Finite Quotes - Page 19

• I believe that art is the highest expression of the human spirit. I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participate in something mysterious and communal called 'culture' - and that this yearning is as strong in our species as the yearning to reproduce the species.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Strong, Art, Believe

  Joyce Carol Oates (2009). “The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art”, p.1, Zondervan

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• The ways of Providence cannot be reasoned out by the finite mind ... I cannot fathom them, yet seeking to know them is the most satisfying thing in all the world.

  Selma Lagerlöf

  God, Mind, World

  Selma Lagerlöf (2016). “Jerusalem”, p.62, Library of Alexandria

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• We each have a finite number of heartbeats, a finite amount of time. But we have enough heartbeats and enough time to do what is important.

  Susan L. Taylor

  Time, Numbers, Finite Number

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• The only way [the book can be written] is to set the unbook-the gilt-framed portrait of the book-right there on the altar and sacrifice it, truly sacrifice it. Only then may the book, the real live flawed finite book, slowly, sentence by carnal sentence, appear.

  Bonnie Friedman

  Real, Book, Sacrifice

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• I actually think the creative process is finite, and I'm wondering whether I've retched everything up. Because it's like vomiting or shitting.

  Andy Partridge

  Thinking, Creative, Vomiting

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• When you're trying to get laid, everything's great, but once you've been with someone eight years and the future is not finite, you have time to sit and really examine every little thing that irritates you.

  Richard Linklater

  Eight, Years, Trying

  "The 'Before Midnight' Team: Reunion of the Year 2013". Interview with Lauren Bans, www.gq.com. December 5, 2013.

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• Mathematics has been called the science of the infinite. Indeed, the mathematician invents finite constructions by which questions are decided that by their very nature refer to the infinite. This is his glory.

  Hermann Weyl

  Infinite, Glory, Construction

  Hermann Weyl (1968). “Gesammelte Abhandlungen”

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• With each divine impulse the mind rends the thin rinds of the visible and finite, and comes out into eternity, and inspires and expires its air. It converses with truths that have always been spoken in the world, and becomes conscious of a closer sympathy with Zeno and Arrian, than with persons in the house.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Air, House, Inspire

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2006). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems”, p.180, Bantam Classics

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• A miracle is a supernatural event, whose antecedent forces are beyond our finite vision, whose design is the display of almighty power for the accomplishment of almighty purposes, and whose immediate result, as regards man, is his recognition of God as the Supreme Ruler of all things, and of His will as the only supreme law.

  Abbott Eliot Kittredge

  Men, Law, Design

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• I dare not think that any supercelestial heaven, or whatsoever else ... was increate and eternal. And as for the place of God before the world created, the finite wisdom of mortal men hath no perception of it; neither can it limit the seat of infinite power, no more than infinite power itself can be limited; for his place is in himself, whom no magnitude else can contain.

  Walter Raleigh

  Men, Thinking, Heaven

  Walter Raleigh (1736). “The History of the World in Five Books”, p.5

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• Nothing finite is true, is interesting, is worthy to fix my attention. All that is particular is exclusive, and all that is exclusive repels me.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Interesting, Attention, Worthy

  "The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel". Book by Henri-Frédéric Amiel, translated by Mary Augusta Ward, 1882.

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• Every existence above a certain rank has its singular points; the higher the rank the more of them. At these points, influences whose physical magnitude is too small to be taken account of by a finite being may produce results of the greatest importance.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Taken, May, Influence

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• Man is a mixed being, made up of a spiritual soul and of a fleshly body; the angels are pure spirits, herein nearer to God, only that they are created and finite in all respects, free from decay, free from the power of death, whereas God is infinite and uncreated.

  Augustus Hare

  Spiritual, Angel, Men

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• The common ground where the activities of God and man become one is the motive of perfect love; for in the last resolve love is the essence of God's nature. When he thinks, love is his thought; when he wills, love is the product of his will. To the degree, therefore, that man thinks and wills the good--to the degree that he realizes love in his finite dealings--he interfuses himself with God.

  Frank C. Lockwood

  Love Is, Men, Thinking

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• Nature is boundless in her powers, exhausting in her variety: the powers of Art and its capabilities of variety in production are bounded on every side. Nature herself, the infinite, has circumscribed the bounds of finite Art. The one is the divinity; the other the priestess.

  Anna Brownell Jameson

  Art, Nature, Divinity

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• The nature will continue, it's our existence that is finite and you are given this gift of life and you make your way with it, but fate and natural disasters will continue on.

  Larry Fessenden

  Fate, Way, Natural

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• It [going from mini-series to series] was never even discussed because it [The Starter Wife] was, you know, an adaptation of a novel. And we - the mini-series encompassed the whole novel. And so it was always going to be a finite sort of event. And then I imagine when people started to really respond to the show and then we got ten Emmy nominations, USA sort of said, "Oh, I think maybe we have something here."

  Debra Messing

  Thinking, Usa, People

  Source: www.movieweb.com

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• If it should turn out that the whole of physical reality can be described by a finite set of equations, I would be disappointed, I would feel that the Creator had been uncharacteristically lacking in imagination.

  Freeman Dyson

  Reality, Imagination, Would Be

  "Infinite in All Directions". Book by Freeman Dyson, 1988.

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• Human beings, because we're so clever, have removed every single one of those population limiting factors... So nothing controls our increase in numbers except our own wish. Since I first started making television programs, the population of the world has increased three times. That's an extraordinary notion. Can it increase four times? Can it increase five times? The Earth is a finite size. So a point will eventually come when we run out of food, when we run out of space and when we will have destroyed most of the natural world. So ought we to do something about it before that happens?

  David Attenborough

  Running, Clever, Numbers

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• On my 70th birthday, I was asked how I felt about mankind's prospects. This is my reply: We are behaving like yeasts in a brewer's vat, multiplying mindlessly while greedily consuming the substance of a finite world. If we continue to imitate the yeasts, we will perish as they perish, having exhausted our resources and poisoned ourselves in the lethal brew of our own wastes. Unlike the yeasts, we have a choice. What will it be?

  Farley Mowat

  Choices, Substance, World

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• Love is no individual's experience; and though we are imperfect mediums, it does not partake of our imperfection; though we are finite, it is infinite and eternal.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love Is, Imperfection, Doe

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1137, Delphi Classics

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• I equals all of the ifs added up over time. The ifs, those are the possibilities; that's infinite for all of us. Every day there are just millions of them. Time, that's finite for each of us; there is no question there. Maybe if you divide choices by the amount of time you have, the real I can emerge, depending upon those choices.

  Demetri Martin

  Real, Choices, Infinite

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• It's more enjoyable for me to know that life is finite. Knowing that, I would like to go to a party.

  Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

  Party, Knowing, Life Is

  Source: collider.com

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• Every photograph is a realization of one of the possibilities contained within the program of the camera. The number of such possibilities is large, but it is nevertheless finite. It is the sum of all those photographs that can be taken by a camera.

  Douglas Huebler

  Taken, Numbers, Cameras

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• When I was in college, for the games of that era, I was as hard core as anyone was. I wouldn't say I outgrew it, but you always have to have a finite number of addictions.

  Bill Gates

  College, Finite Number, Games

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