Superficial Quotes - Page 19

• The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Fall, Vacuums, Velocity

  Charles Caleb Colton (1849). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Address--to Those who Think”, p.5

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• Pure physical sensation, social status, sexual attraction, and feeling like a winner are generally superficial, which is why people hunger for them repeatedly.The only goal worth attaining is complete freedom to be yourself, without illusions and false beliefs.The past and the future exist only in imagination. Everything you did before has no reality. Everything you will do afterward has no reality. Only the thing you are doing now is real.

  Deepak Chopra

  Being Yourself, Real, Philosophical

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• The counter-argument would be, so what if my sexual relationships are superficial, one can still have satisfying and rewarding relationships with friends, or parents, or siblings, or whatever.

  Chester Brown

  Sibling, Parent, What If

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• You keep thinking that with practice you will eventually get the knack of enjoying superficial encounters, that you will stop looking for the universal solvent, stop grieving. You will learn to compound happiness out of small increments of mindless pleasure.

  Jay McInerney

  Thinking, Grieving, Practice

  Jay McInerney (2011). “Bright Lights, Big City”, p.52, Vintage

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• There is the glamour side of it, which allows you to meet great variety of people with whom you simply can have a good time, but there's also the sad side of it that drags you into a superficial and artificial world

  Karolina Kurkova

  People, Style, World

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• The core of understanding lies in the individual mind, and until that is touched everything is uncertain and superficial. Truth cannot be perceived until we come to fully understand our potential and ourselves. After all, knowledge in the martial arts ultimately means self-knowledge.

  Bruce Lee

  Art, Lying, Mean

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• This deep agnosticism is more than the refusal of conventional agnosticism to take a stand on whether God exists or whether the mind survives bodily death. It is the willingness to embrace the fundamental bewilderment of a finite, fallible creature as the basis for leading a life that no longer clings to the superficial consolations of certainty.

  Stephen Batchelor

  Mind, Fundamentals, Embrace

  Stephen Batchelor (2010). “Confession of a Buddhist Atheist”, p.74, Spiegel & Grau

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• The policy of letting the child 'do what he likes' is an insidious one, since the children are encouraged to continue always at their original superficial level, without receiving guidance in study. Furthermore, the 'three Rs,' the fundamental tools, are neglected as long as possible, with the result that the child's chance to develop his mind is greatly retarded. The policy of teaching words via pictures instead of by the alphabet tends to deprive the young child of the greatest reasoning tool of all.

  Murray Rothbard

  Children, Educational, Teaching

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• I’m a false icon! The media collaborate in promoting my superficial lifestyle as somehow more valid, more worthy of attention than your real lives! - Gideon Stargrave

  Grant Morrison

  Real, Media, Icons

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• A mere index hunter, who held the eel of science by the tail. Index-hunter is a term used mockingly, meaning one who acquires superficial knowledge merely by consulting indexes. The '[holding] the eel of science by the tail' allusion was used in 1728 by Alexander Pope (q.v.).

  Tobias Smollett

  Learning, Science, Superficial Knowledge

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• By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love - the earth and the wonders thereof - the sea - the sun, all that we mean when we speak of the external world. I want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious, direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others.

  Katherine Mansfield

  Mean, Sea, Breathing

  Katherine Mansfield (1956). “Stories. Selected,”

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• It is surprising to see what superficial, inconsequential reasonings satisfy the most part of mankind. A piece of wit, a jest, a simile, or a quotation of an Author, passes for a mighty argument.... This weakness and effeminacy of mankind in being persuaded where they are delighted, have made them the sport of orators, poets, and men of wit.

  John Arbuthnot

  Sports, Men, Pieces

  George Atherton Aitken, John Arbuthnot (1892). “The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot, M.D.: Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians”

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• Art leads to a more profound concept of life, because art itself is a profound expression of feeling. The artist is born, and art is the expression of his overflowing soul. Because his soul is rich, he cares comparatively little about the superficial necessities of the material world; he sublimates the pressure of material affairs in an artistic experience.

  Hans Hofmann

  Art, Expression, Profound

  "Search for the Real: And Other Essays". Book by Hans Hofmann. "Painting and Culture", p. 56, 1948.

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• It is certainly not a matter of indifference whether I learn something without effort or finally arrive at it myself through my system of thought. In the latter case everything has roots, in the former it is merely superficial.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Roots, Effort, Matter

  "Aphorisms" by Georg C. Lichtenberg, ("Notebook F", F 154), (1776-1779).

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• God's truth is too sacred to be expounded to superficial worldliness in its transient fit of earnestness.

  Frederick William Robertson

  God, Sacred, Fit

  Frederick William Robertson (1873). “Sermons Preached at Brighton”, p.230

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• I also came to see that liberalism's superficial optimism concerning human nature caused it to overlook the fact that reason is darkened by sin. The more I thought about human nature the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin causes us to use our minds to rationalize our actions. Liberalism failed to see that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man's defensive ways of thinking. Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Thinking, Men, Optimism

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.65, Beacon Press

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• Why chase after thoughts, which are superficial ripples of present awareness? Rather look directly into the naked, empty nature of thoughts; then there is no duality, no observer, and nothing observed. Simply rest in this transparent, nondual present awareness. Make yourself at home in the natural state of pure presence, just being, not doing anything in particular.

  Jamgon Kongtrul

  Home, Naked, Looks

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• To be interested solely in technique would be a very superficial thing to me. If I have an emotion, before I die, that's deeper than any emotion that I've ever had, then I will paint a more powerful picture that will have nothing to do with just technique, but will go beyond it.

  Andrew Wyeth

  Powerful, Superficial Things, Technique

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• That excitement about Kossuth, consider how characteristic, but superficial, it was!--only another kind of politics or dancing. Men were making speeches to him all over the country, but each expressed only the thought, or the want of thought, of the multitude. No man stood on truth. They were merely banded together, as usual one leaning on another, and all together on nothing.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Education, Country, Truth

  Henry David Thoreau (2007). “My Thoughts Are Murder to the State: Thoreau's Essays on Political Philosophy”, p.177, David M Gross

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• In any case, once you're dealing on a nonverbal level, ambiguity is unavoidable. But it's the ambiguity of all art, of a fine piece of music or a painting - you don't need written instructions by the composer or painter accompanying such works to 'explain' them. “Explaining” them contributes nothing but a superficial 'cultural' value which has no value except for critics and teachers who have to earn a living.

  Stanley Kubrick

  Teacher, Art, Needs

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• Architecture is about aging well, about precision and authenticity. There is much more to the success of a building than what you can see. Im not suggesting that gestural architecture is always superficial, but solid reasoning has its place.

  Annabelle Selldorf

  Architecture, Aging, Authenticity

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• It is superficial to fall in love with someone looking at their face. To me I need to discover the person. I would never look at someone and exclaim - He is the one!

  Preity Zinta

  Falling In Love, Needs, Looks

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• To think of education as a means of preserving institutions however excellent, is to have a superficial notion of its end and purpose, which is to mould and fashion men who are more than institutions, who create, outgrow, and re-create them.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Fashion, Mean, Men

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• The opposite of liberal is stingy. The opposite of radical is superficial. The opposite of conservative is destructive. So I declare that I am a radical conservative liberal. Beware of men who use words to mean their opposites.

  R. A. Lafferty

  Mean, Men, Opposites

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• I do not approve the maxim which desires a man to know a little of everything. Superficial knowledge, knowledge without principles, is almost always useless and sometimes harmful knowledge.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Knowledge, Men, Desire

  Jean de La Bruyère, Luc de Clapiers marquis de Vauvenargues (1903). “La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims”

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