Precise Quotes - Page 24

• It will be a vast boon to mankind when we learn to prophesy the precise dates when cycles of various kinds will reach definite stages.

  Ellsworth Huntington

  Kind, Stage, Boon

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• A kiss, when all is said, what is it? An oath that's given closer than before; A promise more precise; the sealing of Confessions that till then were barely breathed; A rosy dot placed on the i in loving.

  Edmond Rostand

  Kissing, Promise, Dots

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• A sound does not view itself as thought, as ought, as needing another sound for its elucidation, as etc.; it has not time for any consideration--it is occupied with the performance of its characteristics: before it has died away it must have made perfectly exact its frequency, its loudness, its length, its overtone structure, the precise morphology of these and of itself.

  John Cage

  Views, Sound, Doe

  John Cage (2010). “Silence: Lectures and Writings”, p.28, Wesleyan University Press

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• Sometimes I know the meaning of a word but am tired of it and feel the need for an unfamiliar, especially precise or poetic term, perhaps one with a nuance that flatters my readership's exquisite sensitivity.

  William Safire

  Tired, Needs, Nuance

  "Dictionaurus" by William Safire, www.nytimes.com. June 10, 2009.

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• To make of human affairs a coherent, precise, predictable whole one must ignore or suppress man as he really is. It is by eliminating man from their equation that the makers of history can predict the future, and the writers of history can give a pattern to the past.

  Eric Hoffer

  Past, Men, Giving

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Maybelline's Precise Ink Pen Liner is by far the easiest liquid eyeliner I've ever used. I'm really bad at applying liquid liner and it glides on so nicely and actually stays on all day.

  Bethany Mota

  Ink, Liquid, Used

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• WOKING (vb.) To enter the kitchen with the precise determination to perform something only to forget what it is just before you do it.

  Douglas Adams

  Determination, Kitchen, Forget

  "The Meaning of Liff". Book by Douglas Adams, John Lloyd, 1983.

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• Generally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Simple, Ideas, Mind

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Arthur Goldhammer (2004). “Democracy in America”, p.186, Library of America

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• My favorite type of photography - apart from fashion photography - is journalism, which in a way documents something that exists in a very precise moment, that didnt exist in a moment before and will not exist ever again. This has influenced my work a lot - I usually try to make my images look like they just exist, like no effort was put into it.

  Mario Testino

  Photography, Fashion, Effort

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• Precision is, after all, not only a form of responsibility and a kind of pleasure, but an instrument of compassion. To be precise requires care, time, and attention to the person, place, or process being described.

  Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

  Responsibility, Compassion, Attention

  Marilyn Chandler McEntyre (2009). “Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies”, p.51, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• Value denotes a relation reciprocally existing between two objects, and the precise relation which it denotes is the quantity of the one which can be obtained in exchange for a given quantity of the other.

  Nassau William Senior

  Two, Given, Relation

  Nassau William Senior (1836). “An Outline of the Science of Political Economy”, p.134

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• Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth, had need to remember what every name he uses stands for; and to place it accordingly; or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twigs; the more he struggles, the more belimed.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Truth, Struggle, Men

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan”, p.36, Simon and Schuster

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• Mathematics is much less formally complete and precise than computer programs.

  William Thurston

  Science, Computer, Mathematics

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• If I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire 20th century... I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Christian, Religious, Men

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• The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind only if he arrives there in full possession of his partial faculties--that is, providing he is perfectly aware of the precise nature of sight and does not confuse it with second sightnor with madness.

  Angela Carter

  Country, Kings, Men

  Angela Carter (1984). “Nights at the circus”, Vintage

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• The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind.

  Thomas Huxley

  Expression, Mind, Scientific Method

  "Our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature". Book by Thomas Henry Huxley, 1863.

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• So many of the properties of matter, especially when in the gaseous form, can be deduced from the hypothesis that their minute parts are in rapid motion, the velocity increasing with the temperature, that the precise nature of this motion becomes a subject of rational curiosity. Daniel Bernoulli, Herapath, Joule, Kronig, Clausius, &c., have shewn that the relations between pressure, temperature and density in a perfect gas can be explained by supposing the particles move with uniform velocity in straight lines, striking against the sides of the containing vessel and thus producing pressure.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Moving, Perfect, Curiosity

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