Abstraction Quotes - Page 10

• The imagination is the liberty of the mind It is intrpeid and eager and the extreme of its achievement lies in abstraction.

  Wallace Stevens

  Lying, Imagination, Achievement

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• Gnosis is lived upon facts, withers away in abstractions, and is difficult to find even in the noblest of thoughts.

  Samael Aun Weor

  Gnosis, Facts, Difficult

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• The Geometer has the special privilege to carry out, by abstraction, all constructions by means of the intellect. Who, then, would wish to prevent me from freely considering figures hanging on a balance imagined to be at an infinite distance beyond the confines of the world?

  Evangelista Torricelli

  Distance, Mean, Special

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• I have tried, with little success, to get some of my friends to understand my amazement that the abstraction of integers for counting is both possible and useful. Is it not remarkable that 6 sheep plus 7 sheep makes 13 sheep; that 6 stones plus 7 stones make 13 stones? Is it not a miracle that the universe is so constructed that such a simple abstraction as a number is possible? To me this is one of the strongest examples of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. Indeed, I find it both strange and unexplainable.

  Richard Hamming

  Simple, Effectiveness, Numbers

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• The only measures that count are progress over your own self, and triumph over the vacant abstractions that most people mistake for thinking.

  Kenny Smith

  Philosophy, Mistake, Thinking

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• Most people traffic in abstractions and generalizations because they are grossly incompetent at culturing their intuition or powers of evidency, refining it to grasp the Thisness (Haecceitas) of what is before them. Thinking is like a Stradivarius that has more potential variations in how it is played than any human can finitely perform or capture.

  Kenny Smith

  Philosophy, Thinking, People

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• This extravagant dwelling, as domineering as it was distant, brought home to me the intimateconnection between tyranny and abstraction, and put me in mind of John Berger's observation that "abstraction's capacity to ignore what is real is undoubtedly where most evil begins."

  Michael Jackson

  Real, Home, Dwelling

  Michael Jackson (2004). “In Sierra Leone”, p.125, Duke University Press

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• Photography has an amazing ability to capture the fine detail of surface textures. But far too often these intricate patterns are loved by the photographer for their own sake. The richness of texture fascinates the eye and the photographer falls easy prey to such quickly-caught complexities. The designs mean nothing in themselves and are merely pictorially attractive abstractions. A central problem in contemporary photography is to bring about a wider significance in purely textural imagery.

  Arthur Tress

  Photography, Fall, Mean

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• The effective exploitation of his powers of abstraction must be regarded as one of the most vital activities of a competent programmer.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Exploitation, Programmers, Activity

  "The Humble Programmer". Edsger Dijkstra's ACM Turing Award lecture, "Communications of the ACM", Volume 15, No. 10, www.cs.utexas.edu. October 1972.

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• Jesus was short on sermons, long on conversations; short on answers, long on questions; short on abstraction and propositions, long on stories and parables; short on telling you what to think, long on challenging you to think for yourself.

  Brian D. McLaren

  Jesus, Thinking, Long

  Brian D. McLaren (2009). “More Ready Than You Realize: The Power of Everyday Conversations”, p.11, Zondervan

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• It is this subtle dimension of understanding that marks the southwestern Indian peoples from other religions and separates tribal peoples from the world's religions. Somewhere in the planetary history religious expression changed from participation in the sound, color and rhythm of nature to the abstractions of man outside this context pleading for temporary respite and hoping in the next life to return to the Garden.

  Vine Deloria Jr.

  Religious, Men, Garden

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• ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Men, President, Cuffs

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.9, 谷月社

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• I've heard many times that with all good artists it's ultimately a self-portrait even if it's an abstraction. I feel my work is very much who I am. I didn't try to make it that way; it just is. It reflects who I am and also my interests.

  Joyce Tenneson

  Photography, Artist, Self

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• Freedom which has genuine meaning is more than a timeless abstraction, more than an absence of restraints.

  Helen Lynd

  Freedom, Absence, Timeless

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• Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the great mass of men must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained on no other principle.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Strong, Men, Atheism

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• Time is an abstraction which, on earth, exists only for the human brain it has evolved.

  Charles Lindbergh

  Time, Brain, Earth

  Charles A. Lindbergh (1992). “Autobiography of Values”, Harcourt

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• Contrary to current cynicism about past golden ages, the abstraction known as 'the intelligent layperson' does exist - in the form of millions of folks with a passionate commitment to continuous learning.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Commitment, Intelligent, Past

  "A grand finale" by Robin McKie, www.theguardian.com. May 26, 2002.

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• No religion can be considered in abstraction from its followers, or even from its various types of followers.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Religion, Followers, Type

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.18, Simon and Schuster

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• Every work of art is an abstraction from time; it denies the reality of change and decay and death.

  Lewis Mumford

  Art, Reality, Decay

  Lewis Mumford, Robert Wojtowicz (2008). “Mumford on Modern Art in the 1930s”, p.194, Univ of California Press

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• Abstractions about right and wrong, whether they are as old as Thou Shalt Not Kill or as modern as Do Your Own Thing, often serve only to confuse and weaken genuine moral decision.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Decision, Morality, Modern

  Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.18, Grove Press

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• The language of art is powerful to those who understand it, and puzzling to those who do not. What we do know is that here was the modern human mind at work, spinning symbolism and abstraction in a way that only Homo sapiens is capable of doing.

  Richard Leakey

  Art, Powerful, Symbolism

  Richard Leakey (2008). “The Origin Of Humankind”, p.124, Hachette UK

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• No one has ever seen the self. It has no visible shape, nor does it occupy measurable space. It is an abstraction, like other abstractions equally elusive: the individual, the mind, the society

  Irving Howe

  Self, Space, Mind

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• The intellectual is engage-he is pledged, committed, enlisted. What everyone else is willing to admit, namely that ideas and abstractions are of signal importance in human life, he imperatively feels.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Ideas, Intellectual, Signals

  Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.28, Vintage

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• When I paint from a photograph, conscious thinking is eliminated. I don't know what I am doing. My work is far closer to the Informel than to any kind of 'realism'. The photograph has an abstraction of its own, which is not easy to see through.

  Gerhard Richter

  Art, Thinking, Painting

  FaceBook post by Gerhard Richter from Aug 11, 2015

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• ... landscapes or still-lifes I paint in between the abstract works; they constitute about one-tenth of my production. On the one hand they are useful, because I like to work from nature - although I do use a photograph - because I think that any detail from nature has a logic I would like to see in abstraction as well.

  Gerhard Richter

  Art, Thinking, Hands

  Gerhard Richter, Dietmar Elger, Hans-Ulrich Obrist (2009). “Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007”, Distributed Art Pub Inc

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