Irreversible Quotes - Page 3

• It is with our entire past ... that we desire, will and act ... from this survival of the past it follows that consciousness cannot go through the same state twice. The circumstances may still be the same, but they will act no longer on the same person ... that is why our duration is irreversible.

  Henri Bergson

  Science, Past, Survival

  Henri Bergson (2014). “Creative Evolution”, p.13, Lulu Press, Inc

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• Activity proneness in the service of an ideology ... leads the individual into an irreversible series of commitments from which is forged an identity to which the individual inevitably becomes strongly attached psychologically.

  Edgar Schein

  Commitment, Atheism, Identity

  20 Copy quote

• If a child in its first thousand days - from conception to two years old - does not have adequate nutrition, the damage is irreversible.

  Josette Sheeran

  Children, Health, Years

  6 Copy quote

• It means joining with allies to deploy renewable energy technologies -- both at home and around the world -- to confront the very real and present danger of potentially irreversible climate change.

  Bernie Sanders

  Change, Real, Mean

  13 Copy quote

• The Kyoto Treaty wasn't perfect, but we signed it, in fact, helped to draft it. And I'm very proud of it, it was the world's first commitment to doing something comprehensive on greenhouse gases and trying to reduce global warming before we do irreversible damage to many civilizations around the world.

  William J. Clinton

  Commitment, Civilization, Kyoto

  Source: www.foxnews.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Somtimes you lie in a strange room, in a strange person's home, and you feel yourself bending out of shape. Melting, touching something hot, something that warps you in drastic and probably irreversible ways you won't get to take stock of until its too late

  Rob Sheffield

  Lying, Home, Touching

  Rob Sheffield (2007). “Love Is a Mix Tape: Life, Loss, and What I Listened To”, p.63, Crown Archetype

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• While in some cases the damage already done may well be irreversible, in many other cases it can still be halted. It is necessary, however, that the entire human community - individuals, States and international bodies - take seriously the responsibility that is theirs.

  Pope John Paul II

  Responsibility, Community, Environmental

  4 Copy quote

• How could people, I wondered for the ten thousandth useless time, how could people who had loved so dearly come to such a wilderness; and yet the change in us was irreversible, and neither of us would even search for a way back. It was impossible. The fire was out. Only a few live coals lurked in the ashes, searing unexpectedly at the incautious touch.

  Dick Francis

  Fire, People, Ashes

  Dick Francis (1981). “Whip hand: Trial run ; Twice shy”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Each man lives for himself, uses his freedom to achieve his personal goals, and feels with his whole being that right now he can or cannot do such-and-such an action; but as soon as he does it, this action, committed at a certain moment in time, becomes irreversible, and makes itself the property of history, in which is has not a free but a predestined significance.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Men, Goal, Doe

  7 Copy quote

• Global warming is already acting upon us with an accelerated feedback and compounded effect that may be irreversible! We do not have eons or centuries or many decades. Most of us alive today may not even have the luxury of saying 'Après moi, le déluge' because we will be around to experience it ourselves. And if you think it will be 'interesting' or 'exciting,' ask the tsunami survivors if that's how they felt. This time the plutocratic drive to 'accumulate, accumulate, accumulate' may take all of us down, once and forever.

  Michael Parenti

  Thinking, Luxury, Interesting

  30 Copy quote

• We see a newborn moth unwrapping itself and announce, Look, children, a miracle! But let an irreversible wound be knit back to seamlessness? We won't even see it, though we look at it every day.

  Leif Enger

  Children, Miracle, Looks

  Leif Enger (2007). “Peace Like a River”, p.202, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The siren song of redistribution of wealth by centralized government never ceases for those who seek irreversible and unusurpable control over the lives and liberties of private citizens.

  Josh Jones

  Song, Government, Liberty

  22 Copy quote

• The greatest danger hanging over our children and grandchildren is initiation of changes that will be irreversible on any time scale that humans can imagine.

  James Hansen

  Children, Energy, Environment

  "Coal-fired power stations are death factories. Close them" by James Hansen, www.theguardian.com. February 14, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Alexander Technique keeps the body alive, at ages when many people have resigned themselves to irreversible decline.

  Robertson Davies

  People, Age, Technique

  11 Copy quote

• I know that it's easier to look at death than it is to look at pain, because while death is irrevocable, and the grief will lessen in time, pain is too often merely relentless and irreversible.

  Robert Goolrick

  Sad, Pain, Grief

  Robert Goolrick (2008). “The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life”, p.213, Algonquin Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Historical chronology, human or geological, depends... upon comparable impersonal principles. If one scribes with a stylus on a plate of wet clay two marks, the second crossing the first, another person on examining these marks can tell unambiguously which was made first and which second, because the latter event irreversibly disturbs its predecessor. In virtue of the fact that most of the rocks of the earth contain imprints of a succession of such irreversible events, an unambiguous working out of the chronological sequence of these events becomes possible.

  M. King Hubbert

  Science, Rocks, Two

  5 Copy quote

• A challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence... There is no doubt that the time to act is now.

  Tony Blair

  Impact, Challenges, Doubt

  Tony Blair's Speech on the Environment and the 'Urgent Issue' of Climate Change, www.theguardian.com. September 15, 2004.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cruelty signifies rigor, implacable intention and decision, irreversible and absolute determination.

  Antonin Artaud

  Determination, Decision, Intention

  Antonin Artaud (1958). “The Theater and Its Double”, p.101, Grove Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The moment passes. There is no point in regretting irreversible decisions—one has to live with them, and we try.

  Ekaterina Sedia

  Regret, Decision, Trying

  7 Copy quote

• In five years' time at this pace global warming becomes irreversible.

  Yosef Abramowitz

  Years, Pace, Global Warming

  4 Copy quote

• There are no steps to self-realization. There is nothing gradual about it. It happens suddenly and is irreversible. You rotate into a new dimension, seen from which the previous ones are mere abstractions. Just like on sunrise you see things as they are, so on self-realization you see everything as it is. The world of illusions is left behind.

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Self, Sunrise, Dimensions

  63 Copy quote

• Climate change is the greatest threat to our common future. We have a very short period of time to tackle the problem before it becomes irreversible and out of control. A lot of progress has been made, but we must now go further, faster and turn targets into real change

  Chris Huhne

  Real, Progress, Climate

  6 Copy quote

• Can the state, which represents the whole of society and has the duty of protecting society, fulfill that duty by lowering itself to the level of the murderer, and treating him as he treated others? The forfeiture of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict it on another, even when backed by legal process.

  Kofi Annan

  Levels, Death Penalty, Life Is

  15 Copy quote

• Before it's too late, we need to make courageous choices that will recreate a strong alliance between man and Earth. We need a decisive 'yes' to care for creation and a strong commitment to reverse those trends that risk making the situation of decay irreversible.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Strong, Commitment, Choices

  "Pope Urges Young People to Care for Environment". www.foxnews.com. September 2, 2007.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• We find ourselves ethically destitute just when, for the first time, we are faced with ultimacy, the irreversible closing down of the earth's functioning in its major life systems. Our ethical traditions know how to deal with suicide, homicide and even genocide, but these traditions collapse entirely when confronted with biocide, the killing of the life systems of the earth, and geocide, the devastation of the earth itself.

  Thomas Berry

  Suicide, Environmental, Earth

  Thomas Berry (2011). “The Great Work: Our Way into the Future”, p.104, Crown

  10 Copy quote

  Show source