Peculiar Quotes - Page 28

• To do justice to the figure of Kafka in its purity and its peculiar beauty one must never lose sight of one thing: it is the purity and beauty of a failure.

  Walter Benjamin

  Sight, Justice, Purity

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.154, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favour does indeed present it on all occasions; but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.

  David Hume

  Philosophy, Brain, Sound

  David Hume (1824). “The Philosophical Works of David Hume ... Containing Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Essays on the Immortality of the Soul, Suicide ... &c. A New Edition”, p.24

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• The discovery of radioactivity created a momentary chaos in chemistry and physics; but it soon led to a fuller interpretation of the old ideas. It dispersed many difficulties, harmonized many discords, and yea, more! It shewed the substance of Universe as a simplicity of Light and Life, manners to compose atoms, themselves capable of deeper self-realization through fresh complexities and organizations, each with its own peculiar powers and pleasures, each pursuing its path through the world where all things are possible.

  Aleister Crowley

  Organization, Ideas, Light

  "Magick Book IV: Liber ABA". Book by Aleister Crowley. Appendix VI: A few principal rituals - Liber Reguli, 1936.

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• No adversity is in kind or degree peculiar to us; but if we survey the conditions of other men (of our brethren everywhere, of our neighbours all about us), and compare our case with theirs, we shall find that we have many consorts and associates in adversity, most as ill, many far worse bestead than ourselves; whence it must be a great fondness and perverseness to be displeased that we are not exempted from, but exposed to bear a share in the common troubles and burdens of mankind.

  Isaac Barrow

  Adversity, Men, Degrees

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• A scheme of which every part promises delight, can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation.

  Jane Austen

  Disappointment, Successful, Promise

  Jane Austen (1946). “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE”, p.143, PDFreeBooks.org

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• The great event of the evening was Jenny Lind's appearance and her complete triumph. She has a most exquisite, powerful and really quite peculiar voice, so round, soft and flexible and her acting is charming and touching and very natural.

  Queen Victoria

  Powerful, Voice, Touching

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• Even God had a Welsh name : He spoke to him in the old language; He was to have a peculiar care For the Welsh people. History showed us He was too big to be nailed to the wall Of a stone chapel, yet still we crammed him Between the boards of a black book .

  R. S. Thomas

  Wall, Book, Names

  R. S. Thomas, “A Welsh Testament”

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• The significance of a basic medium to its civilization is difficult to appraise since the means of appraisal are influenced by the media, and indeed the fact of appraisal appears to be peculiar to certain types of media. A change in the type of medium implies a change in the type of appraisal and hence makes it difficult for one civilization to understand another.

  Harold Innis

  Mean, Media, Civilization

  Harold Adams Innis (2007). “Empire and Communications”, p.29, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The capacity to transform itself from the inside makes capitalism a somewhat peculiar beast - chameleon-like, it perpetually changes it colour; snake-like, it periodically sheds its skin.

  David Harvey

  Snakes, Skins, Beast

  "The Limits To Capital". Book by David Harvey, 1982.

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• There's something peculiar about artists. They have ups and downs... After a while everything you do is just wonderful... then you slide back. If you're a good artist you're going to go down. And then it's up to you.

  Milton Resnick

  Artist, Up To You, Down And

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• No tree in all the grove but has its charms, Though each its hue peculiar.

  William Cowper

  Tree, Hue, Grove

  William Cowper, Robert Southey, William Harvey (1835). “The Works of William Cowper, Comprising His Poems, Correspondence, and Translations”, p.233

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• There are some weaknesses that are peculiar and distinctive to generous characters, as freckles are to a fair skin.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Character, Skins, Weakness

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• Which I wish to remark-- And my language is plain,-- That for ways that are dark And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar.

  Bret Harte

  Dark, Wish, Deceit

  'The Heathen Chinee: Plain Language from Truthful James' (1870)

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• SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar "tumble-bug." It was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity. Its habit of incubating its eggs in a ball of ordure may also have commended it to the favor of the priesthood, and may some day assure it an equal reverence among ourselves. True, the American beetle is an inferior beetle, but the American priest is an inferior priest.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Eggs, Giving, Sacred

  Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.328, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Every man may be observed to have a certain strain of lamentation, some peculiar theme of complaint on which he dwells in his moments of dejection.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, May, Certain

  Alexander Pope, William Lisle Bowles, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Chalmers, Gilbert Wakefield (1806). “The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq. in Verse and Prose: Containing the Principal Notes of Drs. Warburton and Warton: Illustrations, and Critical and Explanatory Remarks, by Johnson, Wakefield, A. Chalmers ... and Others; to which are Added, Now First Published, Some Original Letters, with Additional Observations, and Memoirs of the Life of the Author”, p.74

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• Personal style, be it that of Michelangelo, or that of Tintoretto... has always been that peculiar personal rapport which has developed between an artist and his medium.

  Ben Shahn

  Artist, Style, Mediums

  Ben Shahn (1957). “The Shape of Content”, p.51, Harvard University Press

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• Friendship, peculiar boon of Heaven, The noble mind's delight and pride, To men and angels only given, To all the lower world denied.

  Samuel Johnson

  Angel, Pride, Men

  Samuel Johnson (1820). “The Poems of Dr. Samuel Johnson. To which is Prefixed, a Life of the Author”, p.41

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• The sign for which I forge an image has no value if it doesn't harmonize with other signs, which I must determine in the course of my invention and which are completely peculiar to it.

  Henri Matisse

  Harmony, Invention, Determine

  Henri Matisse, Jack D. Flam (1973). “Matisse on art”

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• No art can be grafted with success on another art. For though they all profess the same origin, and to proceed from the same stock, yet each has its own peculiar modes both of imitating nature and of deviating from it... The deviation, more especially, will not bear transplantation to another soil.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Art, Copying, Soil

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1846). “The Literary Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds: ... to which is Prefixed, a Memoir of the Author; with Remarks on His Professional Character, Illustrative of His Principles and Practice”, p.73

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• Painting with all its technicalities, difficulties, and peculiar ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive language, invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing.

  John Ruskin

  Noble, Painting, Language

  John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1872). “The True and the Beautiful in Nature, Art, Morals, and Religion, Selected from the Works of John Ruskin”, p.242

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• In studying the action of the Analytical Engine, we find that the peculiar and independent nature of the considerations which in all mathematical analysis belong to operations, as distinguished from the objects operated upon and from the results of the operations performed upon those objects, is very strikingly defined and separated.

  Ada Lovelace

  Independent, Analysis, Action

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• But the science of operations, as derived from mathematics more especially, is a science of itself, and has its own abstract truth and value; just as logic has its own peculiar truth and value, independently of the subjects to which we may apply its reasonings and processes.

  Ada Lovelace

  May, Logic, Mathematics

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• Now it's of peculiar interest to an Arab country that there is a company and a certain set of bankers who also finance the World Federation of Mental Health. ...and we see that although the KGB and so forth seems to be associated with the World Federation of Mental Health, their other organization in action seems to go back to Jewish Bankers.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Country, Organization, Kgb

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• Oftentimes great and open temptations are the most harmless because they come with banners flying and bands playing and all the munitions of war in full view, so that we know we are in the midst of enemies that mean us damage, and we get ready to meet and resist them. Our peculiar dangers are those that surprise us and work treachery in our fort.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  War, Mean, Views

  Henry Ward Beecher (1895). “Metaphors, Similes and Other Characteristic Sayings of Henry Ward Beecher”

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• Once upon a time there was a girl who discovered that if she played a certain tune on a jade flute, she could summon up jade gnomes, a peculiar, harmless, but rather creepy looking spirit of the underground. The fact is that many of us have talents like this, but generally never discover them due to lack of opportunity, since one can go one's entire life without playing a jade flute, or discovering that one can speak the language of ground sloths, or turning fruitcake into solid tungsten by singing Sinatra tunes to it under a quarter moon.

  Ursula Vernon

  Girl, Moon, Opportunity

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