Chimera Quotes

• One must do no violence to nature, nor model it in conformity to any blindly formed chimera.

  Janos Bolyai

  Violence, Conformity, Models

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• If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then I have no doubt, and I think few people doubt.

  Leslie Stephen

  Thinking, People, Doubt

  The Fortnightly Review, vol. 34, p. 177, 1880.

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• What a chimera then is man. What a novelty! What a monster... what a contradiction, what a prodigy

  Blaise Pascal

  Inspiration, Men, Monsters

  Blaise Pascal (2015). “Pensees: Thoughts on Religion”, p.133, Letcetera Publishing

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• I am liberating man from the degrading chimera known as `conscience'.

  Adolf Hitler

  Men, Evil, Degrading

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• Nature is only another chimera.

  Julien Torma

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• By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.

  Donna J. Haraway

  Machines, Century, Late

  "Become Who You Are: The World’s First Legally Recognized Cyborg May Be Onto Something" by Priscilla Frank, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 20, 2015.

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• The role of the scholar is to destroy chimeras, that of the statesman is to make use of them.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Political, Roles, Use

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• To call everything that appears illogical, fantasy, fairy tale, or chimera would be practically to admit not understanding nature.

  Marc Chagall

  Understanding Nature, Would Be, Fairy Tale

  Marc Chagall, Curt Valentin Gallery (New York), Curt Valentin Gallery (1952). “Marc Chagall, sculpture, ceramics, etchings for the fables of La Fontaine”

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• in dreams it is often the case that the greatest extravagances seem bereft of their power to astonish and the most improbable chimeras seem commonplace.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Dream, Extravagance, Cases

  Cormac McCarthy (2010). “Cities of the Plain”, p.285, Pan Macmillan

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• O speculators about perpetual motion, how many vain chimeras have you created in the like quest? Go and take your place with the seekers after gold.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Gold, Quests, Vain

  Leonardo (da Vinci) (1906). “Note Books: Arranged and Rendered Into English, with Introd”

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• When we cracked the genetic DNA code, opened the big Pandora's box, and it really did become possible to produce chimeras, my ears shot up. Having been brought up among the biologists and having followed various debates about ways to improve the human template and other debates about the true nature of our nature, I began seriously to wonder: What if? We hold in our hands a tool that is more powerful - for good or ill - than any we have wielded before.

  Margaret Atwood

  Powerful, Dna, Hands

  "Unscripted: Margaret Atwood Interview By Paul D. Miller". Interview with Paul D. Miller, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• If it's a chimera alert, we just follows the screams.

  Jasper Fforde

  Scream, Ifs

  Jasper Fforde (2005). “Something Rotten: A Thursday Next Novel”, p.151, Penguin

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• Madness, in its wild, untamable words, proclaims its own meaning; in its chimeras, it utters its secret truth.

  Michel Foucault

  Secret, Madness

  Michel Foucault (2001). “Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason”, p.27, Psychology Press

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• Are there any mythical beasts which aren't simple pastiches of nature? Centaurs, minotaurs, unicorns, griffons, chimeras, sphinxes, manticores, and the like don't speak well for the human imagination. None is as novel as a kangaroo or starfish.

  William Poundstone

  Simple, Imagination, Kangaroos

  "Labyrinths of Reason: Paradox, Puzzles, and the Frailty of Knowledge". Book by William Poundstone, 1988.

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• Constancy is the chimera of love.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Constancy

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• Everyone knows that (1) happiness is the goal of life, and (2) happiness is a chimera.

  Mason Cooley

  Happiness, Goal, Knows

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• Since there must be chimeras, why is not perfection the chimera of all men?

  Sophie Swetchine

  Men, Perfection, Not Perfect

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• Without democracy freedom is a chimera

  Octavio Paz

  Democracy, Democracy Freedom

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• Science fiction went through a period that was mostly object-oriented or inventions for distant galaxies.But when we cracked the genetic DNA code, opened the big Pandora's box, and it really did become possible to produce chimeras, my ears shot up.

  Margaret Atwood

  Dna, Ears, Pandora's Box

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• I believed that I was approaching the end of my days without having tasted to the full any of the pleasures for which my heart thirsted...without having ever tasted that passion which, through lack of an object, was always suppressed. ...The impossibility of attaining the real persons precipitated me into the land of chimeras; and seeing nothing that existed worthy of my exalted feelings, I fostered them in an ideal world which my creative imagination soon peopled with beings after my own heart.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Real, Passion, Heart

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• The Void is not being, but not being cannot be, ergo the Void cannot be. The reasoning was sound, because it denied the Void while granting that it could be conceived. In fact, we can quite easily conceive things that do not exist. Can a chimera, buzzing in the Void, devour second intentions? No, because chimeras do not exist, in the Void no buzzing can be heard, and intentions are mental things - an intended pear does not nourish us. And yet I can think of a chimera even if it is chimerical, namely, if it is not. And the same with the Void.

  Umberto Eco

  Thinking, Sound, Doe

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• Just as the blurring between childhood and adulthood has produced the kidult, so the stretching of middle into old age has fostered another peculiar chimera: septuagenarians with apoptosis sporting the depeche mode.

  Will Self

  Childhood, Age, Peculiar

  "You're Looking Very Well by Lewis Wolpert - review" by Will Self, www.theguardian.com. May 1, 2011.

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• The ancients of the ideal description, instead of trying to turn their impracticable chimeras, as does the modern dreamer, into social and political prodigies, deposited them in great works of art, which still live while states and constitutions have perished, bequeathing to posterity not shameful defects but triumphant successes.

  Herman Melville

  Art, Political, Dreamer

  Herman Melville (1987). “Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860: Volume Nine, Scholarly Edition”, p.409, Northwestern University Press

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• In Reformed theology, if God is not sovereign over the entire created order, then he is not sovereign at all. The term sovereignty too easily becomes a chimera. If God is not sovereign, then he is not God.

  R. C. Sproul

  Order, Sovereign, Term

  R. C. Sproul (2016). “What is Reformed Theology?: Understanding the Basics”, p.22, Baker Books

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• The soul languishing in obscurity contracts a kind of rust, or abandons itself to the chimera of presumption; for it is natural for it to acquire something, even when separated from any one.

  Quintilian

  Soul, Obscurity, Rust

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