Mere Quotes - Page 20

• Every living thing is an elaboration of a single original plan. As humans we are mere increments - each of us a musty archive of adjustments, adaptations, modifications and providential tinkerings stretching back to 3,8 billion years. Remarkably we are even quite closely related to fruit and vegetables. About half the chemical functions that take place in a banana are fundamentally the same as the chemical functions that place in you. It cannot be said too often: all life is one. That is, and I suspect will ever prove to be, the most profound true statement there is.

  Bill Bryson

  Years, Vegetables, Profound

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• In such a case secrecy must be absolute to be effective, and although mere vague curiosity induced many persons of my intimate acquaintance to ask to be allowed to just go in and have a peep, I never admitted anyone.

  Henry Bessemer

  Curiosity, Intimate, Secrecy

  Sir Henry Bessemer (1905). “Sir Henry Bessemer, F.R.S.: An autobiography”

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• The individual has become a mere cog in an enormous organization of things and powers which tear from his hands all progress, spirituality, and value in order to transform them from their subjective form into the form of a purely objective life.

  Georg Simmel

  Hands, Order, Organization

  "The Metropolis and Modern Life" by Georg Simmel (1903), translated by Kurt Wolff in "The Sociology of Georg Simmel" edited by D. Weinstein, New York: Free Press, (p. 422), 1950.

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• We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it.

  Hans Urs von Balthasar

  Believe, Order, Appearance

  Hans Urs von Balthasar (1982). “Glory of the Lord VOL 1: Seeing The Form”, p.18, A&C Black

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• Part of the heartache of all missionary work is the bright promising convert who turns out to be a mere puffball, crumbling like a macaroon under the least pressure.

  Isobel Miller Kuhn

  Heart, Missionary, Crumbling

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• It is necessary for all of us to awaken in ourselves this spirit of cooperation, for then it will not be a mere plan or agreement which causes us to work together, but an extraordinary feeling of togetherness, the sense of joy in being and doing together without any thought of reward or punishment.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Spiritual, Agreement, Punishment

  Jiddu Krishnamurti (1970). “Think on these things”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• In the search for reality, energy creates its own discipline. But mere discipline, without full comprehension of all this, has no meaning, it is a most destructive thing.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Spiritual, Reality, Discipline

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• Mere isolation in an enclosing idea is not a release from conflict.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Spiritual, Ideas, Awakening

  Jiddu Krishnamurti (2013). “The first and last freedom”, p.40, Rajpal & Sons

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• Mere negation, mere Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes, has never disturbed the peace of the world. It furnishes no motive for action; it inspires no enthusiasm; it has no missionaries, no crusades, no martyrs.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Inspire, Infidelity, World

  "Ranke's History of the Popes" by Thomas B. Macaulay, "Edinburgh Review", October, 1840.

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• Civility does not ...mean the mere outward gentleness of speech cultivated for the occasion, but an inborn gentleness and desire to do the opponent good.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Mean, Justice, Desire

  Mahatma Gandhi, Mohandas Gandhi, Homer A. Jack (2005). “The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi”, p.106, Courier Corporation

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• Nothing about his life is more strange to [man] or more unaccountable in purely mundane terms than the stirrings he finds in himself, usually fitful but sometimes overwhelming, to look beyond his animal existence and not be fully satisfied with its immediate substance. He lacks the complacency of the other animals: he is obsessed by pride and guilt, pride at being something more than a mere animal, built at falling short of the high aims he sets for himself.

  Lewis Mumford

  Fall, Pride, Men

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• The final test of religious faith... is whether it will enable men to endure insecurity without complacency or despair, whether it can so interpret the ancient verities that they will not become mere escape hatches from responsibilities but instruments of insights into what civilization means.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Religious, Mean, Responsibility

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• Eternal life means more than mere future blessing to be enjoyed by believers; it is equally a kind of spiritual ability.

  Watchman Nee

  Spiritual, Mean, Blessing

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• The Gospel is not a mere message of deliverance, but a canon of conduct; it is not a theology to be accepted, but it is ethics to be lived. It is not to be believed only, but it is to be taken into life as a guide.

  Alexander MacLaren

  Taken, Messages, Ethics

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• Concepts differentiate architecture from mere building...A bicycle shed with a concept is architecture; a cathedral without one is just a building.

  Bernard Tschumi

  Architecture, Building, Cathedrals

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• There are different kinds of fire; there is false fire. No one knows this better than we do, but we are not such fools as to refuse good bank notes because there are false ones in circulation; and although we see here and there manifestations of what appears to us to be nothing more than mere earthly fire, we none the less prize and value, and seek for the genuine fire which comes from the altar of the Lord.

  William Booth

  Fire, Here And There, Different

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• We want a vernacular in art. No mere verbal or formal agreement, or dead level of uniformity but that comprehensive and harmonizing unity with individual variety which can be developed among people politically and socially free.

  Walter Crane

  Art, Agreement, People

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• We cannot look upon our lives as dreams of a dreamer who has no awakening in all time. We have a personality to which matter and force are unmeaning unless related to something infinitely personal, whose nature we have discovered, in some measure, in human love, in the greatness of the good, in the martyrdom of heroic souls, in the ineffable beauty of nature, which can never be a mere physical fact nor anything but an expression of personality.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Life, Dream, Greatness

  Rabindranath Tagore (2010). “My Life In My Words”, p.163, Penguin UK

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• In my career I have had many wonderful things happen to me, many more than I ever dreamed would ever happen. But I would like for you young brethren especially to know that all that has happened to me in my chosen profession is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the truly important things in my life. The testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ that I have, along with my wife and my family, are my most important possessions.

  LaVell Edwards

  Life, Dream, Jesus

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• It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the men: divided into mere segments of men - broken into small fragments and crumbs of life, so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail.

  John Ruskin

  Life, Men, Broken

  John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.180, University of Virginia Press

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• Symbolism is no mere idle fancy or corrupt degeneration: it is inherent in the very texture of human life.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Life, Symbolism, Fancy

  Alfred North Whitehead (1985). “Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect”, p.61, Fordham Univ Press

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• But it is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths which distinguishes us from mere animals, and gives us reason and the sciences, raising us to knowledge of ourselves and God. It is this in us which we call the rational soul or mind.

  Gottfried Leibniz

  Animal, Giving, Soul

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• Much of our love is confined to mere lip service and dreams of good deeds accomplished, but true love must be expressed in unselfish acts of kindness that bring others closer to our Heavenly Father.

  Jack H. Goaslind

  Dream, Kindness, Father

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• Godfulness is simply recognizing the primacy of a presence of love, spaciousness, grace, generativity, caring, and creativity in the world and in myself. How can a mere financial crisis compare to that? The Generative Mystery cannot go bankrupt. It is not subject to scarcity. We never run out of God.

  David Spangler

  Love, Running, Creativity

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• Love of goodness without love of learning degenerates into simple-mindedness. Love of knowledge without love of learning degenerates into utter lack of principle. Love of faithfulness without love of learning degenerates into injurious disregard of consequences. Love of uprightness without love of learning degenerates into harshness. Love of courage without love of learning degenerates into insubordination. Love of strong character without love of learning degenerates into mere recklessness.

  Confucius

  Love, Strong, Learning

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