Mere Quotes - Page 23

• If you prefer illusions to realities, it is only because all decent realities have eluded you and left you in the lurch; or else your contempt for the world is mere hypocrisy and funk.

  George Santayana

  Reality, Hypocrisy, World

  George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana: Dialogues in limbo. Platonism and the spiritual life. A long way round to Nirvana. The prestige of the infinite. Ultimate religion”

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• I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous, and independent denizens.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Independent, Men, Hazards

  Robert Louis Stevenson (2005). “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, second edition”, p.79, Broadview Press

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• Male, A member of the unconsidered or negligible gender. The male of the human race is commonly known to the female as Mere Man. The Genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Men, Race, Two

  Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.78, Courier Corporation

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• A child's nature is too serious a thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being.

  Charles Lamb

  Children, Parent, Serious

  Charles Lamb (1845). “The Essays of Elia: First Series. [Second Series.]”, p.167

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• A disease is never a mere loss or excess. There is always a reaction on the part of the organism or individual to restore, replace or compensate for and to preserve its identity, however strange the means may be.

  Oliver Sacks

  Mean, Loss, Identity

  Oliver Sacks (2014). “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Picador Classic”, p.20, Pan Macmillan

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• Change as change is mere flux and lapse; it insults intelligence. Genuinely to know is to grasp a permanent end that realizes itself through changes.

  John Dewey

  Progress, Lapses, Insult

  William James, John Dewey, John M. Capps, Donald Capps (2005). “James and Dewey on Belief and Experience”, p.181, University of Illinois Press

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• I have seen youths bright eyed and fair groping after bubbles in rapture, and conceiving them diamonds and the glitter of fine jewels, until their hand closed over a something that was not to be felt nor longer seen, mere colored air.

  Theodore Dreiser

  Success, Air, Hands

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• I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

  Martin Luther

  Change, War, Reality

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• Some men are mere hunters; others are turkey hunters.

  Archibald Rutledge

  Men, Hunting, Turkeys

  Archibald Rutledge, James A. Casada (1994). “America's Greatest Game Bird: Archibald Rutledge's Turkey Hunting Tales”, p.18, Univ of South Carolina Press

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• In nothing more is the English genius for domesticity more notably declared than in the institution of this festival-almost one may call it-of afternoon tea...the mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose.

  George Gissing

  Food, Grandmother, Cooking

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• Don't say that you want to give, but go ahead and give! You'll never catch up with a mere hope.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Generosity, Giving, Want

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• You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself.

  John Ruskin

  Knowledge, Helping Others, People

  John Ruskin (2015). “Sesame and Lilies”, p.93, John Ruskin

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• We have all been hearing from childhood of such things as love, peace, charity, equality, and universal brotherhood; but they have become to us mere words without meaning, words which we repeat like parrots, and it has become quite natural for us to do so. We cannot help it.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Childhood, Brotherhood, Charity

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Practical Vedanta Philosophy”, p.57, editionNEXT.com

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• Observation by means of the microscope will reveal more wonderful things than those viewed in regard to mere structure and connection: for while the heart is still beating the contrary (i.e., in opposite directions in the different vessels) movement of the blood is observed in the vessels-though with difficulty-so that the circulation of the blood is clearly exposed.

  Marcello Malpighi

  Heart, Mean, Science

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• The first man who said "fire burns" was employing scientific method, at any rate if he had allowed himself to be burnt several times. This man had already passed through the two stages of observation and generalization. He had not, however, what scientific technique demands - a careful choice of significant facts on the one hand, and, on the other hand, various means of arriving at laws otherwise than my mere generalization.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mean, Science, Men

  "The Scientific Outlook".

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• The significance of a fact is relative to [the general body of scientific] knowledge. To say that a fact is significant in science, is to say that it helps to establish or refute some general law; for science, though it starts from observation of the particular, is not concerned essentially with the particular, but with the general. A fact, in science, is not a mere fact, but an instance. In this the scientist differs from the artist, who, if he deigns to notice facts at all, is likely to notice them in all their particularity.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Knowledge, Science

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• The world is a construct of our sensations, perceptions, memories. It is convenient to regard it as existing objectively on its own. But it certainly does not become manifest by its mere existence.

  Erwin Schrodinger

  Memories, Science, Perception

  Erwin Schrodinger (2012). “What is Life?: With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches”, p.93, Cambridge University Press

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• It was a reaction from the old idea of "protoplasm", a name which was a mere repository of ignorance.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Ignorance, Science, Names

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• People who expect deference resent mere civility.

  Mason Cooley

  People, Civility, Deference

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• Should this my firm persuasion of the soul's immortality prove to be a mere delusion, it is at least a pleasing delusion, and I will cherish it to my last breath.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Time, Soul, Lasts

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (1839). “The Orations”, p.261

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• The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Peace, War, Believe

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• There's some end at last for the man who follows a path; mere rambling is interminable.

  Seneca the Elder

  Journey, Men, Hiking

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• The insincerity of man-all men are liars, partial or hiders of facts, half tellers of truths, shirks, moral sneaks. When a merely honest man appears he is a comet-his fame is eternal-needs no genius, no talent-mere honesty

  Mark Twain

  Honesty, Liars, Men

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.205, Courier Corporation

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• What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of mind, for the moment realizes itself.

  Anna Brownell Jameson

  Inspirational, Dream, Mind

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• The right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule, and not to wander in mere lawlessness.

  George Eliot

  Lawlessness, Revolution, Rebellion

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.5886, Delphi Classics

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