Concepts Quotes

• The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe

  Walter Benjamin

  Ideas, Progress, Status Quo

  Walter Benjamin, Michael William Jennings (2003). “Selected Writings: 1938-1940”, p.184, Harvard University Press

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• Coincidence was a concept he did not entirely trust. As someone who had spent his life exploring the hidden interconnectivity of disparate emblems and ideologies, Langdon viewed the world as a web of profoundly intertwined histories and events. The connections may be invisible, he often preached to his symbology classes at Harvard, but they are always there, buried just beneath the surface.

  Dan Brown

  Class, Events, Connections

  Dan Brown (2010). “The Da Vinci Code: (Robert Langdon Book 2)”, p.21, Random House

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• Science advances, not by the accumulation of new facts, but by the continuous development of new concepts.

  James Bryant Conant

  Science, Development, Facts

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• I am sometimes perplexed by people who refer to defensive rifles, or defensive rifle shooting. The defensive arm is the pistol, since you have it at hand to meet situations that you do not anticipate. If you have the luxury of anticipating a lethal encounter, you pick up a long arm, either a rifle or a shotgun, but in that case you go on to the attack. Thus rifle shooting is offensive, and pistol shooting is defensive. Of course, life does not always duplicate theory, and there are exceptions to everything, but nevertheless the rifle is not a defensive weapon in concept.

  Jeff Cooper

  Gun, Hands, Luxury

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• Without goals the very concept of intelligence is meaningless

  Steven Pinker

  Goal, Meaningless

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• Concepts antedate facts.

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Ideas, Facts

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1904). “Human Work”, p.35, Rowman Altamira

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• Corporations hope that the right concept will turn things around overnight. This is what you might call the crash-diet approach: starve yourself for a few days and you'll be thin for life.

  James Surowiecki

  Might, Corporations, Crash

  "The Open Secret of Success". www.newyorker.com. May 12, 2008.

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• Concepts become forces when they resist one another

  Johann Friedrich Herbart

  Force

  Johann Friedrich Herbart, Daniel N. Robinson (1977). “A Text-book in Psychology”, Univ Publications of Amer

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• If parents wish to preserve childhood for their own children, they must conceive of parenting as an act of rebellion against culture

  Neil Postman

  Children, Parenting, Childhood

  Neil Postman (2011). “Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future”, p.138, Vintage

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• What is beautiful enchants me. I mean not just physical beauty but a wider concept of beauty. There is beauty in poetry and in great musical or singing performances. There is beauty everywhere if you can just see it.

  Andrea Bocelli

  Beautiful, Mean, Beauty Everywhere

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• If you do not have the concept of distance, you may reach an unreachable place!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Distance, May, Unreachable

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• The concept of minimum wage is crazy, if you really stop to think about it. If $8 an hour seems right, why not $20 an hour? If its coming by order of the government, why stop at any level? Why not just say everyone should get what Gates gets?

  Malcolm Wallop

  Crazy, Thinking, Government

  "[Flashback interview] Retired Senator Malcolm Wallop: 'The Great American Experiment'". Interview With Peter Evans, Helen Evans, www.ff.org. January 6, 2013.

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• Never fall in love with an idea. They're whores: if the one you're with isn't doing the job, there's always, always, always another.

  Chip Kidd

  Falling In Love, Jobs, Technology

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• There needs to be just a little bit of crazy when dreaming up a new concept.

  Sam Lake

  Dream, Crazy, Needs

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• Having 'best friends' is - at least for me - as outdated and small-minded a concept as the idea of 'Sunday best clothes.'

  Julie Burchill

  Sunday, Ideas, Clothes

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• The secret of Buddhism is to remove all ideas, all concepts, in order for the truth to have a chance to penetrate, to reveal itself.

  Nhat Hanh

  Buddhist, Buddhism, Order

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2008). “Buddha Mind, Buddha Body: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.36, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Innovation is really the concept of converging disparate ideas in a new way.

  Gary Shapiro

  Ideas, Innovation, Way

  Source: skift.com

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• Above all we have to go beyond words and images and concepts. No imaginative vision or conceptual framework is adequate to the great reality.

  Bede Griffiths

  Reality, Vision, Adequate

  Bede Griffiths (2004). “Bede Griffiths: Essential Writings”

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• People live their lives bound by what they accept as correct and true. That’s how they define Reality. But what does it mean to be “correct” or “true”? Merely vague concepts… Their Reality may all be a mirage. Can we consider them to simply be living in their own world, shaped by their beliefs?

  Masashi Kishimoto

  Mean, Reality, People

  "Naruto". Manga by Masashi Kishimoto, 1999 - 2014.

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• If I existed 200 years ago, all the other farmers in my community would be like, 'That guy is worthless! He's sitting on a rock, jumping up like a frog, coming up with weird concepts and ideas, making faces, and combing his hair into a giant pastry.' It's a good thing I was born in this century, when superfluous television seems to be part of the economy.

  Conan O'Brien

  Jumping, Hair, Rocks

  Interview with Nathan Rabin, www.avclub.com. August 30, 2006.

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• Repetition is sometimes the best way to deal with the Luideag: just keep saying the same thing over and over until she gets fed up and gives you what you want. All preschoolers have an instinctive grasp of this concept, but most don’t practice it on immortal water demons. That’s probably why there are so few disembowelments in your average preschool.

  Mira Grant

  Average, Practice, Giving

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• After all the thousand times I’ve told you I love you, how could you let one word break your faith in me?...I could see it in your eyes, that you honestly believed that I didn’t want you anymore. The most absurd, ridiculous concept—as if there were any way that I could exist without needing you!

  Stephenie Meyer

  Love You, Eye, Moon

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• Though Anne was born in Alabama and schooled in Mississippi, she had traveled North, and, like many Southerners, gained a theoretical understanding of the concept of cold. But the mind is an overprotective parent. What it doesn't care for, it hides. Like many inhabiting the subtropics, Anne had repressed the reality of subzero mercury.

  Kathy Reichs

  Reality, Parent, Understanding

  Kathy Reichs (2014). “Monday Mourning: A Novel”, p.62, Simon and Schuster

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• Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Want

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.315, Hamilton Books

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• Do you think that Hemingway knew he was a writer at twenty years old? No, he did not. Or Fitzgerald, or Wolfe. This is a difficult concept to grasp. Hemingway didn't know he was Ernest Hemingway when he was a young man. Faulkner didn't know he was William Faulkner. But they had to take the first step. They had to call themselves writers. That is the first revolutionary act a writer has to make. It takes courage. But it's necessary

  Pat Conroy

  Men, Thinking, Years

  Pat Conroy (2002). “My Losing Season”, Nan A. Talese

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