Gravity Quotes - Page 9

• Gravity is a mysterious carriage of the body invented to cover the defects of the mind.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Mind, Body, Mysterious

  Francois duc de La-Rochefoucauld (1828). “Maximes Et Reflexions Morales Traduites en Grec Moderne Par Wladimir Brunet; Avec Une Traduction Anglaise en Regard”, p.145

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• Superstring theories provide a framework in which the force of gravity may be united with the other three forces in nature: the weak, electromagnetic and strong forces. Recent progress has shown that the most promising superstring theories follow from a single theory. For the last generation, physicists have studied five string theories and one close cousin. Recently it has become clear that these five or six theories are different limiting cases of one theory which, though still scarcely understood, is the candidate for superunification of the forces of nature.

  Edward Witten

  Strong, Cousin, Progress

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• The permanence of all books is fixed by no effort friendly or hostile, but by their own specific gravity, or the intrinsic importance of their contents to the constant mind of man.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Men, Effort

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.158, Penguin

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• In Advance of All Parting is a tough, unsentimental examination of marital grief. Musically elegant and inventive, understated and passionate, the poems give us a profound glimpse into how the events of a life can form a center of gravity that fixes the self in its force field. Theres a cold, truth-telling clarity about them that makes them as unsettling as they are beautiful. Ansie Baird has created a richly-drawn world in which this elemental drama plays out, and the result is vivid, startling poems in which pain has left its indelible tracks.

  Chase Twichell

  Beautiful, Pain, Drama

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• When I sit with students, I do not just want to help them solve their problems. I want to find a moment with each person where their mind stops and their eyes open. I want us to be together as if we were lying in a field on the underside of the earth on a clear summer night, held only by the magnet of gravity, looking down into a bottomless sea of stars. I want us to remember together the beauty all around us.

  Jack Kornfield

  Summer, Stars, Lying

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• Quantum mechanics as it stands would be perfect if we didn’t have the quantum-gravity issue and a few other very deep fundamental problems.

  Gerard 't Hooft

  Issues, Perfect, Would Be

  "Does Some Deeper Level of Physics Underlie Quantum Mechanics? An Interview with Nobelist Gerard 't Hooft". Interview with George Musser, blogs.scientificamerican.com. October 7, 2013.

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• Remember, just because Microsoft can do something, doesn't mean you can. Microsoft makes their own gravity. Normal rules don't apply to them.

  Joel Spolsky

  Mean, Microsoft, Normal

  Joel Spolsky (2004). “Joel on Software”, p.324, Apress

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• The difficulty lay with the mind accommodating itself to the notion of the plane, with all its weight, defying gravity, staying aloft. She understood the aerodynamics of flight, could comprehend the laws of physics that made flight possible, but her heart, at the moment, would have none of it. Her heart knew the plane could fall out of the sky.

  Anita Shreve

  Fall, Heart, Law

  Anita Shreve (1998). “The Pilot's Wife”, Little, Brown

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• One could almost define life as the organized disobedience of the law of gravity. One could show that the degree to which an organism disobeys this law is a measure of its degree of evolution.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Life, Law, Degrees

  Robert M. Pirsig (1991). “LILA An Inquriry into Morals”

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• I see no good reason why the views given this volume [The Origin of Species] should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, 'as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.'

  Charles Darwin

  Religious, Science, Men

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• We have people being a little uncomfortable in their life on Earth with finances and so on, so Science Fantasy or Science Fiction allows people to think that there are possibilities beyond the gravity of our planet.

  Anthony Daniels

  Thinking, People, Fiction

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• Curiously, a principle affects your life whether you are aware of it or not. For instance, the principle of gravity was working long before the apple ever fell on Newton's head. But once it did, and he understood it, then we as a society were free to harness this principle to create, among other things, airline flight.

  Andy Andrews

  Apples, Long, Principles

  ABC NEWS Interview, abcnews.go.com.

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• Why are men impersonating women funny while women impersonating men are not? It is a matter of gravity. A heavy thing trying to become lighter is automatically funnier than a light thing trying to become heavy.

  Arlene Croce

  Humor, Men, Light

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• Tulips come up in spring for no reason. Of course, you planted bulbs and now in April the earth warms up. But why? For no reason except gravity. Why gravity? For no reason. And why did you plant red tulip bulbs to begin with? For beauty, which is itself and has no reason. So the world is empty. Things rise and fall for no reason. And what a great opportunity that is! You can start writing again at any minute. Let go of all your failures and sit down and write something great. Or write something terrible and feel great about it.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Letting Go, Spring, Fall

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• Although gravity is by far the weakest force of nature, its insidious and cumulative action serves to determine the ultimate fate not only of individual astronomical objects but of the entire cosmos. The same remorseless attraction that crushes a star operates on a much grander scale on the universe as a whole.

  Paul Davies

  Crush, Nature, Stars

  Paul Davies (2008). “The Last Three Minutes: Conjectures About The Ultimate Fate Of The Universe”, p.65, Basic Books

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• Economics is like gravity: Ignore it and you will be in for some rude surprises.

  Charles Wheelan

  Rude, Surprise, Economics

  Charles Wheelan (2010). “Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (Fully Revised and Updated)”, p.22, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Men have been barbarians much longer than they have been civilized. They are only precariously civilized, and within us there is the propensity, persistent as the force of gravity, to revert under stress and strain, under neglect or temptation, to our first natures.

  Walter Lippmann

  Stress, Men, Temptation

  Walter Lippmann (1959). “The Public Philosophy”

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• The dominant expression of a child is gravity.

  Bret Harte

  Children, Expression, Childhood

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• But if we establish the working hypothesis that the UFOs are machines, we also have to assume the following:
  a) They are not built by human beings..
  b) They are flying by means of artificial fields of gravity..
  c) They produce high-tension electric charges in order to push the air out of their paths, so it does not start glowing, and strong magnetic fields to influence the ionized air at higher altitudes.

  Hermann Oberth

  Strong, Mean, Air

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• When a physician is called to a patient, he should decide on the diagnosis, then the prognosis, and then the treatment. ... Physicians must know the evolution of the disease, its duration and gravity in order to predict its course and outcome. Here statistics intervene to guide physicians, by teaching them the proportion of mortal cases, and if observation has also shown that the successful and unsuccessful cases can be recognized by certain signs, then the prognosis is more certain.

  Claude Bernard

  Teaching, Successful, Science

  Claude Bernard (2012). “An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine”, p.231, Courier Corporation

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• If you think all this is going on, all these gigantic fields of gravity and light with you in mind, then you really do have a self-centredness problem.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Thinking, Light, Self

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• Do we understand the gravity of the sin of dishonesty? It is not only unchristian, it is anti-Christian...it is anti-Christ! Whether it be lying, or cheating, or robbery or deception; whether it is in the home, in business, in sports, or in the classroom; dishonesty is completely foreign to the teachings of Jesus.

  Mark E. Petersen

  Sports, Christian, Cheating

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• Children have a remarkable talent for not taking the adult world with the kind of respect we are so confident it ought to be given. To the irritation of authority figures of all sorts, children expend considerable energy in "clowning around." They refuse to appreciate the gravity of our monumental concerns, while we forget that if we were to become more like children our concerns might not be so monumental.

  Conrad Hyers

  Family, Children, Irritation

  Conrad Hyers (2003). “The Comic Vision and the Christian Faith: A Celebration of Life and Laughter”, p.79, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• In swimming at my level it's about control of the small movements. A good ballet dancer floats across the stage, the best sprinters virtually abolish gravity. All motion occurs in the right direction.

  Alexander Dale Oen

  Swimming, Dancer, Ballet

  "With Alexander Dale Oen's sudden death, Norway lost a hero" by Andy Bull, www.theguardian.com. June 2, 2012.

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• With some CGI, I think the brain slightly perceives that things aren't real. There's no gravity, the light's not quite real, the shadows aren't quite real.

  Nick Park

  Real, Thinking, Light

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