Function Quotes - Page 34

I had thought joy to be rather synonymous with happiness, but it seems now to be far less vulnerable than happiness. Joy seems to be a part of an unconditional wish to live, not holding back because life may not meet our preferences and expectations. Joy seems to be a function of the willingness to accept the whole, and to show up to meet with whatever is there. It has a kind of invincibility that attachment to any particular outcome would deny us.

Rachel Naomi Remen

Attachment, Expectations, Joy

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Mindfulness is like a microscope; it is neither an offensive nor defensive weapon in relation to the germs we observe through it. The function of the microscope is just to clearly present what is there.

Chogyam Trungpa

Mindfulness, Weapons, Germs

Chogyam Trungpa (2010). “The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings”, p.219, Shambhala Publications

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Los Angeles is just a more open place. The way L.A. functions is that people give you a forum. They say, Show us what you can do.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

People, Giving, Way

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We must see that consciousness is neither an isolated soul nor the mere function of a single nervous system, but of that totality of interrelated stars and galaxies which makes a nervous system possible.

Alan Watts

Stars, Soul, Consciousness

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You have certainly observed the curious fact that a given word which is perfectly clear when you hear it or use it in everyday language, and which does not give rise to any difficulty when it is engaged in the rapid movement of an ordinary sentence becomes magically embarrassing, introduces a strange resistance, frustrates any effort at definition as soon as you take it out of circulation to examine it separately and look for its meaning after taking away its instantaneous function.

Paul Valery

Giving, Effort, Everyday

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What is the real function, the essential function, the supreme function, of language? Isn't it merely to convey ideas and emotions? Certainly. Then if we can do it with words of fonetic brevity and compactness, why keep the present cumbersome forms?

Mark Twain

Real, Ideas, Essentials

Mark Twain (2013). “Autobiography of Mark Twain”, p.276, Univ of California Press

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The function of law and theology are the same: to keep the poor from taking back by violence what the rich have stolen by cunning.

Robert Anton Wilson

Law, Violence, Rich

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Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be.

Benjamin Tucker

Mean, Eugenics, Discovery

Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (1972). “State Socialism and Anarchism and Other Essays”, Ralph Myles Pub

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The cast, staff, and crew of a live theater work together toward a common goal: a good performance. Thus, theater is necessarily a group effort. However, it is never a group effort of vague fellow committee members, but of associated autocrats-a playwright, a producer, a director, a stage manager, designers, and, above all, actors. Each accommodates the others, and may overlap others in function when necessary. But each autocrat assumes distinct responsibilities and accepts them completely.

Laurence Sterne

Responsibility, Goal, Effort

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Lighting is not about function. It's much more about the mood and the emotion that the playwright and the director are trying to create. Our job is to support their poetic direction.

Jules Fisher

Jobs, Support, Theatre

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The dramatist's function is (1) to earn a living for his family and himself and (2) to try to entertain people for a few hours.

Lee Adams

People, Theatre, Trying

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The experience of a century and a half has demonstrated that our system of free government functions best when the maximum degree of information is made available to our people. In fact, free and candid discussion of vexing problems is the bedrock of democracy and it may be our surest safeguard for peace.

Brien McMahon

Government, People, Democracy

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For instance, it is certain that women do not want a woman for President. Nor would they have the slightest confidence in her ability to fulfill the functions of that office.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Confidence, Office, President

Eleanor Roosevelt (1995). “What I Hope to Leave Behind: The Essential Essays of Eleanor Roosevelt”, Carlson Pub

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...wisdom is in large part the knowledge of how to avoid doing dumb things, and thus grows globally as a function of the published inventory of stupid mistakes.

Tim Bray

Mistake, Stupid, Design

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Here and there in the ancient literature we encounter legends of wise and mysterious games that were conceived and played by scholars, monks, or the courtiers of cultured princes. These might take the form of chess games in which the pieces and squares had secret meanings in addition to their usual functions.

Hermann Hesse

Wise, Squares, Games

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I don't wish to defend everything that has been done in the name of Utopia. But I think many of the attacks misconceive its nature and function. As I have tried to suggest, utopia is not mainly about providing detailed blueprints for social reconstruction. Its concern with ends is about making us think about possible worlds. It is about inventing and imagining worlds for our contemplation and delight. It opens up our minds to the possibilities of the human condition.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Thinking, Names, Mind

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There's a real separation between actors and all the other functions of Hollywood. If you're an actor you're somehow not a member of the crew. You're somehow more special. I hate that.

Rider Strong

Hate, Real, Special

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In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function.

Edmund Burke

Jobs, Exercise, Office

Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.1453, Delphi Classics

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Then the highest state of love is prayerfulness. In prayerfulness there is communion. In sex there is the I/it relationship, in love the I/thou relationship. Martin Buber stops there; his Judaic tradition won't allow him to go further. But one step more has to be taken that is neither 'I' nor 'thou' - a relationship where I and thou disappear, a relationship where two persons no longer function as two but function as one. A tremendous unity, a harmony, a deep accord - two bodies but one soul. That is the highest quality of love. I call it prayerfulness.

Rajneesh

Relationship, Sex, Taken

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If you are an effective manager of your self, your discipline comes from within; it is a function of your independent will. You are a disciple, a follower, of your own deep values and their source. And you have the will, the integrity, to subordinate your feelings, your impulses, your moods to those values.

Stephen Covey

Freedom, Integrity, Independent

Stephen R. Covey (1994). “Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People: Living THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE Every Day”, p.111, Simon and Schuster

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As human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values.

Stephen Covey

Decision, Feelings, Personal Development

Stephen R. Covey (2016). “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change Interactive Edition”, p.82, Mango Media Inc.

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It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive, that the mind might perform its functions without encumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the present.

Samuel Johnson

Art, Memories, Past

Samuel Johnson (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.82, Harvard University Press

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It can be set down as a broad, general principle that we cannot indulge in idleness and abundance during both the first and second half of our life. Study, application, industry, enthusiasm while we are young usually enable us to enjoy life when we grow older. But unless we toil and strive and earn all we can in the first half, the second half of our life is liable to bring disappointment, discomfort, distress. The time to put forth effort is when we are most able to do it, namely, in the years of our greatest strength. The law of compensation hasn't ceased to function.

B. C. Forbes

Disappointment, Indulge In, Years

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It appears that a simple rule, of something adhering to another similar idea, repeated, leads to stabilities. This seems to be a function of relational data sets, linked to rules, like in DNA chains that have infinite adaptability for sequencing proteins. Out of only four bases, which in turn are further limited by two rules of complimentarity, a myriad of forms arise.

Cecil Balmond

Simple, Dna, Data

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Where to begin? Do we measure the relaxing of the feet? The moment when the eye glimpses the hawk, when instinct functions? For in this pure action, this pure moving of the bird, there is no time, no space, but only the free doing-being of this very moment -now!

Peter Matthiessen

Moving, Eye, Feet

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