Faculty Quotes - Page 18

• Faculty X is a sense of reality of other places and other times, and it is the possession of it—fragmentary and uncertain though it is—that distinguishes man from all other animals.

  Colin Wilson

  Animal, Reality, Men

  Colin Wilson (1985). “The essential Colin Wilson”

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• Pleasure, when it is a man's chief purpose, disappoints itself; and the constant application to it palls the faculty of enjoying it.

  Richard Steele

  Men, Purpose, Pleasure

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...”, p.475

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• Revelation in matters where reason cannot judge, or but probably, ought to be hearkened to. First, Whatever proposition is revealed, of whose truth our mind, by its natural faculties and notions, cannot judge, that is purely matter of faith, and above reason.

  John Locke

  Truth, Judging, Mind

  John Locke (1836). “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, p.530

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• While at Cal Tech I talked a lot with Jon Mathews, then a junior faculty member; he taught me how to use the Institute's computer; we also went on hikes together.

  Kenneth G. Wilson

  Technology, Faculty Members, Together

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• Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love. I neither have, nor can have, any other way of judging about them.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Sight, Judging

  Adam Smith (2012). “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, p.13, Courier Corporation

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• It takes that je ne sais quoi which we call sophistication for a woman to be magnificent in a drawing-room when her faculties have departed but she herself has not yet gone home.

  James Thurber

  Home, Drawing, Alcohol

  1930 In the New Yorker, 2 Aug.

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• Suppose one who had always continued blind be told by his guide that after he has advanced so many steps he shall come to the brink of a precipice, or be stopped by a wall; must not this to him seem very admirable and surprising? He cannot conceive how it is possible for mortals to frame such predictions as these, which to him would seem as strange and unaccountable as prophesy doth to others. Even they who are blessed with the visive faculty may (though familiarity make it less observed) find therein sufficient cause of admiration.

  David Berman

  Wall, Blessed, Knowledge

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• Conscience, the sense of right, the power of perceiving moral distinctions, the power of discerning between justice and injustice, excellence and baseness, is the highest faculty given us by God, the whole foundation of our responsibility, and our sole capacity for religion. ...God, in giving us conscience, has implanted a principle within us which forbids us to prostrate ourselves before mere power, or to offer praise where we do not discover worth.

  William Ellery Channing

  Responsibility, Giving, Justice

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• By this means we presume we have established for ever, a true and legitimate marriage between the Empirical and Rational faculty; whose fastidious and unfortunate divorce and separation hath troubled and disordered the whole race and generation of mankind.

  Francis Bacon

  Divorce, Knowledge, Mean

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• Tis the perception of the beautiful, A fine extension of the faculties, Platonic, universal, wonderful, Drawn from the stars, and filtered through the skies, Without which life would be extremely dull

  Lord Byron

  Beautiful, Stars, Sky

  LORD BYRON (1875). “DON JUAN”, p.76

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• The art of being agreeable frequently miscarries through the ambition which accompanies it. Wit, learning, wisdom,--what can more effectually conduce to the profit and delight of society? Yet I am sensible that a man may be too invariably wise, learned, or witty to be agreeable; and I take the reason of this to be, that pleasure cannot be bestowed by the simple and unmixed exertion of any one faculty or accomplishment.

  Richard Cumberland

  Wise, Witty, Art

  Richard Cumberland (1822). “The observer”, p.220

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• You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog.

  Alfred Kahn

  Dog, Humorous, May

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• We are born with faculties and powers capable almost of anything, such at least as would carry us farther than can easily be imagined: but it is only the exercise of those powers, which gives us ability and skill in any thing, and leads us towards perfection.

  John Locke

  Exercise, Skills, Giving

  John Locke (1812). “Essay on human understanding concluded. Defence of Mr. Locke's opinion concerning personal identity. Of the conduct of the understanding. Some thoughts concerning reading and study for a gentleman. Elements of natural philosophy. A new method of a common-place-book”, p.195

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• Brutes abstract not. -- If it may be doubted, whether beasts compound and enlarge their ideas, that way, to any degree; this, I think, I may be positive in, that the power of abstracting is not at all in them; and that the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to.

  John Locke

  Mean, Men, Thinking

  John Locke (1721). “An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (Complete)”, p.153, Library of Alexandria

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• Defects and weakness in men's understandings, as well as other faculties, come from want of a right use of their own minds; I am apt to think, the fault is generally mislaid upon nature, and there is often a complaint of want of parts, when the fault lies in want of a due improvement of them.

  John Locke

  Lying, Men, Thinking

  John Locke (2007). “Some Thoughts Concerning Education: (Including Of the Conduct of the Understanding)”, p.192, Courier Corporation

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• The difference, so observable in men's understandings and parts, does not arise so much from their natural faculties, as acquired habits.

  John Locke

  Men, Differences, Understanding

  John Locke (1824). “Of human understanding. A defence of Mr. Locke's opinion concerning personal identity. Of the conduct of the understanding. Some thoughts concerning reading and study for a gentleman. Elements of natural philosophy. A new method of common-place-book”, p.264

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• At forty my faculties may have closed up like flowers at evening, leaving me unable to write my memoirs with a fitting and discreet inaccuracy, or, having written them, unable to carry them to the publisher.

  James Thurber

  Flower, Writing, Leaving

  James Thurber (1996). “James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)”, p.149, Library of America

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• The effects of mescalin or LSD can be, in some respects, far more satisfying than those of alcohol. To begin with, they last longer; they also leave behind no hangover, and leave the mental faculties clear and unimpaired. They stimulate the faculties and produce the ideal ground for a peak experience.

  Colin Wilson

  Hangover, Alcohol, Lasts

  "Introduction to the New Existentialism" by Colin Wilson, (p. 88), 1966.

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• Soul Gathers Force It is possible, when the future is dim, when our depressed faculties can form no bright ideas of the perfection and happiness of a better world,-it is possible still to cling to the conviction of God's merciful purpose towards His creatures, of His parental goodness even in suffering, still to feel that the path of duty, though trodden with a heavy heart, leads to peace.

  William Ellery Channing

  Heart, Ideas, Perfection

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• A university is a reading and discussion club. If students knew how to use the library, they wouldn't need the rest of the buildings. The faculty's job, in great part, is to teach students how to use a library in a living way. All a student should really need is access to the library and a place to sleep.

  John Ciardi

  Jobs, Reading, Sleep

  John Ciardi (1989). “Ciardi himself: fifteen essays in the reading, writing, and teaching of poetry”, Univ of Arkansas Pr

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• The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties. This exercise must occupy a complete lifetime. One swallow does make a spring, nor does one fine day. Excellence is a habit, not an event.

  Aristotle

  Spring, Exercise, Men

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• My faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.

  Mark Twain

  Birthday, Growing Up, Age And Youth

  Mark Twain (2010). “Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review”, p.113, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of any thing else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a compentent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.

  Isaac Newton

  Distance, Fall, Philosophical

  Sir Isaac Newton, Florian Cajori (1946). “Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World”, p.636, Univ of California Press

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• Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain.

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Pain, Mind, Name Of The Wind

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• Imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless that, like a high ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment. The great easiness of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant. He is tempted to say many things which might better be omitted, or, at least shut up in fewer words.

  John Dryden

  Imagination, Might, Shut Up

  John Dryden (1808). “The works of John Dryden now first collected ...”, p.121

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