Notion Quotes - Page 9

• Historically, I guess that's how science fiction works: you start by using aliens to think the unthinkable — and then, eventually, another writer, having grown a little more comfortable with the earlier notion, brings it into the human.

  Samuel R. Delany

  Thinking, Fiction, Littles

  "Space Cowboy: An Interview with Samuel R. Delany". Interview with Scott Westerfeld, www.nerve.com. 2001.

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• Americans also seem to believe that the monarchy is a kind of mediaeval hangover, encumbered by premodern notions of decorum; the reality is that the British monarchy, for good or ill, is a modern political institution - perhaps the first modern political institution.

  Adam Gopnik

  Hangover, Believe, Reality

  The New Yorker, September 29, 1997.

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• Speculative Philosophy is the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted. By this notion of 'interpretation' I mean that everything of which we are conscious, as enjoyed, perceived, willed, or thought, shall have the character of a particular instance of the general scheme.

  Charles Hartshorne

  Philosophy, Character, Mean

  "The Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics" by Charles Hartshorne, (p. viii), 1962.

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• I was appalled to find that the mathematical notation on which I had been raised failed to fill the needs of the courses I was assigned, and I began work on extensions to notation that might serve. In particular, I adopted the matrix algebra used in my thesis work, the systematic use of matrices and higher-dimensional arrays (almost) learned in a course in Tensor Analysis rashly taken in my third year at Queen's, and (eventually) the notion of Operators in the sense introduced by Heaviside in his treatment of Maxwell's equations.

  Kenneth E. Iverson

  Queens, Taken, Years

  "Kenneth E. Iverson with Donald B. McIntyre". Autobiographical sketch from an unfinished work, keiapl.info. (ca. 2004).

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• If it is to be effective as a tool of thought, a notation must allow convenient expression not only of notions arising directly from a problem, but also of those arising in subsequent analysis, generalization, and specialization.

  Kenneth E. Iverson

  Expression, Analysis, Tools

  "Notation as a Tool of Thought". Cvommunications of the ACM, 23 (8), (pp. 444 - 465), August 1980.

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• The delight of the Torah is ignited by an inner awareness. A man begins to sense the great tapestry of each letter and point. Every concept and content, every notion and idea, of every spiritual movement, of every vibration, intellectual and emotional, from the immediate and general to the distant and detailed, from matters lofty, spiritual, and ethical according to their outward profile, to matters practical, obligatory, seemingly frightening, and forceful, and at the same time complex and full of content and great mental exertion - all together become known by a supernal holy awareness.

  Abraham Isaac Kook

  Spiritual, Men, Emotional

  "XXVIII : The Inner Light of Torah in the Land of Israel". Translation by Rabbi Bezalel Naor, p. 208,

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• Somewhere we taught ourselves that our opinions are more significant than the facts. And somehow we get our egos and our opinions and Truth all mixed up in a single package, so that when something does challenge one of the notions to which we subscribe, we react as if it challenges us.

  Jack McDevitt

  Ego, Challenges, Doe

  "Omega". Chapter 41. Book by Jack McDevitt, 2003.

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• It is not faith per se that creates the problem; it is conviction, the notion that one cannot be wrong, that opposing views are necessarily invalid and may even be intolerable.

  Jack McDevitt

  Views, May, Problem

  "Odyssey". Book by Jack McDevitt, 2006.

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• What the neurology tells us is that the self consists of many components, and the notion of one unitary self may well be an illusion.

  Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

  Self, May, Neurology

  "The Tell-Tale Brain". Book by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, 2010.

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• Everybody sees me as a solitary entity but I long to be important to somebody It's a love of fairy tales that drives this guilty wish To walk serenely in front of family to collect my kiss and though this notion is as flawed as any I have learned I'd like to think that like the others, it's something I deserve

  Happy Rhodes

  Kissing, Thinking, Long

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• With deregulation, one sector of the economy after another is "liberated" to capital's unmonitored authority. The very notion that there is a public interest is contested.

  Herbert Schiller

  Deregulation, Economy, Authority

  "Living In The Number One Country". Book by Herbert Schiller, 2000.

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• Hope and optimism are different. Optimism tends to be based on the notion that there's enough evidence out there to believe things are gonna be better, much more rational, deeply secular, whereas hope looks at the evidence and says, "It doesn't look good at all. Doesn't look good at all. Gonna go beyond the evidence to create new possibilities based on visions that become contagious to allow people to engage in heroic actions always against the odds, no guarantee whatsoever." That's hope. I'm a prisoner of hope, though. Gonna die a prisoner of hope.

  Cornel West

  Believe, Odds, People

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• I want you to adore the Universe, to be easily delighted, but to be prompt as well with impatience with those artists who offend your own deep notions of what the Universe is or should be. ‘This above all ...’

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Artist, Want, Impatience

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• When we reduce the notion of “calling” to work inside the church, we fail to equip our people to apply their Christian faith to everything they do, everywhere they are.

  Tullian Tchividjian

  Christian, People, Church

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• We love comfort, and people make a lot of money selling us comfort, but I would challenge the notion that comfort is usually good for us.

  Daniel Lieberman

  Pain, People, Challenges

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• The notion that only those who preach the gospel of integrated medicine are able to perform the art of medicine is as ridiculous as it is insulting to everyone in healthcare who does his/her best to meet the needs of their patients. The assumption that unproven or disproven treatments become acceptable simply because they are often administered in a kind and caring fashion is quite simply not true.

  Edzard Ernst

  Fashion, Art, Pain

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• Running has taken me on adventures great and small, at home and around the world. It has provided me with hope and perseverance on days when I had none-and even, once every great while, warmed me with that fleeting ray of sunshine known as glory. Running has taught me that I can do anything, just so long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes that notion is metaphorical and sometimes not. In this way, I have been inspired to attempt things I would have never dreamed possible. And it all started with a single step.

  Martin Dugard

  Motivational, Running, Perseverance

  Martin Dugard (2011). “To Be a Runner: How Racing Up Mountains, Running with the Bulls, or Just Taking On a 5-K Makes You a Better Person (and the World a Better Place)”, p.7, Rodale

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• Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself, might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired; but when once he begins to contrive how his sentiments may be received, not with most ease to his reader, but with most advantage to himself, he then transfers his consideration from words to sounds, from sentences to periods, and, as he grows more elegant, becomes less intelligible.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Men, Ease

  Samuel Johnson (1800). “The Idler: With Additional Essays”, p.122

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• The constructs of the mathematical mind are at the same time free and necessary. The individual mathematician feels free to define his notions and set up his axioms as he pleases. But the question is will he get his fellow mathematician interested in the constructs of his imagination. We cannot help the feeling that certain mathematical structures which have evolved through the combined efforts of the mathematical community bear the stamp of a necessity not affected by the accidents of their historical birth.

  Hermann Weyl

  Math, Imagination, Effort

  Hermann Weyl (1968). “Gesammelte Abhandlungen”

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• One ideological claim is that private property is theft, that the natural product of the existence of property is evil, and that private ownership therefore should not exist... What those who feel this way don't realize is that property is a notion that has to do with control - that property is a system for the disposal of power. The absence of property almost always means the concentration of power in the state.

  Daniel Patrick Moynihan

  Mean, Evil, Politics

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• Having spent a substantial part of my career parodying religious figures from my own Christian background, I am aghast at the notion that it could, in effect, be made illegal to imply ridicule of a religion or to lampoon religious figures.

  Rowan Atkinson

  Christian, Religious, Careers

  "Comic alarmed by religious jokes limit" by Rebecca Allison, www.theguardian.com. October 17, 2001.

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• One of the greatest mistakes that people make who pursue self-discovery is they neglect to develop their careers. There is a popular notion that those who seek enlightenment should abandon the things of this world.

  Frederick Lenz

  Success, Mistake, Buddhism

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• There is nothing left worth preserving in the notions of unseen powers, controlling human destiny, to which obedience and worship are due.

  John Dewey

  Destiny, Atheism, Unseen

  John Dewey (1960). “A Common Faith”, p.7, Yale University Press

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• I had held a notion that I could make a pretty fair appraisal of the worth of an opponent simply by speaking to him on the first tee and taking a good measuring look into his eyes.

  Bobby Jones

  Eye, Golf, Looks

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• An ideology is a complex of ideas or notions which represents itself to the thinker as an absolute truth for the interpretation of the world and his situation within it; it leads the thinker to accomplish an act of self-deception for the purpose of justification, obfuscation and evasion in some sense or other to his advantage.

  Karl Jaspers

  Self, Ideas, Deception

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