Precise Quotes - Page 20

• If men were able to be convinced that art is a precise advance knowledge of how to cope with the psychic and social consequences of the next technology, would they all become artist? Or would they begin a careful translation of new art forms into social navigation charts? I am curious to know what would happem if art were suddenly seen for what it is, namely, exact information of how to rearrange one's psyche in order to anticipate the next blow from our own extended faculties.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Art, Blow, Technology

  Marshall McLuhan (1964). “Understanding media: the extensions of man”

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• The Sage of Toronto... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a "global village" instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle's present vulgarity.

  Guy Debord

  Gossip, Boredom, Sage

  "Comments on the Society of the Spectacle". Book by Guy Debord, 1988.

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• When the first mechanical clocks were invented, marking off time in crisp, regular intervals, it must have surprised people to discover that time flowed outside their own mental and physiological processes. Body time flows at its own variable rate, oblivious to the most precise hydrogen master clocks in the laboratory. In fact, the human body contains its own exquisite time-pieces, all with their separate rhythms. There are the alpha waves in the brain; another clock is the heart. And all the while tick the mysterious, ruthless clocks that regulate aging.

  Alan Lightman

  Heart, People, Brain

  Alan Lightman (2011). “Dance for Two: Essays”, p.42, Pantheon

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• It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men, such as General Gordon, have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Spiritual, Eye, Men

  "The Defendant". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1901.

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• Philosophy arises from an unusually obstinate attempt to arrive at real knowledge. What passes for knowledge in ordinary life suffers from three defects: it is cocksure, vague and self-contradictory. The first step towards philosophy consists in becoming aware of these defects, not in order to rest content with a lazy scepticism, but in order to substitute an amended kind of knowledge which shall be tentative, precise and self-consistent.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Real, Self

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “An Outline of Philosophy”, p.2, Routledge

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• Intrinsic value can be defined simply: It is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. The calculation of intrinsic value, though, is not so simple. As our definition suggests, intrinsic value is an estimate rather than a precise figure, and it is additionally an estimate that must be changed if interest rates move or forecasts of future cash flows are revised.

  Warren Buffett

  Moving, Taken, Simple

  Warren Buffett (2009). “Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha”, p.220, John Wiley & Sons

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• Mathematics is entirely free in its development, and its concepts are only linked by the necessity of being consistent, and are co-ordinated with concepts introduced previously by means of precise definitions.

  Georg Cantor

  Mean, Math, Development

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• We often say that the earth is a sphere, but to be precise, the term sphere refers only to the surface. The correct mathematical term for the solid earth is a ball.

  Leonard Susskind

  Balls, Earth, Spheres

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• Astrologers were greatly impressed, and misled, by what they believed to be confirming evidence-so much so that they were quite unimpressed by any unfavorable evidence. Moreover, by making their interpretations and prophecies sufficiently vague they were able to explain away anything that might have been a refutation of the theory had the theory and the prophecies been more precise. In order to escape falsification they destroyed the testability of their theory. It is a typical soothsayer's trick to predict things so vaguely that the predictions can hardly fail: that they become irrefutable.

  Karl Popper

  Order, Typical, Might

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• Physiology is the basis of all medical improvement and in precise proportion as our survey of it becomes more accurate and extended, it is rendered more solid.

  John Gorrie

  Medical, Improvement, Surveys

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• I find my Lord Jesus cometh not in the precise way that I lay wait for Him. He hath a manner of His own. Oh, how high are His ways above my ways

  Samuel Rutherford

  Jesus, Waiting, Way

  Samuel Rutherford (1848). “Letters of ... Samuel Rutherford, whith biogr. notices of his correspondents, by J. Anderson, and a sketch of his life, &c., by A.A. Bonar”, p.435

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• Don't let anyone tell you that standardized tests are not accurate measures. The truth of the matter is they offer a remarkably precise method for gauging the size of the houses near the school where the test was administered.

  Alfie Kohn

  Education, Teacher, School

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• Standards of beauty describe in precise terms the relationship that an individual will have to her own body. They prescribe her mobility, spontaneity, posture, gait, the uses to which she can use her body. They define precisely the dimension of her physical freedom and psychological development, intellectual possibility, and creative potential is an umbilical one.

  Andrea Dworkin

  Creative, Intellectual, Dimensions

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• I don't think I possess any skill that anyone else doesn't have. I've just had perhaps more of an opportunity, more of an exposure, and been fortunate to survive a lot of situations that many other weren't so lucky to make it. It's not how close can you get to the ground, but how precise can you fly the airplane. If you feel so careless with you life that you want to be the world's lowest flying aviator you might do it for a while. But there are a great many former friends of mine who are no longer with us simply because they cut their margins to close.

  Bob Hoover

  Inspirational, Life, Airplane

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• What is it in fact, this learning to fly? To be precise, it is 'to learn NOT to fly wrong.' To learn to become a pilot is to learn - not to let oneself fly too slowly. Not to let oneself turn without accelerating. Not to cross the controls. Not to do this, and not to do that. . . . To pilot is negation.

  Henri Mignet

  Flying, Pilots, Facts

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• The current fashion in belligerent atheism usually involves flinging condemnation around with a kind of gallant extravagance, more or less in the direction of all faiths at once, with little interest in precise aim.

  David Bentley Hart

  Fashion, Atheism, Littles

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• You should be real witnesses of a world of doing and acting differently. But in life it is difficult for everything to be clear, precise, outlined neatly. Life is complicated; it consists of grace and sin. He who does not sin is not human. We all make mistakes and we need to recognise our weakness. A religious who recognises himself as weak and a sinner does not negate the witness that he is called to give, rather he reinforces it, and this is good for everyone. What I expect of you therefore is to give witness. I want this special witness from religious.

  Pope Francis

  Religious, Real, Mistake

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• Clarity precedes mastery. Craft clear and precise plans/goals/deliverables. And then block out all else.

  Robin Sharma

  Success, Block, Goal

  FaceBook post by Robin Sharma from Oct 24, 2011

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• It's important to be precise about words, because of the thought value of them-they frame and shape so much of the way we understand things.

  Michael Nesmith

  Important, Shapes, Way

  Interview with Ken Plume, asitecalledfred.com. May 2003.

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• The medieval doctors of divinity who did not pretend to settle how many angels could dance on the point of a needle cut a very poor figure as far as romantic credulity is concerned beside the modern physicists who have settled to the billionth of a millimetre every movement and position in the dance of the electrons. Not for worlds would I question the precise accuracy of these calculations or the existence of electrons (whatever they may be). The fate of Joan is a warning to me against such heresy.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Angel, Fate, Cutting

  George Bernard Shaw (1993). “The Complete Prefaces: 1914-1929”, Viking Adult

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• I had studied Dadaism after the Second World War. What attracted me to this movement was the style its inventors used when not engaged in Dadaistic activities. It was clear, luminous, simple without being banal, precise without being narrow; it was a style adapted to the expression of thought as well as of emotion. I connected this style with the Dadaistic exercises themselves

  Paul Feyerabend

  War, Exercise, Simple

  Paul Feyerabend (1993). “Against Method”, p.265, Verso

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• I have just learned a delicious French usage. On wedding invitations when they say the mass is at noon they mean one o'clock -when they say at noon precise they mean half after twelve - and when they say at very precisely noon they mean noon.

  Alice B. Toklas

  Mean, Twelve, Noon

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• There are different kinds of actors, and movie actors tend to be exceedingly precise and mechanical in a way that's really admirable for me to watch. You always learn from them.

  Ana Gasteyer

  Different, Watches, Actors

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Harvard graduates just cannot shake the idea that they know better than everyone else what's best for us and that they're capable of running a mammoth, unwieldy government program providing each one of us with the precise health insurance we need, at a good price, with no waste or fraud. Trust them, they worked it all out on paper their junior year.

  Ann Coulter

  Running, Government, Years

  "Ann Coulter: The "Never Trust a Liberal over 3" Interview". Interview with Kam Williams, m.thetimesweekly.com. November 20, 2013.

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• I like the process of giving control away [at the recording]. When you give it up to people, it's another intelligent organism that digests your information completely differently from how a machine digests information. It's like you're on a sailboat, and every time you can find out how to better adjust [the sail] to make it more precise. And it's interesting to see that the musicians have their own ideas. To use their intuitive power with their knowledge that they incorporate into the music. This is the moment you give away control, you give it to someone else's intuition.

  Pantha du Prince

  Intelligent, Ideas, Giving

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