Quotes about mirror
page 4

“Mitch…was the kind of man who added something to everything he touched and everyone he came in contact with. I was envious of his view on life. He saw it all as a big game, where the only way to win was to be good to other people, to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and like what you see.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Taylor McAden, Chapter 25, p. 300
2000s, The Rescue (2000)

Life, People, Way, Game

“I think the Anthropic Cosmological Principle brings to us an idea perhaps as old as humanity itself: that we are not at all just an accidental anomaly, the microscopic caprice of a tiny particle whirling in the endless depth of the universe. Instead, we are mysteriously connected to the entire universe, we are mirrored in it, just as the entire evolution of the universe is mirrored in us.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World (1994)

Idea, Thinking, Universe

“A man's memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become.”

Fawn M. Brodie (1915–1981) American historian and biographer

No Man Knows My History, ch. 19 (1945)

Faith, Memory, Past

“Well OK, if you want to call it emotional. I’m just saying how ever you want to categorize, it I don’t think its much different from the black woman in the psych ward. I don’t think it is different from an Anorexics who is already terribly thin looking in a mirror and thinking, ‘I feel fat.’ Yes they really feel that way, but they aren’t. Bruce Jenner is not a woman. Every cell in his body is the cell of a man.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2015-06-02
Coulter: Jenner Transgender Behavior a ‘Mental Illness,’ Shouldn’t Be Celebrated
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/06/03/coulter-jenner-transgender-behavior-a-mental-illness-shouldnt-be-celebrated/
2015

Way, Feeling, Thinking

“There must be other leaps in life - as momentous as the "mirror stage" - that Lacan didn't mention. Some are universal; others, culturally particular. To understand that your parents are human (and not an element of the natural world), that they're separate from you, that they were children once, that they were born and came into the world, is another leap. It's as if you hadn't seen who they were earlier - just as, before you were ten months old, you didn't know it was you in the mirror. This happens when you're sixteen or seventeen. Not long after - maybe a year - you find out your parents will die. It's not as if you haven't encountered death already. But, before now, your precocious mind can't accommodate your parents' death except as an academic nicety - to be dismissed gently as too literary and sentimental. After that day, your parents' dying suddenly becomes simple. It grows clear that you're alone and always have been, though certain convergences start to look miraculous - for instance, between your father, mother, and yourself. Though your parents don't die immediately - what you've had is a realisation, not a premonition - you'll carry around this knowledge for their remaining decades or years. You won't think, looking at them, "You're going to die". It'll be an unspoken fact of existence. Nothing about them will surprise you anymore.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

Friend of My Youth (2017)

Life, Death, Children, World

“When the mirror meets with an ugly woman, when a rare ink-stone finds a vulgar owner, and when a good sword is in the hands of a common general, there is utterly nothing to be done about it.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 317

“…and if you are common, you can dress up as a woman, show you behind or write poems: there’s nothing offensive about a naked behind if it’s everybody’s; each person will be mirrored in it.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

(463).
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

Personality

“When you write your own lyrics, you tend to be over-analytical. One second everything you do is brilliant, and the next, everything is garbage, and I want to be able to express personal things without being made to feel stupid. One of the first times I remember writing something personal was on tour. I was feeling really freaky and down, and I looked in the mirror and I was wearing a red T-shirt and some baggy tennis shorts. I remember thinking that as bummed as I felt, I looked like some beach kid. And then I came up with that line—’I’m looking California / And feeling Minnesota,’ from the song ‘Outshined’—and as soon as I wrote it down, I thought it was the dumbest thing. But after the record came out and we went on tour, everybody would be screaming along with that particular line when it came up in the song. The was a shock. How could anyone know that that was one of the most personally specific things I had ever written? It was just a tiny line. But somehow, maybe because it was personal, it just pushed that button.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Interview with Details Magazine, December 1996 https://pitchfork.com/features/article/10081-chris-cornell-searching-for-solitude/, Soundgarden Era

Stupidity, Feeling, Thinking, Time

“From the late 1940s until the early 1960s, events seemed to prove the Keynesians correct. Then, beginning in the 1960s, several distinguished economists began to challenge Keynesian ideas. Their counterrevolutionary views, which in many ways mirrored those of the classical economists, were strengthened by events in the 1970s, when the economy’s behavior began to contradict some Keynesian ideas. But in 2008 and 2009, as the economy sank into the most serious worldwide recession since the Great Depression, Keynesian ideas were once again at the center of a heated debate about the causes of the problem and the appropriate remedies.”

Robert Hall (economist)

Robert E. Hall and Marc Lieberman, Macroeconomics (2012).

Way, Behavior, Idea, Problem

“Nothing is going to change in the Congo until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Change, Personality

“When modern horror films or fundamentalists talk about “demons,” they mean something very different than what Socrates meant by the term. It was a lot closer to what I was talking about: the essential drive, the highest self, if you like. So maybe there is a connection, when I met, or appeared to meet, a demon. It was a little bit frightening at first, but after a while we found that we got on OK and we could have a civilized conversation, and I found him very engaging, very pleasant. And it struck me that this was a brilliant literal example of the process of demonization. That when I had approached the demon with fear and loathing, it was fearsome and loathsome. When I approached it with respect, then it was respectable. And I thought, All right, there’s a kind of mirroring that is going on here that is probably applicable to a wide number of social situations. The people or classes of people that we demonize, and that we treat with fear and loathing, respond accordingly. We are projecting a persona of manner of behavior upon them, as well as responding to a manner of behavior that’s already there. When we’re looking at the flaws in their personality that we are able to recognize, the fact that we can recognize them suggests that they are probably in some way a version of flaws that we have ourselves.”

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

As quoted in ""HEY, YOU CAN JUST MAKE STUFF UP." Differences between magic and art: None" https://www.believermag.com/issues/201306/?read=interview_moore, by Peter Bebergal, The Believer, (2013). The Believer interview (2013)

People, Fear, Way, Behavior

“A novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.”

Stendhal book The Red and the Black

Un roman est un miroir qui se promène sur une grande route. Tantôt il reflète à vos yeux l’azur des cieux, tantôt la fange des bourbiers de la route. Et l’homme qui porte le miroir dans sa hotte sera par vous accusé‚ d’être immoral ! Son miroir montre la fange, et vous accusez le miroir! Accusez bien plutôt le grand chemin où est le bourbier, et plus encore l’inspecteur des routes qui laisse l’eau croupir et le bourbier se former.
Vol. II, ch. XIX
Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black) (1830)

Water

“When you read God’s Word, in everything you read, continually to say to yourself: It is I to whom it is speaking - this is earnestness, precisely this is earnestness. Not a single one of those to whom the cause of Christianity in the higher sense has been entrusted forgot to urge this again and again as most crucial, as unconditionally the condition if you are to come to see yourself in the mirror.”

Sören Kierkegaard book For Self-Examination

Soren Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, Hong p. 36-37
1850s, For Self-Examination (1851), What is Required in Order to Look at Oneself with True Blessing in the Mirror of the Word?

God, Sense, Reading

“You don't have to put up a fight, you don't have to always be right.
Let me take some of the punches for you tonight.
Listen to me now, I need to let you know
You don't have to go it alone.
And it's you when I look in the mirror.
It's you when I pick up the phone.
Sometimes you can't make it on your own.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

"Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own"
Lyrics, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004)

Fight

“Some… agreeing with Philolaus, believe that the proportion is called harmonic because it attends upon all geometric harmony, and they say that 'geometric harmony' is the cube because it is harmonized in all three dimensions, being the product of a number thrice multiplied together. For in every cube this proportion is mirrored; there are in every cube 12 sides, 8 angles and 6 faces; hence 8, the [harmonic] mean between 6 and 12, is according to harmonic proportion…”

Nicomachus (60–120) Ancient Greek mathematician

this harmonic proportion may be expressed as <math>\frac{12}{6}=\frac{12-8}{8-6}</math> or inversely.
Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic (1926)

“In the natural sciences, language (mathematics) is a useful tool: like the microscope or telescope, it enables us to see what is otherwise invisible. In the social sciences, language (literalized metaphor) is an impediment: like a distorting mirror, it prevents us from seeing the obvious.
That is why in the natural sciences, knowledge can be gained only with the mastery of their special languages; whereas in human affairs, knowledge can be gained only by rejecting the pretentious jargons of the social sciences.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary (1990)

Mathematics, Nature, Knowledge, Science

“It is no secret that the moon has no light of her own, but is, as it were, a mirror, receiving brightness from the influence of the sun.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book IX, Chapter II, Sec. 3

Secret, Light, Sun

“How you see me? Tell me how you see me. When mirrors only reflect what you want to see. Believe me.”

Marcus Orelias (1993) American actor, rapper, songwriter, author and entrepreneur

Book II
Rebel of the Underground (2013)

“I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day," said Mr. Irwine. "No dust has settled on one's mind then, and it presents a clear mirror to the rays of things.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Adam Bede (1859)

Time

“Seven thirty-nine, more than three hundred miles to the north and east, Jack Reacher climbed out of his motel room window. One minute earlier, he had been in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. One minute before that, he had opened the door of his room to check the morning temperature. He had left it open, and the closet just inside the entrance passageway was faced with mirrored glass, and there was a shaving mirror in the bathroom on a cantilevered arm, and by a freak of optical chance he caught sight of four men getting out of a car and walking toward the motel office. Pure luck, but a guy as vigilant as Jack Reacher gets lucky more times than the average.”

Lee Child book Echo Burning

Echo Burning, Ch. 1 (2001).

Men, Cars, Guy, Chance

“All Faith is false, all Faith is true: Truth is the shattered mirror strown
In myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own.”

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

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Truth, Faith, Falseness

“The One true God may be compared unto the sun and the believer unto a mirror. No sooner is the mirror placed before the sun than it reflects its light. The unbeliever may be likened unto a stone. No matter how long it is exposed to the sunshine, it cannot reflect the sun.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

VI, 4
The Persian Bayán

God, Light, Sun

“For our improvement we need a mirror.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Zu unserer Besserung bedürfen wir eines Spiegels.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

“The very sound of his own steps disturbed him; and he flung himself on a couch, to enjoy without interruption the exquisite melody. The intense perfume of the flowers intoxicated him like wine. He felt as if lulled in a delicious trance, in which one image became more and more distinct — the pale but lovely face of his hostess. His heart was filling with love for those radiant eyes. A softer fragrance breathed around him — it was her breath. He looked, and she was again bending over him; he saw himself mirrored in the moonlight of her eyes.”

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

The Monthly Magazine

Love, Flowers, Wine, Heart

“When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror — for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.
I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.
If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us — the dignity of man.”

Harold Pinter (1930–2008) playwright from England

Art, Truth & Politics (2005)

Truth, Hope, Thinking, Change

“When I was young I once found a book in a Dutch translation, The 'Leaves of Grass'. It was the first time a book touched me by its feeling of freedom and open spaces, the way the poet spoke of the ocean by describing a drop of water in his hand. Walt Whitman was offering the world an open hand (now we call it democracy) and my 'Monument for Walt Whitman' became this open hand with mirrors, so you can see inside yourself.”

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

Source: Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990), p. 93 'Quotes', K. Appel (1989)
Appel's quote is referring to his sculpture 'Monument for Walt Whitman', dedicated to the American poet

Books, World, Way, Feeling

“I usually only draw myself in down periods. I do, actually. I suppose that's why I often draw myself looking grim. I just think, "Let's have a look in the mirror." When you are alone and you look in a mirror you never put on a pleasing smile. Well, you don't, do you?”

David Hockney (1937) British artist

Interview with Nigel Farndale, "The talented Mr. Hockney" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/11/17/bahock17.xml The Telegraph (15 November 2001) 2000s

Smile, Thinking, Drawing

“Every time I see a mirror I’m amazed. I end up wondering who’s taken over the outside of me. A disgusting old goat, from the look of him. The kind I used to snicker at when I was twenty. He scares me, Stance. He looks like a dying man. I’m trapped inside him, and I’m not ready to go.”

Glen Cook book The White Rose

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 10, “Bomanz’s Story” (p. 497)

Time

“The only advice that I'm in the mood to give - and that I give regularly - to young people is this: fight for what you believe in. You will lose, just like I have lost, all the battles. But only one you may win. The one that you engage every morning, in front of the mirror.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

Soltanto un giornalista, Rizzoli, 2002.
2000s - 2010s

People, Mood, Fight

“It is good to know that our nation's defenses against a conventional attack are impregnable, and an imperative that America remain vigilant against threats from terrorists. But as is the case with a human being, admirable characteristics of a nation are not defined by size and physical prowess. What are some of the other attributes of a superpower? Once again, they might very well mirror those of a person. These would include a demonstrable commitment to truth, justice, peace, freedom, humility, human rights, generosity, and the upholding of other moral values.”

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

Page 199
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)

Truth, Peace, Justice, Freedom

“How do you think those routines were accomplished? With mirrors?… Well, I thought I knew what concentrated work was before I met Fred, but he's the limit. Never satisfied until every detail is right, and he will not compromise. No sir! What's more, if he thinks of something better after you've finished a routine, you do it over.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Ginger Rogers (M) op. cit.

Thinking

“None of us would ever wish the evil that was done on September the 11th. Yet after America was attacked, it was as if our entire country looked into a mirror and saw our better selves. We were reminded that we are citizens, with obligations to each other, to our country, and to history. We began to think less of the goods we can accumulate, and more about the good we can do.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

History, Thinking, Evil, Country

“It is a curious thing, after years have elapsed, to go back upon the pages of a favourite author. Nothing shows us more forcibly the change that has taken place in ourselves. The book is a mental mirror — the mind starts from its own face, so much freshness, and so much fire has passed away. The colours and the light of youth have gone together. The judgment of the man rarely confirms that of the boy. What was once sweet has become mawkish, and the once exquisite simile appears little more than an ingenious conceit. The sentiment which the heart once beat to applaud has now no answering key-note within, and the real is perpetually militating against the imagined. It is a great triumph to the poet when we return to the volume, and find that our early creed was, after all, the true religion.”

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

The Monthly Magazine

Books, Youth, Religion, Imagination

“This was not the first time that Mr. Bulstrode had begun by admonishing Mr. Vincy, and had ended by seeing a very unsatisfactory reflection of himself in the coarse unflattering mirror which that manufacturer’s mind presented to the subtler lights and shadows of his fellowmen; and perhaps his experience ought to have warned him how the scene would end. But a full-fed fountain will be generous with its waters even in the rain, when they are worse than useless; and a fine fount of admonition is apt to be equally irrepressible.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

Light, Water, Time

“In the depths of the mirror the evening landscape moved by, the mirror and the reflected figures like motion pictures superimposed one on the other. The figures and the background were unrelated, and yet the figures, transparent and intangible, and the background, dim in the gathering darkness, melted into a sort of symbolic world not of this world. Particularly when a light out in the mountains shone in the center of the girl's face, Shimamura felt his chest rise at the inexpressible beauty of it.”

Yasunari Kawabata book Snow Country

Snow Country (1948)

World, Beauty, Girl, Mountain

“I can scarcely conceive (would my brain be a spellbound mirror?) a type of beauty without unhappiness. Supported by — others would say, obsessed by — these notions, one may conceive it would be difficult for me not to conclude that the most perfect type of masculine beauty is Satan, — as rendered by Milton.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Je ne conçois guère (mon cerveau serait-il un miroir ensorcelé?) un type de Beauté où il n'y ait du Malheur. Appuyé sur — d'autres diraient: obsédé par — ces idées, on conçoit qu'il me serait difficile de en pas conclure que le plus parfait type de Beauté virile est Satan, — à la manière de Milton. XVI http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Fus%C3%A9es#XVI Journaux intimes (1864–1867; published 1887), Fusées (1867)

Beauty, Support, Perfection

“Rather than calling attention to the house of mirrors, that passes for empirical truth (as postmodern acadimics did), and rather than fighting for better mirrors (as the ID warriors did), today's media activists are concentrating on shattering the impenetrable shiny surfaces of branded culture, picking up the pieces and using them as sharp weapons in a war of actions, not ideas.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

Source: No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies 1999, Chapter Five: "The Patriarchy Gets Funky"

War, Truth, Idea, Fight

“Do you remember that terrible moment, señors, when the self-righteousness of your youth died? When all the stern warnings of your elders, ignored until the consequences abruptly came crashing down on your head, made you see in a flash that the warnings hadn’t been unfair or mean-spirited or blind, they’d been right? All along your elders had been trying to tell you about the black joke that is life, trying to help you and save you from pain. But you insisted on running straight into the trap, mocking them as you ran, to the agony that was irreversible and permanent, with no one to blame, finally, but yourself.
It’s not good to see yourself in the mirror then.”

Kage Baker book Mendoza in Hollywood

Part 2 “Babylon is Fallen” Chapter 12 (pp. 259-260)
Mendoza in Hollywood (2000)

Life, Pain, Youth, Help

“If art reflects life, it does so with special mirrors.”

Bertolt Brecht A Short Organum for the Theatre

¶ 73
A Short Organum for the Theatre (1949)

Life, Art

“When you smiled,
Everything in the room was shattered;
Only you remained whole
In frozen wonder, as though you stared
At your image in the broken mirror
Where it had always been silverly carried.”

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

"To A Spanish Poet"
The Still Centre (1939)

Smile

“I had one little glimpse in the mirror and it was like an electric shock. Horrifying. It took me three or four days to get over it. On air, the plastic surgeon said: "Would you have anything done?" Oh no, I said. "Do you smoke?" No, never. Soon as the camera was off I took his card and had a cigarette.”

Susannah Constantine (1962) British fashion designer and journalist

Reaction to being aged to a 70-year-old by prosthetics.
God's gift to women (2007)

“No one mirrors his age clearer than the artist, for here is the living moment made concrete, the particular made general.”

John Minton (artist)

John Minton A selective retrospective Exh. cat. Oriel Davies Gallery , Newtown, Wales 1994 quoted in Insights by Liz Rideal, National Portrait Gallery, London 2005 ISBN 1855143631

Age

“A tablet without software is just an inconveniently fragile and poorly reflective mirror, so the thing I want to be sure of when I buy a device is that I don't have to implicitly trust one corporation's judgment about what software I should and shouldn't be using.”

Cory Doctorow (1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author

"Why Samsung's Galaxy Tab is 'meh'" in The Guardian (25 July 2011) http://theguardian.com/technology/2011/jul/25/why-samsung-galaxy-tab-is-meh

“A fat little kid doing magic in front of a stand-up mirror. 'Hey, kiddo, that's a good one,' his father could've said, but for reasons unknown, reasons mysterious, the words never got spoken. He had wanted to be loved. And to be loved he had practiced deception. He had hidden the bad things. He had tricked up his own life. Only for love. Only to be loved. (pp. 242-243)”

Tim O'Brien (1946) American novelist

In the Lake of The Woods (1994)

Love, Life

“India though it has more than five hundred spoken dialects, has only one sacred language and only one sacred literature, accepted and revered by all adherence of Hinduism alike, however diverse in race, dialect, rank and creed. That language is Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature, the only repository of the Veda or knowledge in its widest sense, the only vehicle of Hindu mythology, philosophy, law, the mirror in which all the creeds, opinions, and customs and usages of the Hindus are faithfully reflected and the only quarry whence the requisite materials may be obtained for improving the vernaculars or for expressing important religious and scientific ideas.”

Monier Monier-Williams (1819–1899) Linguist and dictionary compiler

Sir Monier Monier-Williams in: The Literary World: Choice Readings from the Best New Books, with Critical Revisions https://books.google.co.in/books?id=qOoRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA252, James Clarke & Company, 1877, p. 252.

Law, Literature, Idea, Knowledge

“It is the vanity of women to spend hours in front of the mirror. It is the vanity of men not to bother.”

Simon Munnery (1967) British comedian

Attention Scum! (2001), How To Live (2005)

Women, Men

“We should therefore, with grace and optimism, embrace NOMA's tough-minded demand: Acknowledge the personal character of these human struggles about morals and meanings, and stop looking for definite answers in nature's construction. But many people cannot bear to surrender nature as a “transitional object”—a baby's warm blanket for our adult comfort. But when we do (for we must), nature can finally emerge in her true form: not as a distorted mirror of our needs, but as our most fascinating companion. Only then can we unite the patches built by our separate magisteria into a beautiful and coherent quilt called wisdom.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Rocks of Ages

Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (Ballantine, 1999), p. 178

Wisdom, People, Beauty, Optimism

“That's all window dressing. That's not fundamental. That's not getting at change and the transformation that must take place. Sure we have to solve problems. Certainly stamp out the fire. Stamp out the fire and get nowhere. Stamp out the fires puts us back to where we were in the first place. Taking action on the basis of results without theory of knowledge, without theory of variation, without knowledge about a system. Anything goes wrong, do something about it, overreacting; acting without knowledge, the effect is to make things worse. With the best of intentions and best efforts, managing by results is, in effect, exactly the same, as Dr. Myron Tribus put it, while driving your automobile, keeping your eye on the rear view mirror, what would happen? And that's what management by results is, keeping your eye on results.”

W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) American professor, author, and consultant

The Deming of America, Documentary broadcast on the PBS network (1991)

Knowledge, Problem, Effort, Change

“As on the crystal surface of a lake
The trembling shafts of sunlight mirrored are,
Leaping to roof-top, and, at random glancing,
Sparkle and gleam, in all directions dancing.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Qual d'acqua chiara il tremolante lume,
Dal sol percossa o da' notturni rai,
Per gli ampli tetti va con lungo salto
A destra et a sinistra, e basso et alto.
Canto VIII, stanza 71 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Dance

“Our treatment of animals is the last moral frontier, the ultimate test of our humanity, the mirror by which we can see most deeply into our own souls.”

Bernard E. Rollin (1943) American philosopher

"The Legal and Moral Bases of Animal Rights", in Ethics and Animals, edited by Harlan B. Miller and William H. Williams (Clifton, NJ: Humana Press, 1983), p. 118 https://books.google.it/books?id=JBPlBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA118.

Soul, Animals

“If you are irritated by every rub,
how will your mirror be polished?”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Rumi Daylight (1990)

“When I resided at Bath I had long been acquainted with the theory of optics and mechanics, and wanted only that experience so necessary in the practical part of these sciences. This I acquired by degrees at that place where in my leisure hours, by way of amusement, I made several two-foot, five-foot, seven-foot, ten-foot and twenty-foot Newtonian telescopes, beside others, of the Gregorian form, of eight, twelve, and eighteen inches, and two, three, five, and ten feet focal length. In this way I made not less than two hundred seven-foot, one hundred and fifty ten-foot, and about eighty twenty-foot mirrors, not to mention the Gregorian telescopes.”

William Herschel (1738–1822) German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer

Source: Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880), Ch.4 "Life and Works" Footnote: At least one of these telescopes had the principal mirror made of glass instead of metal. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1803).

Way, Science, Parting

“If we cannot "practice the presence of God," it is something to practice the absence of God, to become increasingly aware of our unawareness till we feel like man who should stand beside a great cataract and hear no noise, or like a man in a story who looks in a mirror and finds no face there, or a man in a dream who stretches his hand to visible objects and gets no sensation of touch. To know that one is dreaming is to no longer be perfectly asleep. Bur for news of the fully waking world you must go to my betters.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Four Loves

"Charity"
The Four Loves (1960)

God, World, Dreams, Feeling

“Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror."
I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves.
Mephi replied, "History suggests, not until they are made to.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 168 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

History

“All your dreams are made / When you're chained to the mirror and the razor blade”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Morning Glory
(What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

Dreams

“Sharpe knew himself to be a tough man, but he had always thought of himself as a reasonable one, yet now, in the mirror of William's nervousness, he saw himself as something far worse; a bullying man who would use the small authority of his rank to frighten men. In fact, the very kind of officer Sharpe had most hated when he himself was under their embittered authority.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 81
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Rifles (1988)

Men, Hate

“The disciple must break the glass, or better the mirror, the reflection, his infinite speculation on the master. And start to speak.”

Jacques Derrida book Writing and Difference

Cogito and The History of Madness, p.37 (Routledge classics edition)
Writing and Difference (1978)

“My single pair of eyes
Contain the universe they see;
Their mirrored multiplicity
Is packed into a hollow body
Where I reflect the many, in my one.”

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

"The Human Situation"
The Still Centre (1939)

Universe

“The most significant change in the games themselves is the addition of 'Follow the Follower' (p 62), a variation on the 'Mirror' game in which no one initiates and all reflect. This game quiets the mind and frees players to enter a time, space, a moment intertwined with one another in a non-physical, non-verbal, non-analytical, nonjudgmental way.”

Viola Spolin (1906–1994) American academic and acting theorist

Improvisation for the Theater 3rd Edition (1999), Viola Spolin's Preface to the Second Edition, page iv

Way, Game, Change, Time

“And in the end, after all that's happened these past 19 months, the Barack Obama I know today is the same man I fell in love with 19 years ago. He's the same man who drove me and our new baby daughter home from the hospital 10 years ago this summer, inching along at a snail's pace, peering anxiously at us in the rearview mirror, feeling the whole weight of her future in his hands, determined to give her everything he'd struggled so hard for himself, determined to give her what he never had: the affirming embrace of a father's love.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2000s, Democratic National Convention speech (2008)

Love, Feeling, Home, Past

“The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not man disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God.”

Thomas Traherne (1636–1674) English poet

First Century, sect. 31.
Centuries of Meditations

God, World, Peace, Beauty

“Is there any more mysterious idea for an artist than the conception of how nature is mirrored in the eyes of an animal? How does a horse see the world, or an eagle, or a doe, or a dog?”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

Source: 1915 - 1916, 100 Aphorisms', Franz Marc (1915), p. 445

World, Dogs, Idea, Nature

“If intellection and knowledge were mere passion from without, or the bare reception of extraneous and adventitious forms, then no reason could be given at all why a mirror or looking-glass should not understand; whereas it cannot so much as sensibly perceive those images which it receives and reflects to us.”

Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688) English philosopher

Source: Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (1731), Ch. 1, sct. 3

Understanding, Knowledge, Passion

“I call it to mind and delight in it now, but I did not notice it at the time. We next to never know when we are well off: but this cuts two ways,--for if we did, we should perhaps know better when we are ill off also; and I have sometimes thought that there are as many ignorant of the one as of the other. He who wrote, “O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint agricolas,” might have written quite as truly, “O infortunatos nimium sua si mala norint”; and there are few of us who are not protected from the keenest pain by our inability to see what it is that we have done, what we are suffering, and what we truly are. Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 3

Pain, Way, Suffering, Appearance

“A structure-less painting is, to me, a painting that does not matter. Structure mirrors your degree of responsibility toward the work. You can’t just let it float around in pretty colors. It needs a kind of core. But this is an inner structure. It does correspond to being a geologist — the metaphor may be trite, but it works. Like when you see these breathtaking mountains in strange colors in eastern Greenland. As a geologist, you want to know what exactly they’re doing.”

Per Kirkeby (1938–2018) Danish artist

1995 and later, interview in Kirkeby’s home studio, Copenhagen (2012)

Color, Mountain, Painting

“We still think and talk of the basic problems of an industrial society as problems that can be solved by changing the system, that is the superstructure of political organization. Yet the real problems lie within the [industrial] enterprise. …our representative institution… a mirror in which we look when we want to see ourselves.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

1930s- 1950s, The New Society (1950)

Lie, Problem, Thinking, Change

“I glance reflections of my face everyplace I go, in my mirror and in shop windows, like the lead in my own show. Do I dare look closely? See each wrinkle, scar and flaw?”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"The War/La Ilaha Il Allah"
Out Seeing The Fields (2007)

“Civilizations, both past and present represent projections of inner selfhood, and mirror the state of the mass psyche at any given time.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 277

Time, Past

“What to leave out is the first thing the artist has to decide; a painter who “held the mirror up to nature” would spend his life on the leaves of one landscape. The work of art’s fluctuating and idiosyncratic threshold of attention—the great things disregarded, the small things seized and dwelt on—is as much of a signature as anything in it.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Profession of Poetry”, p. 162
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Life, Art, Nature

“There is certainly no truth in the popular belief, that a man's will is the mirror of his character.”
Falsum est nimirum quod creditur vulgo, testamenta hominum speculum esse morum.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 18, 1.
Letters, Book VIII

Truth

“Biological determinism has for years struck me as a failure of intellectual nerve. So I don't mean to counter sexist theories along those lines with a mirror-image feminist version. We have as yet no truly value-free science, uninfluenced by masculinist (among other biases) prejudice. Consequently — although on certain bleak days I am sorely tempted to agreement with what we feminists have termed the "acute terminal testosterone-poisoning" theory of patriarchal history — I do not make the argument that women are inherently more peaceable, nurturing, or altruistic than men. (For one thing, this permits men the laziest of justifications for their own behavior.) Yet it is undeniable that history is a record of most women acting peaceably and of most men acting belligerently”

Robin Morgan (1941) American feminist writer

to a point where the capacity for belligerence is regarded as an essential ingredient of manhood and the proclivity for conciliation is thought largely a quality of women.
The Demon Lover: On the Sexuality of Terrorism (1989). New York: WW Norton & Co. 395 p. ISBN 0393306771. (2000 revised ed, ISBN 0743452933.)

Women, Men, Behavior, History

“By all means attend to your duties. Action, in which you are not emotionally involved and which is beneficial and does not cause suffering will not bind you. You may be engaged in several directions and work with enormous zest, yet remain inwardly free and quiet, with a mirror-like mind, which reflects all, without being affected.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Detachment
Source: "I am That." P.50.

Suffering

“I’m not the person to ask about what’s normal,’ Denise answered. ‘I’ve mainly seen normal in the rearview mirror.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

The Corrections (2001)

Personality

“The best among our writers are doing their accustomed work of mirroring what is deep in the spirit of our time; if chaos appears in those mirrors, we must have faith that in the future, as always in the past, that chaos will slowly reveal itself as a new aspect of order.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

Faith, Appearance, Time, Past

“Today it's possible to paint one canvas with the calmness of an ancient Greek and the next with the anxiety of a Van Gogh. Either of these emotions, and any in between, is valid to me... I work on many canvasses at once. In the morning I line them up against the wall of my studio. Some speak, some do not. They are my mirrors. They tell me what I am like at that moment.”

William Baziotes (1912–1963) American painter

I Cannot Evolve Any Concrete Theory, William Baziotes, in Possibilities, Vol. I, no. 1, New York, winter 1947-48, p. 2
1940s

Painting

“And it is the notions of reality and unreality themselves which finally become suspect when either one is mirrored in art, much less when both are mirrored together.”

Samuel R. Delany book Neveryóna

Source: Neveryóna (1983), Chapter 3, “Of Markets, Maps, Cellars, and Cisterns” (p. 61)

Art, Reality

“Earlier contentions that the right hemisphere is not even conscious largely gave way by the mid seventies to an intermediate position conceding that the mute hemisphere may be conscious at some lower elemental levels, but claiming that it lacks the higher, reflective, self-conscious kind of inner awareness that is special to the human mind and is needed, so it is said, to qualify the right conscious system as a "self' or "person". Self awareness in particular is reported, on the basis of mirror tests mainly, to be a predominantly human attribute and is rated by developmental as well as by evolutionary standards to be a highly advanced phase of conscious awareness.”

Roger Wolcott Sperry (1913–1994) American neuroscientist

Nobel lecture (1981)

Way, Personality

“The mirror by the door was not a mirror by the door, it was an altar where he stood for only a moment to put on his cap before going out. The red rocking chair was a rocking of his own hips as he sat in the kitchen. Still, there was nothing of his — his own — that she could find. It was as if she were afraid she had hallucinated him and needed proof to the contrary. His absence was everywhere, stinging everything, giving the furnishings primary colors, sharp outlines to the corners of rooms and gold light to the dust collecting on table tops. When he was there he pulled everything toward himself. Not only her eyes and all her senses but also inanimate things seemed to exist because of him, backdrops to his presence. Now that he had gone, these things, so long subdued by his presence, were glamorized in his wake.”

Toni Morrison book Sula

Sula (1973)

Color, Sense, Light

“She watched the lights upon the shore. The glare that was Plymouth in the distance. She thought, the dance is over. The girls are going out of the overheated hall into the cold air. They shiver; their young men hurry after them. Some have got home and find their dresses stained or torn; yet they've enjoyed themselves. Which is the more important? Wallflowers think of the young men who haven't danced with them; probably each has a dream-day hero. Remember the lieutenant to whom I never spoke a word; yet I married him and had children and grandchildren, though he never knew it. And there are others, madly happy, look in their mirrors and smile and wonder. Even the latest home has a warm bed to go to.”

Arthur Calder-Marshall (1908–1992) English novelist, essayist, critic, memoirist and biographer

Calder-Marshall, Arthur. At Sea. London: Jonathan Cape. 1934.

Men, Happiness, Children, Smile

“I am admittedly insecure about my racial identity, an attitude that has much improved since my younger days when I absolutely abhorred it. Any attention paid to me being different was incredibly shameful…but the mirrors became too much…what a disappointing reality check!”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, HATING ONESELF

Disappointment, Reality

“The reason I'm so bitter and, as I said, in anguish, nowadays, or one of the reasons, is that everybody's begun to lie and because they lie they assume that I lie too: they overlook the fact that I remember very well many things (of course I've forgotten some), but I do believe that lying is a sin, unless it's an innocent lie based on lack of memory, certainly the giving of false evidence and being a false witness is a mortal sin, but what I mean is, insofar as lying has become so prevalent in the world today (thanks to Marxian Dialectal propaganda and Comintern techniques among other causes) that, when a man tells the truth, everybody, looking in the mirror and seeing a liar, assumes that the truth-teller is lying too.”

Jack Kerouac book Vanity of Duluoz

Vanity of Duluoz (1968)

Truth, Lie, World, Lying

“Blue, round, miserable moon, full of magic, picture that draws like a magnet, pale-coloured, charmed jewel, made by sorcerers; swiftest of dreams, cold traitor, brother to the ice, most evil and unkind of servants, let hell consume the hateful, thin, bent-lipped mirror!”

Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320–1380) Welsh poet

Lleuad las gron gwmpas graen,
Llawn o hud, llun ehedfaen;
Hadlyd liw, hudol o dlws,
Hudolion a'i hadeilws;
Breuddwyd o'r modd ebrwydda',
Bradwr oer a brawd i'r ia.
Ffalstaf, gwir ddifwynaf gwas,
Fflam fo'r drych mingam meingas!
"Y Drych" (The Mirror), line 25; translation from Carl Lofmark Bards and Heroes (Felinfach: Llanerch, 1989) p. 96.

Hate, Dreams, Hell, Evil

“People say, I am afraid of changes. But who is asking you to change? Knowledge is not a change. When you see yourself in the mirror, the first thing you will realize is that beauty that you have always looked for is right there. That's the first thing you will realize. That, to me, is the magic of this Knowledge.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Escobar, Argentina, January 23, 1991
1990s

People, Beauty, Knowledge, Change

“Back to the glass in terror we came,
And stared at the writing round the frame.
We could not understand one word:
And suddenly we thought we heard
The hissing of the snakes again:
How could we front them all alone?
O, madly we clutched at the mirrored stone
And wished we were back on the flowery plain:
And swifter than thought and swift as fear
The whole world flashed, and behold we were there.”

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) English poet

Part III : The Mystic Ruby
The Flower of Old Japan and Other Poems (1907), The Flower of Old Japan

World, Fear, Understanding

“For the eyes are the mirror of the soul and ought to remain unscathed if at all possible. Otherwise people will suppose the soul is done for.”

Elfriede Jelinek book Wonderful, Wonderful Times

p 7
Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

People, Soul

“The revelation of the Divine Reality hath everlastingly been identical with its concealment and its concealment identical with its revelation. That which is intended by ‘Revelation of God’ is the Tree of divine Truth that betokeneth none but Him, and it is this divine Tree that hath raised and will raise up Messengers, and hath revealed and will ever reveal Scriptures. From eternity unto eternity this Tree of divine Truth hath served and will ever serve as the throne of the revelation and concealment of God among His creatures, and in every age is made manifest through whomsoever He pleaseth. At the time of the revelation of the Qur’án He asserted His transcendent power through the advent of Muḥammad, and on the occasion of the revelation of the Bayán He demonstrated His sovereign might through the appearance of the Point of the Bayán, and when He Whom God shall make manifest will shine forth, it will be through Him that He will vindicate the truth of His Faith, as He pleaseth, with whatsoever He pleaseth and for whatsoever He pleaseth. He is with all things, yet nothing is with Him. He is not within a thing nor above it nor beside it. Any reference to His being established upon the throne implieth that the Exponent of His Revelation is established upon the seat of transcendent authority…
He hath everlastingly existed and will everlastingly continue to exist. He hath been and will ever remain inscrutable unto all men, inasmuch as all else besides Him have been and shall ever be created through the potency of His command. He is exalted above every mention or praise and is sanctified beyond every word of commendation or every comparison. No created thing comprehendeth Him, while He in truth comprehendeth all things. Even when it is said ‘no created thing comprehendeth Him’, this refers to the Mirror of His Revelation, that is Him Whom God shall make manifest. Indeed too high and exalted is He for anyone to allude unto Him.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

II, 8
The Persian Bayán

Men, God, Truth, Age

“If he had told the voters in 1980 that truth, would American voters have signed the loan certificate for him on Election Day? Of course not! That was an election won under false pretenses. It was won with smoke and mirrors and illusions. And that's the kind of recovery we have now as well.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Democratic National Convention Address (1984)

Truth, Falseness

“It amazes me that anyone would dare point to Jesus Christ in moral judgement. You had better have clean hands and a pure heart before you point a finger at the Son of God… Jesus never sinned once, in thought, word, or in deed. He never lied, stole, hated, lusted, coveted, murdered, or dishonoured his parents. Let's now turn the mirror back on you. When was the last time you burned with unlawfully sexual fantasies? You don't need to reply to that. God knows the answer… So take a little advice from a fellow sinner - stop pointing your sin-stained finger at perfection, and instead look at your own self-righteous and duplicitous heart, before it's too late.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

God, Hate, Parent, Time

“Everyone is a mirror image of yourself—your own thinking coming back at you.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)

Thinking

“Last week, i… i extended a hand to the WWE Universe in a much needed intervention. You know, i don't know if you people know this or not, but i'm not the only one who knows that pills and cigarettes and alcohol are harmful. Medical science has proven this, so there's a surgeon general put in place to put warning labels on all of these products. I guess he's just there to warn the smart people that already know, huh? This is my crusade, and i will continue my crusade for as long as there are people who need help, as long as there are people out there who need change in their lives. One person in particular i've been helping for quite some time now, i'd like to introduce him to the world. Ladies and gentlemen, i give you… Luke Gallows. (Gallows raises his fist) That's right, some of you may recognize him as "Festus", but that was a lifetime ago. And it's a lifetime that he'd just as soon regret. It's a lifetime of torturous drug abuse and neglect, you see, it started just like it started for all of you people, one, one little pill. Just one little pill to take the edge off, one painkiller. And then one turns to two, two turns to four, four turns to eight, so on and so forth. And sure, his friends, his family were there, but they enabled him. They didn't help him, they thought they were but they were slowly rotting him from the inside out. But then i helped him, just like i could help all of you. Trust me, this is just the start, this doesn't end here, it begins here and now. I will continue to reach out and help those who can't help themselves. Holds up brown paper bag On December 1st, this is scary, people, pay attention. On December 1st, a very dangerous addictive new drug hits the streets. Now this scares me because it's a socially accepted over-the-counter drug and it's gonna be widely available all over the world. And it's scary because it's more dangerous than any prescribed medication, it's more harmful than chain smoking an entire carton of unfiltered cigarettes, it is more dangerous than corroding your liver with a fifth of gin or vodka and then chasing it with your Daddy's favorite beer. (Punk pulls a Jeff Hardy DVD out of the bag) "Jeff Hardy, My Life, My Rules" And what an appropriate title, for a loser who destroyed his life and his career living by his rules. And what makes me sick to my stomach is Jeff didn't just ruin his life, he didn't just end his career. (Crowd chants Hardy) He ruined the lives of all his fans because he's planted seeds of destruction in all of the people, all of the drug addicts like yourself who actually looked up to the Charismatic Enabler like he was some sort of a prophet. Well, if you people have any brain-cells left, if there's anything left of your memory that's not burnt out, all you need to know is that the last chapter of this DVD is the most important one you need to watch because it tells the whole story. It's a cage match between myself and Jeff Hardy, where i ended Jeff's career in the WWE… FOREVER! I'm the reason he's not here! And I know how hard it is to deprogram your weak little brains from all the lies you've been fed all over the years, but you owe it to yourselves. Look yourself in the mirror, search inside yourself for that shred of self-respect that might be left, and when it comes to this, when it comes to this garbage, (Holds up DVD) just say no.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

November 27, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Life, People, Alcohol, World

““You ask a question that cannot be answered without knowing the nature of the primal chaos from which being arose. Is Spiral Castle like a crystal, once shattered, forever destroyed? That is what I prefer to believe. Or is it like a still pond, whose mirrored surface may be shattered and churned, but which will inevitably restore itself as the waves die down? You may believe this if you choose. You can even believe—why not?—that the restored universe will be an improvement on the old. For me, so long as I have my vengeance I care not what comes after.”
“And us?”
“We die.” An involuntary rise in the dragon’s voice, a slight quickening of cadence, told her that she had touched upon some unclean hunger akin to but less seemly than battle-lust. “We die beyond any chance of rebirth. You and I and all we have known will cease to be. The worlds that gave us birth, the creatures that shaped us—all will be unmade. So comprehensive will be their destruction that even their pasts will die with them. It is an extinction beyond death that we court. Though the ages stretch empty and desolate into infinity and beyond, there will be none to remember us, nor any to mourn. Our joys, sorrows, struggles, will never have been.
“And even if there is a universe to come, it will know naught of us.””

Michael Swanwick book The Iron Dragon's Daughter

Source: The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), Chapter 19 (pp. 340-341)

Death, Hunger, Age, World

“It took a while, but she looked in the mirror,
And she glanced at the license for my name.
A smile seemed to come to her slowly,
It was a sad smile, just the same.
And she said, "How are you Harry?"
I said, "How are you Sue?
Through the too many miles
and the too little smiles
I still remember you."”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Taxi
Song lyrics, Heads & Tales (1972)

Sadness, Smile

“So one time for my disillusioned artists, I hear ya
Two times for the kid that air-guitars in the mirror
Three times for the 9-to-5-in' bus ridin' dudes
And four times for my dreamers, yo I'm just like you
That's why I sing for my queens with their own pair of wings
My brothers flyin' beside me, drama behind me
Mama tried to find me, she inquired emphatically
I was in the sky with all these other ghetto kids, defying gravity, uh”

Danny! (1983) American rapper

"Fly, Pt. 2"
Albums, Danny Is Dead (2007)

Singing, Time

“If I look in the mirror when I get up, or before going to bed a night, i see a man of average ugliness…But I also see a man who's completely happy with the figure staring back at him. Who's proud of every single second of his past.”

Andrea Pirlo (1979) Italian footballer

Ibid [p. 147]

Happiness, Past, Night

“Now I behold as in a mirror, in an icon, in a riddle, life eternal, for that is naught other than that blessed regard wherewith Thou never ceasest most lovingly to behold me, yea, even the secret places of my soul. With Thee, to behold is to give life; 'tis unceasingly to impart sweetest love of Thee; 'tis to inflame me to love of Thee by love's imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feeding to kindle my yearning, and by kindling to make me drink of gladness, and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to make it increase and endure. 'Tis to cause me to share Thine immortality.... For it is the absolute maximum of every rational desire, than which a greater cannot be.”

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) German philosopher, theologian, jurist, and astronomer

Theosophy Trust, Great Teachers Series http://www.theosophytrust.org/311-nicholas-of-cusa

Love, Life, Secret, Soul

“I have realized that mystery is what keeps people away, and I’ve grown tired of smoke and mirrors. I yearn for the clean, well-lighted place. So let’s peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all of their teeth. These are the people I want to be around. This is the honest way I want to live and love and write.”

Amy Poehler book Yes Please

Yes Please (2014)

Love, People, Smile, Way

“Postal will be so politically incorrect and harsh, it's like a mirror to American society, and I don't think the movie will be well received by anybody. For example, Osama Bin Laden will be one of the lead characters—I think that shows the mood of the movie.”

Uwe Boll (1965) German restaurateur and former filmmaker

Uwe Boll Bites Back, 2006-06-13, Ellie Gibson, Eurogamer, 2006-02-15 http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=62899, 2000s

Mood, Thinking

“These classic models are everywhere mirrored in all universal systems, and in each they are the ideals from which all varieties and versions of themselves constantly emerge. They are, then, the source of all phenomenal life and represent the inner structure behind all life forms. They do not produce copies of themselves, however, but new creative eccentricities which, in turn, alter the models. They also appear as the biological working models of the genes and chromosomes, and they can be affected and changed at any time through mental experience. they are, in fact, instantly responsive to mental and psychic events, through the natural interchange between the psychological model accepted by the focus personality, and the reflections of that model through the entire body structure.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 57-58

Life, Nature, Universe, Appearance

“We decided that my character had a pre-show tradition, like a ritual, which was to sing the lyrics to "I Want You To Want Me" by Cheap Trick into the mirror. Because, more than anything else, as much as he says he's bringing the truth, he just wants to be liked.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Parade web exclusive interview http://www.parade.com/celebrity/articles/070923-stephen-colbert.html (19 September 2007)

Truth, Singing

“p>I'm making a song
where my mother and all mothers
will see themselves mirrored,
a song that speaks like two eyes.I'm walking on a road
that runs through many countries.
They may not see me, but I see
and salute old friends.I'm spreading a secret
like a man who loves or smiles.
Affection seeks affection
in the most natural way.My life, our lives,
form a single diamond.
I've learned new words
and made others more beautiful.I'm making a song
for waking up men
and putting children to sleep.”

Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902–1987) Brazilian poet

Eu preparo uma canção
em que minha mãe se reconheça,
todas as mães se reconheçam,
e que fale como dois olhos.Caminho por uma rua
que passa em muitos países.
Se não me vêem, eu vejo
e saúdo velhos amigos.Eu distribuo um segredo
como quem ama ou sorri.
No jeito mais natural
dois carinhos se procuram.Minha vida, nossas vidas
formam um só diamante.
Aprendi novas palavras
e tornei outras mais belas.Eu preparo uma canção
que faça acordar os homens
e adormecer as crianças.
"Canção amiga" ["I'm Making a Song"]
Novos Poemas [New Poems] (1948)

Love, Life, Men, Children

Quotes about mirror page 4

Quotes about mirror
page 4