Subjects Quotes - Page 28

• There is not a subject in which I take a deeper interest than I do in the development of Alaska, and I propose, if Congress will follow by recommendations, to do something in that territory that will make it move on.

  William Howard Taft

  Moving, Alaska, Development

  William Howard Taft, David Henry Burton (2004). “The Collected Works of William Howard Taft: Presidential addresses and state papers”

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• Our Last Will and Testament, providing for the only future of which we can be reasonably certain, namely our own death, shows thatthe Will's need to will is no less strong than Reason's need to think; in both instances the mind transcends its own natural limitations, either by asking unanswerable questions or by projecting itself into a future which, for the willing subject, will never be.

  Hannah Arendt

  Death, Strong, Thinking

  Hannah Arendt (1981). “The Life of the Mind”, p.270, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Language is like soil. However rich, it is subject to erosion, and its fertility is constantly threatened by uses that exhaust itsvitality. It needs constant re-invigoration if it is not to become arid and sterile.

  Elizabeth Drew

  Erosion, Needs, Use

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• Every writer has certain subjects that they write about again and again, and . . . most people's books are just variations on certain themes.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Book, Writing, People

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• The subject does not belong to the world; rather, it is a limit of the world.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Self, Doe, World

  Ludwig Wittgenstein, David Francis Pears, Brian McGuinness (2001). “Tractatus Logico-philosophicus”, p.69, Psychology Press

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• The philosophical I is not the human being, not the human body or the human soul with the psychological properties, but the metaphysical subject, the boundary (not a part) of the world.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Philosophical, Self, Soul

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (1961). “Notebooks, 1914-1916”

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• [Europe has] this tradition of self revelation in popular music. We have it here - it's called Country Western Music... I think that's where the deeper and more complex subjects are treated.

  Leonard Cohen

  Country, Thinking, Self

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• There are so many different kinds of people in America, with so many different boiling points, that we don't know how to fight with each other. The set piece that shapes and contains quarrels in homogeneous countries does not exist here. The Frenchman is an expert on the precise gradations of espèce de and the Italian knows exactly when to introduce the subject of his other's grave, but no American can be sure how or when another will react, so we zap each other with friendliness to neutralize potentially dangerous situations.

  Florence King

  Country, Fighting, Italian

  Florence King (1990). “Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye”, p.83, Macmillan

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• The Scripture was written to shew unto men the kingdom of God; and to prepare their minds to become his obedient subjects; leavingthe world, and the Philosophy thereof, to the disputation of men, for the exercising of their natural Reason.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Bible, Philosophy, Philosophical

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan”, p.67, Simon and Schuster

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• The whole [of religion] is a riddle, an ænigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the onlyresult of our most accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject.

  David Hume

  Doubt, Religion, Mystery

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• The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of ourmost accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.

  David Hume

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Views

  'Four Dissertations' (1757) 'The Natural History of Religion' sect. 15

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• Let us become thoroughly sensible of the weakness, blindness, and narrow limits of human reason: Let us duly consider its uncertainty and endless contrarieties, even in subjects of common life and practice.... When these topics are displayed in their full light, as they are by some philosophers and almost all divines; who can retain such confidence in this frail faculty of reason as to pay any regard to its determinations in points so sublime, so abstruse, so remote from common life and experience?

  David Hume

  Determination, Practice, Light

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.4014, Delphi Classics

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• That this subject [of imaginary magnitudes] has hitherto been considered from the wrong point of view and surrounded by a mysterious obscurity, is to be attributed largely to an ill-adapted notation. If, for example, +1, -1, and the square root of -1 had been called direct, inverse and lateral units, instead of positive, negative and imaginary (or even impossible), such an obscurity would have been out of the question.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Squares, Views, Roots

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• The soul is subject to health and disease, just as is the body. The health and disease of both . . . undoubtedly depend upon beliefs and customs, which are peculiar to mankind.

  Maimonides

  Soul, Peculiar, Body

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• Civilized people can talk about anything. For them no subject is taboo.... In civilized societies there will be no intellectual bogeys at sight of which great grownup babies are expected to hide their eyes.

  Clive Bell

  Baby, Eye, Sight

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• It is not possible, for a poet, writing in any language, to protect himself from the tragic elements in human life.... [ellipsis in source] Illness, old age, and death--subjects as ancient as humanity--these are the subjects that the poet must speak of very nearly from the first moment that he begins to speak.

  Louise Bogan

  Life, Writing, Poetry

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• The subject gives you the best idea of how to make a photograph. So I just wait for something to happen.

  Mary Ellen Mark

  Ideas, Giving, Waiting

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• There is a close tie of affection between sovereigns and their subjects; and as chaste wives should have no eyes but for their husbands, so faithful liegemen should keep their regards at home and not look after foreign crowns. For my part I like not for my sheep to wear a stranger's mark nor to dance after a foreigner's whistle.

  Elizabeth I

  Husband, Eye, Home

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• But the creative person is subject to a different, higher law than mere national law. Whoever has to create a work, whoever has tobring about a discovery or deed which will further the cause of all of humanity, no longer has his home in his native land but rather in his work.

  Stefan Zweig

  Home, Creativity, Discovery

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• To my mind, the two most fascinating subjects in the universe are sex and the eighteenth century.

  Brigid Brophy

  Sex, Two, Mind

  Brigid Brophy (1966). “Don't Never Forget: Collected Views and Reviews”

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• Imagine a painter crucified by his subject!

  John Ashbery

  Art, Failure, Imagine

  John Ashbery (1986). “Selected Poems”

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• It is generally admitted that the cultural values (humanization) and the existing institutions and policies of society are rarely,if ever, in harmony. This opinion has found expression in the distinction between culture and civilization, according to which "culture" refers to some higher dimension of human autonomy and fulfillment, while "civilization" designates the realm of necessity, of socially necessary work and behavior, where man is not really himself and in his own element but is subject to heteronomy, to external conditions and needs.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Men, Civilization, Expression

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• The prince exults whomever he selects as his consort, but the queen, rather than elevating the subject of her choice, humiliates him as a man. By all that is right, a man is not intended to be the husband of his wife, but a woman is to be her husband's wife.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Marriage, Queens, Husband

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• The computer was, to the best of my feelings about the subject, not thinking like a mathematician, and it was much more successful, because it was thinking not like a mathematician.

  Kenneth Appel

  Successful, Science, Thinking

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• I was just sitting on the train, just staring out the window at some cows. It was not the most inspiring subject. When all of a sudden the idea of Harry just appeared in my mind's eye.

  J. K. Rowling

  Eye, Science, Ideas

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