Conception Quotes - Page 26

• Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer . . . For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Believe, Errors, Degrees

  Willard Van Orman Quine, Roger F. Gibson (2004). “Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine”, p.52, Harvard University Press

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• Whether or not we continue to enforce a universal conception of human rights at moments of outrage and incomprehension, precisely when we think that others have taken themselves out of the human community as we know it, is a test of our very humanity.

  Judith Butler

  Taken, Thinking, Rights

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• It is very difficult to explain this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in Nature and in the world of though. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.

  Albert Einstein

  Order, Feelings, Desire

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• A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

  Clifford Geertz

  Motivation, Powerful, Men

  Clifford Geertz (2017). “The Interpretation of Cultures”, p.98, Hachette UK

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• Perhaps it is not-being that is the true state, and all our dream of life is inexistent; but, if so, we feel that these phrases of music, these conceptions which exist in relation to our dream, must be nothing either. We shall perish, but we have as hostages these divine captives who will follow and share our fate. And death in their company is somehow less bitter, less inglorious, perhaps even less probable.

  Marcel Proust

  Dream, Fate, Phrases

  Marcel Proust (2015). “Swann's Way”, p.381, Vintage

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• A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his ideals. But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; but our lunch does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and rooted conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the top of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Strong, Men, Garden

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• The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative.

  Benito Mussolini

  Essence, Groups, Doctrine

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• The greatest artist has no conception which a single block of white marble does not potentially contain within its mass, but only a hand obedient to the mind can penetrate to this image.

  Michelangelo

  Block, Artist, Hands

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• Aside from that reservation, a fictive tale even has the advantage of manifesting symbolic necessity more purely to the extent that we may believe its conception arbitrary.

  Jacques Lacan

  Believe, Arbitrary, May

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• Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Happiness, Laughter, Joy

  'Human Nature' (1650) ch. 9, sect. 13

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• I think the materialist conception of history is valid.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Thinking

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• Any conception of human well-being you could plausibly have, the Taliban patently fails to maximize it.

  Sam Harris

  Failing, Well Being, Wells

  "Print: Atheism's Poster Boy Sam Harris on the Science of Morality". Interview with Olivia Koski, www.wired.com. November 29, 2010.

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• Many scientists have been drawn to Buddhism out of a sense that the Western tradition has delivered an impoverished conception of basic, human sanity. In the West, if you speak to yourself out loud all day long, you are considered crazy. But speaking to yourself silently - thinking incessantly - is considered perfectly normal.

  Sam Harris

  Crazy, Buddhism, Thinking

  "A Contemplative Science" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 2, 2006.

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• In the last analysis, it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions that life puts to us.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  Life, Death, Wisdom

  "Markings". Book by Dag Hammarskjöld, 1963.

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• Bells theorem dealt a shattering blow to Einsteins position by showing that the conception of reality as consisting of separate parts, joined by local connections, is incompatible with quantum theory... Bells theorem demonstrates that the universe is fundamentally interconnected, interdependent, and inseparable.

  Fritjof Capra

  Science, Blow, Reality

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• To understand my feelings — and my conception of the role of Secretary General — the nature of my religious and cultural background must first be understood. I should therefore like to outline not only my beliefs but also my conception of human institutions and of the human situation itself.

  U Thant

  Religious, Feelings, Roles

  Thant (U) (1978). “View from the UN”, Doubleday Books

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• The target audience goes back to conception. That means pre-natal care, safe delivery, post-natal screening, and the ordinary stuff you do in pediatrics.

  C. Everett Koop

  Mean, Target Audience, Ordinary

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• Current levels of Pentagon spending may not be able to support current defense strategy. The answer to this problem is right before our eyes: cut the money and change the strategy. That would be acting in the name of a conception of national security that was truly strategic.

  William Hartung

  Eye, Cutting, Names

  "Military Strategy? Who Needs It?" by William Hartung, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 26, 2015.

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• We need no messiah and no sterile conception of a god menacing us with hell and purgatory.

  Federica Montseny

  Needs, Hell, Purgatory

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• Our lives our guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes.

  William Kingdon Clifford

  Purpose, Social, Courses

  William Kingdon Clifford (1879). “Lectures and Essays by William Kingdon Clifford”

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• The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.

  E. M. Forster

  Moving, Men, Gains

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• This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. Our most persistent and spectacular efforts are concerned not with the preservation of what we are but with the building up of an imaginary conception of ourselves in the opinion of others. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter.

  Eric Hoffer

  Men, Building Up, Effort

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

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• The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave.

  Edward Gibbon

  Men, History, Historian

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• I just have a more holistic sense of what it means to be for life, knowing that life does not just begin at conception and end at birth, and that if I am going to discourage abortion, I had better be ready to adopt some babies and care for some mothers.

  Shane Claiborne

  Mother, Baby, Mean

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• In order to create it is necessary to destroy; and the agent of destruction in society is the poet. I believe that the poet is necessarily an anarchist, and that he must oppose all organized conceptions of the State, not only those which we inherit from the past, but equally those which are imposed on people in the name of the future.

  Herbert Read

  Believe, Past, Order

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