Influence Quotes - Page 11

• I sometimes wish I had never had to sell a painting. Every painting you make represents the time it was made and how you were feeling and what your influences were... You are never going to feel that way again, so you can never repeat it.

  Peter Doig

  Feelings, Wish, Way

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• The first book ever written in an alphabet was the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament. And the most important passage was the Ten Commandments. The first commandment is the most revolutionary sentence ever written. It states: "I am the Lord thy God there is no other." The second prohibits us from making images. Thus, there is a profound rejection of any goddess influence and a ban of representative art.

  Leonard Shlain

  Art, Book, Profound

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• The intelligence and ability of a colored person are in pretty direct proportion to the amount of white blood he has, and … most of the positions of leadership, influence, and prominence in the Negro race are held not by real Negroes but by Mulattoes, many of whom have very little Negro blood.

  Madison Grant

  Real, Blood, White

  Madison Grant (2013). “The Conquest of a Continent”, p.298, The Palingenesis Project (Wermod and Wermod Publishing Group)

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• The Book of the Heart provides a fresh perspective on the influence of the book as artifact on our language and culture. Reading this book broadens our appreciation of the relationship between things and ideas.

  Henry Petroski

  Appreciation, Book, Reading

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• The purifying influence of public confession springs from the fact, that by it the hope in lies is forever swept away, and the soul recovers the noble attitude of simplicity.

  George Eliot

  Honesty, Attitude, Spring

  George Eliot (1863). “Romola”, p.112

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• In order to have a large number of values in common, all the members of the group must have an equable opportunity, to receive and to take from others. There must be a large variety of shared undertakings and experiences. Otherwise, the influences which educate some into masters, educates others into slaves.

  John Dewey

  Opportunity, Order, Numbers

  "Democracy and Education". Book by John Dewey, 1916.

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• Persuasion is effected through the medium of the hearers, when they shall have been brought to a state of excitement under the influence of speech; for we do not, when influenced by pain or joy, or partiality or dislike, award our decisions in the same way; about which means of persuasion alone, I declare that the system-mongers of the present day busy themselves.

  Aristotle

  Pain, Mean, Awards

  Aristotle (1857). “Treatise on Rhetoric: Literally Translated from the Greek”, p.12

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• All "if" statements about the past are as dubious as prophecies of the future are. It seems fairly plausible that if Alexander or Ghengis Khan had never been born, some other individual would have filled his place and executed the design of the Hellenic or Mongolic expansion; but the Alexanders of philosophy and religion, of science and art, seem less expendable; their impact seems less determined by economic challenges and social pressures; and they seem to have a much wider range of possibilities to influence the direction, shape and texture of civilizations.

  Arthur Koestler

  Art, Philosophy, Past

  "The Sleepwalkeers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe". Book by Arthur Koestler, 1959.

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• Think about one of the most powerful influences on a young child's life - the absence of a father figure. Look back on recent presidents, and you'll find an absent, or weak, or failed father in the lives of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

  Jeff Greenfield

  Children, Powerful, Father

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• The power of free will is developed and confirmed by increasing the number of worthy motives which influence conduct.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Numbers, Free Will, Worthy

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• It is important to understand what I mean by semiosis. All dynamic action, or action of brute force, physical or psychical, either takes place between two subjects, whether they react equally upon each other, or one is agent and the other patient, entirely or partially, or at any rate is a resultant of such actions between pairs. But by "semiosis" I mean, on the contrary, an action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Mean, Two, Important

  "Pragmatism (1907)". "The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings". Book edited by the Peirce Edition Project, Volume 2, p. 411, 1998.

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• The most powerful influence exercised by the Arabs on general natural physics was that directed to the advances of chemistry ; a science for which this race created a new era.(...) Besides making laudatory mention of that which we owe to the natural science of the Arabs in both the terrestrial and celestial spheres, we must likewise allude to their contributions in separate paths of intellectual development to the general mass of mathematical science.

  Alexander von Humboldt

  Powerful, Race, Intellectual

  "Cosmos". Book by H.G. Bohn, v2, p. 589,595, 1860.

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• Indeed the influence of music on the development of religion is a subject which would repay a sympathetic study.

  James G. Frazer

  Development, Study, Sympathetic

  "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion". Book by James G. Frazer, 1890.

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• I do not regard the rise of woman as a bad sign. Rather do I fancy that her traditional subordination was itself an artificial and undesirable condition based on Oriental influences. Our virile Teutonic ancestors did not think their wives unworthy to follow them into battle, or scorn to dream of winged Valkyries bearing them to Valhalla.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Dream, Women, Thinking

  H. P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, James Turner (1976). “Selected Letters 1934-1937”, Arkham House Publishers

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• I have come to use the pan-Celtic history, which spans from 500 BC to the present, as a creative springboard. The music I am creating is a result of traveling down that road and picking up all manner of themes and influences, which may or may not be overtly Celtic in nature.

  Loreena McKennitt

  Creating, Creative, Use

  Website notes to "The Mask And Mirror" on official site, loreenamckennitt.com.

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• To succeed in life one needs two things -- influence and a lucky star.

  Leonid Andreyev

  Stars, Two, Succeed

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• One has very little influence upon one's children. Their characters are what they are and one can do nothing to change them.

  Andre Maurois

  Children, Character, Littles

  "The Art of Living". Book by Andre Maurois, 1939.

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• Korell is that frequent phenomenon in history : the republic whose ruler has every attribute of the absolute monarch but the name. It therefore enjoyed the usual despotism unrestrained even by those two moderating influences in the legitimate monarchies: regal "honor" and court etiquette.

  Isaac Asimov

  Names, Two, Honor

  Isaac Asimov (1991). “Great Tales of the Golden Age of Science Fiction”, Bbs Publishing Corporation

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• A teacher who can show good, or indeed astounding results while he is teaching, is still not on that account a good teacher, for it may be that, while his pupils are under his immediate influence, he raises them to a level which is not natural to them, without developing their own capacities for work at this level, so that they immediately decline again once the teacher leaves the schoolroom.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Teacher, Teaching, Levels

  "Culture and Value" by Ludwig Wittgenstein, translated by Peter Winch, (p. 43e), 1980.

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• Let us build a structure of peace in the world in which the weak are as safe as the strong — in which each respects the right of the other to live by a different system — in which those who would influence others will do so by the strength of their ideas, and not by the force of their arms. Let us accept that high responsibility not as a burden, but gladly — gladly because the chance to build such a peace is the noblest endeavor in which a nation can engage.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Peace, Strong, Responsibility

  Second Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1973

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• Curiosity is natural to the soul of man and interesting objects have a powerful influence on our affections. Let these influencing powers actuate, by the permission or disposal of Providence, from selfish or social views, yet in time the mysterious will of Heaven is unfolded, and we behold our conduct, from whatever motives excited, operating to answer the important designs of heaven.

  Daniel Boone

  Powerful, Selfish, Men

  "The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke". Book by John Filson, the opening lines of "The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon; containing a Narrative of the Wars of Kentucke", 1784.

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• Capital burns off the nuance in a culture. Foreign investment, global markets, corporate acquisitions, the flow of information through transnational media, the attenuating influence of money that's electronic and sex that's cyberspaced, untouched money and computer-safe sex, the convergence of consumer desire--not that people want the same things, necessarily, but that they want the same range of choices.

  Don DeLillo

  Sex, Media, People

  Don DeLillo (2015). “Underworld: Picador Classic”, p.769, Pan Macmillan

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• I am not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion, I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Religious, Atheist, Thinking

  Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.55, Basic Books

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• He who thinks he can have flesh and bones without being subject to any external influence, or any accidents of matter, unconsciously wishes to reconcile two opposites, viz., to be at the same time subject and not subject to change. If man were never subject to change there could be no generation; there would be one single being, but no individuals forming a species.

  Maimonides

  Men, Thinking, Opposites

  Moses Maimonides (2012). “The Guide for the Perplexed”, p.269, Courier Corporation

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• The good and the bad mix themselves so thoroughly in our thoughts, even in our aspirations, that we must look for excellence rather in overcoming evil than in freeing ourselves from its influence.

  Anthony Trollope

  Overcoming Evil, Excellence, Looks

  Anthony Trollope (1869). “He Knew He was Right”, p.80

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