Describing Quotes - Page 4

One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom, a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not been written.

Hubert Yockey

Origin Of Life, Earth, Causes

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It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent his whole life appraising and describing the work of other men.

H. L. Mencken

Men, Thinking, Quality

H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.87, Cosimo, Inc.

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...the computer models are very good at solving equations of fluid dynamics but very bad at describing the real world. The real world is full of things like clouds and vegetation and soil and dust which the models describe very poorly.

Freeman Dyson

Real, Dust, Clouds

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Whether we are describing a king, an assassin, a thief, an honest man, a prostitute, a nun, a young girl, or a stallholder in a market, it is always ourselves that we are describing.

Guy de Maupassant

Girl, Kings, Writing

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I like to think of photographing as a two-way act of respect. Respect for the medium, by letting it do what it does best, describe. And respect for the subject, by describing it as it is. A photograph must be responsible to both.

Garry Winogrand

Photography, Thinking, Two

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Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means.

Paul de Man

Mean, Doe, Language

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There exists a black kingdom which the eyes of man avoid because its landscape fails signally to flatter them. This darkness, which he imagines he can dispense with in describing the light, is error with its unknown characteristics. Error is certainty's constant companion. Error is the corollary of evidence. And anything said about truth may equally well be said about error: the delusion will be no greater.

Louis Aragon

Mistake, Eye, Men

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You write down a paragraph or two describing several different subjects creating a kind of story ingredients-list, I suppose, and then cut the sentences into four or five-word sections; mix em up and reconnect them. You can get some pretty interesting idea combinations like this. You can use them as is or, if you have a craven need to not lose control, bounce off these ideas and write whole new sections.

David Bowie

Writing, Cutting, Ideas

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Stern accuracy in inquiring, bold imagination in describing, these are the cogs on which history soars or flutters and wobbles.

Thomas Carlyle

History, Imagination, Cogs

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In America, there might be better gastronomic destinations than New Orleans, but there is no place more uniquely wonderful. ... With the best restaurants in New York, you'll find something similar to it in Paris or Copenhagen or Chicago. But there is no place like New Orleans. So it's a must-see city because there's no explaining it, no describing it. You can't compare it to anything. So, far and away New Orleans.

Anthony Bourdain

New York, New Orleans, Cities

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C.S. Lewis admitted, when he was asked to set forth his beliefs, that he never felt less sure of them than when he tried to speak of them. Photographers know this frailty. To them words are a pallid, diffuse way of describing and celebrating what matters. Their gift is to see what will be affecting as a print. Mute.

Robert Adams

What Matters, Way, Belief

Robert Adams (1994). “Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews”

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And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism-that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism-you can't find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.

Paul Ryan

Jobs, Pitfalls, Looks

"Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand's ideas: in the hot seat again". Speech at a 2005 Atlas Society event, atlassociety.org. April 30, 2012.

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I like real art. It's difficult to define 'real' but it is the best word for describing what I like to get out of art and what the best art has. It has the ability to convince you that it's present - that it's there. You could say it's authentic... but real is actually a better word, broad as it may be.

Frank Stella

Art, Real, May

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The truth feels different from other things. The closest you can come to describing it is that it feels like taking a perfect breath.

David Levithan

Perfect, Different, Feels

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Describing the jury in the OJ Simpson murder trial: These people have served a longer sentence than some people who have committed murder.

Jeff Greenfield

People, Trials, Murder

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It's strictly coincidental that Pluto of course was named for the god of the underworld and we're describing these Halloween moons

Alan Stern

Halloween, Moon, Pluto

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Often while reading a book one feels that the author wouold heave preferred to paint rather than to wirte; one can sense the pleasure he derives from describing a landscape or a person, as if he were painting what he is saying, because deep in his heart he would have preferred to use brushes and colors.

Pablo Picasso

Art, Book, Reading

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It was a different sexual situation going on than it is in the '80s and '90s, and I did a very poor job of describing that.

Wilt Chamberlain

Basketball, Jobs, 80s And 90s

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Murder is a crime. Describing Murder is not. Sex is not a crime. Describing sex is.

Gershon Legman

Sex, Murder, Crime

Love & Death: A Study in Censorship (1949)

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Literature is always best when it is celebrating its subjects darkly. ... And because it is often by describing the thing lost - a family, a moment of happiness, a child, a father - that we understand the full weight of what we had.

Bill Buford

Children, Father, Literature

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Educating Lawyers succeeds admirably in describing the educational programs at virtually every American law school. The call for the integration of the three apprenticeships seems to me exactly what is needed to make legal education more professional, to prepare law students better for the practice of law, and to address societal expectations of lawyers.

Stephen Wizner

Educational, School, Law

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In 1939 Winston Churchill, describing the 5000-mile peaceful border dividing Canada and the United States, said, 'That long frontier from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, guarded only by neighborly respect and honorable obligations, is an example to every country and a pattern for the future of the world.

Ronald Reagan

Country, Ocean, Long

United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan), Ronald Reagan (1982). “Ronald Reagan”

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Describing one competitive advantage of IBM's Deep Blue chess computer. It has no fear.

Yasser Seirawan

Fear, Blue, Chess

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We tend to think of consecration only as yielding up, when divinely directed, our material possessions. But ultimate consecration is the yielding up of oneself to God. Heart, soul, and mind were the encompassing words of Christ in describing the first commandment, which is constantly, not periodically, operative (see Matt. 22:37). If kept, then our performances will, in turn, be fully consecrated for the lasting welfare of our souls (see 2 Ne. 32:9).

Neal A. Maxwell

Heart, Thinking, Soul

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I still do not know what impels anyone sound of mind to leave dry land and spend a lifetime describing people who do not exist. If it is child's play, an extension of make believe - something one is frequently assured by people who write about writing - how to account for the overriding wish to do that, just that, only that, and consider it as rational an occupation as riding a bicycle over the Alps?

Mavis Gallant

Children, Believe, Writing

Mavis Gallant (2011). “Paris Stories”, p.366, New York Review of Books

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