Peculiar Quotes - Page 9

• I am in a very peculiar business: I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know.

  James Randi

  People, Atheism, World

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• Slave camps under the flag of freedom, massacres justified by philanthropy or the taste of the superhuman, cripple judgment. On the day when crime puts on the apparel of innocence, through a curious reversal peculiar to our age, it is innocence that is called on to justify itself. The purpose of this essay is to accept and study that strange challenge.

  Albert Camus

  Challenges, Age, Purpose

  Albert Camus (1965). “Caligula and Cross purpose”

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• There are very few theorems in advanced analysis which have been demonstrated in a logically tenable manner. Everywhere one finds this miserable way of concluding from the special to the general and it is extremely peculiar that such a procedure has led to so few of the so-called paradoxes.

  Niels Henrik Abel

  Science, Special, Analysis

  Letter to Professor Christoffer Hansteen (1826) "Oeuvres Complètes de N. H. Abel", mathematician, Nouvelle edition (1881) ed., Peter Ludwig Mejdell Sylow & Sophus Lie, Vol. 2, pp. 263-265, as quoted by Øystein Ore, "Niels Henrik Abel: Mathematician Extraordinary", p. 113, 1957.

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• Panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstone of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might have lain forever undiscovered.

  Thomas Paine

  Hurt, Men, Light

  Thomas Paine (1819). “The American Crisis”, p.12

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• Something peculiar has happened. As I write, none of the Republican candidates for Senate has become a public embarrassment. On the contrary: For the first time in a decade, it is the Democratic candidates, not the Republican ones, who are fodder for late-night comics. That the Democrats are committing gaffes and causing scandals at a higher rate than Republicans not only may be decisive in the battle for the Senate. It could signal a change in our politics at large.

  Matthew Continetti

  Writing, Night, Battle

  "The Macaca Democrats" by Matthew Continetti, www.realclearpolitics.com. October 17, 2014.

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• I ask of each Mason, of each member, of each brother, that he shall remember ever that there is upon him a peculiar obligation to show himself in every respect a good citizen; for after all, the way he can best do his duty by the ancient order to which he belongs is by reflecting credit upon that order by way in which he performs his duty as a citizen of the United States.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Brother, Order, United States

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• Good investing is a peculiar balance between the conviction to follow your ideas and the flexibility to recognize when you have made a mistake.

  Michael Steinhardt

  Mistake, Ideas, Balance

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• Human reason has the peculiar fate in one species of its cognitions that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, since they are given to it as problems by the nature of reason itself, but which it also cannot answer, since they transcend every capacity of human reason.

  Immanuel Kant

  Fate, Answers, Reason

  "Critique of Pure Reason".

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• I love to go out in late September among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries to eat blackberries for breakfast, the stalks very prickly, a penalty they earn for knowing the black art of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries fall almost unbidden to my tongue, as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words like strengths or squinched, many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps, which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well in the silent, startled, icy, black language of blackberry - eating in late September.

  Galway Kinnell

  Art, Fall, Knowing

  Galway Kinnell (2001). “A New Selected Poems”, p.97, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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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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• By a peculiar prerogative, not only each individual is making daily advances in the sciences, and may make advances in morality (which is the science, by way of eminence, of living well and being happy), but all mankind together is making a continual progress in proportion as the universe grows older. So that the whole human race, during the course of so many ages, may be considered as one man who never ceases to live and learn.

  Blaise Pascal

  Men, Race, Progress

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• Each nation has its own peculiar method of work. Some work through politics, some through social reforms, some through other lines. With us, religion is the only ground along which we can move.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Moving, Reform, Lines

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.1222, Manonmani Publishers

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• We are in a war of a peculiar nature. It is not with an ordinary community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may veer about: not with a state which makes war through wantonness, and abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system, which by its essence, is inimical to all other governments, and which makes peace or war, as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war. It has, by its essence, a faction of opinion, and of interest, and of enthusiasm, in every country.

  Edmund Burke

  Country, War, Passion

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• The great theme of modern British history is the fate of freedom. The 18th century inherits, after the Civil War, this very peculiar political animal. It's not a democracy, but it's not a tyranny. It's not like the rest of the world, the rest of Europe. There is a parliament, laws have to be made, elections are made.

  Simon Schama

  War, Fate, Animal

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• The brave man uses wrath for his own act, above all in attack, 'for it is peculiar to wrath to pounce upon evil. Thus fortitude and wrath work directly upon each other.

  Josef Pieper

  Men, Wrath, Evil

  Josef Pieper (1966). “The four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance”, Univ of Notre Dame Pr

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• Leisure requires the evidence of our own feelings, because it is not so much a quality of time as a peculiar state of mind. ... What being at leisure means is more easily felt than defined.

  Vernon Lee

  Mean, Feelings, Mind

  Vernon Lee (1907). “Hortus Vitae: And Limbo”

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• It is not short of amazing, the power of a great idea to weld men together. There was in it a peculiar, intense, vital spirit if you will, that I have never felt before in any strike.

  Ray Stannard Baker

  Men, Ideas, Together

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• That's one of the peculiar things about bad moods - we often fool ourselves and create misery by telling ourselves things that simply are not true.

  David D. Burns

  Stupid, Bad Mood, Fool

  David D. Burns (1999). “The Feeling Good Handbook”, Plume Books

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• It does seem that a fantasy, working out in its own terms, stretching you beyond the normal concerns of your own life, gains you a peculiar charge of energy which inexplicably enriches you. At least, this is my ideal of a fantasy, and I am always trying to write it.

  Diana Wynne Jones

  Writing, Always Trying, Work Out

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• There are great truths at the foundation of Freemasonry, truths which it is its mission to teach and which is constituting the very essence of, that sublime system which gives the venerable institution its peculiar identity as a science of morality, and it behooves every disciple diligently to ponder and inwardly digest.

  Albert Pike

  Essence, Giving, Sublime

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• The constant desire of pleasing which is the peculiar quality of some, may be called the happiest of all desires in this that it rarely fails of attaining its end when not disgraced by affectation.

  Henry Fielding

  Failure, Quality, Desire

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• But the origin of the American Republic is distinguished by peculiar circumstances. Other nations have been driven together by fear and necessity-the governments have generally been the result of a single man's observations; or the offspring of particular interests. In the formation of our constitution, the wisdom of all ages is collected-the legislators of antiquity are consulted-as well as the opinions and interests of the millions who are concerned. In short, it is an empire of reason.

  Noah Webster

  Men, Age, Together

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• Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer.

  Immanuel Kant

  Nature, Fate, Answers

  Immanuel Kant (1995). “Kant”, Element Books

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• It is peculiar but a fact nevertheless, that the gamblers in chess have enthusiastic followers.

  Mikhail Botvinnik

  Style, Followers, Chess

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• There is a peculiar contradiction in trying to be a member of a republic while believing that the universe is a monarchy.

  Alan Watts

  Believe, Trying, Republic

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