Quotes about image
page 10

Calvin Coolidge photo

“No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.”

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

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Howard S. Becker photo
Eric Hoffer photo
William Wordsworth photo
Boniface Mwangi photo
Michelangelo Antonioni photo
Adi Da Samraj photo
Piet Mondrian photo

“.. the Place de l'Opera [in Paris] gives a better image of the new life than many theories. Its rhythms of opposition, twice repeated in its two directions, realizes a living equilibrium through the exactness of its execution.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Quote of Mondrian before 1930; as cited in 'The New Art – The New Life', Piet Mondrian, op. cit. Introd. Note 1., 1931
1930's

Alex Salmond photo
Jacob Bronowski photo
Clarence Thomas photo
George W. Bush photo
Paul Cézanne photo
Michelangelo Antonioni photo

“If a totally new image is to come into being however, there must be sensitivity to internal messages, the image itself must be sensitive to change, must be unstable, and it must include a value image which places high value on trials, experiments, and the trying of new things.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1950s, The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society, 1956, p. 94 as cited in: Richard Arena, Agnés Festrè, Nathalie Lazaric (2012) Handbook of Economics and Knowledge. p. 138

Paul Bourget photo

“Well, you must now imagine my friend at my age or almost there. You must picture him growing gray, tired of life and convinced that he had at last discovered the secret of peace. At this time he met, while visiting some relatives in a country house, a mere girl of twenty, who was the image, the haunting image of her whom he had hoped to marry thirty years before. It was one of those strange resemblances which extend from the color of the eyes to the 'timbre' of the voice, from the smile to the thought, from the gestures to the finest feelings of the heart. I could not, in a few disjointed phrases describe to you the strange emotions of my friend. It would take pages and pages to make you understand the tenderness, both present and at the same time retrospective, for the dead through the living; the hypnotic condition of the soul which does not know where dreams and memories end and present feeling begins; the daily commingling of the most unreal thing in the world, the phantom of a lost love, with the freshest, the most actual, the most irresistibly naïve and spontaneous thing in it, a young girl. She comes, she goes, she laughs, she sings, you go about with her in the intimacy of country life, and at her side walks one long dead. After two weeks of almost careless abandon to the dangerous delights of this inward agitation imagine my friend entering by chance one morning one of the less frequented rooms of the house, a gallery, where, among other pictures, hung a portrait of himself, painted when he was twenty-five. He approaches the portrait abstractedly. There had been a fire in the room, so that a slight moisture dimmed the glass which protected the pastel, and on this glass, because of this moisture, he sees distinctly the trace of two lips which had been placed upon the eyes of the portrait, two small delicate lips, the sight of which makes his heart beat. He leaves the gallery, questions a servant, who tells him that no one but the young woman he has in mind has been in the room that morning.”

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer

Pierre Fauchery, as quoted by the character "Jules Labarthe"
The Age for Love

Henry Adams photo
Vladimir Putin photo
Samuel R. Delany photo
José Rizal photo
Jim Baggott photo
Max Scheler photo
Harriet Harman photo

“images of children should only be considered pornographic if it could be proven the subject suffered”

Harriet Harman (1950) British politician

1978, according to 26 February 2014 article by The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/26/lobbying-paedophile-campaign-revealed-hewitt

Jacques Ellul photo
Cornel West photo

“In situations of sparse resources along with degraded self-images and depoliticized sensibilities, one avenue for poor people is in existential rebellion and anarchic expression. The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people.”

Cornel West (1953) African-American philosopher and political/civil rights activist

"The Role of Law in Progressive Politics" in Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America (1993)

Marcel Duchamp photo

“If a straight horizontal thread one meter long falls from a height of one meter on to a horizontal plane twisting as it pleases [it] creates a new image of the unit of length.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

Duchamp's stated premise for his art-work: '3 Standard stoppages' he made during 1913 -1914; ; as quoted in Looking at Dada, eds. Sarah Ganz Blythe & Edward D. Powers - The Museum of Modern Art New York, ISBN: 087070-705-1; p. 50
1915 - 1925

Sri Aurobindo photo

“In a word, godhead; to remake ourselves in the divine image.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Glimpses (1916-17)

Ramakrishna photo

“As a toy fruit or a toy elephant reminds one of the real fruit and the living animal, so do the images that are worshipped remind one of the God who is formless and eternal.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (1960), p. 325

Kenneth N. Waltz photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“The slave is a man, "the image of God," but "a little lower than the angels;" possessing a soul, eternal and indestructible; capable of endless happiness, or immeasurable woe; a creature of hopes and fears, of affections and passions, of joys and sorrows, and he is endowed with those mysterious powers by which man soars above the things of time and sense, and grasps, with undying tenacity, the elevating and sublimely glorious idea of a God. It is such a being that is smitten and blasted. The first work of slavery is to mar and deface those characteristics of its victims which distinguish men from things, and persons from property. Its first aim is to destroy all sense of high moral and religious responsibility. It reduces man to a mere machine. It cuts him off from his Maker, it hides from him the laws of God, and leaves him to grope his way from time to eternity in the dark, under the arbitrary and despotic control of a frail, depraved, and sinful fellow-man. As the serpent-charmer of India is compelled to extract the deadly teeth of his venomous prey before he is able to handle him with impunity, so the slaveholder must strike down the conscience of the slave before he can obtain the entire mastery over his victim.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

The Nature of Slavery. Extract from a Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester, December 1, 1850
1850s, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)

Gaston Bachelard photo
Ben Carson photo

“I believe we have this enormous brains with the ability to process so much information for a purpose – because we were made in God's image, not in the image of an amoeba.”

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

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 130

Pierce Brosnan photo
Michael E. Porter photo
Manis Friedman photo

“I would like to clarify the answer published in my name in last month’s issue of Moment Magazine. First of all, the opinions published in my name are solely my own, and do not represent the official policy of any Jewish movement or organization. Additionally, my answer, as written, is misleading. It is obvious, I thought, that any neighbor of the Jewish people should be treated, as the Torah commands us, with respect and compassion. Fundamental to the Jewish faith is the concept that every human being was created in the image of G-d, and our sages instruct us to support the non-Jewish poor along with the poor of our own brethren. The sub-question I chose to address instead is: how should we act in time of war, when our neighbors attack us, using their women, children and religious holy places as shields. I attempted to briefly address some of the ethical issues related to forcing the military to withhold fire from certain people and places, at the unbearable cost of widespread bloodshed (on both sides!)—when one’s own family and nation is mercilessly targeted from those very people and places. Furthermore, some of the words I used in my brief comment were irresponsible, and I look forward to further clarifying them in a future issue. I apologize for any misunderstanding my words created.”

Manis Friedman (1946) American rabbi

Clarification of previous statement http://momentmagazine.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/a-statement-from-rabbi-friedman/
On the Israeli-Arab conflict

Samuel R. Delany photo
Ingmar Bergman photo

“I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

The New York Times (22 January 1978).

Steven Pinker photo
Alfred Horsley Hinton photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo

“The world is a mirror into which we look, and see our own image.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 31

John Ruysbroeck photo
Stuart Davis photo
Stanisław Lem photo
Asger Jorn photo
Samuel Butler photo

“All things are like exposed photographic plates that have no visible image on them till they have been developed.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Development
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

Sri Aurobindo photo
Statius photo

“Beyond the cloud-wrapt chambers of western gloom and Aethiopia's other realm there stands a motionless grove, impenetrable by any star; beneath it the hollow recesses of a deep and rocky cave run far into a mountain, where the slow hand of Nature has set the halls of lazy Sleep and his untroubled dwelling. The threshold is guarded by shady Quiet and dull Forgetfulness and torpid Sloth with ever drowsy countenance. Ease, and Silence with folded wings sit mute in the forecourt and drive the blustering winds from the roof-top, and forbid the branches to sway, and take away their warblings from the birds. No roar of the sea is here, though all the shores be sounding, nor yet of the sky; the very torrent that runs down the deep valley nigh the cave is silent among the rocks and boulders; by its side are sable herds, and sheep reclining one and all upon the ground; the fresh buds wither, and a breath from the earth makes the grasses sink and fail. Within, glowing Mulciber had carved a thousand likenesses of the god: here wreathed Pleasure clings to his side, here Labour drooping to repose bears him company, here he shares a couch with Bacchus, there with Love, the child of Mars. Further within, in the secret places of the palace he lies with Death also, but that dread image is seen by none. These are but pictures: he himself beneath humid caverns rests upon coverlets heaped with slumbrous flowers, his garments reek, and the cushions are warm with his sluggish body, and above the bed a dark vapour rises from his breathing mouth. One hand holds up the locks that fall from his left temple, from the other drops his neglected horn.”
Stat super occiduae nebulosa cubilia Noctis Aethiopasque alios, nulli penetrabilis astro, lucus iners, subterque cavis graue rupibus antrum it uacuum in montem, qua desidis atria Somni securumque larem segnis Natura locavit. limen opaca Quies et pigra Oblivio servant et numquam vigili torpens Ignauia vultu. Otia vestibulo pressisque Silentia pennis muta sedent abiguntque truces a culmine ventos et ramos errare vetant et murmura demunt alitibus. non hic pelagi, licet omnia clament litora, non ullus caeli fragor; ipse profundis vallibus effugiens speluncae proximus amnis saxa inter scopulosque tacet: nigrantia circum armenta omne solo recubat pecus, et nova marcent germina, terrarumque inclinat spiritus herbas. mille intus simulacra dei caelaverat ardens Mulciber: hic haeret lateri redimita Voluptas, hic comes in requiem vergens Labor, est ubi Baccho, est ubi Martigenae socium puluinar Amori obtinet. interius tecti in penetralibus altis et cum Morte jacet, nullique ea tristis imago cernitur. hae species. ipse autem umentia subter antra soporifero stipatos flore tapetas incubat; exhalant vestes et corpore pigro strata calent, supraque torum niger efflat anhelo ore vapor; manus haec fusos a tempore laevo sustentat crines, haec cornu oblita remisit.

Source: Thebaid, Book X, Line 84 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

Diogenes Laërtius photo

“Solon used to say that speech was the image of actions;… that laws were like cobwebs,—for that if any trifling or powerless thing fell into them, they held it fast; while if it were something weightier, it broke through them and was off.”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Solon, 10.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 1: The Seven Sages

Muhammad bin Qasim photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“Money is a corporate image depending on society for its institutional status.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 133

Paul Klee photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Jacques Ellul photo
Firuz Shah Tughlaq photo

“Firuz Shah Tughlaq organised an industry out of catching slaves. Shams-i-Siraj Afif writes in his Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi: “The Sultan commanded his great fief-holders and officers to capture slaves whenever they were at war (that is, suppressing Hindu rebellions), and to pick out and send the best for the service of the court. The chiefs and officers naturally exerted themselves in procuring more and more slaves and a great number of them were thus collected. When they were found to be in excess, the Sultan sent them to important cities… It has been estimated that in the city and in the various fiefs, there were 1,80,000 slaves… The Sultan created a separate department with a number of officers for administering the affairs of these slaves.”. Firuz Shah beat all previous records in his treatment of the Hindus… He records another instance in which Hindus who had built new temples were butchered before the gate of his palace, and their books, images, and vessels of Worship were publicly burnt. According to him “this was a warning to all men that no zimmi could follow such wicked practices in a Musulman country”. Afif reports yet another case in which a Brahmin of Delhi was accused of “publicly performing idol-worship in his house and perverting Mohammedan women leading them to become infidels”. The Brahmin “was tied hand and foot and cast into a burning pile of faggots.””

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

The historian who witnessed this scene himself expresses his satisfaction by saying, “Behold the Sultan’s strict adherence to law and rectitude, how he would not deviate in the least from its decrees.”
Quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231

Marvin Minsky photo
Vladimir I. Arnold photo
Jan Theuninck photo

“Those things are inextricable bound up in my mind, with words I make an image and vice versa.”

Jan Theuninck (1954) painter, poet

As quoted in Boekgrrls (8 March 2004) http://www.boekgrrls.nl/BgDiversen/Onderwerpen/gedichten_over_schilderijen.htm

Adrienne von Speyr photo
Vladimir Lenin photo

“Sensation is a subjective image of the objective world.”

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

Source: Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908), p. 116

Charles de Gaulle photo

“I am retiring. I have a mission, and it is coming to an end … France may still one day need an image that is pure. She must be left this image. If Joan of Arc had married, she would no longer have been Joan of Arc.”

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic

Said to Pierre Bertaux in 1944, as recounted in The Atlantic, November 1960
Fifth Republic and other post-WW2

Seymour Papert photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Phillip Guston photo
Antonio Negri photo

“The image of the lighted ship sliding under the waves, while the band carried on regardless, captured the public’s imagination.”

Steve Turner (1949) British writer

Source: The Band That Played On (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 7

Michael Löwy photo

“In our online descriptions and program literature we describe the cloisters as a public sphere for networked interaction, the gathering place for students, professors, and librarians engaged in planning, evaluating, or reviewing the efforts of research and study utilizing the whole range of technologies of literacy. We go further and describe the task of the cloisters as to "channel flows of research, learning and teaching between the increasingly networked world of the library and the intimacy and engagement of our classrooms and other campus spaces". There we continue to explore the "collectible object", which I tentatively described in Othermindedness in terms of maintaining an archive of "the successive choices, the errors and losses, of our own human community" and suggesting that what constitutes the collectible object is the value which suffuses our choices. It seemed to me then that electronic media are especially suited to tracking such "changing change".
I think it still seems so to me now but I do fear we have lost track of the beauty and nimbleness of new media in representing and preserving the meaning-making quotidian, the ordinary mindfulness which makes human life possible and valuable.
It is interesting, I think, that recounting and rehearsing this notion leaves this interview layered and speckled with (self) quotations, documentations, implicit genealogies, images, and traditions of continuity, change, and difference. Perhaps the most quoted line of afternoon over the years has been the sentence "There is no simple way to say this."”

Michael Joyce (1945) American academic and writer

The same is true of any attempt to describe the way in which the collectible object participates in (I use this word as a felicitous shorthand for the complex of ideas involved in what I called "representing and preserving the meaning-making quotidian" above) the library as living archive.
An interview with Michael Joyce and review of Liam’s Going at Trace Online Writing Centre Archive (2 December 2002) http://tracearchive.ntu.ac.uk/review/index.cfm?article=33

Jussi Halla-aho photo
Salvador Dalí photo
Jeanette Winterson photo
Gottfried Feder photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Tom Hanks photo
Thomas Fuller photo

“But our captain counts the image of God—nevertheless his image—cut in ebony as if done in ivory, and in the blackest Moors he sees the representation of the King of Heaven.”

Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) English churchman and historian

The Good Sea-Captain.
The Holy State and the Profane State (1642)

Edmund Burke photo
Jacob Bronowski photo
Christopher Gérard photo
Oskar Kokoschka photo
A. James Gregor photo
Michelangelo Antonioni photo

“In these days he promoted a bramin, by name Seeva Dew Bhut, to the office of prime minister, who embracing the Mahomedan faith, became such a persecutor of Hindoos that he induced Sikundur to issue orders proscribing the residence of any other than Mahomedans in Kashmeer; and he required that no man should wear the mark on his forehead, or any woman be permitted to burn with her husband's corpse. Lastly, he insisted on all golden and silver images being broken and melted down, and the metal coined into money. Many of the bramins, rather than abandon their religion or their country, poisoned themselves; some emigrated from their native homes, while a few escaped the evil of banishment by becoming Mahomedans. After the emigration of the bramins, Sikundur ordered all the temples in Kashmeer to be thrown down; among which was one dedicated to Maha Dew, in the district of Punjhuzara, which they were unable to destroy, in consequence of its foundation being below the surface of the neighbouring water. But the temple dedicated to Jug Dew was levelled with the ground; and on digging into its foundation the earth emitted volumes of fire and smoke which the infidels declared to be the emblem of the wrath of the Deity; but Sikundur, who witnessed the phenomenon, did not desist till the building was entirely razed to the ground, and its foundations dug up….”

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol. III p.268-69