Biographies Quotes - Page 17

• The history of men of science has one peculiar advantage, as it shows the importance of little things in producing great results. Smeaton learned his principle of constructing a lighthouse, by noticing the trunk of a tree to be diminished from a curve to a cyclinder ... and Newton, turning an old box into a water-clock, or the yard of a house into a sundial, are examples of those habits of patient observation which scientific biography attractively recommends.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Science, Men, Curves

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• [Chemistry] laboratory work was my first challenge. ... I still carry the scars of my first discovery-that test-tubes are fragile.

  Edward Teller

  Science, Discovery, Challenges

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• Davy was the type of all the jumped-up second-raters of all time.

  C.P. Snow

  Science, Type, All Time

  C.P. Snow (2010). “The Search”, p.15, House of Stratus

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• Christianity was neither original nor unique, but that the roots of much of the Judeo/ Christian tradition lay in the prevailing Kamite (ancient Egyptian) culture of the region. We are faced with the inescapable realization that if Jesus had been able to read the documents of old Egypt, he would have been amazed to find his own biography already substantially written some four or five thousand years previously.

  Gerald Massey

  Christian, Jesus, Unique

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• But nothing ever put 'Hoppy' in the shade. No one could fail to recognize in the little figure... the authentic gold of intellectual inspiration, the Fundator et Primus Abbas of biochemistry in England.

  Joseph Needham

  Inspiration, Science, Intellectual

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• The biographies of great artists make it abundantly clear that the creative urge is often so imperious that it battens on their humanity and yokes everything to the service of the work, even at the cost of health and ordinary human happiness. The unborn work in the psyche of the artist is a force of nature that achieves its end either with tyrannical might or with the subtle cunning of nature herself, quite regardless of the personal fate of the man who is its vehicle.

  Carl Jung

  Writing, Fate, Men

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• [W.H.R.] Rivers is the Rider Haggard of anthropology; I shall be the Conrad.

  Bronislaw Malinowski

  Science, Rivers, Riders

  Bronislaw Malinowski (2001). “Man and Culture: An Evaluation of the Work of Bronislaw Malinowski”, p.6, Psychology Press

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• [Thomas Henry] Huxley is a very genial, comfortable being-yet with none of the noisy and windy geniality of some folks here, whom you find with their backs turned when you are responding to the remarks that they have made you.

  Henry James

  Science, Noise, Huxley

  Henry James, Jack Kerouac (1999). “Henry James: A Life in Letters”, Viking Press

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• When I read Andrew Motion's biography, I wept. It's something about the purity of the story and how fresh it was because of the love letters Keats wrote.

  Jane Campion

  Stories, Letters, Purity

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• I was reading William Shawcross's biography of the Queen Mother, dressed in my witch outfit! And you know what? It was a really good mix; it was a therapeutic mix.

  Helena Bonham Carter

  Mother, Queens, Reading

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• Some Western biographies are apologist, and do not portray the negative side at all.

  Deepak Chopra

  Negative, Sides, Western

  "Understanding Deepak Chopra’s Vision Of Muhammad". Interview with Nicole Neroulias, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 18, 2010.

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• I love fools' experiments. I am always making them.

  Charles Darwin

  Motivational, Science, Theory Of Evolution

  "Got a problem? Our Evolutionary Agony Aunt can help" by Ian Sample, www.theguardian.com. December 2, 2009.

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• I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions.

  Charles Darwin

  Inspirational, Science, Machines

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• If you're doing a biography, you try to stay as accurate as possible to reality. But you really don't know what was going on in the person's mind. You just know what was going on in the minds of people around him.

  Clint Eastwood

  Reality, People, Mind

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• Biography - a system in which the contradictions of a human life are unified.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Contradiction, Human Life, Humans

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• When you write biographies, whether it's about Ben Franklin or Einstein, you discover something amazing: They are human.

  Walter Isaacson

  Writing, Franklin, Humans

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• I only read biographies, metaphysics and psychology. I can dream up my own fiction.

  Mae West

  Sarcastic, Dream, Witty

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• When I was 12 years old, I read Nancy Drew mysteries and biographies of Madame Curie and Florence Nightingale and books about girls who love horses or go to nursing school. I belonged to the Girl Scouts and got A's in school and rarely disobeyed my parents. I still kept a collection of Barbie dolls in my room, and I almost never spoke to boys.

  Joyce Maynard

  Girl, Horse, Book

  "Coming of Age with Judy Blume". www.nytimes.com. December 3, 1978.

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• Great writing can be done in biography, history, art.

  V. S. Naipaul

  Art, Writing, Done

  "A singular writer". Interview with Maya Jaggi, www.theguardian.com. September 7, 2001.

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• A typical biography relying upon individuals' notorious memories and the anecdotes they've invented contains a high degree of fiction, yet is considered 'nonfiction.'

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Memories, Typical, Degrees

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• My biography of Frank Sinatra is not paean to his music but rather an illumination of the man behind the music, who once described himself as 'an 18-karat manic-depressive who lived a life of violent emotional contradictions with an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as happiness.

  Kitty Kelley

  Happiness, Sadness, Men

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• Biographies are no longer written to explain or explore the greatness of the great. They redress balances, explore secret weaknesses, demolish legends.

  A. S. Byatt

  Greatness, Secret, Balance

  "An artificial paradise" by A. S. Byatt, www.theguardian.com. February 20, 2004.

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• I've been a lifelong horror fan, but at the same time, I would say 90 percent of my reading is biographies and nonfiction history.

  Seth Grahame-Smith

  Reading, Horror Fans, Nonfiction

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• I've always enjoyed reading history, particularly presidential biographies.

  Seth Grahame-Smith

  Reading, Presidential, Enjoyed

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• I'm not one of those people who writes a biography or tries to figure out what kind of ice cream the character liked when he was 10.

  Miguel Ferrer

  Writing, Character, Ice Cream

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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