Quotes about form
page 68

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Wisdom, Knowledge, Time

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Happiness, Gratitude

“Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

“Friendship is a very taxing and arduous form of leisure activity.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Friendship

“Since human beings are storytelling beings, we are bound to rebel against the drift to storylessness. But there is no guarantee that the rebellions will take salutary form. Some, in their hunger for story, will be drawn to the vacant, vicarious fare of confessional talk shows, celebrity scandals, and sensational trials. Others will seek refuge in fundamentalism. The hope of our time rests instead with those who can summon the conviction and restraint to make sense of our condition and repair the civic life on which democracy depends.”

Michael J. Sandel (1953) American political philosopher

Conclusion: In Search of a Public Philosophy
Democracy's Discontent (1996)

Life, Hunger, Hope, Democracy

“Religion translates metaphysical or universal truths into dogmatic language; now though dogma is not accessible to all men in its intrinsic truth, which can only be directly attained by the Intellect, it is nonetheless accessible through faith, which is, for the great majority, the only possible mode of participation in the Divine Truths. As for intellectual knowledge, which proceeds neither from belief nor from a process of reasoning, it goes beyond dogma in the sense that, without ever contradicting the latter, it penetrates its internal dimension, that is, the infinite Truth that dominates all forms.”

Frithjof Schuon book The Transcendent Unity of Religions

[1993, The Transcendent Unity of Religions, Quest Books, xxxi, 978-0-8356-0587-8]
Miscellaneous, Religion

Men, Truth, Faith, Religion

“The desire to vanquish faults because it is "I" who have them is ineffectual, since it falls within the same category as the faults themselves. Indeed, every fault is a form of egoism or even pride. We must tend towards Perfection because we understand it and therefore love it, and not because we desire that our ego should be perfect. In other terms, we must love and realize a virtue because it is true and beautiful, and not because it would become us if we possessed it; and we must hate and fight against a fault because it is false and ugly, and not because it is ours and because it disfigures us. To possess a virtue is first and foremost to be without the fault which is contrary to it, for God created us virtuous. He created us in His image; faults are superimposed. Moreover it is not we who possess virtue, it is virtue which possesses us.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 65, 978-1-93659700-0]
Spiritual path, Virtue

Love, God, Hate, Beauty

“In all forms of strategy, it is necessary to maintain the combat stance in everyday life and to make your everyday stance your combat stance. You must research this well.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Water Book

Life

“You actually start the job on your knees, pray, because that's where the job puts you, instantly, on your knees, pray, because so many things are really to be put in God's hands, and to let God lead us, guide us, shape us, form us as we need to be.”

Louis Frederick Kihneman (1952) American prelate of the Catholic Church (born 1952)

Source: Sacred Heart High School Students Interview Bishop Kihneman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL9mdS05f_4 (February 17, 2021)

God

“I shall never, under any circumstances, agree to a representative form of government because I consider it harmful to the people whom God has entrusted to my care.”

Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918) Emperor of All the Russias, Grand Duke of Finland and King of Poland By the Grace of God

As quoted in https://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/quotations-imperial-russia-tsarism/ <br class="br">1890s

God, People

“We will be back in some form”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Quoted by * 2020-01-20
Kevin Liptak
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/20/politics/donald-trump-leaves-white-house/index.html
Trump departs Washington a pariah as his era in power ends
CNN
2021, January 2021

“The economy as an instituted process of interaction serving the satisfaction of material wants forms a vital part of every human community. Without an economy in this sense, no society could exist for any length of time.”

Karl Polanyi (1886–1964) economist, philosopher and historian

Source: The Livelihood of Man (1977), Ch. 2 : The Two Meanings of Economic

Communication, Sense, Time, Parting

“To be yourself in all respects is the truest form of respect towards anyone.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Essere te stesso a tutti gli effetti è la più reale forma di rispetto nei confronti di chiunque.
Source: prevale.net

“People without any form of love are the most dangerous. You can find them everywhere, beware of appearances.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Le persone prive di qualsiasi forma d'amore sono le più pericolose. Le trovi ovunque, diffida delle apparenze.
Source: prevale.net

Love, People, Appearance

“The forms under which human love ends up being expressed are not governed by sex relations. They are governed by the objective love for humanity; that is to say love for humankind as an integral part of nature and of the universe.”

J. Posadas (1912–1981) Argentine Trotskyist (1912-1981)

Source: Childbearing in Space, 1978

Love, Sex, Nature, Universe

“The energy disruptions of the Long Emergency are going to remind us that the skyscraper was an experimental building form.”

James Howard Kunstler book The Long Emergency

Source: The Long Emergency (2005), Chapter 7, p. 253.

“What we are is consciousness. The body is the vehicle through which consciousness can taste experiencing. And in the human form, consciousness has the capacity and opportunity to realise its own source and thus come into a direct experience of this.”

Mooji (1954) Jamaican spiritual teacher

Greater than Sky, Vaster than Space, (2018), Part I

“Here you are invited into the direct experience of that timeless reality through the method of self-inquiry, which forms the essence of this book.”

Mooji (1954) Jamaican spiritual teacher

Greater than Sky, Vaster than Space, (2018), Part I

Books, Reality

“The firmness of structure inherent in the canonic form is perfectly compatible with genuine freedom and poetry of inspiration.”

Walter Raymond Spalding (1865–1962) American music pedagogue and author

Page 37 https://books.google.com/books?id=pQARAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA37. <br class="br">Music: An Art and a Language (1920), Polyphonic Music; Sebastian Bach (Ch. III)

Freedom

“I have found yet another friend here. And with such a friend we will together form a team, like a soccer team. This will be a fighting team.”

Alexander Lukashenko (1954) President of Belarus since 20 July 1994

Hugo Chávez, referring to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, to reporters during a state visit to Minsk, Belarus, on July 25, 2006. <nowiki>[24 http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2006/07/24/chavez_lauds_belarus_leader_as_friend/</nowiki>]

Fight

“So are they some form of life, or are they machines?”

Robert Charles Wilson (1953) author

“At the chemical level all living things can be construed as machines.”
Source: Burning Paradise (2013), Chapter 18 (pp. 190-191)

Life

“I like a chapter to have design of tone, as well as of form. A chapter should be a perfect cell in the whole book and should be almost able to stand alone. If this is done then the breaks we call chapters are not arbitrary but rather articulations which allow the free movement of the story.”

John Steinbeck book Journal of a Novel

March 7, 1951
Journal of a Novel (1969)

Books, Perfection

“What we call land is an element of nature inextricably interwoven with man’s institutions. To isolate it and form a market for it was perhaps the weirdest of all the undertakings of our ancestors.”

Karl Polanyi book The Great Transformation

Source: The Great Transformation (1944), Ch. 15 : Market and Nature

Nature

“I wish that all the ills of society - conformism, laziness, indolence, betrayal, violence, lust, rape - and especially the evils of politics will be represented in the form of an absolute depravity.”

Osamu Tezuka MW

From the Afterword to April 1978 MW , vol. 3, translation by Francesco Nicodemus, Hazard Editions, Milan, 2005, p. 193. ISBN 887502037X

Evil, Betrayal

“There are neither graves nor death in Nature; there are various forms of existence, some of which enable us to be chemists, others only chemical substances.”

Bolesław Prus book The Doll

The Doll

Death, Nature

“One form of insanity bears the name curiosity.”

Charles Sheffield book Convergence

Source: The Heritage Universe, Convergence (1997), Chapter 18 (p. 433)

“Art is most simply and most usually defined as an attempt to create pleasing forms. Such forms satisfy our sense of beauty and the sense of beauty is satisfied when we are able to appreciate a unity or harmony of formal relations among our sense-perceptions.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

The Meaning of Art, London : Faber & Faber, 1931
Other Quotes

Beauty, Art, Sense

“You can only dream and breathe while you are asleep. But making money in your sleep, that is pure Capitalism at its highest form.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Money, Dreams, Sleep

“: A strong team that is dedicated and willing to do anything must be formed before putting all of your trust in the people that you are leading.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

People, Strong

“Truly God is the best of creators. He designed my physical face with so much care and a little touch of makeup in the form of a beard and mustaches.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God

“In literature you don't just read one poem or novel after another, but enter into a complete world of which every work of literature forms part. This affects the writer as much as it does the reader.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 3: Giants in Time

World, Literature, Reading, Parting

“I would probably say that music is one of the most expressive art forms for me. Of course, I don’t perform professionally, though it does play a huge role: it helps me think differently and want to go on living.”

Chulpan Khamatova (1975) Russian actress

As quoted in "An interview with Chulpan Khamatova" in Mariinsky Theatre (28 February 2012) https://www.mariinsky.ru/en/news1/interview1/interview_with_chulpan_khamatova/

Art, Music, Thinking, Help

“We want no injustice done to other people. I do not appeal to you merely as a class, but I do appeal to you workers to form yourselves into an organisation which will use political power in order to protect our human conditions and give you fair play in life.”

Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the Hippodrome, Darlington (25 May 1929), quoted in The Times (27 May 1929), p. 9
1920s

Life, People

“A man's character is formed by the Odes, developed by the Rites and perfected by music.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Quoted from Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage.
The Analects, Chapter I, Chapter VIII

Music, Perfection

“Actions, looks, words, steps, form the alphabet by which you may spell characters.”

Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss poet

No. 637
Aphorisms on Man (1788)

“But every time I look at myself and think, oh, my body's not OK or my worth in value are determined by my appearance and my marketability, I'm kind of engaging in one form of this same narrative. So writing this work has been really cathartic and humbling for me.”

Sarah Jones (stage actress) (1973) African-American actress, playwright, and poet from the United States

On identifying with various characters in Sell/Buy/Date in “Playwright Sarah Jones Takes On The Sex Industry In 'Sell/Buy/Date'” https://www.npr.org/2018/10/13/657200487/playwright-sarah-jones-takes-on-the-sex-industry-in-sell-buy-date in NPR (2018 Oct 13)

Thinking, Appearance, Time

“Charity should be self-sustainable. That is, it should create more wealth rather than perpetuating the cycle of poverty and dependence. In this sense, the best form of charity would be providing quality education for children and more importantly, building a good character in them.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Interview with Forbes Magazine (2009)

Children, Education, Sense, Dependency

“The Extraordinary Form speaks, literally (because it is in Latin), and figuratively, a different language; and I think some people who need to can come back to faith through it.”

Fernando Arêas Rifan (1950) Roman Catholic bishop

Tridentine Mass draws international pilgrims to Rome https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/28324/tridentine-mass-draws-international-pilgrims-to-rome (27 October 2013)

People, Faith, Thinking

“The most damaging forms of intemperance are connected with eating, strong drink, and sexual activities. Overindulgence in any of these is fatal to success.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938) p.88

Drink, Strong, Success

“The person with a "closed" mind on any subject seldom gets ahead. Intolerance means that one has stopped acquiring knowledge. The most damaging forms of intolerance are those connected with religious, racial, and political differences of opinion.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938) p.88

Knowledge, Personality

“This earth, every one of the billions of individual cells of your body, and every atom of matter, began as an intangible form of energy.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938) p. 64

“Losing the human form brings the freedom to remember your self. Losing the human form is like a spiral. It gives you the freedom to remember and this in turn makes you even freer.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Source: The Eagle's Gift, (1981)

Freedom

“When National Socialism has ruled long enough, it will no longer be possible to conceive of a form of life different from ours.
In the long run, National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together.”

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

Source: 11-12 July 1941, quoted in Hitler's Table Talk, 1941–1944

Life, Religion

“Ten years is a long time to be a part of anything and to have a group of people in your life for any reason, let alone one that really was a part of my most formative years.”

Vincent Martella (1992) American actor

Source: Batman: Death in the Family's Vincent Martella Talks Reprising Jason Todd Role https://www.cbr.com/batman-death-in-the-family-jason-todd-interview/ (October 9, 2020)

Life, People, Time, Parting

“The call to abolish the prison as the dominant form of punishment cannot ignore the extent to which the institution of the prison has stockpiled ideas and practices that are hopefully approaching obsolescence in the larger society, but that retain their ghastly vitality behind prison walls.”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Four

Idea

“Again, irrationality can hurt, and here we have evidence that a particular form of it is widespread. The people accused around hurt, and the clients—be they children or grown adults—are hurt. Irrationality is not simply an amusing diversion provided by tarot cards or Ouija boards.”

Robyn Dawes (1936–2010) American psychologist

Source: Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally (2001), Chapter 9, “Sexual Abuse Hysteria” (p. 179)

Children, People, Hurt

“If defense is the stronger form of war, yet has a negative object, it follows that it should be used only so long as weakness compels, and be abandoned as soon as we are strong enough to pursue a positive object.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

Source: On War (1832), Book 6, Chapter 1.

War, Strong

“The secret which will solve this impasse is that true independence and individuality can only successfully exist in group form!”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Introduction p. I - XII

Secret

“The Jews form a state, and, obeying their own laws, they evade those of their host country. The Jews always consider an oath regarding a Christian not binding. During the Campaign of 1812 the Jews were spies, they were paid by both sides, they betrayed both sides.”

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800–1891) German Field Marshal

Source: See The Jews https://books.google.com.br/books?id=t_RtAAAAMAAJ by Zuhdī Fātiḥ

Law, Country

“Since the earliest times it is as the exploiter that the Jew has been known amongst his fellow men of all races and creeds. Moreover, he has persistently shown himself ungrateful. (...) The Jews have always formed a rebellious element in every state.”

Nesta Helen Webster (1876–1960) British far-right conspiracy theorist and author

Source: World Revolution the Plot Against Civilization https://www.google.com.br/books/edition/World_Revolution_the_Plot_Against_Civili/dmlTCAAAQBAJ?gbpv=1&pg=PT162&printsec=frontcover

Men, Time

“I do not believe that iron bars and brutal treatment have ever been cures for crime. And certainly I feel that in our great enlightened country, there is no reason for going back to middle ages and their form of torture for the criminal.”

Mary Harris Jones (1837–1930) Irish-born American labor and community organizer

Source: Autobiography of Mother Jones

Age, Feeling, Country

“Ends and purposes, whether they exist as conscious or subconscious tendencies, form the wrap and woof of our conscious experience.”

Muhammad Iqbál (1877–1938) Urdu poet and leader of the Pakistan Movement

Source: The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Reconstruction_of_Religious_Thought/uCh14nl09jkC?hl=en (1930), p. 42

“We wish a great Poland, great with its achievements, culture, forms of social life, its position in Europe. The only way to gain this is by socialism accepted by society, constantly enriched by the everyday life experience.”

Wojciech Jaruzelski (1923–2014) Polish military officer and politician

Source: Excerpts of Martial law speech (14 December 1981)

Life, Way

“Thou mayest foresee... the things which will be. For they will certainly be of like form, and it is not possible that they should deviate from the order of things now: accordingly to have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VII, 49

Life

“We need to get to a situation where we understand what we stand for and how much power we have, we are not fully conscious of how we form people’s mindset and how we change people’s mind.”

Omotola Jalade Ekeinde (1978) Nigerian actress and singer

https://naijagists.com/omotola-jalade-ekeinde-wisdom-quotes-top-20-motivational-quotes-sayings-omosexy/ Omotola Jalade Ekehinde speaking on Mindset.

People, Understanding, Change

“Each church is free to establish whatever form of organisation is suitable and useful itself, for God has prescribed nothing specific about this.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Epistles to the Corinthians
Source: Commentary on 1 Corinthians, 11:2, quoted in William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait (1989), p. 223

God

“The dynamic earth has been spewing out the constituents of evolution and progress throughout its history, nurturing all species from the very first forms of life to our own.”

Shawna Vogel science writer

Naked Earth: the New Geophysics (1995)

Life, History

“The Jews formed the breeding ground of all anti-Christian actions.”

Tertullian (155–220) Christian theologian

Source: See In His Name https://books.google.com.br/books?id=HCucAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA312 by E. Christopher Reyes, Volume IV, p. 312

“One cannot expect the believers to deny one of the foundations of their faith, which is respect for every form of life, from conception to natural death. However, we cannot forget the commandment to love thy neighbour. It is the moral duty of a Christian to de-escalate conflicts, not fuel them.”

Wojciech Polak (1964) Polish priest

Source: Primate of Poland calls for de-escalation of abortion protests https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/primate-of-poland-calls-for-de-escalation-of-abortion-protests-17105 (27 October 2020)

Love, Life, Death, Faith

“I have made it absolutely clear throughout my political career that as a Christian I am not a racist in any shape or form.”

David Rowlands (1947–2014) British civil servant

Source: New Brexit Party AM calls Tommy Robinson 'courageous' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-48295617 BBC News (16 May 2019)

“Without God, there could be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first—the most basic—expression of Americanism. Thus the Founding Fathers saw it, and thus, with God's help, it will continue to be.”

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

Source: From remarks recorded for the "Back to God" Program http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=10414 of the American Legion, which was broadcast over radio and television from 8:00 – 8:30 PM on 20 February 1955

Life, God, Way, Help

“Technology is nature without the human being. It is abstract nature, reduced to itself, delivered over to itself, exalting and expressing itself on its own. It develops in such a way that all the virtualities and potentialities within it must be actualized, for them and for what they are, for their own sake, so that everything is done that can be done, that is to say, everything that nature can become. It is a matter of making gold, going to the moon, building self-guiding and self-monitoring missiles that can decide on the moment to self-destruction – and destroy us. Technology is alchemy; it is the self-fulfillment of nature in place of the self-fulfillment of the life that we are. It is barbarism, the new barbarism of our time, in place of culture. Inasmuch as it puts the prescriptions and regulations of life out of play, it is not simply barbarism in its most extreme and inhumane form that has ever been known – it is sheer madness.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Michel Henry, Barbarism, Continuum, 2012, p. 52
Books on Culture and Barbarism, Barbarism (1987)

Life, Way, Nature, Time

“When self-willed microunits combine to form and sustain a durable macrounit, certain freedoms of action are curtailed.
This is the basic process of Organization.
The more numerous and erratic the microunits, the more complex must be the structure and function of the macrounit—hence the more pervasive and restricting the details of Organization.”

Jack Vance (1916–2013) American mystery and speculative fiction writer

Dodkin’s Job (p. 7)
Short fiction, Future Tense (1964)

Freedom

“I can only say that I salute and welcome the fight against racism and all forms of discrimination. The realisation of a plural and multicultural world must be a priority in this 21st century.”

Marcel Utembi Tapa (1959) Congolese catholic archbishop

Source: DRC's Archbishop Utembi: I salute the fight against racism https://www.vaticannews.va/en/africa/news/2020-06/drc-archbishop-marcel-utembi-i-salute-the-fight-against-racis.html (17 June 2020)

World, Fight

“[M]any of the most important Supreme Court decisions take the form of holding that a particular limit either has not been exceeded or, more fundamentally, that the asserted limit is not in fact part of the Constitution at all.”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

Soundings and Silences (2016)

Decision, Parting

“Judicial neutrality necessarily involves taking sides. ...[J]udicial restraint is but another form of judicial activism.”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

American Constitutional Law (1978), Preface to the First Edition

“To play God today is to be the owner of human life, to control that life in all of his stages and all of its forms. A control that decides who must be eliminated and when.”

Jesús Sanz Montes (1955) Spanish archbishop

Source: Government trying to play God with proposed medical research law, Bishop warns https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/7999/government-trying-to-play-god-with-proposed-medical-research-law-bishop-warns (6 November 2006)

Life, God

“Power is habit-forming. We grew addicted to it. Few things survive the centuries’ slow decay: senses grow dull; passions grow weak; and ideals die. Only the taste for power lives on as an excuse for survival.”

Jack Williamson book Star Bridge

Source: Star Bridge (1955), Chapter 20, “Prime Mover” (p. 275)

Sense, Passion

“After so much austerity I have known that the highest truth is this: He is present in every being! These are all in manifold forms of him. There is no other God to seek for! He alone is worshipping God, who serves all beings!”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Source: As quoted in Vivekananda : The Yogas and Other Works (1953), p. 173; also at "The Story Of Swami Vivekananda: Mission Impossible" at MyLifeYoga (10 December 2011) http://mylifeyoga.com/2011/12/10/the-story-of-swami-vivekananda-mission-impossibl/

God, Truth

“If you ask a Christian or a Moslem about their God, they say their God is good and benevolent. They say their God has no physical form. Why don’t you people have such a God?”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy (1879–1973) Tamil politician and social reformer

Source: Viduthalai – 25-12-1958)(also https://myvoice.opindia.com/2021/09/why-ev-ramasamy-doesnt-deserve-to-be-celebrated/

God, People

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Intelligence

“But when the socialist and, even more, the syndicalist, began to propose his nostrums as medicine for the capitalist system, there appeared a diseased and corrupted form of socialism which found its neophytes in the oddest quarters.”

John Thomas Flynn (1882–1964) American journalist

Source: As We Go Marching (1944), p. 111

Disease, Appearance

“Correct breathing also performs a constant massage of the internal organs by raising them up and down, thus curing constipation when it is caused by faulty insufficient breathing (as is often the case) which holds the muscles of the abdomen in a static position. Therefore the first thing to do is to make sure that you know how to breathe from the physical standpoint, and how to control the muscle of the diaphragm. This muscle forms the dividing line between the chest and the stomach just below the ribs. Place the fingers upon the diaphragm muscle just below the ribs and under the centre breast bone. In this arched hollow lies the muscle upon which correct breathing depends. Take a slow breath, drawing the muscle upwards and inwards, following its movement with the fingers, fill the lungs with air right up to the collarbones. Then breathe out slowly whilst tucking the diaphragm still further inwards and upwards!”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter XV The Essential Science of Breathing

Drawing, Dependency

“We can get on top of the world in most circumstances if we know and practice correct breathing, but without it we will always be working on one cylinder, and at the bottom of our form. For correct breathing feeds our minds as well as our bodies.”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter XV The Essential Science of Breathing

World

“The ideological and political work of each political factor must be direct and immediate. In national life, each environment must perform its inherent function within such limits, forms and means that it can achieve on its own and which correspond to its real influences in Ukrainian society. Every serious environment must operate under all internal and external conditions, regardless of other factors.”

Stepan Bandera (1909–1959) Ukrainian anti-communist

Source: "For a Complete Political Structure" (1958)

Life

“Although it is not thought or some other form of knowledge, although it is not the truth of the world, that gives access to the Revelation of God, at least a single possibility persist, already mentioned as a simple matter of fact and now rendered unimpeachable. Access to God, understood as his self-revelation according to a phenomenality proper to Him, is not susceptible of being produced except where this self-revelation is produced and in the way self-revelation does so. There where God originally arrives in himself, in the phenomenalization of phenomenality that is his own and is thus like the self-phenomenalization of this phenomenality proper – there alone is access to God. It is not that thought is lacking and so we cannot accede to the Revelation of God. Quite the contrary, it is only when thought defaults, because the truth of the world is absent, that what is at stake be achieved: the self-revelation of God – the self-phenomenalization of pure phenomenality against the background of a phenomenality that is not that of the world.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Books on Religion and Christianity, I am the Truth. Toward a philosophy of Christianity (1996)
Source: Michel Henry, I am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, translated by Susan Emanuel, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 27

God, Truth, World, Way

“I do not intend to ask whether Christianity is “true” or “false,” or to establish, for example, the former hypothesis. Rather, what will be in question here is what Christianity considers as truth – what kind of truth it offers to people, what it endeavors to communicate to them, not as a theoretical and indifferent truth but as the essential truth that by some mysterious affinity is suitable for them, to the point that it alone is capable of assuring them salvation. We are trying to understand the form of truth that circumscribes the domain of Christianity, the milieu in which it spreads, the air that it breaths, one might say – because there are many sorts of truths, many ways of being true or false. And we are also perhaps trying to get away from the concept of truth that dominates modern thought and that, as much in and of itself as in its multiple implications, determines the world in which we live.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

People, Truth, World, Way

“Our species is prone to a flattering view of itself. Humans have regarded themselves as the pinnacle of creation, formed by and in the image of an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God, and inhabiting a planet at the center of the universe—a planet around which all others revolve. Science has done much to debunk some of these ideas. We now know that our planet is not at the center of the universe: the earth revolves around the sun rather than vice versa. And we know—or at least some of us do—that we are Johnny-come-lately products of a long, blind evolutionary process.”

David Benatar (1966) South African philosopher

Permissible Progeny? The Morality of Procreation and Parenting (2015) <br class="br">Source: Chapter 1: The Misanthropic Argument for Anti-natalism https://books.google.com/books?id=J6dBCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA44&pg=PA35#v=onepage&q&f=false (2015), p. 35-36

God, Idea, Universe, Science

“The belief that we can maintain current levels of consumption, especially of animal products, capitalist expansion, imperial wars, a reliance on fossil fuels and abject subservience to unfettered corporate power, which has solidified the worst income inequality in human history, is not a form of hope but suicidal self-delusion. We are not headed under the policies of the Biden administration and the global ruling elite for the broad sunlit uplands of a new and glorious future, but economic misery, vast climate migrations, waves of new and more virulent pandemics, of which COVID-19 is a mild precursor, along with irreversible ecological systems collapse and frightening forms of societal breakdown, authoritarianism and neofascism.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

Source: The Great Delusion https://scheerpost.com/2020/12/21/chris-hedges-the-great-delusion/. Scheerpost, December 21, 2020

War, Hope, History, Suicide

“Inspiration comes in two forms, external and internal. External motivation leads you to wealth and fame. Whereas, intrinsic motivation will motivate you to work on your personality and peace of mind. Intrinsic motivation will bring positivity in your life. So everyone should work on it.”

Nitin Pujari (1990) Indian spiritual leader , Pujari at Salasar Bala ji Rajasthan

During the pandemic in India
Source: https://www.bollywoodkibaten.in/2022/01/nitin-pujari-power-of-positivity.html

Life, Peace, Motivation, Personality

“Naturally, form has come to take precedence over color with me, though when I began painting color predominated. Slowly artistic evolution carried from color to form and while I still employ color, of course, it is the drawing which assumes the place of first importance in my pictures.”

Francis Picabia (1879–1953) French painter and writer

Quote of Picabia, in an interview in an American newspaper, 1915; as quoted by William A. Camfield, in Francis Picabia: His Art, Life and Times, Princeton, 1979, p.77
Picabia emphasised that line took precedence over colour in his works since 1915
1910's

Color, Nature, Drawing, Painting

“One of the most dangerous forms of human error is forgetting what one is trying to achieve. In the gulf crisis, it is crucial that we look beyond our anger at Saddam and remind ourselves of precisely what U.S. interests are in the crisis and what we seek to accomplish.”

Paul Nitze (1907–2004) American government official

Source: War Whether We Need It Or Not? (1991)

Error, Anger, Forgetting

“In fantasy, more than in other forms of literature, the obligation is to teach something universally true about the human condition.”

Larry Niven book N-Space

Introduction to All the Myriad Ways (p. 71)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)

Literature, Universe

“There is no doubt in my mind that, from the third-person point of view, monarchy is the most reasonable form of government. By embodying the state in a fragile human person, it captures the arbitrariness and the givenness of political allegiance, and so transforms allegiance into affection.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

The Meaning of Conservatism (2001), p. 193

Personality

“Being jewish is a tangible unbroken form of identity going back 3000 years, whiteness is a construct from 200 ybp.”

Barbara Lerner Spectre (1942) Israeli academic

Source: Twitter https://web.archive.org/web/20150712181104/https://twitter.com/barbara_spectre/status/554422393951633408 (2015)

“When the intellect blends with experience, creativity, culture and curiosity, it forms a person of another level.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Quando l'intelletto si fonde con esperienza, creatività, cultura e curiosità, forma una persona di un altro livello.
Source: prevale.net

Personality

“It may possibly be urged the shape of a culture—its mores, evaluations, family organizations, eating habits, living patterns, pedagogical methods, institutions, forms of government, and so forth—arise from the economic necessities of its technology.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Waldo

Waldo (p. 134)
Short fiction, The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein (1999)

Family

“Creativity is the result of a struggle between vitality and form. As anyone who has tried to write a sonnet or scan poetry, is aware, the forms ideally do not take away from the creativity but may add to it.”

Rollo May book Love and Will

Source: Love and Will (1969), Ch. 13 : Communion of Consciousness, p. 320

“Violence is the daimonic gone awry. It is "demon possession" in its starkest form. Our age is one of transition, in which the normal channels for utilizing the daimonic are denied; and such ages tend to be times when the daimonic is expressed in its most destructive form.”

Rollo May book Love and Will

Source: Love and Will (1969), Ch. 5, p. 130

Age, Time

“Cultural work naturally must serve the cause of the People’s Democratic revolution and only then will it benefit the masses. It is most important in cultural work not to ignore the national traditions in form and to maintain its class character in content.”

Kyūichi Tokuda (1894–1953) Japanese politician

New Situation and the Policy of the Communist Party of Japan (1950)

People, Nature

“We like art forms that express our longing for union, and for a more perfect and beautiful world.”

Susan Cain book Bittersweet

Bittersweet, Chapter 2 at p. 36

World, Beauty, Art, Perfection

“A devotee sees only the Lord in all names and forms.”

Swami Sivananda (1887–1963) Indian philosopher

Conquest of Fear (c-1960)

“Without form or comeliness, and nailed to the cross—thus is truth to be adored.”

Guigo I (1083–1136) Cartusian monk

#5
The Meditations of Guigo I, Prior of the Charterhouse

Truth

“Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1800s, First Inaugural Address (1801)

Angels, History, Question

“A […] form of present-day secularism is activism, which discounts contemplation and all interiority.”

Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) Jesuit theologian and cardinal

Part 2. "Teilhard and the Problems of Today", Ch. 5, pp. 254–255, n. 54
The Eternal Feminine (1968)

“The contact of a believer with a nonbeliever must take the form of a dialogue. The all-powerful action of pure sanctity alone is dispensed from it, since it is not bound by any law. But the dialogue will never get underway if it is not first a dialogue with myself.”

Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) Jesuit theologian and cardinal

Source: Paradoxes of Faith (1987), Ch. III. "Witness", p. 36

Law

“[M]y friends and I are totally at a loss to understand the new form of the Mass... Every attendance at Mass leaves me without comfort or edification. I shall never, pray God, apostatize but church-going is now a bitter trial.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Letter to Archbishop Heenan (3 January 1965), quoted in A Bitter Trial: Evelyn Waugh and John Carmel Cardinal Heenan on the Liturgical Changes: Expanded Edition, ed. Alcuin Reid (2001), pp. 69, 71

God, Understanding, Loss

“The highest form of selfishness is that of the man who is content to go to heaven alone.”

J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop

Vol. I, Luke VIII: 16–21, p. 257
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. Luke (1858–1859)

Selfishness

“Nothing is more ingenious, more obstinate, nastier—indeed, in a sense, more clear sighted, than mediocrity harrying every form of superiority that offends it.”

Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) Jesuit theologian and cardinal

Source: Paradoxes of Faith (1987), Ch. X. "Man", p. 136

Sense

“A new reality is being formed: the unipolar world is irrevocably becoming a thing of the past, a multipolar one is taking shape. It’s an objective process. It’s unstoppable. In this reality, more than one power will “rule” it will be necessary to negotiate between all the key states that today have a decisive influence on the world economy and politics. At the same time, realizing their special situation, these countries ensure compliance with the basic principles of the UN Charter, including the fundamental one – the sovereign equality of states. No one on this Earth should be seen as a minor player. Everyone is equal and sovereign.”

Sergey Lavrov (1950) Russian politician and Foreign Minister

As quoted in Meet the New, Resource-Based Global Reserve Currency https://www.unz.com/pescobar/meet-the-new-resource-based-global-reserve-currency/, 31 March 2022

World, Reality, Decision, Time

Quotes about form page 68

Quotes about form
page 68