Faculty Quotes - Page 25

• Of the demonstrably wise there are but two: those who commit suicide, & those who keep their reasoning faculties atrophied with drink.

  Mark Twain

  Wise, Suicide, Two

  Mark Twain, Albert Bigelow Paine (1971). “Mark Twain's notebook”, Scholarly Pr

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• When I consider the narrow limits within which our active and inquiring faculties are confined; when I see how all our energies are wasted in providing for mere necessities, which again have no further end than to prolong a wretched existence; and then that all our satisfaction concerning certain subjects of investigation ends in nothing better than a passive resignation... when I consider all this... I am silent.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Limits, Satisfaction, Inquiring

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2016). “THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER (Literary Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel”, p.7, e-artnow

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• Most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is to be done and has no need of their services.

  Marcel Proust

  Lying, Rely Upon, Needs

  Marcel Proust (2006). “Remembrance of Things Past”, p.600, Wordsworth Editions

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• What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?" "Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced — from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.

  Alexandre Dumas

  Illumination, Clouds, Light

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• It is possible to be a fan of reality TV, talent shows and bubblegum pop and still have a brain. You will also see that a great many people know perfectly well how silly and camp and trivial their fandom is. They do not check in their minds when they enter a fan site. Judgement is not necessarily fled to brutish beasts, and men have not quite lost their reason. Which is all a way of questioning whether pop-culture hero worship is really so psychically damaging, so erosive of cognitive faculties, so corrupting of the soul of mankind as we are so often told.

  Stephen Fry

  Silly, Hero, Reality

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• Although I am an anarch, I am not anti-authoritarian. Quite the opposite: I need authority, although I do not believe in it. My critical faculties are sharpened by the absence of the credibility that I ask for. As a historian, I know what can be offered.

  Ernst Junger

  Believe, Opposites, Needs

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• Soooo," Arriane said. "Now you've met Randy." "I thought his name was Cam." "We're not talking about him," Arriane said quickly. "I mean the she-man in there." Arriane jerked her head toward the office where they'd left the attendant in front of the TV. "Whaddya think-dude or chick?" "Uh, chick?" Luce said tentativley. "Is this a test?" Arriane cracked a smile. "The first of many. And you passed. At least, I think you passed. The gender of most of the faculty here is an ongoing, schoolwiide debate. Don't worry, you'll get into it.

  Lauren Kate

  Mean, Men, Thinking

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• The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility──of being unable to undo what one has done──is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. Both faculties depend upon plurality, on the presence and acting of others, for no man can forgive himself and no one can be bound by a promise made only to himself.

  Hannah Arendt

  Men, Forgiving, Promise

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• I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.

  Emily Bronte

  Gothic, Heathcliff, Destruction

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.597, Penguin

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• One of the chief things which my typical man has to learn is that the mental faculties are capable of a continuous hard activity; they do not tire like an arm or a leg. All they want is change - not rest, except in sleep.

  Arnold Bennett

  Sleep, Men, Typical

  Arnold Bennett (2009). “How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day: Easyread Super Large 24pt Edition”, p.32, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• The faculty of memory cannot be separated from the imagination. They go hand in hand. To one degree or another, we all invent our personal pasts. And for most of us those pasts are built from emotionally colored memories.

  Siri Hustvedt

  Memories, Past, Hands

  Siri Hustvedt (2010). “The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves”, p.112, Macmillan

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• Life, faculties, production-in other words, individuality, liberty, property-this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Men, Leader, Political

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.3, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• Nothing whets the intelligence more than a passionate suspicion, nothing develops all the faculties of an immature mind more than a trail running away into the dark.

  Stefan Zweig

  Running, Dark, Mind

  Stefan Zweig (2015). “The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig: Burning Secret, A Chess Story, Fear, Confusion, Journey into the Past”, p.27, Pushkin Press

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• This made him a grad student, and grad students existed not to learn things but to relieve the tenured faculty members of tiresome burdens such as educating people and doing research.

  Neal Stephenson

  Faculty Members, People, Research

  Neal Stephenson (2009). “Cryptonomicon”, p.97, Harper Collins

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• We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations. We invest human nature with God-like qualities, with moral and rational faculties that make us both just and wise. We simplify the complexity of human experience by erecting a seemingly impermeable boundary between Good and Evil.

  Philip Zimbardo

  Wise, Believe, People

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• Nothing makes time pass or shortens the way like a thought that absorbs in itself all the faculties of the one who is thinking. External existence is then like a sleep of which this thought is the dream. Under its influence, time has no more measure, space has no more distance.

  Alexandre Dumas

  Dream, Distance, Sleep

  Alexandre Dumas (2006). “The Three Musketeers: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.234, Penguin

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• The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.

  John Stuart Mill

  Choices, Feelings, Perception

  John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.59, Cambridge University Press

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• I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity?

  Charlotte Bronte

  Coward, Obscurity, Rust

  Charlotte Bronte (2016). “Villette”, p.48, Xist Publishing

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• The mind which is created quick to love, is responsive to everything that is pleasing, soon as by pleasure it is awakened into activity. Your apprehensive faculty draws an impression from a real object, and unfolds it within you, so that it makes the mind turn thereto. And if, being turned, it inclines towards it, that inclination is love; that is nature, which through pleasure is bound anew within you.

  Dante Alighieri

  Real, Love Is, Mind

  Dante Alighieri (2013). “The Divine Comedy: The Unabridged Classic”, p.294, Vintage

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• Paganism is that view of life which finds the highest goal of human existence in the healthy and harmonious and joyous development of existing human faculties. Very different is the Christian ideal. Paganism is optimistic with regard to unaided human nature, whereas Christianity is the religion of the broken heart.

  John Gresham Machen

  Christian, Heart, Optimistic

  John Gresham Machen (1923). “Christianity and Liberalism”, p.65, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• If the infinite had not desired man to be wise, he would not have bestowed upon him the faculty of knowing.

  Manly Hall

  Wise, Men, Knowing

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• An educated man is not, necessarily, one who has an abundance of general or specialized knowledge. An educated man is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may acquire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others. –

  Napoleon Hill

  Men, Law Of Attraction, Rights

  Napoleon Hill (2015). “Think and grow rich: Brazilian edition”, p.66, CDG Edições e Publicações LTDA

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• Dirt's a funny thing,' the Boss said. 'Come to think of it, there ain't a thing but dirt on this green God's globe except what's under water, and that's dirt too. It's dirt makes the grass grow. A diamond ain't a thing in the world but a piece of dirt that got awful hot. And God-a-Mighty picked up a handful of dirt and blew on it and made you and me and George Washington and mankind blessed in faculty and apprehension. It all depends on what you do with the dirt. That right?

  Robert Penn Warren

  Blessed, Thinking, Funny Things

  Robert Penn Warren (2006). “All the King's Men”, p.69, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• To live is not to breathe but to act. It is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence. The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted the most years but he who has most felt life.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Men, Years, Giving

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1979). “Emile: Or, On Education”, p.42, Basic Books

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• But the saddest difference between them was that Zazetsky, as Luria said, 'fought to regain his lost faculties with the indomitable tenacity of the damned,' whereas Dr P. was not fighting, did not know what was lost. But who was more tragic, or who was more damned -- the man who knew it, or the man who did not?

  Oliver Sacks

  Fighting, Men, Differences

  Oliver Sacks (2014). “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Picador Classic”, p.28, Pan Macmillan

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