Supreme Quotes - Page 17

• The Divine was beyond description, beyond knowing, beyond comprehension. To say that the Divine was Creation divided by Destruction was as close as one could come to definition. But the puny of soul, the dull of wit, weren't content with that. They wanted to hang a face on the Divine. They went so far as to attribute petty human emotions - anger, jealousy, etc - to it, not stopping to realize that if God were a being, even a supreme being, our prayers would have bored him to death long ago.

  Tom Robbins

  Prayer, Knowing, Long Ago

  "Skinny Legs and All". Book by Tom Robbins, 1990.

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• Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

  William Faulkner

  Mistake, Believe, Writing

  "William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12". Interview with Jean Stein, www.theparisreview.org. 1956.

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• Were he supreme, were he mighty, were he just, were he good, this God you tell me about, would it be through enigmas and buffooneries he would wish to teach me to serve and know him?

  Marquis de Sade

  Wish, Teach, Enigma

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• Who are you?" he asked. "I'm a shabti, of course!" The figurine rubbed his dented head. He still looked quite lumpish, only now he was a living lump. "Master calls me Doughboy, though I find the name insulting. You may call me Supreme-Force-Who-Crushes-His-Enemies!

  Rick Riordan

  Crush, Names, Insulting

  Rick Riordan (2010). “The Kane Chronicles, The, Book One: Red Pyramid”, Hyperion

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• If God did not exist, He would have to be invented. But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.

  Voltaire

  Nature, Order, Eels

  Voltaire (1956). “Candide: and other writings”

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• ...quality of life lies in knowledge, in culture. Values are what constitute true quality of life, the supreme quality of life, even above food, shelter and clothing.

  Fidel Castro

  Lying, Quality, Culture

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• The senator had only one argument in his favour: his feeling. When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. In the realm of kitsch, the dictatorship of the heart reigns supreme.

  Milan Kundera

  Heart, Feelings, Mind

  "Light but sound" by John Banville, www.theguardian.com. April 30, 2004.

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• For beyond the difficulty of communicating oneself, there is the supreme difficulty of being oneself.

  Virginia Woolf

  Difficulty, Communicate, Oneself

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.2279, Delphi Classics

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• Inequality of wealth and incomes is an essential feature of the market economy. It is the implement that makes the consumers supreme in giving them the power to force all those engaged in production to comply with their orders. It forces all those engaged in production to the utmost exertion in the service of the consumers. It makes competition work. He who best serves the consumers profits most and accumulates riches.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Order, Giving, Competition

  Ludwig Von Mises (1990). “Economic freedom and interventionism: an anthology of articles and essays”

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• Today, no less than five Supreme Court justices are on record, either through their opinions or speeches (or both), that they will consult foreign law and foreign-court rulings for guidance in certain circumstances. Of course, policymakers are free to consult whatever they want, but not justices. They're limited to the Constitution and the law.

  Mark Levin

  Law, Justice, Records

  "Men in Black". Interview with Kathryn Lopez, www.nationalreview.com. February 1, 2005.

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• …the samurai ethic is a political science of the heart, designed to control such discouragement and fatigue in order to avoid showing them to others. It was thought more important to look healthy than to be healthy, and more important to seem bold and daring than to be so. This view of morality, since it is physiologically based on the special vanity peculiar to men, is perhaps the supreme male view of morality.

  Yukio Mishima

  Heart, Men, Vanity

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• Judicial activists are nothing short of radicals in robes--contemptuous of the rule of law, subverting the Constitution at will, and using their public trust to impose their policy preferences on society. In fact, no radical political movement has been more effective in undermining our system of government than the judiciary. And with each Supreme Court term, we hold our collective breath hoping the justices will do no further damage, knowing full well they will disappoint. Such is the nature of judicial tyranny.

  Mark Levin

  Law, Knowing, Government

  Mark R. Levin (2006). “Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America”, p.22, Regnery Publishing

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• The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. Paintings of Moreau are paintings of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, the words of Hamlet bring our mind into contact with the eternal wisdom; Plato's world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys.

  James Joyce

  Art, Plato, Spring

  James Joyce (2016). “Ulysses”, p.188, First Avenue Editions

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• I have in this War a burning private grudge — which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  War, Inspiration, Light

  Letter to his son Michael Tolkien on June 09, 1941. "The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien", 1981.

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• a perception of the cosmic unity of this higher level. And a feeling of timelessness, the feeling that what we know as time is only the result of a naive faith in causality - the notion that A in the past caused B in the present, which will cause C in the future, when actually A, B, and C are all part of a pattern that can be truly understood only by opening the doors of perception and experiencing it... in this moment... this supreme moment... this Kairos.

  Tom Wolfe

  Past, Doors, Feelings

  Tom Wolfe (2008). “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, p.163, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• So here we have found a means of a) alienating even the most flexible and patient Palestinians; while b) frustrating the efforts of the more principled and compromising Israelis; while c) empowering and financing some of the creepiest forces in American and Israeli society; and d) heaping ordure on our own secular founding documents. When will the Justice Department and the Congress and the Supreme Court become aware of this huge and rank offense, which is designed to bring us ever nearer to holy war?

  Christopher Hitchens

  War, Mean, Justice

  "Your Tax Dollars at Work - in West Bank Settlements" by Christopher Hitchens, www.slate.com. July 12, 2010.

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• Before examining this more carefully and investigating its consequences, I want to dwell for a moment in the contemplation of God, to ponder His attributes in me, to see, admire, and adore the beauty of His boundless light, insofar as my clouded insight allows. Believing that the supreme happiness of the other life consists wholly of the contemplation of divine greatness, I now find that through less perfect contemplation of the same sort I can gain the greatest joy available in this life.

  Rene Descartes

  Believe, Greatness, Light

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• And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.

  Terry Pratchett

  Nature, Pain, Evil

  Terry Pratchett (2009). “Unseen Academicals: (Discworld Novel 37)”, p.312, Random House

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• I love you, my brother, whoever you are - whether you worship in a church, kneel in your temple, or pray in your mosque. You and I are children of one faith, for the diverse paths of religion are fingers of the loving hand of the one supreme being, a hand extended to all, offering completeness of spirit to all, eager to receive all.

  Khalil Gibran

  Brother, Children, Love You

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• God created me—and you—to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion—namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life.

  John Piper

  Powerful, Inspiration, Passion

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• If you were designing an organism to look after life in our lonely cosmos, to monitor where it is going and keep a record of where it has been, you wouldn't choose human beings for the job. But here's an extrememly salient point: we have been chosen, by fate or Providence or whatever you wish to call it. As far as we can tell, we are the best there is. We may be all there is. It's an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe's supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously.

  Bill Bryson

  Lonely, Jobs, Fate

  "Bill Bryson’s ‘Really Short History of Nearly Everything’ Is The Dream Gift Book For Every Curious Kid" by Jesse Kornbluth, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 18, 2010.

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• Scapegrace leaped up. “I am the Killer Supreme! I make murder into an art form!” Skulduggery hit him again and Scapegrace did a little twirl before falling.

  Derek Landy

  Art, Fall, Littles

  Derek Landy (2009). “Playing With Fire (Skulduggery Pleasant, Book 2)”, p.9, HarperCollins UK

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• Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

  Michael Palin

  Lying, Government, Holy Grail

  "Fictional character: Dennis". "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", 1975.

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• When God wanted to defeat sin, His ultimate weapon was the sacrifice of His own Son. On Christmas Day two thousand years ago, the birth of a tiny baby in an obscure village in the Middle East was God's supreme triumph of good over evil.

  Charles Colson

  Baby, Son, Sacrifice

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• Tell the angel who will watch over your life to pray now and then for a man who, like Satan, believed himself for an instant to be equal to God, but who realized in all humility that supreme power and wisdom are in the hands of God alone.

  Alexandre Dumas

  Humility, Angel, Men

  Alexandre Dumas (2003). “The Count of Monte Cristo”, p.530, Bantam Classics

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