Abstract Quotes - Page 12

• The process by which civilization, as an abstract entity distinct from the societies in which it is embodied, dies or is reborn is a very significant one.

  Carroll Quigley

  Civilization, Significant, Process

  "The Evolution of Civilizations". Book by Carroll Quigley, Second Edition 1979, Chapter 8, Canaanite and Minooan Civilizations, p. 266, 1961.

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• That's all very well as an abstract moral principle, Avril, a coffee-table theoretical construct, but there's no denying the sheer gratuitous pleasure to be derived from seeing members of the ruling class in pain and torment.

  Irvine Welsh

  Pain, Coffee, Class

  Irvine Welsh (1995). “The Acid House”, p.269, W. W. Norton & Company

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• There was something about the self-confession and self-confusion of Abstract expressionism - as though the man and the work were the same - that personally always put me off because at that time my focus was in the opposite direction.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Men, Self, Opposites

  "Robert Rauschenberg, Works, Writings and Interviews". Book by Sam Hunter (p. 37), 2006.

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• Sawbeaked epitome of bodiless Idea, tossed by gusts of ether, dive Through abstract mists and raid the sea of fact Eat rich strange fish, grow long bright feathers, press Form's flesh around thought's rib, and so derive From the act of beauty, beauty of the act.

  Philip Jose Farmer

  Sea, Ideas, Long

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• Although objectively greater demands are placed on this authority, it operates less as a public opinion giving a rational foundation to the exercise of political and social authority, the more it is generated for the purpose of an abstract vote that amounts to no more than an act of acclamation within a public sphere temporarily manufactured for show or manipulation.

  Jurgen Habermas

  Exercise, Giving, Political

  "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere". Book by Jürgen Habermas, 1962.

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• In an abstract but real sense, Marxism arose through the breakdown first of religion and then of 'reason' as single sources of authority.

  Bernard Crick

  Real, Firsts, Reason

  Bernard Crick (1954). “In defence of politics”, p.98, Bernard Crick

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• Painting for me is like a fabric, all of a piece and uniform, with one set of threads as the representational, esthetic element, and the cross-threads as the technical, architectural, or abstract element. These threads are interdependent and complementary, and if one set is lacking the fabric does not exist. A picture with no representational purpose is to my mind always an incomplete technical exercise, for the only purpose of any picture is to achieve representation.

  Juan Gris

  Exercise, Mind, Doe

  "On the Possibilities of Painting". Lecture, Sorbonne, May 15, 1924.

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• I must confess that I and a few others are burdened with heavy responsibilities regarding the future of criticism. I am certainly, if not the inventor, then at least one of the first systematizers of an absurd critical practice that, as soon as it had peeked its beak out of the nest, flapping its new wet wings, took flight in the minds of the young, becoming a wild ox and sowing avant-garde literature with the mighty tomes of what might as well be called the abstract bear.

  Louis Aragon

  Responsibility, Practice, Wings

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• My blessed California, you are so wise. You render death abstract, efficient, clean. Your afterlife is only real estate, And in his kingdom Death must stay unseen.

  Dana Gioia

  Wise, Real, Blessed

  Dana Gioia (2016). “99 Poems: New & Selected”, p.49, Macmillan

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• Abstract painters: redefine your perspectives. Think in terms of the whole, not simply its parts.

  Joshua L. Goldberg

  Thinking, Perspective, Term

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• To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter. To abstract in art is to separate certain fundamentals from irrelevant material which surrounds them.

  Ben Shahn

  Art, Essence, Matter

  Ben Shahn (1957). “The Shape of Content”, p.63, Harvard University Press

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• The emotional, physical and aesthetic value of a sound is linked not only to the causal explanation we attribute to it but also to its own qualities of timbre and texture, to its own personal vibration. So just as directors and cinematographers (even those who will never make abstract films) have everything to gain by refining their knowledge of visual materials and textures, we can similarly benefit from disciplined attention to the inherent qualities of sounds.

  Michel Chion

  Emotional, Quality, Gains

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• Talk with M. Hermite. He never evokes a concrete image, yet you soon perceive that the more abstract entities are to him like living creatures.

  Henri Poincare

  Life, Math, Evoke

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• . . . Luddites were those frenzied traditionalists of the early 19th century who toured [England] wrecking new weaving machines on the theory that if they were destroyed . . . old jobs and old ways of life could be preserved . . . At certain times in his life each man is tempted to become a Luddite, for there is always something he would like to go back to. But to be against all change-against change in the abstract-is folly.

  James A. Michener

  Life, Jobs, Men

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• This attitude [the abstract method in mathematics] can be encapsulated in the following slogan: a mathematical object is what it does.

  Timothy Gowers

  Attitude, Learning, Doe

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• The lover heals the world not by a vague and abstract love for everybody and everything, but by becoming passionate and vowing fidelity to concrete relationships, persons, institutions, and places.

  Sam Keen

  Love, Healing, Becoming

  Sam Keen (1992). “The passionate life: stages of loving”, Harper San Francisco

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• Sometimes it happens that the computer's assessment is very abstract. It's correct, but it's not useful for a practical game. You have to prove the assessment with very strong moves and if you don't find all of these strong moves you may lose very quickly. For a computer this is not a problem, but for humans it is not so easy.

  Vassily Ivanchuk

  Strong, Moving, Assessment

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• The mind is inherently embodied.
  Thought is mostly unconscious.
  Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

  George Lakoff

  Philosophy, Medicine, Mind

  George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (1999). “Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought”, p.3, Basic Books

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• The physical five oranges goes up the ladder to the picture of the five oranges which goes up to the representation of the five oranges as a numeral. This points in the direction of a definition of abstraction: when we abstract we voluntarily ignore details of a context, so that we can accomplish a goal.

  Dan Meyer

  Education, Math, Orange

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• You don't approach a case with the philosophy of applying abstract justice-you go in to win

  Percy Foreman

  Philosophy, Winning, Justice

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• At least three time per day at scheduled times, he had to ask himself the following question: Am I being productive or just active? Charney captured the essence of this with less-abstract wording: Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important? He eliminated all of the activities he used as crutches and began to focus on demonstrating results instead of showing dedication. Dedication is often just meaningless work in disguise. Be ruthless and cut the fat.

  Tim Ferriss

  Inspirational, Cutting, Dedication

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• Let woman's claim be as broad in the concrete as the abstract. We take our stand on the solidarity of humanity, the oneness of life, and the unnaturalness and injustice of all special favoritism, whether of sex, race, country, or condition. If one link of the chain is broken, the chain is broken.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Country, Sex, Race

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• A true noun, an isolated thing, does not exit in nature. Things are only the terminal points, or rather the meeting points of actions, cross sections cut through actions, snapshots. Neither can a pure verb, an abstract motion, be possible in nature. The eye sees noun and verb as one, things in motion, motion in things.

  Ernest Fenollosa

  Eye, Cutting, Doe

  Ernest Fenollosa, Ezra Pound, Jonathan Stalling, Lucas Klein (2008). “The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry: A Critical Edition”, p.82, Fordham Univ Press

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• People like the idea of innovation in the abstract, but when you present them with any specific innovation, they tend to reject it because it doesn't fit with what they already know.

  Jessica Livingston

  Ideas, People, Innovation

  Jessica Livingston (2008). “Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days”, p.17, Apress

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• Information doesn’t deserve to be free. It is an abstract tool; a useful
  fantasy, a nothing. It is nonexistent until and unless a person experiences
  it in a useful way.

  Jaron Lanier

  Tools, Information, Way

  "A Q&A with Author Jaron Lanier". Amazon Interview, www.amazon.com. January 2010.

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