Insight Quotes - Page 11

• Painting expresses the depth and insight, the spiritual quality of the artist. If art is about life, then, while the depth to which the artist has drunk from the well of life may not guarantee success, it must surely improve the quality of his/her work.

  Millard Sheets

  Spiritual, Art, Drunk

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• In the window, I fantasize... about providing grown-ups and children alike with the greatest gift of all: insight.

  David Rakoff

  Children, Window, Providing

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• The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change.

  Edwin H Friedman

  People, Understanding, Unmotivated

  Edwin H. Friedman (2007). “A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix”, p.9, Church Publishing, Inc.

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• It is a rare and valuable tonic to share insights, dreams and concerns with people whom you have never met. The sole purpose for such exchanges is simply to give light to one another.

  Allison Mackie

  Dream, Communication, Light

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• A data scientist is that unique blend of skills that can both unlock the insights of data and tell a fantastic story via the data.

  DJ Patil

  Unique, Data, Skills

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• Combining valuable insights from his experience in China, his time as the World Bank's chief economist, and the 2008 financial crisis, Justin Yifu Lin's recommendations for development policy reflect an impressive and unique personal journey.

  Kemal Dervis

  Journey, Unique, Development

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• If we could travel into the past, it's mind-boggling what would be possible. For one thing, history would become an experimental science, which it certainly isn't today. The possible insights into our own past and nature and origins would be dazzling. For another, we would be facing the deep paradoxes of interfering with the scheme of causality that has led to our own time and ourselves. I have no idea whether it's possible, but it's certainly worth exploring.

  Carl Sagan

  Past, Ideas, Mind

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• I have no little insight into the feelings of furniture, and treat books and prints with a reasonable consideration. How some people use their pictures, for instance, is a mystery to me; very revolting all the same--portraits obliged to face each other for ever--prints put together in portfolios.

  Robert Browning

  Book, People, Feelings

  Robert Browning (2015). “Love Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett”, p.267, e-artnow sro

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• When he looks back, the critic sees a eunuch's shadow. Who would be a critic if he could be a writer? Who would hammer out the subtlest insight into Dostoevsky if he could weld an inch of the Karamazovs, or argue the poise of Lawrence if he could shape the free gust of life in The Rainbow?

  George Steiner

  Rainbow, Shadow, Would Be

  George Steiner (1967). “Language and silence: essays on language, literature, and the inhuman”, Macmillan Pub Co

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• Each of us has the power and responsibility to heal ourselves, to be our own medicine man or woman. Awakening our innate powers of being, loving, knowing, seeing, and healing involves ongoing work at all levels and in all dimensions of our self. Exploring the range of rhythms and emotions, achieving insights into our conditioning and ego, moving through the energy levels of spirit – these are all activities to be integrated into our daily lives.

  Gabrielle Roth

  Moving, Responsibility, Healing

  Gabrielle Roth (2011). “Maps to Ecstasy: The Healing Power of Movement”, p.210, New World Library

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• To view an object in the proper light we must stand away from it. The study of the classical literatures gives the aloofness which cultivates insight. In learning to live with peoples and civilizations that have long ceased to be alive, we gain a vantage point, acquire an enlargement and elevation of thought, which enable us to study with a more impartial and liberal mind the condition of the society around us.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Light, Views, Civilization

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• To secure approval one must remain within the bounds of conventional mediocrity. Whatever lies beyond, whether it be greater insight and virtue, or greater stolidity and vice, is condemned. The noblest men, like the worst criminals, have been done to death.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Lying, Men, Vices

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• Insight makes argument ridiculous.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Ridiculous, Argument

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• My curiosity was in no way cruel. Deviations from the commonplace attracted me strongly, as they still do; and to me the hermaphrodite and the living skeleton were interesting for the same reason as was Creatore, or the resplendent Guardsmen of the bands - because such people did not often come my way, and I hoped that they might impart some great revelation to me, some insight which would help me to a clearer understanding of the world about me.

  Robertson Davies

  Skeletons, Interesting, People

  "I Remember Creatore". Essay by Robertson Davies, 1948.

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• Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, Light half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd, Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill'd; For whom each year we see Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?

  Matthew Arnold

  Disappointment, New Beginnings, Light

  Matthew Arnold (1994). “Dover Beach and Other Poems”, p.44, Courier Corporation

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• No more harmful nonsense exists than [the] common supposition that deepest insight into great questions about the meaning of life or the structure of reality emerges most readily when a free, undisciplined, and uncluttered (read, rather, ignorant and uneducated) mind soars above mere earthly knowledge and concern.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Reality, Ignorant, Mind

  "I Have Landed". Book by Stephen Jay Gould, "No Science Without Fancy, No Art Without Facts", p. 48, May 14, 2002.

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• New insight begins when satisfaction comes to an end, when all that has been seen, said, or done looks like a distortion. ... Man's true fulfillment depends on communion with that which transcends him.

  Abraham Joshua Heschel

  Men, Looks, Done

  Abraham Joshua Heschel (1997). “Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays”, p.31, Macmillan

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• This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. Our most persistent and spectacular efforts are concerned not with the preservation of what we are but with the building up of an imaginary conception of ourselves in the opinion of others. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter.

  Eric Hoffer

  Men, Building Up, Effort

  "Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook" by Tom Bethell in Harper's Magazine, July 2005.

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• The vulgar herd catches at the gross apparent fact, but the man of insight knows what lies on the surfaces does lie.

  Israel Zangwill

  Lying, Men, Doe

  Israel Zangwill (2016). “The Big Bow Mystery”, p.91, Oldcastle Books

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• Margaret Mead was both a student of civilization and an exemplar of it. To a public of millions, she brought the central insight of cultural anthropology: that varying cultural patterns express an underlying human unity. She mastered her discipline, but she also transcended it. Intrepid, independent, plain spoken, fearless, she remains a model for the young and a teacher from whom all may learn.

  Margaret Mead

  Teacher, Independent, Civilization

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• You do not attain to knowledge by remaining on the shore and watching the foaming waves, you must make the venture and cast yourself in, you must swim, alert and with all your force, even if a moment comes when you think you are losing consciousness; in this way, and in no other, do you reach anthropological insight.

  Martin Buber

  Thinking, Swim, Venture

  Martin Buber (2003). “Between Man and Man”, p.148, Routledge

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• The history of science is full of revolutionary advances that required small insights that anyone might have had, but that, in fact, only one person did.

  Isaac Asimov

  Might, Facts, Revolutionary

  "The Three Numbers". Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September 1974.

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• On the spiritual path, all the dreck and misery is transformed, maybe not that same day, but still transformed into spiritual fuel or insight.

  Anne Lamott

  Spiritual, Fuel, Path

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• When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader.

  Anne Lamott

  Real, Writing, Caring

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.225, Anchor

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• The most fertile source of insight is hindsight.

  Morris Kline

  Hindsight, Source, Fertile

  Morris Kline (1982). “Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty”, p.101, Oxford University Press, USA

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