauis Ceres eat.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Poem I, lines 1-4; translation by H. R. James
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book III

“Is it not possible that the chimpanzees are responding to some feeling like awe? A feeling generated by the mystery of water; water that seems alive, always rushing past yet never going, always the same yet ever different. Was it perhaps similar feelings of awe that gave rise to the first animistic religions, the worship of the elements and the mysteries of nature over which there was no control? Only when our prehistoric ancestors developed language would it have been possible to discuss such internal feelings and create a shared religion.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Source: Reason for Hope: a Spiritual Journey (2000), p. 189

Religion , Feeling , Nature , Water

“The first deterrence, nuclear deterrence, is presently being superseded by the second deterrence: a type of deterrence based on what I call 'the information bomb' associated with the new weaponry of information and communications technologies. Thus, in the very near future, and I stress this important point, it will no longer be war that is the continuation of politics by other means, it will be what I have dubbed 'the integral accident' that is the continuation of politics by other means.”

Paul Virilio (1932–2018) French philosopher

From Ctheory Interview With Paul Virilio 'The Kosovo War Took Place In Orbital Space: Paul Virilio in Conversation with John Armitage' http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=132

War , Communication , Future

Quotes about first page 6

Quotes about first
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