Diane Ackerman Quotes

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• I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.

  Diane Ackerman

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace.

  Diane Ackerman

  Commitment, Compassion, Hatred

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “I Praise My Destroyer: Poems”, p.3, Vintage

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• It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

  Diane Ackerman

  Life, Beautiful, Country

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of the Senses”, p.309, Vintage

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• For the longest time I didn't realize I was creative - I just thought I was strange.

  Diane Ackerman

  Creativity, Creative, Strange

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• Who would deduce the dragonfly from the larva, the iris from the bud, the lawyer from the infant? ...We are all shape-shifters and magical reinventors. Life is really a plural noun, a caravan of selves.

  Diane Ackerman

  Nature, Self, Irises

  Diane Ackerman (2002). “Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden”, G K Hall & Company

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• If a mind is just a few pounds of blood, urea, and electricity, how does it manage to contemplate itself, worry about its soul, do time-and-motion studies, admire the shy hooves of a goat, know that it will die, enjoy all the grand and lesser mayhems of the heart ?

  Diane Ackerman

  Heart, Blood, Worry

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• No matter how politely one says it, we owe our existence to the farts of blue-green algae.

  Diane Ackerman

  Blue, Algae, Green

  Diane Ackerman (2004). “An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain”, p.232, Simon and Schuster

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• The heart is a museum, filled with the exhibits of a lifetime's loves.

  Diane Ackerman

  Heart, Museums, Lifetime

  "A Natural History of Love". Book by Diane Ackerman, 1994.

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• Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.

  Diane Ackerman

  Healing, Elements, Tables

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds”, p.27, Vintage

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• American writer
  1803-1882
  Play is our brain's favorite way of learning.

  Diane Ackerman

  Play, Brain, Way

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• We can't enchant the world, which makes its own magic; but we can enchant ourselves by paying deep attention

  Diane Ackerman

  Magic, Attention, World

  Diane Ackerman (2004). “An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain”, p.49, Simon and Schuster

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• Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth. We walk through it, yell into it, rake leaves, wash the dog, and drive cars in it. We breathe it deep within us. With every breath, we inhale millions of molecules of sky, heat them briefly, and then exhale them back into the world.

  Diane Ackerman

  Dog, Thinking, Sky

  Diane Ackerman, Dave Thurlow, C. Ralph Adler (1999). “Soul of the Sky: Exploring the Human Side of Weather”

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• We live on the leash of our senses. There is no way in which to understand the world without first detecting it through the radar-net of our senses.

  Diane Ackerman

  Music, Silence, Listening

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• When I set a glass prism on a windowsill and allow the sun to flood through it, a spectrum of colors dances on the floor. What we call "white" is a rainbow of colored rays packed into a small space. The prism sets them free. Love is the white light of emotion.

  Diane Ackerman

  Love Is, Space, Glasses

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of Love: Author of the National Bestseller A Natural History of the Senses”, p.16, Vintage

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• I don't want to be a passenger in my own life.

  Diane Ackerman

  Life, Knowing Who You Are, Want

  "On extended wings". Book by Diane Ackerman, 1985.

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• Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret. You are looking into a predator's eyes. Most predators have eyes set right on the front of their heads, so they can use binocular vision to sight and track their prey.

  Diane Ackerman

  Eye, Mirrors, Sight

  "A Natural History of the Senses". Book by Diane Ackerman, 1990.

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• In the absence of touching and being touched, people of all ages can sicken and grow touched starved. Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight.

  Diane Ackerman

  People, Touching, Age

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• I am a great fan of the universe, which I take literally: as one. All of it interests me, and it interests me in detail.

  Diane Ackerman

  Fans, Details, Interest

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• When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart.

  Diane Ackerman

  Heart, Blue, Ice

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• The senses don't just make sense of life in bold or subtle acts of clarity, they tear reality apart into vibrant morsels and reassemble them into a meaningful pattern.

  Diane Ackerman

  Meaningful, Reality, Tears

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of the Senses”, p.14, Vintage

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• Human beings are sloshing sacks of chemicals on the move.

  Diane Ackerman

  Moving, Chemicals, Humans

  Diane Ackerman (2004). “An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain”, p.69, Simon and Schuster

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• Success produces success, just as money produces money.

  Diane Ackerman

  Success, Positive Attitude, Produce

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• We would lie on coral sand, below sugary stars, watching Cassiopeia mount her throne and the Great Bear wash its paws in the South. I would say, "I have a secret to tell you." And, folding me in your arms, boyish and sly, you would answer: "Whisper it into my mouth.

  Diane Ackerman

  Stars, Lying, Secret

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems”, p.102, Vintage

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• In our heart we know that life loves life. Yet we feast on some of the other life-forms with which we share our planet; we kill to live. Taste is what carries us across that rocky moral terrain, what makes the horror palatable, and the paradox we could not defend by reason melts into a jungle of sweet temptations.

  Diane Ackerman

  Sweet, Heart, Love Life

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of the Senses”, p.172, Vintage

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• Love is like a batik created from many emotional colors, it is a fabric whose pattern and brightness may vary.

  Diane Ackerman

  Love Is, Emotional, Color

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “A Natural History of Love: Author of the National Bestseller A Natural History of the Senses”, p.17, Vintage

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