Illuminating Quotes - Page 2

For since most of our living is unconscious, play is like matchstrokes in the void, bringing into light the structures we behave by, illuminating for us, however briefly, our deep meanings.

Mary Caroline Richards

Fun, Light, Play

Mary Caroline Richards (2011). “Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person”, p.63, Wesleyan University Press

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Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.

Henri Matisse

Inspirational, Happiness, Work

Henri Matisse (1992). “Jazz”, George Braziller

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The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.

Blaise Pascal

Lasts, Infinity, Reason

Blaise Pascal (2013). “Pascal's Pensees”, p.80, Simon and Schuster

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If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.

Bertrand Russell

Giving, Able, Infinity

Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.77, Booklassic

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The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions.

Thomas Huxley

Ocean, Land, Generations

Thomas Henry Huxley “Selected Works of Thomas Henry Huxley”, Library of Alexandria

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Just about every children's book in my local bookstore has an animal for its hero. But then, only a few feet away in the cookbook section, just about every cookbook includes recipes for cooking animals. Is there a more illuminating illustration of our paradoxical relationship with the nonhuman world?

Jonathan Safran Foer

Children, Book, Hero

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A memoir should have some uplifting quality, inspiring or illuminating, and that's what separates a life story that can influence other people.

Mitch Albom

Uplifting, Should Have, People

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When I'm alone at home, I really prefer to listen to Wagner's orchestral music rather than any vocal music. I find it illuminating not to have to pay attention to voices in the recordings.

Kiri Te Kanawa

Home, Voice, Attention

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When one takes action for others, one's own suffering is transformed into the energy that can keep one moving forward; a light of hope illuminating a new tomorrow for oneself and others is kindled.

Daisaku Ikeda

Moving Forward, Light, Suffering

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I am a moment illuminating eternity....I am affirmation...I am ecstasy.

Alexander Scriabin

Affirmation, Moments, Eternity

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What you can imagine depends on what you know. Philosophers who know only philosophy consign themselves to a janitorial role in the great enterprises of exploration that are illuminating the mysteries of our lives.

Daniel Dennett

Philosophy, Roles, Philosopher

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Giving to others selflesly and anonymously, radiating light throughout the world and illuminating your own darkness, your virtue becomes a sanctuary for yourself and all beings.

Laozi

Inspirational, Helping Others, Light

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An enlightened awareness is within each one of us, right at this moment.
This enlightened awareness is truly unborn and marvellously illuminating; and everything is perfectly managed by it.
Conclusively realise that what is unborn and illuminating is truly awakened and without effort,
rest naturally as the Unborn Mind.
Resting in this way, you are a living Buddha.

Bankei Yotaku

Effort, Meditation, Mind

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The chemical differences among various species and genera of animals and plants are certainly as significant for the history of their origins as the differences in form. If we could define clearly the differences in molecular constitution and functions of different kinds of organisms, there would be possible a more illuminating and deeper understanding of question of the evolutionary reactions of organisms than could ever be expected from morphological considerations.

Ray Lankester

Science, Animal, Differences

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Every fight is one between different angles of vision illuminating the same truth.

Mahatma Gandhi

Fighting, Vision, Different

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Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley, shifting with the movement of the clouds. Now and then the light will fall on a particular point in time, illuminating it for a moment before the wind seals up the gap, and the world is in shadows again.

Tan Twan Eng

Memories, Fall, Clouds

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We don't know why we are here and . . . our role in the universe, and the thought of an infinite universe. It's something the human mind can't really grasp. [And] it's statistically impossible that there's not life on other planets.

Joel Kinnaman

Mind, Roles, Why We Are Here

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Desires should never be justified,' Tehol said, wagging a finger. 'All you end up doing is illuminating the hidden reasons by virtue of their obvious absence.

Steven Erikson

Desire, Justified, Virtue

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The only rule was that the stuff had to be funny and pretty short. To me, the quintessential Army Man joke was one of John Swartzwelder's: 'They can kill the Kennedys. Why can't they make a cup of coffee that tastes good?' It's a horrifying idea juxtaposed with something really banal-and yet there's a kind of logic to it. It's illuminating because it's kind of how Americans see things: Life's a big jumble, but somehow it leads to something I can consume. I love that.

George Meyer

Coffee, Army, Men

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Metaphor isn't just a fancy turn of speech. It shapes our thoughts and feelings, reaches out to grasp new experience, and even binds our five disparate senses. James Geary's fascinating and utterly readable I is an Other brings the news on metaphor from literature and economics, from neuroscience and politics, illuminating topics from consumer behavior to autism spectrum disorders to the evolution of language. As a writer, as a teacher, and as someone just plain fascinated by how our minds work, I've been waiting years for exactly this book.

James Richardson

Teacher, Book, New Experiences

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Just as entropy is a measure of disorganization, the information carried by a set of messages is a measure of organization. In fact, it is possible to interpret the information carried by a message as essentially the negative of its entropy, and the negative logarithm of its probability. That is, the more probable the message, the less information it gives. Cliches, for example, are less illuminating than great poems.

Norbert Wiener

Organization, Giving, Example

Norbert Wiener (1988). “The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society”, p.21, Da Capo Press

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Our educational system is like an automobile which has strong rear lights, brightly illuminating the past. But looking forward things are barely discernible.

Hermann Oberth

Strong, Educational, Past

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As for critical writing about modernism, its moments of lucidity are but fulgurations illuminating the dark and incomprehensible landscape of its subject's unabashed difficulty.

Will Self

Writing, Dark, Landscape

"Constellation of Genius, 1922: Modernism Year One by Kevin Jackson - review" by Will Self, www.theguardian.com. October 19, 2012.

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Graphic novels might really speak to one child who's struggling with the other kinds of reading and might help them discover that storytelling is joyful and personal and illuminating. They might find your way in auditorily by listening to audio books in the car instead of playing Game Boys or watching DVDs.

Emma Walton Hamilton

Children, Struggle, Book

Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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Go forth in every direction- for the happiness, the harmony, the welfare of the many. Offer your heart, the seeds of understanding, like a lamp overturned and re-lit, illuminating the darkness.

Gautama Buddha

Inspirational, Courage, Heart

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