Quotes about thing
page 11

Giordano Bruno photo

“Divinity reveals herself in all things… everything has Divinity latent within itself.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

As translated by Arthur Imerti (1964)
The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast (1584)
Context: Divinity reveals herself in all things... everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings, and from the smallest beings, according to their capacity. Without her presence nothing would have being, because she is the essence of the existence of the first unto the last being.

U.G. Krishnamurti photo

“The very thing that is creating the frontiers and differences cannot be the means to bridge the different viewpoints. It is an exercise in futility.”

U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher

Source: No Way Out (2002), Ch. 7: What Kind Of Human Being Do You Want?
Context: Thought creates frontiers everywhere. That's all it can do.... it is thought that has created the world; and you draw lines on this planet, "This is my country, that is your country". So how can there be unity between two countries? The very thing that is creating the frontiers and differences cannot be the means to bridge the different viewpoints. It is an exercise in futility.

George Orwell photo

“In every country in the world a huge tribe of party-hacks and sleek little professors are busy 'proving' that Socialism means no more than a planned state—capitalism with the grab-motive left intact. But fortunately there also exists a vision of Socialism quite different from this. The thing that attracts ordinary men to Socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it, the 'mystique' of Socialism, is the idea of equality; to the vast majority of people Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all.”

Homage to Catalonia (1938)
Context: The workers' militias, based on the trade unions and each composed of people of approximately the same political opinions, had the effect of canalizing into one place all the most revolutionary sentiment in the country. I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragón one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life--snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.--had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master. Of course such a state of affairs could not last. It was simply a temporary and local phase in an enormous game that is being played over the whole surface of the earth. But it lasted long enough to have its effect upon anyone who experienced it. However much one cursed at the time, one realized afterwards that one had been in contact with something strange and valuable. One had been in a community where hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism, where the word 'comrade' stood for comradeship and not, as in most countries, for humbug. One had breathed the air of equality. I am well aware that it is now the fashion to deny that Socialism has anything to do with equality. In every country in the world a huge tribe of party-hacks and sleek little professors are busy 'proving' that Socialism means no more than a planned state—capitalism with the grab-motive left intact. But fortunately there also exists a vision of Socialism quite different from this. The thing that attracts ordinary men to Socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it, the 'mystique' of Socialism, is the idea of equality; to the vast majority of people Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me.

Epicurus photo

“No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.”

Epicurus (-341–-269 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

8
Variant translation: No pleasure is itself a bad thing, but the things that produce some kinds of pleasure, bring along with them unpleasantness that is much greater than the pleasure itself.
Sovereign Maxims

Murasaki Shikibu photo

“The sadness of things.”

Passim. Cf. Lacrimae rerum.
Variant translations:
The pathos of things.
A sensitivity to things.
The sorrow of human existence.
Tale of Genji

George Orwell photo

“At present I do not feel I have seen more than the fringe of poverty.
Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.”

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 38
Context: My story ends here. It is a fairly trivial story, and I can only hope that it has been interesting in the same way as a trivial diary is interesting. … At present I do not feel I have seen more than the fringe of poverty.
Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.

Richard Feynman photo

“It is really quite impossible to say anything with absolute precision, unless that thing is so abstracted from the real world as to not represent any real thing.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

" New Textbooks for the "New" Mathematics http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/2362/1/feynman.pdf", Engineering and Science volume 28, number 6 (March 1965) p. 9-15 at p. 14
Paraphrased as "Precise language is not the problem. Clear language is the problem."
Context: The real problem in speech is not precise language. The problem is clear language. The desire is to have the idea clearly communicated to the other person. It is only necessary to be precise when there is some doubt as to the meaning of a phrase, and then the precision should be put in the place where the doubt exists. It is really quite impossible to say anything with absolute precision, unless that thing is so abstracted from the real world as to not represent any real thing.Pure mathematics is just such an abstraction from the real world, and pure mathematics does have a special precise language for dealing with its own special and technical subjects. But this precise language is not precise in any sense if you deal with real objects of the world, and it is only pedantic and quite confusing to use it unless there are some special subtleties which have to be carefully distinguished.

Jane Goodall photo

“I think if we study the primates, we notice that a lot of these things that we value in ourselves, such as human morality, have a connection with primate behavior.”

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

Frans de Waal, in a NOVA interview, " The Bonobo in All of Us" PBS (1 January 2007) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/bonobo-all-us.html; quotes from this interview were for some time misplaced on this page, which probably generated similar misattributions elsewhere, and the misplacement was not discovered until after this quotation had been selected for Quote of the Day, as a quote of Goodall. Corrections were subsequently made here, during the day the quote was posted as QOTD.
Misattributed
Context: I think if we study the primates, we notice that a lot of these things that we value in ourselves, such as human morality, have a connection with primate behavior. This completely changes the perspective, if you start thinking that actually we tap into our biological resources to become moral beings. That gives a completely different view of ourselves than this nasty selfish-gene type view that has been promoted for the last 25 years.

Laozi photo

“The way you can go
isn't the real way.
The name you can say
isn't the real name.
Heaven and earth
begin in the unnamed:
name's the mother
of the ten thousand things.”

Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 1, as interpreted by Ursula K. LeGuin (1998)
Context: The way you can go
isn't the real way.
The name you can say
isn't the real name.
Heaven and earth
begin in the unnamed:
name's the mother
of the ten thousand things.
So the unwanting soul
sees what's hidden,
and the ever-wanting soul
sees only what it wants.
Two things, one origin,
but different in name,
whose identity is mystery.
Mystery of all mysteries!
The door to the hidden.

Rajneesh photo

“I would like that what I am doing is not lost. So I am trying in every possible way to drop all those things which in the past have been barriers for the revolution to continue and grow.”

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

Source: The Last Testament : Interviews with the World Press (1986)
Context: I would like that what I am doing is not lost. So I am trying in every possible way to drop all those things which in the past have been barriers for the revolution to continue and grow. I don't want anybody to stand between the individual and existence. No prayer, no priest... you alone are enough to face the sunrise, you don't need somebody to interpret for you what a beautiful sunrise it is... And this is my attitude: you are here, every individual is here, the whole existence is available. All that you need is just to be silent and listen to existence. There is no need of any religion, there is no need of any God, there is no need of any priesthood, there is no need of any organization. I trust in the individual categorically. Nobody up to now has trusted in the individual in such a way.

Angela Davis photo

“Radical simply means «grasping things at the root». ”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author
Richard M. DeVos photo
Bjarne Stroustrup photo

“Pointers are really good for pointing to things.”

Bjarne Stroustrup (1950) Danish computer scientist, creator of C++

Conference Madrid 2019

Vince Lombardi photo
John Amos Comenius photo
Keanu Reeves photo
Brigitte Bardot photo

“I absolutely loathe luxury. It is the one thing I cannot stand.”

Brigitte Bardot (1934) French model, actor, singer and animal rights activist
Etty Hillesum photo
Andrew Biersack photo
Al Capone photo
Billie Joe Armstrong photo
Gordon Ramsay photo
Ricky Gervais photo

“What’s the point in having humor? Humor is to get us over terrible things.”

Ricky Gervais (1961) English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter
Rocco Siffredi photo
George Orwell photo

“The thing that I think very striking is that no one, or no one I can remember, ever writes of an execution with approval.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

The dominant note is always horror. Society, apparently, cannot get along without capital punishment—for there are some people whom it is simply not safe to leave alive—and yet there is no one, when the pinch comes, who feels it right to kill another human being in cold blood. I watched a man hanged once. There was no question that everybody concerned knew this to be a dreadful, unnatural action. I believe it is always the same—the whole jail, warders and prisoners alike, is upset when there is an execution. It is probably the fact that capital punishment is accepted as necessary, and yet instinctively felt to be wrong, that gives so many descriptions of executions their tragic atmosphere. They are mostly written by people who have actually watched an execution and feel it to be a terrible and only partly comprehensible experience which they want to record; whereas battle literature is largely written by people who have never heard a gun go off and think of a battle as a sort of football match in which nobody gets hurt.
"As I Please" column in The Tribune (3 November 1944)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/oocp/</sup>
As I Please (1943–1947)

George Orwell photo
George Orwell photo
Teal Swan photo
Ozzy Osbourne photo

“I tried out that Buckethead guy. I met with him and asked him to work with me but only if he got rid of the fucking bucket. So I came back a bit later and he's wearing this green fucking Martian's-hat thing. I said, 'Look, just be yourself!' He told me his name was Brian, so I said that's what I'd call him. He says, 'No one calls me Brian except my mother.' So I said, 'Pretend I'm your mum then!' I haven't even got out of the room and I'm already playing fucking mind games with the guy. What happens if one day he's gone and there's a note saying, 'I've been beamed up?”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

[Laughs] Don't get me wrong, he's a great player. He plays like a motherfucker!
Revolver interview; as quoted in "Ozzy Osbourne "Says Ex-GUNS N' ROSES Guitarist Buckethead Auditioned For His Solo Band" http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/ozzy-osbourne-says-ex-guns-n-roses-guitarist-buckethead-auditioned-for-his-solo-band/, Blabbermouth.net, January 5, 2005

C. V. Raman photo

“There is no Heaven, no Swarga, no Hell, no rebirth, no reincarnation and no immortality. The only thing that is true is that a man is born, he lives and he dies. Therefore, he should live his life properly.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

In a public lecture at Bangalore in 1934, from [Singh, R, 2010, Letters to the Editor: Indian scientists vs. science and religion, http://www.scienceandculture-isna.org/july-aug10/Letter%20to%20editors.pdf, Science and Culture, 76, 7-8, 206]

Socrates photo

“To begin well is not a trifling thing, but yet not far from a trifling thing.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Diogenes Laertius

Jim Carrey photo

“Why do things have to die? It is nature. And nature is flawed.”

Raised by Wolves, season 1, episode 4. Character Mother.

Alexis Karpouzos photo
Alexis Karpouzos photo
Jessica Meir photo

“There’s no one path to becoming an astronaut. I think that’s one of the great things about the job these days. You know, originally, all of the astronauts were white male military test pilots. And now the program is much more diverse.”

Jessica Meir (1977) Swedish-American marine biologist and astronaut

Source: As quoted in [Jasper, Marykate, “There’s No One Path” : How Astronaut Jessica Meir Went From Studying Animal Physiology to Training for Space Flight, https://www.themarysue.com/jessica-meir-astronaut-interview/, The Mary Sue, 26 April 2019, November 14th, 2017]

George Orwell photo
C.G. Jung photo

“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
George Orwell photo

“If you had to make a list of the top 5 things most important to you, what would you put? Here's mine 1. God 2. Family 3. friends 4. my future 5. myself.”

Rachel Scott (1981–1999) American murder victim

Source: "May 4, 98" https://66.media.tumblr.com/7f99426ff633f0e174ad13f215dc6b85/tumblr_phql76LS101v18yoxo1_1280.png (4 May 1998)

Dr. Seuss photo

“The more that you read,
The more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
The more places you'll go.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

I Can Read With My Eyes Shut! (1978)

Benjamin Disraeli photo
Joseph De Maistre photo
George Eliot photo
Idegu Ojonugwa Shadrach photo
Josephs Quartzy photo

“All things are equal without comparisons”

Josephs Quartzy (1999) Tanzanian actor

Source: Philosophies from an old Journal

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo
Neale Donald Walsch photo
William Jennings Bryan photo

“Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.”

William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) United States Secretary of State

"America's Mission", speech delivered by the leader of the Democratic Party at the Washington Day banquet given by the Virginia Democratic Association at Washington, D.C., (22 February 1899), as published in The Book of Public Speaking (Vol. 2) http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/The_Book_of_Public_Speaking_v2_1000538531/149

Thomas Hobbes photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo

“The more things you own, the more they own you.”

Variant: The things you used to own, now they own you.
Source: Fight Club

Oscar Wilde photo

“After the first glass you see things as you wish they were. After the second glass you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Said about Absinthe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe. Quoted in “Letters to the Sphinx from Oscar Wilde: With Reminiscences of the Author" by Ada Leverson (London: Duckworth, 1930)

Oscar Wilde photo
Ben Stein photo

“The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

As quoted in Out of the Blue: Delight Comes Into Our Lives (1996) by Mark Victor Hansen, Barbara Nichols, and Patty Hansen, p. 85

Ayn Rand photo
Woodrow Wilson photo

“If a man is a fool, the best thing is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)
Wallace D. Wattles photo
C.G. Jung photo

“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”

Source: Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933), p. 67
Context: For it all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.

Ted Chiang photo
Anthony de Mello photo
Stephen King photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“aren't you, uh… reproducing?

"sure, we love reproducing it's one of our favorite things.”

Variant: We love reproducing. Its one of our favorite things.
Source: City of Bones

Orhan Pamuk photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Jonathan Franzen photo
Art Buchwald photo

“The best things in life aren't things.”

Art Buchwald (1925–2007) journalist, humorist, United States Marine
Jim Butcher photo
C.G. Jung photo
Henry Rollins photo
Scott Westerfeld photo
Christopher Morley photo
Ronald Reagan photo
Fulton J. Sheen photo
Thomas à Kempis photo
Arundhati Roy photo

“Things can change in a day.”

Source: The God of Small Things

Oscar Wilde photo
Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo

“Some things have to be seen in the shadows”

Variant: somethings can only be seen in the shadows
Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Oscar Wilde photo

“Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess.”

Lord Illingworth, Act III
A Woman of No Importance (1893)

Terry Pratchett photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo

“There's no such thing as dead languages, only dormant minds.”

Source: La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind) (2001)

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“I am one thing, my writings are another.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Terry Pratchett photo
Sadhguru photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo