Modification Quotes

• I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.

  Edmund Burke

  Power, Sublime, Knows

  Edmund Burke (1824). “A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful”, p.62

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• Our creation is the modification of relationship.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Creativity, Creation

  Rabindranath Tagore (2015). “The Religion of Man”, p.66, Ravenio Books

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• Modification of form is admitted to be a matter of time

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Matter, Form, Matter Of Time

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• I tried a dozen different modifications that were rejected. But they all served as a path to the final design.

  Mikhail Kalashnikov

  Design, Path, Different

  "Mikhail Kalashnikov: 'I sleep soundly'" by Nick Paton Walsh, www.theguardian.com. October 9, 2003.

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• Heredity provides for the modification of its own machinery.

  James Mark Baldwin

  Machinery, Heredity

  Princeton University, James Mark Baldwin (1896). “Contributions to Psychology”

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• I mean, we're really making a quantum change in our relationship to the plant world with genetic modification.

  Michael Pollan

  Relationship, Mean, World

  "Michael Pollan's 'Botany of Desire'". "PBS NewsHour" with Gwen Ifill, www.pbs.org. June 28, 2001.

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• God transforms, so to speak, this air into words, into various sounds. He makes you understand these various sounds through the modifications by which you are affected.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Air, Sound, Speak

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• I intend no modification of my oft-expressed wish that all men everywhere could be free.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, Men, Wish

  Letter to Horace Greeley, 22 August 1862

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• Art is the distortion of an unendurable reality... Art is correction, modification of a situation; art is communication, connection... Art is social, self-sufficient, and total.

  Jean Tinguely

  Art, Communication, Reality

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• What is the meaning of the togetherness of the perceiving mind, in that peculiar modification of perceiving which makes it perceive not a star but a tree, and the tree itself, is a problem for philosophy

  Samuel Alexander

  Stars, Philosophy, Tree

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• Our morbidly obese federal government needs not just behavior modification but bariatric surgery.

  Mitch Daniels

  Government, Needs, Behavior

  Keynote Speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee, delivered 11 February 2011, Ronald Reagan Centennial Dinner, Washington, D.C.

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• To deal with the true causes of war one must begin by recognizing as of prime relevancy to the solution of the problem the familiar fact that civilization is a partial, incomplete, and, to a great extent, superficial modification of barbarism.

  Elihu Root

  War, Civilization, Causes

  Elihu Root (1916). “Addresses on International Subjects”

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• First, modify the patient's diet and lifestyle and only then, if these do not effect a cure, treat with medicinals and acupuncture.

  Sun Simiao

  Health, Medicine, Chinese

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• Enlightenment is the complete awareness of life without mental modifications.

  Frederick Lenz

  Enlightenment, Awareness, Awareness Of Life

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• A man has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it; and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Men, Religion, Atheism

  D. H. Lawrence, James T. Boulton (2002). “The Letters of D. H. Lawrence”, p.40, Cambridge University Press

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• He has willed - He wills incessantly - that the modifications of the mind and those of the body shall be reciprocal. This is the conjunction and the natural dependence of the two parts of which we are constituted.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Two, Mind, Body

  Nicolas Malebranche (2014). “Dialogues on Metaphysics”, p.195, Routledge

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• In classical oil painting, there seemed to be a radical turn to seeing things as the camera sees them, with that technological modification. I began to have a tremendous problem with all of this.

  Henry Flynt

  Artist, Oil, Cameras

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• Layering and changeability: this is the key, the combination that is worked into most of my buildings. Occupying one of these buildings is like sailing a yacht; you modify and manipulate its form and skin according to seasonal conditions and natural elements, and work with these to maximize the performance of the building.

  Glenn Murcutt

  Nature, Keys, Sailing

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• When I'm shooting on location, you get ideas on the spot - new angles. You make not major changes but important modifications, that you can't do on a set. I do that because you have to be economical.

  Satyajit Ray

  Ideas, Important, Shooting

  Satyajit Ray, Bert Cardullo (2007). “Satyajit Ray: Interviews”, p.99, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Common sense is only a modification of talent. Genius is an exaltation of it. The difference is, therefore, in degree, not nature.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Nature, Differences, Common Sense

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• I took the position from day one that it was the right decree, that the modifications I made to the decree were proper, that the correct outcome had been obtained, and that in due time all of that would become apparent. And it has become apparent.

  Harold H. Greene

  Outcomes, Decree, Made

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• There's almost no food that isn't genetically modified. Genetic modification is the basis of all evolution. Things change because our planet is subjected to a lot of radiation, which causes DNA damage, which gets repaired, but results in mutations, which create a ready mixture of plants that people can choose from to improve agriculture.

  Nina Fedoroff

  Dna, Agriculture, People

  "An Advocate for Science Diplomacy" by Claudia Dreifus, www.nytimes.com. August 18, 2008.

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• The transfinite numbers are in a certain sense themselves new irrationalities and in fact in my opinion the best method of defining the finite irrational numbers is wholly disimilar to, and I might even say in priciple the same as, my method described above of introducing trasfinite numbers. One can say unconditionally: the transfinite numbers stand or fall with the finite irrational numbers; they are like each other in their innermost being; for the former like the latter are definite delimited forms or modifications of the actual infinite.

  Georg Cantor

  Fall, Numbers, Finite Number

  "Understanding the Infinite". Book by Shaughan Lavine, 1994.

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• (Propaganda) proceeds by psychological manipulations, character modifications, by creation of stereotypes useful when the time comes - The two great routes that this sub-propaganda takes are the conditioned reflex and the myth

  Jacques Ellul

  Character, Two, Manipulation

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• If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.

  George Washington

  Gun, Government, People

  George Washington, John Jay, Jared Sparks (1850). “Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States of America”, p.33, New York : J. Wiley

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