Mechanism Quotes

• There is an ecstatic mechanism in birds that makes them fly upwards in spite of worms.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Bird, Worms, Spite

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1960). “Her”, p.24, New Directions Publishing

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• Order is a necessary condition for making a structure function. A physical mechanism, be it a team of laborers, the body of an animal, or a machine, can work only if it is in physical order.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Team, Animal, Order

  Rudolf Arnheim (1974). “Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order”, p.3, Univ of California Press

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• Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

  Honore de Balzac

  Liberty, Giants, Libertarian

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• Truth is an all-freeing mechanism.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Truth Is

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• Hope is a psychological mechanism unaffected by external realities.

  Gene Wolfe

  Reality, Psychological

  Gene Wolfe (1994). “Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.84, Macmillan

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• A wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it, is not a part of the mechanism.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Moving, Experience, Wheels

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (2010). “Philosophical Investigations”, p.225, John Wiley & Sons

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• A mechanism of some kind stands between us and almost every act of our lives.

  Sarah-Patton Boyle

  Technology, Kind, Our Lives

  Sarah Patton Boyle (2016). “The Desegregated Heart: A Virginian’s Stand in Time of Transition”, p.372, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• Laughter is Humanity's mechanism to escape suffering.

  Deepak Chopra

  Laughter, Humanity, Suffering

  "Iconoclasts". Sundance Channel Original Series, Episode 3.03, November 08, 2007.

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• Intelligent Design is a remarkably uncreative theory that abandons the search for understanding at the very point where it is most needed. If Intelligent Design is really a science, then the burden is on its scientists to discover the mechanisms used by the Intelligent Designer. (80)

  Michael Shermer

  Intelligent, Design, Understanding

  Michael Shermer (2007). “Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design”, p.80, Macmillan

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• History has shown that there are very few mechanisms as effective at maintaining the status quo as a set of institutionalized regulations. Once set in regulatory concrete, reconsideration of the basic underlying assumptions is very difficult. While it will be an uphill fight to re-examine the basic underlying assumptions of any law or administrative rule, it is clearly not impossible. It will just take longer than if not so well institutionalized.

  Paul Baran

  Fighting, Maintaining The Status Quo, Law

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• Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Life, Math, Offensive

  Adventures of Ideas (1933) pt. 1, ch. 5

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• It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.

  Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

  Friendship, Best Friend, Wise

  "The Pure and the Impure". Book by Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, 1932.

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• The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.

  Frank Herbert

  Progress, Shields, Utopia

  Frank Herbert (1999). “Dune”, Ace Hardcover

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• With comedy, a lot of people develop their sense of humor as a defense mechanism.

  Judd Apatow

  People, Defense, Comedy

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Universal love is the standard-sized socket that everyone can plug into. No adapting mechanism required.

  Allison Mackie

  Love Is, Universal Love, Standards

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• Profits are part of the mechanism by which society decides what it wants to see produced.

  Henry Wallich

  Business, Want, Profit

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• As far away as you can get from the process of mechanisms and machinery, the more likely your food's going to taste good. And that - that is probably the largest thing I can hand to anybody is let your hands touch it. Let them make it.

  Mario Batali

  Hands, Taste, Far Away

  "Making a Meal with Mario Batali". Interview with Debbie Elliott, www.npr.org. October 15, 2005.

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• The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate.

  Benjamin Graham

  Intelligent, Significant Change, Sound

  Benjamin Graham (2009). “The Intelligent Investor, Rev. Ed”, p.4, Harper Collins

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• Anger is a fuel. You need fuel to launch a rocket. But if all you have is fuel without any complex internal mechanism directing it, you don't have a rocket. You have a bomb

  Stanley Bing

  Anger, Needs, Bombs

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• Politics are, as it were, the market place and the price mechanism of all social demands - though there is no guarantee that a just price will be struck; and there is nothing spontaneous about politics- it depends on deliberate and continuous activity.

  Bernard Crick

  Guarantees That, Political, Demand

  Bernard Crick (1993). “In Defense of Politics”, p.23, University of Chicago Press

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• Motivation and inspiration energize people, not by pushing them in the right direction as control mechanisms do but by satisfying basic human needs for achievement, a sense of belonging, recognition, self-esteem, a feeling of control over one's life, and the ability to live up to one's ideals. Such feelings touch us deeply and elicit a powerful response.

  John P. Kotter

  Leadership, Motivation, Powerful

  John P. Kotter (1999). “John P. Kotter on what Leaders Really Do”, p.60, Harvard Business Press

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• The important thing is that over time, scientific progress transforms things that used to have to be dealt with in a problem-solving mode down to the pattern-recognition space; and from pattern recognition into the rules-based mode. This is the mechanism by which less-trained people are enabled to do more sophisticated things. This is always the way disruption happens. It enables a larger population of less-experienced people to do more sophisticated things.

  Clayton Christensen

  Space, People, Progress

  Source: www.strategy-business.com

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• I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. We should not allow it to be believed that all scientific progress can be reduced to mechanisms, machines, gearings, even though such machinery has its own beauty.

  Marie Curie

  Children, Science, Thinking

  "Madame Curie: A Biography". Book by Eve Curie Labouisse translated by Vincent Sheean, 1937.

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• Totalitarianism extends to whatever touches it...psychological technique, as it operates in the army or in a great industrial plant, entails a direct action on the family. It involves a psychological adaptation of family life to military or industrial methods, supervision of family life, and training family life for military or industrial service. Technique can leave nothing untouched in a civilization. Everything is its concern. Technique, which is destroying all other civilizations, is more than a simple mechanism: it's a whole civilization in itself.

  Jacques Ellul

  Military, Army, Technology

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