Surface Quotes

• I love mirrors. They let one pass through the surface of things.

  Claude Chabrol

  Love, Mirrors, Below The Surface

  46 Copy quote

• I think we need to always mimic reality in our fiction. I think that we can stir things up and reveal a truth beneath the surface in that way as well.

  Christopher Rice

  Reality, Thinking, Needs

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• There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Inspirational, Beautiful, Depth

  130 Copy quote

• Our apparitions, the things you know us by, are simply childish. Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by.

  Virginia Woolf

  Dark, Apparitions, Knows

  Virginia Woolf (2016). “To the Lighthouse”, p.58, Tyché

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• Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

  Michael Caine

  Inspiring, Encouragement, Bad Day

  121 Copy quote

• Photos have no narrative content. They only describe light on surface.

  Garry Winogrand

  Photography, Light, Narrative

  11 Copy quote

• Man is only man at the surface. Remove the skin, dissect, and immediately you come to machinery.

  Paul Valery

  Men, Skins, Machinery

  10 Copy quote

• It's the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Mirrors, Beneath The Surface

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Joseph Bristow, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray : the 1890 and 1891 texts”, p.428, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• The truth is always an abyss. One must — as in a swimming pool — dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again — laughing and fighting for breath — to the now doubly illuminated surface of things.

  Franz Kafka

  Fighting, Swimming, Order

  222 Copy quote

• It's easy to look back and see it, and it's easy to give the advice. But the sad fact is, most people don't look beneath the surface until it's too late.

  Wendelin Van Draanen

  People, Giving, Personality

  Wendelin Van Draanen (2008). “Flipped”, p.112, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• There's no love more intense than the love we have for our kids - and where there is intense love, there is also intense fear lurking beneath the surface.

  Arianna Huffington

  Love, Kids, Literature

  "Arianna Huffington's Best Advice". www.harpersbazaar.com. July 15, 2014.

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• Man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Ocean, Men, Free Diving

  Time, March 28, 1960.

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• From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Ocean, Men, Free Diving

  Time magazine, March 28, 1960.

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• An enlightened entertainer, via story, casts her line into the souls of others, hooks their heart, and pulls their greater potential to the surface.

  Derek Rydall

  Heart, Soul, Hook

  6 Copy quote

• We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Direct Action, Alive, Protest

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011). “Why We Can't Wait”, p.62, Beacon Press

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• On the surface, humans appear to hate conflict, but in reality, they seek it.

  Nagaru Tanigawa

  Hate, Reality, Conflict

  10 Copy quote

• Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.

  Carl Jung

  Leadership, Pride, Average

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• We with our lives are like islands in the sea... The islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.

  William James

  Love, Islands, Sea

  "Confidences of a 'Psychical Researcher'". The American Magazine, Vol. 68, 1909.

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• Humanity has only scratched the surface of its real potential.

  Peace Pilgrim

  Inspiring, Real, Inspire

  Peace Pilgrim (1992). “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”, p.93, Friends of Peace PIlgrim

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• Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Leadership, Errors, Stronger

  32 Copy quote

• After about 20 years of marriage, I'm finally starting to scratch the surface of what women want. And I think the answer lies somewhere between conversation and chocolate.

  Mel Gibson

  Funny, Inspiring, Anniversary

  23 Copy quote

• If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.

  Andy Warhol

  Art, Looks, Want

  Quoted in Free Press (Los Angeles), 17 Mar. 1967

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• The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.

  Douglas Adams

  Humor, Science, Thinking

  Douglas Adams (2005). “The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time”, p.131, Del Rey

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• If there are ripples on the surface of a lake, we cannot see the depth. Similarly unless the mind is restful, we cannot experience the harmony and union within us.

  Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

  Lakes, Mind, Depth

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