Mechanism Quotes - Page 22

• Because I was a shy and awkward child, I used humour to deflect attention. It was a controlling mechanism. Because I could use it to control my image.

  Catherine Tate

  Children, Awkward, Use

  "What I'm not is a cheery person". Interview with Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. April 5, 2008.

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• I was the fat kid, so as a defense mechanism, I was the jokester.

  Peter DeLuise

  Kids, Defense, Fats

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• From the point of view of physics, it is a miracle that [seven million New Yorkers are fed each day] without any control mechanism other than sheer capitalism.

  John Henry Holland

  Views, Miracle, Each Day

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• The shark is the apex predator in the sea. Sharks have molded evolution for 450 million years. All fish species that are prey to the sharks have had their behavior, their speed, their camouflage, their defense mechanisms molded by the shark.

  Paul Watson

  Sharks, Years, Sea

  "Sea Shepherd: How We Sank the Japanese Whaling Fleet". Interview with Deborah Bassett, www.theecologist.org. April 21, 2011.

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• By deriving it's just powers from the governed, government becomes primarily a mechanism for defense against bodily harm, theft, and involuntary servitude. It cannot claim the power to redistribute money or property nor to force reluctant citizens to perform acts of charity against their will. Government is created by the people. No individual possesses the power to take another's wealth or to force others to do good, so no government has the the right to do such things either. The creature cannot exceed the creator.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Government, People, Defense

  Ezra Taft Benson (1986). “The Constitution: A Heavenly Banner”, Shadow Mountain

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• To allow the market mechanism to be the sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment....would result in the demolition of society.

  Karl Polanyi

  Fate, Society, Directors

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• Power is tolerable only on condition that it mask a substantial part of itself. Its success is proportional to its ability to hide its own mechanisms.

  Michel Foucault

  Mask, Ability, Tolerable

  Michel Foucault (2012). “The History of Sexuality: An Introduction”, p.86, Vintage

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• An ultimate joint challenge for the biological and the computational sciences is the understanding of the mechanisms of the human brain, and its relationship with the human mind.

  Tony Hoare

  Understanding, Challenges, Brain

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• One idea I explore in my stand-up show is whether, if you try looking at the universe rationally and avoid coping mechanisms like mysticism or religion, you can still be happy knowing you are going to die after a brief time on this spinning ball.

  Robin Ince

  Ideas, Coping Mechanisms, Knowing

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• Being connected to the Internet means being vulnerable to coordinated actions that can knock down walls of secrecy and shatter mechanisms of control.

  Jamais Cascio

  Wall, Mean, Action

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• Gender is used as a control mechanism that's just wrong. Gender is never anything to struggle with; gender is something to play with. Once you're free of the rules that all these hierarchical, oppressive systems place on gender, that's the tricky part.

  Kate Bornstein

  Struggle, Play, Gender

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• Bad things happen. And the human brain is especially adept at making sure that we keep track of these events. This is an adaptive mechanism important for survival.

  David Perlmutter

  Track, Brain, Survival

  "Human Memory: Why Bad Memories Stick" by David Perlmutter, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 17, 2011.

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• In principle, if you understood the mechanisms of keeping things repaired, you could keep things going indefinitely.

  Cynthia Kenyon

  Principles, Understood, Ifs

  "Finding the Fountain of Youth / Where will UCSF biochemist Cynthia Kenyon's age-bending experiments with worms lead us?" by David Ewing Duncan, www.sfgate.com. May 29, 2005.

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• Your brain has an in-built mechanism for finding patterns you've programmed because of where you've put your attention. Solutions, innovations, and success come not from greater intelligence or creativity but from what we notice because of where we point those attributes

  David Allen

  Creativity, Innovation, Brain

  David Allen (2004). “Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done”, p.60, Penguin

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• The principal mechanism for convergence at the international as well as the domestic level is the diffusion of knowledge.

  Thomas Piketty

  Levels, Wells, Diffusion

  Thomas Piketty (2014). “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, p.71, Harvard University Press

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• It is not always easy to be who we are, but as we grow up and mature and develop coping mechanisms that enable us to survive and thrive in a complicated world, we have the responsibility to reach back and help others still struggling along the way. In so doing, we can also help ourselves. Above all, we cannot allow each generation to grow up in a world where they feel they are alone while we carry so much knowledge, history, and foundation that we can, and must, pass on to them.

  Keith Boykin

  Growing Up, Struggle, Responsibility

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• What the artist tries to do (either consciously or unconsciously) is to not only capture the essence of something but also to amplify it in order to more powerfully activate the same neural mechanisms that would be activated by the original object.

  Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

  Art, Order, Essence

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• Verse is a mechanism by which we can create interpretative illusions suggesting profoundities of response and understanding which far exceed the engagement or research of the writer.

  John Constable

  Art, Poetry, Understanding

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• This question haunted me all my life and suddenly it hit me: 'There is no self to realize. What the hell have I been doing all this time?' You see, that hits you like lightning. Once that hits you, the whole mechanism of the body that is controlled by this thought is shattered. What is left is the tremendous living organism with an intelligence of its own. What you are left with is the pulse, the beat and the throb of life.

  U.G. Krishnamurti

  Self, Pulse, Lightning

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• Reproduction is so primitive and fundamental a function of vital organisms that the mechanism by which it is assured is highly complex and not yet clearly understood. It is not necessarily connected with sex, nor is sex necessarily connected with reproduction.

  Havelock Ellis

  Sex, Fundamentals, Function

  Havelock Ellis (2013). “Psychology of Sex: The Biology of Sex—The Sexual Impulse in Youth—Sexual Deviation—The Erotic Symbolisms—Homosexuality—Marriage—The Art of Love”, p.7, Butterworth-Heinemann

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• This we take it is the grand characteristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism, it has come to pass, that in the management ofexternal things we excel all other ages; while in whatever respects the pure moral nature, in true dignity of soul and character, we are perhaps inferior to most civilised ages.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Character, Skills, Soul

  Thomas Carlyle (1855). “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: By Thomas Carlyle”, p.193

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• The chrysanthemums' astringent fragrance comes
  Each year to disguise the clanking mechanism
  Of machine within machine within machine.

  Wallace Stevens

  Nature, Years, Machines

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play”, p.157, Vintage

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• The export of oil, the export of minerals, will for many decades continue to be a critical part for the growth of African economies. The emphasis is on diversification. We have for many years - not just in South Africa but in many parts of the continent - spoken about beneficiation. And I think part of the secret, in relation to beneficiation, is you have got to make it attractive, profitable for the private sector - and it will take off. You may have to look at mechanisms like tax concessions... You will not have to worry about beneficiation if it makes commercial sense.

  Patrice Motsepe

  Thinking, Years, Oil

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• When one of us dies of cancer, loses her mind, or commits suicide, we must not blame her for her inability to survive an ongoing political mechanism bent on the destruction of that human being. Sanity remains defined simply by the ability to cope with insane conditions.

  Ana Castillo

  Suicide, Cancer, Political

  Ana Castillo (1995). “Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma”, Plume Books

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• As a coping mechanism, or as a way to make a little hard count by shilling demons in the shadows, I try not to belittle the thought process of the conspiracy theorists. As a cocktail waitress in Vegas once schooled me: never get down on anybody else's hustle.

  John Ridley

  Vegas, Coping Mechanisms, Hustle

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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