Quotes about realization
page 22

Clifford D. Simak photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Paul Cézanne photo
Thomas Edison photo

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

This is presented as a statement of 1877, as quoted in From Telegraph to Light Bulb with Thomas Edison (2007) by Deborah Headstrom-Page, p. 22.
1800s

Willa Cather photo
Sarada Devi photo

“What else does one obtain by realization of God? Does one grow two horns? No, the mind becomes pure, and through a pure mind one attains knowledge and awakening.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

Women Saints of East and West

Paul Newman photo
Paul McCartney photo
Courtney Love photo

“Writing songs has a lot to do with your sexuality. I danced for awhile and just being around that made me realize what people use. And if you grow up blessed with a certain beauty or a certain intelligence that enhances your beauty, you can get into a better position in life.”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

On songwriting and beauty, The Guardian https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22821312/the_guardian/ (December 11, 1991)
1991–1995

Byron Katie photo

“When I walk into a room, I know that everyone in it loves me. I just don’t expect them to realize it yet.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

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

Nick Bostrom photo
Clay Aiken photo
Warren G. Harding photo
TotalBiscuit photo

“What?! Now he realizes?! Oh—screw everything about this! I'm sorry; I can't take another minute of this dreadful thing!”

TotalBiscuit (1984–2018) British game commentator

WTF Is…? series, Day One: Garry's Incident (October 1, 2013)

Gregory Scott Paul photo
Victor Villaseñor photo
Germaine Greer photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Charles Lindbergh photo

“I realized that the future of aviation, to which I had devoted so much of my life, depended less on the perfection of aircraft than on preserving the epoch-evolved environment of life, and that this was true of all technological progress.”

Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974) American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist

Forword to The Gentle Tasady : A Stone Age People in the Philippine Rain Forest (1975) by John Nance, a book on the Tasaday of Mindanao (7 April 1974)

Benjamín Netanyahu photo
Ellsworth Kelly photo
Alicia Silverstone photo
Thomas Robert Malthus photo
Werner Erhard photo

“Does it really work for us to go through our lives as though there were no realizations beyond the grasp of our system-of-concepts, the awareness of which would transform the quality of our lives?”

Werner Erhard (1935) Critical Thinker and Author

Interview with William Warren Bartley, cited in [Bartley, William Warren, w:William Warren Bartley, Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1978, New York, 302, 0-517-53502-5]

Ravindra Prabhat photo
Fred Brooks photo

“The landscape has been so totally changed, the ways of thinking have been so deeply affected, that it is very hard to get hold of what it was like before… It is very hard to realize how total a change in outlook Isaac Newton has produced.”

Hermann Bondi (1919–2005) British mathematician and cosmologist

Hermann Bondi, "Newton and the Twentieth Century—A Personal View" in Let Newton Bel A New Perspective on his Life and Works (1988) R. Flood, J. Fauvel, M. Shortland, R. Wilson p. 241

Michael Badnarik photo

“I realized suddenly that I was in an impossible situation, and there was really no way out. No acceptable way. I could not go on — so I stopped.”

Piers Anthony (1934) English-American writer in the science fiction and fantasy genres

Alice, on her suicide
Ghost (1986)

Gopal Krishna Gokhale photo
Charles A. Beard photo
A. James Gregor photo
Leon Fleisher photo
Paul Krugman photo
Italo Calvino photo
Swami Vivekananda photo
Max Pechstein photo

“It was and still is fundamental: to begin the work with the same tools with which it will be ended, without making a preliminary drawing. on the wood, stone, or metal. Sketches and drawings done in advance clarify the intention, and with it ready in the head, the requisite tool realizes the idea.”

Max Pechstein (1881–1955) German artist

Buchheim, Künstlergemeinschaft Brücke, p. 304; as quoted in 'The Revival of Printmaking in Germany', I. K. Rigby; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 54

Phil Brooks photo
Florbela Espanca photo

“All of my love letters are nothing more than the realization of my need to make phrases.”

Florbela Espanca (1894–1930) Portuguese poet

Todas as minhas cartas de amor não são mais que a realização da minha necessidade de fazer frases.
Diary (16 July, 1930), quoted in Afinado desconcerto (2002), p. 272

Adrianne Wadewitz photo

“Suddenly I realized, I used to be the person saying how crazy or impossible such feats were and now I was the one doing them. I had radically switched subject positions in a way I did not think possible for myself. That, I realized, is what I want my students to experience - that radical switch and growth”

Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian

Wadewitz, Adrianne. (August 12, 2013). "What I learned as the worst student in the class" http://www.hastac.org/blogs/wadewitz/2013/08/12/what-i-learned-worst-student-class. HASTAC: Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance Collaboratory. — reprinted and cited in: "How Adrianne Wadewitz learnt to embrace failure" http://www.smh.com.au/world/how-adrianne-wadewitz-learnt-to-embrace-failure-20140425-zqzgx.html. The Sydney Morning Herald. April 25, 2014. Retrieved April 25, 2014.

Edward Snowden photo
Fritz von Uhde photo

“Before commencing this work I had begun to realize how children follow the Spirit.”

Fritz von Uhde (1848–1911) German artist

In reference to his perceptions on the work Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me. As quoted by Gustav Stickley (1911). The Craftsman http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/DLDecArts/DLDecArts-idx?type=article&did=DLDecArts.hdv20n06.i0027&id=DLDecArts.hdv20n06&isize=text, Volume 20. United Crafts, p. 631

George Raymond Richard Martin photo

“Back at the Philadelphia Worldcon (which seems a million years ago), I announced the famous five-year gap: I was going to skip five years forward in the story, to allow some of the younger characters to grow older and the dragons to grow larger, and for various other reasons. I started out writing on that basis in 2001, and it worked very well for some of my myriad characters but not at all for others, because you can't just have nothing happen for five years. If things do happen you have to write flashbacks, a lot of internal retrospection, and that's not a good way to present it. I struggled with that essentially wrong direction for about a year before finally throwing it out, realizing there had to be another interim book. That became A Feast for Crows, where the action is pretty much continuous from the preceding book. Even so, that only accounts for one year. Why the four after that? I don't know, except that this was a very tough book to write -- and it remains so, because I've only finished half. Going in, I thought I could do something about the length of the second book in the series, A Clash of Kings, roughly 1,200 pages in manuscript. But I passed that and there was a lot more to write. Then I passed the length of the third book, A Storm of Swords, which was something like 1,500 pages in manuscript and gave my publishers all around the world lots of production problems. I didn't really want to make any cuts because I had this huge story to tell. We started thinking about dividing it in two and doing it as A Feast for Crows, Parts One and Two, but the more I thought about that the more I really did not like it. Part One would have had no resolution whatsoever for 18 viewpoint characters and their 18 stories. Of course this is all part of a huge megaseries so there is not a complete resolution yet in any of the volumes, but I try to give a certain sense of completion at the end of each volume -- that a movement of the symphony has wrapped up, so to speak.”

George Raymond Richard Martin (1948) American writer, screenwriter and television producer

Interview with Locus magazine (November 2005)

Timothy McVeigh photo

“Being face to face with these people, you realize, they're just people like you.”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

Interview http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=mHscpPZLwWg#Timothy_McVeigh_talks_about_the_Gulf_War.

Gerhard Richter photo
Cesare Borgia photo

“Someday we’ll realize, perhaps much to our surprise, the keys to free a smile have been with us all the while: look for good, and spread that good around.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"Piles of Smiles"
A Picnic of Poems in Allah's Green Garden (2011)

Nikolai Krylenko photo

“We must finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess. We must condemn once and for all the formula "chess for the sake of chess", like the formula "art for art's sake". We must organize shockbrigades of chess-players, and begin immediate realization of a Five-Year Plan for chess.”

Nikolai Krylenko (1885–1938) Russian revolutionary, politician and chess organiser

Krylenko on promoting chess in the Soviet Union. Quoted in Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment

Calvin Coolidge photo
E.M. Forster photo
Phil Brooks photo

“I've come out here tonight to challenge you… challenge you, the WWE Universe, into seeing things my way and to learn how to just say "no." See, because the people who cheer for Jeff Hardy are just slaves to the vices associated with his (with quote fingers) "living in the moment." I feel bad for you, I really do. You walk around almost blind and you wear your prescriptions proudly on your sleeves like they were badges of honor. What was it the doctor told you? 'Just take one… every four hours,' right? Aside from myself, there's not a person in this arena who hasn't abused prescription medication or taken a recreational drug. And I know, trust me, it's hard being straight-edge, it's hard to live a straight-edge lifestyle. It's extremely difficult to be me, but what concerns me now is that none of you realize how much more difficult it is to live the life… that you all live. I'm positive nobody in here takes into account the long-term consequences of alcohol on your liver. (Smattering of cheers from audience) See, and you cheer that. That's nothing to cheer. You drink because it's fun, right? (Audience cheers a little louder) Eventually, it's not gonna be fun anymore when it spirals out of control and its no longer… it's no longer fun. Sooner or later, you're just drinking to feel normal. And then there's the smokers. You know, I don't know what's more disgusting–is watching a smoker pollute his/her lungs with over 4,000 foreign chemicals, or having to listen to the smoker convince themselves that they can quit whenever they want to. It's… it's hard to quit, I know, it takes a very strong person to quit, but an even stronger person never would've started smoking in the first place. (Audience boos and chants "Hardy") I didn't want to come out here and be the bearer of bad news, but let's face facts: chances are pretty slim that any of you here will ever get the monkey off your back. You'll never be able to pry the cigarette from your lips, or find the self-control to pour your drink from your glass, or the self-respect to take the pill out of your mouth. See, it starts, and it can't happen without learning how to say "no" to temptation, and that's why I'm out here. I'm out here to challenge you before it's too late. Please, learn how to say "no" to temptation, learn how to say "no" to your vices, learn how to control yourself.”

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

July 24, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Albert Speer photo
John Muir photo
Alexandra Kollontai photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo
D.H. Lawrence photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Democritus photo
Richard Nixon photo
Robert M. Price photo
Benjamin Spock photo

“People have said, "You've turned your back on pediatrics." I said, "No. It took me until I was in my 60s to realize that politics was a part of pediatrics."”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care

Associated Press interview (1992)

Phyllis Schlafly photo
Jennifer Beals photo
Peter F. Drucker photo
Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) photo
Colin Wilson photo
Wassily Kandinsky photo

“In your [ composer Schönberg's ] works, you have realized what I, albeit in uncertain form, have so greatly longed for in music. The independent progress through their own destinies, the independent life of the individual voices in your compositions, is exactly what I am trying to find in my painting.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

in his letter to Arnold Schönberg, 18 Jan. 1911; as cited in Schonberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter, by Klaus Kropfinger; edited by Konrad Boehmer; published by Routledge (imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informal company), 2003, p. 9
Kandinsky visited a concert with music of Schönberg on 11 Jan. 1911 with Franz Marc, Alexej von Jawlensky, Gabriele Münter and others; they played compositions, Schönberg wrote in 1907 and 1909: his second string quartet and the 'Three piano pieces'
1910 - 1915

Erik Naggum photo
Upton Sinclair photo
Ray Harryhausen photo
Antonio Negri photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
John Ralston Saul photo
Burkard Schliessmann photo

“To approach Bach, one has to realize that 100 years after Bach’s death, Bach and his music totally had been forgotten. Even while he was still alive, Bach himself believed in the polyphonic power and the resulting symmetric architectures of well-proportioned music. But this had been an artificial truth - even for him. Other composers, including his sons, already composed in another style, where they found other ideals and brought them to new solutions. The spirit of the time already had changed while Bach was still alive. A hundred years later, it was Mendelssohn who about 1850 discovered Bach anew with the performance of the St. Matthew Passion. Now a new renaissance began, and the world learned to know the greatness of Bach. To become acquainted with Bach, many transcriptions were done. But the endeavors in rediscovering Bach had been - stylistically - in a wrong direction. Among these were the orchestral transcriptions of Leopold Stokowski, and the organ interpretations of the multitalented Albert Schweitzer, who, one has to confess, had a decisive effect on the rediscovery of Bach. All performances had gone in the wrong direction: much too romantic, with a false knowledge of historic style, the wrong sound, the wrong rubato, and so on. The necessity of artists like Rosalyn Tureck and Glenn Gould - again 100 years later - has been understandable: The radicalism of Glenn Gould pointed out the real clarity and the internal explosions of the power-filled polyphony in the best way. This extreme style, called by many of his critics refrigerator interpretations, however really had been necessary to demonstrate the right strength to bring out the architecture in the right manner, which had been lost so much before. I’m convinced that the style Glenn Gould played has been the right answer. But there has been another giant: it was no less than Helmut Walcha who, also beginning in the 1950, started his legendary interpretations for the DG-Archive productions of the complete organ-work cycle on historic organs (Silbermann, Arp Schnitger). Also very classical in strength of speed and architectural proportions, he pointed out the polyphonic structures in an enlightened but moreover especially humanistic way, in a much more smooth and elegant way than Glenn Gould on the piano. Some years later it was Virgil Fox who acquainted the U. S. with tours of the complete Bach cycle, which certainly was effective in its own way, but much more modern than Walcha. The ranges of Bach interpretations had become wide, and there were the defenders of the historical style and those of the much more modern romantic style. Also the performances of the orchestral and cantata Bach had become extreme: on one side, for example, Karl Richter, who used a big and rich-toned orchestra; on the other side Helmut Rilling, whose Bach was much more historically oriented.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings on Bach

Ippen photo

“In the Buddha’s teaching, unless you cast away body and life, there can be no realization of benefit.”

Ippen (1239–1289) Japanese Buddhist monk, founder of the Jishu school.

"Words Handed Down by Disciples" (Chapter 9, p. 105).
No Abode: The Record of Ippen (1997)

Bill Burr photo
Bart D. Ehrman photo
Jane Roberts photo
Alessandro Pavolini photo
Jerry Coyne photo

“Scientists possess healthy skepticism. They realize that you've got to know the answer before you measure it.”

Robert E. Machol (1917–1998) American systems engineer

Source: Mathematicians are useful (1971), p. 1:

Mahatma Gandhi photo
Colin Wilson photo
Leo Buscaglia photo