Arcane Quotes - Page 2

• Science, the largest religion of the twentieth century, had become tarnished by images of exploding space shuttles, crack babies, and a generation of complacent Americans who allowed the television to raise their children. People were looking for something - I think they just didn't know what. And even though they were once again starting to open their eyes to the world of magic and the arcane that had been with them all the while, they still thought I must be some kind of joke.

  Jim Butcher

  Baby, Children, Eye

  Jim Butcher (2010). “The Dresden Files Collection 1-6”, p.14, Penguin

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• To be successful, you should concentrate on the world of companies, not arcane accounting mathematics.

  Warren Buffett

  Successful, World, Mathematics

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• Many faculty retreated into academic specializations and an arcane language that made them irrelevant to the task of defending the university as a public good, except for in some cases a very small audience. This has become more and more clear in the last few years as academics have become so insular, often unwilling or unable to defend the university as a public good, in spite of the widespread attacks on academic freedom, the role of the university as a democratic public sphere, and the increasing reduction of knowledge to a saleable commodity, and students to customers.

  Henry Giroux

  Academic Freedom, Years, Lasts

  "Higher Education Under Attack: An Interview With Henry A. Giroux". Interview with C. Cryn Johannsen, www.truth-out.org. April 22, 2011.

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• Then all at once in late August's heat, tall leafless stalks crowned with iridescent pink and purple blossoms burst from the purgatory in the earth. This arcane act of nature, though perceived by us as ordinary, is a manifestation of Maya's phantom play, the great immensity expressed in every way. My garden is the universe. I am the universe. I am my garden. All things are the same.

  Duane Michals

  Garden, Purple, August

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• Some string theorists prefer to believe that string theory is too arcane to be understood by human beings, rather than consider the possibility that it might just be wrong.

  Lee Smolin

  Believe, Might, Possibility

  Lee Smolin (2007). “The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next”, p.269, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Economics has become increasingly an arcane branch of mathematics rather than dealing with real economic problems.

  Milton Friedman

  Real, Branches, Problem

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• The more passive one's life in the field, the greater the need to reverse the situation when one returns home, which is why the arcane and authoritative character of academic writing may be seen, to some extent, as a vengeful reaction to the inertia, uneventfulness, and waiting one had to endure as a guest at someone else's banquet. A way of redressing an existental imbalance, as it were reclaiming authorial will by superimposing one's own meaning on theirs...

  Michael Jackson

  Revenge, Character, Home

  "In Sierra Leone".

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• One of them had a large wooden sign nailed to its door proclaiming, NO SYMPATHY! I wondered what non-arcane visitors might think of the warning.

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Thinking, Doors, Warning

  Patrick Rothfuss (2010). “The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chonicle:”, p.191, Hachette UK

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• Nothing like an arcane literary debate with your tyrannical master while you pass the time leading to your execution.

  Elizabeth Wein

  Execution, Debate, Masters

  Elizabeth Wein (2012). “Code Name Verity”, p.122, Egmont UK

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• Do you think I am a fool, Masha? All this time, and you speak to me as though I were a flighty pinprick of a girl. I am a magician! Did you never think, even once, that I loved lipstick and rouge for more than their color alone? I am a student of their lore, and it is arcane and hermetic beyond the dreams of alchemists. Did you never wonder why I gave you so many pots, so many creams, so much perfume?

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Girl, Dream, Thinking

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “Deathless”, p.143, Macmillan

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• It’s been a tough couple of years for condescending nerds. And if bookstores fall, Jon, America will be inundated with a wandering, snarky underclass of unemployable purveyors of useless and arcane esoterica.

  John Hodgman

  Couple, Fall, Years

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• Unfortunately for a multitude of occultists, humor is a rare ingredient in their lives. In fact it is their very lack of humor that has impelled them into the arcane and esoteric.

  Anton Szandor LaVey

  Esoteric, Ingredients, Facts

  Anton Szandor LaVey (2000). “The Devil's Notebook”, p.48, Feral House

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• Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, squares, and the like, but for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite.

  Ezra Pound

  Squares, Giving, Mind

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• So the freshness lives on in a lemon, in the sweet-smelling house of the rind, the proportions, arcane and acerb.

  Pablo Neruda

  Sweet, House, Proportion

  Pablo Neruda (1961). “Selected Poems”, p.235, Grove Press

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• Amanda Petrusich’s fascinating and insightful journey into the arcane netherworld of 78 records and its bring-‘em-back-alive collectors brims with the joy and passion of discovery, along with a heartfelt affection for those who keep alight the flame of our musical heritage.

  Lenny Kaye

  Passion, Journey, Discovery

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• One of the leading uses of photography by the mass media came to be called photojournalism. From the late 'twenties' to the early 'fifties' what might have been the golden age of this speciality - photographers worked largely as the possessors of special and arcane skills, like the ancient priests who practiced and monopolized the skills of pictography or carving or manuscript illumination. In those halcyon days the photographer enjoyed a privileged status.

  John Szarkowski

  Photography, Illumination, Media

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• The law can seem remote, arcane, the stuff of specialists. But it isn't, because for those of us who live in democracies, the law begins with us.

  Shereen El Feki

  Motivation, Inspiration, Law

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• I didn't expect to love being online as much as I do. I've met some wonderful people and discovered that however arcane some of my interests that there are people out there who are interested too.

  Sara Sheridan

  Love Is, People, Wonderful

  "Why writers must embrace social media, no matter the genre" by Sara Sheridan, www.theguardian.com. April 14, 2011.

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• For a lot of arcane shipping reasons, new comics, even digital ones, have a long history of only being released on Wednesdays.

  Brian K. Vaughan

  Long, Digital, Shipping

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• Artspeak is an arcane writing style that can result in a vocabulary of obscurities... Today, some of the more spectacular examples are in artist's statements.

  Robert Genn

  Writing, Artist, Vocabulary

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• The lingo used in the space is so arcane and out of date that investors have no context for the discussions. The failure to establish a clear, effective communication system has been the biggest sin private equity has committed.

  Bob Rice

  Communication, Space, Sin

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• We should take comfort in two conjoined features of nature: first, that our world is incredibly strange and therefore supremely fascinating, second, that however bizarre and arcane our world might be, nature remains potentially comprehensible to the human mind.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Our World, Two, Mind

  "Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History". Book by Stephen Jay Gould. "A Special Fondness for Beetles", pp. 386-387, 1995.

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• Film theory has nothing to do with film. Students presumably hope to find out something about film, and all they will find out is an occult and arcane language designed only for the purpose of excluding those who have not mastered it and giving academic rewards to those who have. No one with any literacy, taste or intelligence would want to teach these courses, so the bona fide definition of people teaching them are people who are incapable of teaching anything else.

  Roger Ebert

  Teaching, People, Giving

  "Lights, Camera, Action. Marxism, Semiotics, Narratology." by David Weddle, articles.latimes.com. July 13, 2003.

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• We need to think about encryption not as this sort of arcane, black art. It's a basic protection.

  Edward Snowden

  Art, Thinking, Nsa

  "Snowden at SXSW: 'The Constitution was being violated on a massive scale'". www.rt.com. March 10, 2014.

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• The study of law can be disappointing at times, a matter of applying narrow rules and arcane procedure to an uncooperative reality; a sort of glorified accounting that serves to regulate the affairs of those who have power--and that all too often seeks to explain, to those who do not, the ultimate wisdom and justness of their condition. But that's not all the law is. The law is also memory; the law also records a long-running conversation, a nation arguing with its conscience.

  Barack Obama

  Running, Memories, Reality

  Barack Obama (2007). “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance”, p.437, Broadway Books

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