Surroundings Quotes - Page 11

• Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue.

  Honore de Balzac

  Ideas, Paris, Pet

  Honore de Balzac (2011). “Letters of Two Brides”, p.117, The Floating Press

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• I think sometimes that it is almost a pity to enjoy Italy as much as I do, because the acuteness of my sensations makes them rather exhausting; but when I see the stupid Italians I have met here, completely insensitive to their surroundings, and ignorant of the treasures of art and history among which they have grown up, I begin to think it is better to be an American, and bring to it all a mind and eye unblunted by custom.

  Edith Wharton

  Art, Stupid, Eye

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• There was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present.

  Blaise Pascal

  Happiness, Men, Trying

  Pensees no. 181 (1658). Popularly paraphrased as "There is a God-shaped vacuum in every heart."

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• Take the rose—most people think it very beautiful: I don’t care for It at all. I prefer the cactus, for the simple reason that it has a more interesting personality. It has wonderfully adapted itself to its surroundings! It is the best illustration of the theory of evolution in plant life.

  Charles Proteus Steinmetz

  Beautiful, Simple, Thinking

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• Fear, coercion, punishment, are the masculine remedies for moral weakness, but statistics show their failure for centuries. Why not change the system and try the education of the moral and intellectual faculties, cheerful surroundings, inspiring influences? Everything in our present system tends to lower the physical vitality, the self-respect, the moral tone, and to harden instead of reforming the criminal.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Punishment, Self, Intellectual

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1898). “Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815-1897”, p.304, UPNE

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• If a man, cautious,
  hides his limp,
  Somebody has to limp it! Things
  do it; the surroundings limp.
  House walls get scars,
  the car breaks down; matter, in drudgery, takes it up.

  Robert Bly

  Wall, Men, Car

  Robert Bly (1981). “The man in the black coat turns: poems”

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• It may be romantic to search for the salves of society's ills in slow-moving rustic surroundings, or among innocent, unspoiled provincials, if such exist, but it is a waste of time.

  Jane Jacobs

  Romantic, Moving, Rural Life

  Jane Jacobs (1961). “The Death and Life of American Cities”

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• Children's lives are not shaped solely by their families or immediate surroundings at large. That is why we must avoid the false dichotomy that says only government or only family is responsible. . . . Personal values and national policies must both play a role.

  Hillary Clinton

  Children, Government, Play

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• The aggressive incoherence of our common surroundings can be described as entropy made visible. The way we have disposed things on the landscape leads us in the direction of disorder and death. They are categorically evil. These dispositions are destroying our only home-planet and other organisms that share it. They defeat our need to care about where we are and the things in place there. They prompt us to feel that civilization is not worth carrying on. They rob us of our identity and our will to live. These things are not about personal taste or style.

  James Howard Kunstler

  Home, Civilization, Evil

  Interview With Simmons B. Buntin, www.terrain.org.

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• If you appreciate your life, if you appreciate your job, if you appreciate yourself, if you appreciate your surroundings-poor or rich, whatever they are-you are divine.

  Harbhajan Singh Yogi

  Gratitude, Jobs, Appreciate

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• It's just a theory really, but I have always thought that your physical surroundings can shape your voice and personality.

  K. D. Lang

  Voice, Personality, Shapes

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• Our advanced art approaches a fragile but marvelous life, one that maintains itself by a mere thread, melting into an elusive, changeable configuration, the surroundings, the artist, his work and everyone who comes to it.

  Allan Kaprow

  Art, Melting, Thread

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• Part of my function as a writer is to dream awake. And that usually happens. If I sit down to write in the morning, in the beginning of that writing session and the ending of that session, I'm aware that I'm writing. I'm aware of my surroundings. It's like shallow sleep on both ends, when you go to bed and when you wake up. But in the middle, the world is gone and I'm able to see better.

  Stephen King

  Dream, Morning, Writing

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• If children have an interest in nature, they will understand. I want them to become people who appreciate the consequences the next generation will suffer if we destroy our natural surroundings. So without a doubt, they need to learn that nature is vital to us by experiencing it. I want them to like nature and to climb mountains and so on.

  Tamae Watanabe

  Children, People, Appreciate

  "TalkAsia" with Kyung Lah, www.cnn.com. June 29, 2012.

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• Garden making, like gardening itself, concerns the relationship of the human being to his natural surroundings.

  Russell Page

  Garden, Earth, Natural

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• It is the free alone which never changes, and the unchangeable alone which is free; for change is produced by something exterior to a thing, or within itself, which is more powerful than the surroundings.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Change, Powerful, Exterior

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.380, Manonmani Publishers

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• In England, it's thought to be morally suspect to worry about what your surroundings look like.

  Howard Hodgkin

  Worry, Looks, England

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• The body is in some sense perennially at risk. The possibility of bodily injury is ever-present, even in the most familiar of surroundings.

  Anthony Giddens

  Risk, Body, Injury

  Anthony Giddens (2013). “Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age”, p.130, John Wiley & Sons

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• There is an atmosphere about the picture theatre that speaks of entertainment and relaxation. The charming surroundings, good music, and the fact that each visitor is determined to enjoy a few hours of holiday all exert an influence on the mind.

  Ivor Novello

  Holiday, Atmosphere, Relaxation

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• Deep Listening is listening to everything all the time, and reminding yourself when you're not. But going below the surface too, it's an active process. It's not passive. I mean hearing is passive in that soundwaves hinge upon the eardrum. You can do both. You can focus and be receptive to your surroundings. If you're tuned out, then you're not in contact with your surroundings. You have to process what you hear. Hearing and listening are not the same thing.

  Pauline Oliveros

  Music, Mean, Focus

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• I like my surroundings to be pretty spare and severe. It helps me to concentrate on my work. All I ever do here is go from my studio to my bedroom. Everything else is extraneous. I never entertain, because to me, New York is about meeting people in public spaces, absorbing a little bit of their energy.

  Ross Bleckner

  New York, Space, People

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• The simile has to match the tone of its surroundings and has to be like a little joke. Writing a simile that isn't funny on some level is quite hard.

  Ned Beauman

  Writing, Levels, Littles

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• With the goal of crafting a course that fits harmoniously with its surroundings, we took full advantage of the dramatic vistas, indigenous flora and beautiful rolling terrain to create a memorable golf experience for members and resort guests.

  Pete Dye

  Beautiful, Memorable, Golf

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• I always feel more comfortable in chaotic surroundings. I don't know why that is. I think order is dull. There is something about this kind of desire for order, particularly in Anglo Saxon cultures, that drive out this ability for the streets to become a really exotic, amorphous, chaotic, organic place where ideas can, basically, develop.

  Malcolm Mclaren

  Thinking, Order, Ideas

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• Home is the heart of life Home is where we feel at ease, where we belong, where we can create surroundings that reflect our tastes and pleasures Making a home is a form of creativity open to everyone.

  Terence Conran

  Home, Heart, Creativity

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