Basic Things Quotes - Page 2

• When I say or write something, there are actually a whole lot of different things I am communicating. The propositional content (i.e., the verbal information I'm trying to convey) is only one part of it. Another part is stuff about me, the communicator. Everyone knows this. It's a function of the fact there are so many different well-formed ways to say the same basic thing, from e.g. "I was attacked by a bear!" to "Goddamn bear tried to kill me!" to "That ursine juggernaut did essay to sup upon my person!" and so on.

  David Foster Wallace

  Writing, Trying, Juggernaut

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• Freedom is the basic thing. Consciousness grows in freedom and starts dying, becomes paralyzed and crippled, when things are forced. And up to now, this has been done. This is the greatest crime that parents have always committed against children. They go on forcing the child.

  Rajneesh

  Children, Parent, Dying

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• Basically we could not have peace, or an atmosphere in which peace could grow, unless we recognized the rights of individual human beings... their importance, their dignity... and agreed that was the basic thing that had to be accepted throughout the world.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Acceptance, Rights, Atmosphere

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• You are not the sum of your physical, mental, emotional life, but you are designed for the spiritual. The whole design of the human being is created to enjoy your spiritual life and not the material life. This is the basic thing human beings don't understand and that's why, if they knew this fundamental thing, they would seek their spirit first and they would not seek other things.

  Nirmala Srivastava

  Love, Spiritual, Wisdom

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• On some levels, you can also have this feeling that we are being duped, somehow. And that the world is at play for something you would understand more if it were pure ideology. It is a very strange time and also basic things are being taken away.

  Edwidge Danticat

  Taken, Play, Feelings

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• One of the basic things we should avoid is to criticize others. Better to criticize yourself. Criticize yourself, criticize your brothers and sisters, criticize your country, criticize all the habits you have and laugh at yourself, is the best way. If you know how to laugh at yourself then you will not object or will not stand in the way of any creativity of another person.

  Nirmala Srivastava

  Love, Wisdom, Country

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• I believe Jesus was right, Buddha was right, and all of those people like that are right. They're all saying the same thing -​ and I believe it. I believe what Jesus actually said -​ the basic things he laid down about love and goodness -​ and not what people say he said.

  John Lennon

  Jesus, Believe, People

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• I write my lyrics the day I sing the song, so even when I have the basic things, I'm thinking what can I change, what can I add, how many harmonies can I do.

  Kirk Windstein

  Song, Writing, Thinking

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• We currently have a government planning to go to Mars, heal broken marriages, and build bridges to nowhere - and also one that cannot wage a war competently, cannot respond to a hurricane adequately, and cannot enforce borders. Is it too much to ask that it get the basic things right before embarking on grandiose schemes?

  Andrew Sullivan

  War, Government, Bridges

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• Come back down to basics. The basic things of life, the basic things for me are the things that turn me on more than anything. I'm actually trying to go back from where I was running from...the more essential things that I was ignoring.

  Richard Ashcroft

  Running, Trying, Essentials

  Source: www.excellentonline.com

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• I see a couple of things missing. Any society, any community, even in the family, when the elders don't do their jobs, the youth suffer. We have no done our job. I'm saying anybody 55 and up. We didn't teach people the basic things.

  Iyanla Vanzant

  Jobs, Couple, People

  "Iyanla Vanzant interview for fourth season of ‘Iyanla: Fix My Life’ returning Sept. 6". Interview with Rodney Ho, radiotvtalk.blog.ajc.com. September 6, 2014.

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• When you realize how hard it is to know the truth about yourself, you understand that even the most exhaustive and well-meaning autobiography, determined to tell the truth, represents, at best, a guess. There have been times in my life when I felt incredibly happy. Life was full. I seemed productive. Then I thought,"Am I really happy or am I merely masking a deep depression with frantic activity?" If I don't know such basic things about myself, who does?

  Phyllis Rose

  Truth, Happy Life, Doe

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• If I can get a day to myself, I won't answer the phone, I'll read or go for a walk. Simple, basic things. People think there's always time to do that but there isn't. Life is short.

  Viggo Mortensen

  Life Is Short, Simple, Thinking

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• The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things - bad language and whatever - it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition.

  George Carlin

  Religious, Ideas, Superstitions

  "Counterculture Comedian George Carlin Dies at 71". www.foxnews.com. June 23, 2008.

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• If loyalty is, and always has been, perceived as obsolete, why do we continue to praise it? Because loyalty is essential to the most basic things that make life livable. Without loyalty there can be no love. Without loyalty there can be no family. Without loyalty there can be no friendship. Without loyalty there can be no commitment to community or country. And without those things, there can be no society.

  Eric Felten

  Loyalty, Country, Commitment

  Eric Felten (2011). “Loyalty: The Vexing Virtue”, p.11, Simon and Schuster

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• I'm sort of annoyed that some very basic things about poetic forms were not conveyed to me in the various poetry courses I took over the years.

  Juliana Spahr

  Years, Annoyed, Poetic

  Source: therumpus.net

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• We use the Air Force analogy: there were expensive things they had to do to get a cockpit suitable for a lot of pilots, like wraparound windshields, but their initial solutions, when they realized average didn't work, were adjustable seats. How in the world did they not already have adjustable seats in their planes? We're looking for adjustable seats for education, for basic things that we can do.

  L. Todd Rose

  Air, Average, World

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.

  Harrison Birtwistle

  Writing, Music Is, One Thing

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• The best way to look at any business is from the standpoint of the clients. So there are these certain basic things that aren't going to change. Companies are going to have needs for equity, debt, advice, FX, and derivatives. Individuals are going to have needs for auto loans, mortgages, something that looks like a deposit account, and the ability to send money to people. Those things aren't going to change.

  Jamie Dimon

  People, Advice, Derivatives

  "Jamie Dimon on Finance: 'Who Owns the Future?'". Interview with John Micklethwait, www.bloomberg.com. March 1, 2016.

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• And after a while, you just pare things down more and more and more, until you get to certain basic things which just - basic ideas which just seem to work for you over and over again.

  Robert Barry

  Ideas, Certain, Seems

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

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• Experimental novels are sometimes terribly clever and very seldom read. But the story that appeals to the child sitting on your knee is the one that satisfies the curiosity we all have about what happened then, and then, and then. This is the final restriction put on the technique of telling a story. A basic thing called story is built into the human condition. It's what we are; it's something to which we react.

  William Golding

  Children, Clever, Curiosity

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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• Even though L.A Confidential box-office was a fraction of, say, Titanic or the Grinch movie, it finds its audience and will continue doing so for who knows how long, because of the basic thing we love about movies, which is storytelling and performances.

  Curtis Hanson

  Long, Office, Storytelling

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Here's an easy one: "Race is an entirely social construct." No, it's partially one, depending on how any given society seeks to define it and its implications. But there are basic things such as skin color and hair texture. Even a Martian who'd had no exposure to human "social constructs" would be able to spot those differences. But no Martian, as hard as he tried, could point at a "culture" or to "equality." Those are the social constructs. Those can't be measured in the same way as human DNA.

  Jim Goad

  Hair, Race, Skin Color

  Source: love-and-pop.com

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• My mother was always expanding my art skills and getting me to paint different things. You always got to push some. And, I mean, I learned basic things like getting up on time, how to shop - you know, you don't touch things in a store you're not going to buy. These things were taught very young. I don't see today enough of this basic, you know, basic skill teaching.

  Temple Grandin

  Mother, Art, Teaching

  Source: www.kshb.com

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• All I can do is just go in there and tighten up my game, tighten up my handles. Just all the little basic things that you wouldn't even think about, the fundamental parts of the game.

  Derrick Rose

  Thinking, Games, Fundamentals

  "NBA: Chicago Bulls' Derrick Rose remains confident in his game". Interview with ESPN's Nick Freidell, January 12, 2016.

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