Momentary Quotes - Page 8

• In presenting a mathematical argument the great thing is to give the educated reader the chance to catch on at once to the momentary point and take details for granted: two trivialities omitted can add up to an impasse). The unpractised writer, even after the dawn of a conscience, gives him no such chance; before he can spot the point he has to tease his way through a maze of symbols of which not the tiniest suffix can be skipped.

  John Edensor Littlewood

  Two, Giving, Add

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• No dealer, curator, buyer or critic, or any existing combination of these, can be depended on to produce a reputation that is more than a momentary flurry.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Recognition, Reputation, Curator

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• The values that reside in art are anarchic, they are every man's loves and hates and his momentary divine revelation.

  Ben Shahn

  Art, Hate, Men

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• Marriage now tends to be viewed as a form of mere emotional satisfaction that can be constructed in any way or modified at will. But the indispensible contribution of marriage to society transcends the feelings and momentary needs of the couple.

  Pope Francis

  Couple, Emotional, Feelings

  Pope Francis (2014). “The Joy of the Gospel”, p.24, BookBaby

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• Artistic qualities that once seemed undeniable don't seem so now. Sometimes these fluctuations are only fickleness of taste, momentary glitches in an artist's work, or an artist getting ahead of his audience (it took me ten years to catch up to Albert Oehlen). Other times, however, these problems mean there's something wrong with the art.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Mean, Years

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• If our Creator has so bountifully provided for our existence here, which is but momentary, and for our temporal wants, which will soon be forgotten, how much more must He have done for our enjoyment in the everlasting world?

  Hosea Ballou

  Heaven, Done, World

  "Biography of Rev. Hosea Ballou". Book by Maturin Murray Ballou, 1854.

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• The impulse to write a novel comes from a momentary unified vision of life.

  Angus Wilson

  Writing, Vision, Impulse

  Angus Wilson (1963). “The Wild Garden: Or, Speaking of Writing”, p.149, Univ of California Press

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• Sexual intercourse is a grossly overrated pastime; the position is undignified, the pleasure momentary and the consequences damnable.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Funny, Pleasure, Pastime

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• The Indian who fells the tree that he may gather the fruit, and the Arab who plunders the caravans of commerce are actuated by the same impulse of savage nature, and relinquish for momentary rapine the long and secure possession of the most important blessings.

  Edward Gibbon

  Blessing, Long, Tree

  Edward Gibbon, H. H. Milman (1856). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.425

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• The birds of the air die to sustain thee; the beasts of the field die to nourish thee; the fishes of the sea die to feed thee. Our stomachs are their common sepulchre. Good God! with how many deaths are our poor lives patched up! how full of death is the life of momentary man!

  Francis Quarles

  Death, Men, Air

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.53

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• Authors may be divided into falling stars, planets, and fixed stars: the first have a momentary effect; the second have a much longer duration; but the third are unchangeable, possess their own light, and work for all time.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Stars, Fall, Light

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• Like the panic stricken populace of 'The War of the Worlds' and countless other 1950s invasion movies, the victims are there to provide the human ground over which monster and expert, threat and defender, disordering and ordering impulses can battle it out. Second-class citizens of the genre, they are narratively indispensable because physically entirely disposable. We are only really involved with them in the momentary tension of their capture or demise.

  Andrew Tudor

  War, Class, Battle

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• I have put [the word] "discoveries" in inverted commas because scientific results, perhaps as much at least as artistic achievements, are a product of contemporary taste, driven by momentary appetites rather than eternal verities.

  Stephen Bayley

  Discovery, Achievement, Taste

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• According to quantum field theory, fields alone are real. They are the substance of the universe and not 'matter'. Matter is simply the momentary manifestation of interacting fields which, intangible and insubstantial as they are, are the only real things in the universe.

  Gary Zukav

  Real, Unity, Substance

  Gary Zukav (1979). “The dancing Wu Li masters: an overview of the new physics”, Bantam

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• Whoever is acquainted with the cruel injustice and unjust subordination frequently manifested in the family, whoever sees matters of lasting and supreme importance relative to the beginning and continuance of the family determined by momentary fancy or unreasoning passion, cannot but desire the construction of a social fabric in which reason may rule with perfect justice.

  Charles Franklin Thwing

  Passion, Perfect, Justice

  Charles Franklin Thwing, Carrie Frances Butler Thwing (1886). “The Family: An Historical and Social Study”

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• Achievements of life are momentary, but realizations are longer lasting.

  Avtarjeet Singh Dhanjal

  Achievement, Realization, Revelations

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• Thought Has joys apart, even in blackest woe, And seizing some fine thread of verity Knows momentary godhead.

  George Eliot

  Joy, Woe, Fine

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6138, Delphi Classics

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• Young love-making--that gossamer web! Even the points it clings to--the things whence its subtle interlacings are swung--are scarcely perceptible: momentary touches of finger-tips, meetings of rays from blue and dark orbs, unfinished phrases, lightest changes of cheek and lip, faintest tremors. The web itself is made of spontaneous beliefs and indefinable joys, yearnings of one life towards another, visions of completeness, indefinite trust.

  George Eliot

  Love, Dark, Blue

  George Eliot (2006). “Middlemarch: Easyread Edition”, p.35, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Discord occasions a momentary distress to the ear, which remains unsatisfied, and even uneasy, until it hears something better. I am convinced...that provided the ear be at length made amends, there are few dissonances too strong for it. Disharmony, to paraphrase Bergson's statement about disorder, is simply a harmony to which many are unaccustomed.

  John Cage

  Music, Strong, Ears

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• Our modern economy privileges pure profit, momentary transactions and rapid fluidity. Part of craft’s anchoring role is that it helps to objectify experience and also to slow down labor. It is not about quick transactions or easy victories. That slow tempo of craftwork, of taking the time you need to do something well, is profoundly stabilizing to individuals.

  Richard Sennett

  Victory, Needs, Roles

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• Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment.

  Dogen

  Morning, Lightning, Dew

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• The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.

  Glenn Gould

  Art, Serenity, Purpose

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• Our tissues change as we live: the food we eat and the air we breathe become flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, and the momentary elements of our flesh and bone pass out of our body every day with our excreta. We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves

  Norbert Wiener

  Air, Rivers, Water

  Norbert Wiener (1988). “The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society”, p.96, Da Capo Press

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• Worry is momentary atheism crying out for correction by trust in a good, sovereign God. Suffering breaks self-reliance.

  Randy Alcorn

  Self, Worry, Suffering

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• Winning is very tangible, it's very exciting, it's very pleasing, but it's momentary. If you can do things that last, that each generation can build upon, then that's when you're cooking.

  Billie Jean King

  Winning, Cooking, Generations

  FaceBook post by Billie Jean King from Sep 19, 2010

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