Brilliance Quotes - Page 5

• We aren't suggesting that mental instability or unhappiness makes one a better poet, or a poet at all; and contrary to the romantic notion of the artist suffering for his or her work, we think these writers achieved brilliance in spite of their suffering, not because of it.

  Dorianne Laux

  Writing, Thinking, Artist

  Kim Addonizio, Dorianne Laux (2010). “The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry”, p.58, W. W. Norton & Company

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• I'm so alive. As I stand facing the beauty of the never-ending Pacific Ocean, a late afternoon breeze blows down from the hills behind. As always, it is a beautiful day. The sun is making its final descent. The magic is about to begin. The skies are ready to burn with brilliance, as it turns from a soft blue to a bright orange. Looking towards the West, I stare in awe at the hypnotic power of the waves. A giant curl begins to take form, then breaks with a thundering clap as it crashes on the shore.

  Dave Pelzer

  Beautiful, Ocean, Blow

  Dave Pelzer (2010). “A Child Called It”, p.53, Hachette UK

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• Let's just say that if these scientist had been using their brilliance for good instead of evil, cars would run off water vapor and leave fresh compost behind them; no one would be hungry; no one would be ill; all buildings would be earthquake-, bomb-, and flood-proof; and the world's entire economy would have collapsed and been replaced by one based on the value of chocolate.

  James Patterson

  Running, Earthquakes, Evil

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• Jesus said several times, “Come, follow me.” His was a program of “do what I do,” rather than “do what I say.” His innate brilliance would have permitted him to put on a dazzling display, but that would have left his followers far behind. He walked and worked with those he was to serve. His was not a long-distance leadership. He was not afraid of close friendships; he was not afraid that proximity to him would disappoint his followers. The leaven of true leadership cannot lift others unless we are with and serve those to be led.

  Spencer W. Kimball

  Leadership, Jesus, Distance

  Spencer W. Kimball (1982). “The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, Twelfth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”

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• I pray you never stand at any crossroads in your own lives, but if you do, if the darkness seems so total, if you think there is no way out, remember, never ever give up. The darker the night, the brighter the dawn, and when it gets really, really dark, this is when one sees the true brilliance of the stars.

  Gerda Weissmann Klein

  Stars, Giving Up, Dark

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• In PLATO AT THE GOOGLEPLEX, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein set out to showcase, in sometimes startling ways, the continuing relevance of a classic philosopher. But what's remarkable is that she actually brings off this tour de force with both madcap brilliance and commanding authority.

  Michael Dirda

  Plato, Way, Philosopher

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• The cross is the great jewel of the Christian faith and like every great jewel it has many precious facets that are each worthy of examining for their brilliance and beauty.

  Mark Driscoll

  Christian, Jewels, Crosses

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• I strongly urge students to learn to take risks, to be bold, to let their genius convert that fear into power and brilliance.

  Robert Kiyosaki

  Risk, Genius, Students

  Robert T. Kiyosaki (2016). “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, p.81, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Faith is a light of such supreme brilliance that it dazzles the mind and darkens all its visions of other realities, but in the end when we become used to the new light, we gain a new view of all reality transfigured and elevated in the light itself.

  Thomas Merton

  Reality, Light, Views

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• The curve of imagination, the curve of brilliance and the curve of sanity are identical curves or at least similar curves... The more imagination a person has, why, the more intelligence, the more knowingness he has and the saner he's going to be.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Curves, Imagination, Sanity

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• 18th September, 1970; Jimi Hendrix dies. I'm still on the football team when I get the news. So I take my helmet off and confront the coach to tell him I'm quitting the team. In a moment of brilliance he gives me one look and says "OK".

  Joe Satriani

  Football, Team, Giving

  "Joe Satriani: The Satch Tapes". Music, Video, 1993.

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• Yellow is the brightest and lightest of all colors, and this brilliance is its most noticeable characteristic, which accounts for the way it is used practically and thought of symbolically.

  Michael Freeman

  Color, Yellow, Way

  Michael Freeman (2013). “The Colour Photography Field Guide: The Essential Guide to Hue for Striking Digital Images”, p.78, Hachette UK

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• We had stayed up all night, my friends and I, under hanging mosque lamps with domes of filigreed brass, domes starred like our spirits, shining like them with the prisoned radiance of electric hearts. For hours we had trampled our atavistic ennui into rich oriental rugs, arguing up to the last confines of logic and blackening many reams of paper with our frenzied scribbling.

  Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

  Writing, Heart, Night

  "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism" by F. T. Marinetti. Le Figaro, www.italianfuturism.org. February 20, 1909.

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• The impulse to think, to philosophize and spin beauty and brilliance out of mind and soul, is somehow the offspring of resistance of an effort to overcome an apparently insurmountable obstacle. Hence cultural creativeness is more likely to flourish in an atmosphere of restriction, of an imposed pattern of thought and behavior, than in one of total freedom.

  Eric Hoffer

  Thinking, Effort, Soul

  "Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook" by Tom Bethell in Harper's Magazine, July 2005.

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• We took nothing from anybody. We gave a great deal to the world. The only thing keeping us alive is our brilliance. The only thing that keeps our brilliance alive is our patents.

  Edwin Land

  Patents, Alive, World

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• Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle.

  Alain de Botton

  Reality, Optimism, Lines

  "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work". Book by Alain de Botton, 2008.

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• Like I said about Seinfeld and Chris Rock, they're a great combination of brilliance and hard work. [But] there are people who are brilliant and don't work hard, and there are people who are brilliant and sabotage themselves.

  Sarah Silverman

  Hard Work, Rocks, People

  "Sick in the Head: Conversations About life and Comedy". Book by Judd Apatow, 2015.

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• Mankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Inspirational, Dream, Thinking

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Republican Party Reptile: The Confessions, Adventures, Essays and (Other) Outrages of P.J. O'Rourke”, p.126, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Never underestimate someone with Autism, because there could be Brilliance struggling to get out.

  Stuart Duncan

  Struggle, Autism, Underestimate

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• One day passes and another day comes along, and everything happens the same. But basically, we are so afraid of the brilliance coming at us, and the sharp experience of our life, that we can't even focus our eyes.

  Chogyam Trungpa

  Eye, Focus, Grace

  Chogyam Trungpa (2010). “The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Seven: The Art of Calligraphy (Excerpts); Dharma Art; Visual Dharma (Excerpts); Selecte d Poems; Selected Writings”, p.90, Shambhala Publications

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• Helping people develop their own brilliance is much more effective than giving them yours

  Garrison Wynn

  People, Giving, Helping

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• Not only is the Napoleonic dream stronger today in our imaginations than it has ever been, but one can already feel the slow falling away of moral opprobrium from our memory of Hitler. In another fifty years we may well find ourselves weighed down by a second monstrous dream of pure grandeur to match that of the Emperor. Two men who dared. Two men who were adored. Two men who led with brilliance. Two men who administered fairly and efficiently. Two men who were modest in their own needs but surrounded by lesser beings who profited from their situation and came between the Hero and the people.

  John Ralston Saul

  Dream, Memories, Fall

  John Ralston Saul (2013). “Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West”, p.74, Simon and Schuster

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• ...a man estimable for his learning, amiable for his life, and venerable for his piety. Arbuthnot was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliance of wit; a wit who, in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal.

  Samuel Johnson

  Religious, Science, Men

  Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt (1854). “Johnson's Lives of the British Poets”, p.205

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• Jimmy Fallon and I play regularly at the Bayonne Golf Club in Jersey. He's eighteen holes of fun. Any time we play he has moments of brilliance, but also moments of utter catastrophe.

  Mario Batali

  Fun, Golf, Play

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• It's critical that we use a very dark brush to paint evil. When you bring the light into that darkness as characterized in John 1, that light is very vivid. When it dispels the darkness, we see the brilliance that's there.

  Ted Dekker

  Dark, Light, Evil

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