Ultimate Quotes - Page 26

• An artist in my view is always afraid of extremists; he is always afraid of those who claim to have found the ultimate solution to any question.

  Chinua Achebe

  Art, Views, Claims

  Chinua Achebe, Bernth Lindfors (1997). “Conversations with Chinua Achebe”, p.130, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• In urging all writers to be steadfast in reliance on the ultimate victory of excellence, we should no less strenuously urge upon them to beware of the intemperate arrogance which attributes failure to a degraded condition of the public mind. The instinct which leads the world to worship success is not dangerous. The book which succeeds accomplishes its aim. The book which fails may have many excellencies, but they must have been misdirected.

  George Henry Lewes

  Book, Victory, Arrogance

  George Henry Lewes (1891). “The Principles of Success in Literature”

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• The British Labour movement is today, and for many years has been, working in a narrow circle of strikes that are looked upon, not as an expedient, and not as a means of propaganda, but as an ultimate aim.

  Friedrich Engels

  Mean, Labour Movement, Circles

  1878 Letter to Eduard Bernstein, 17 Jul.

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• The secret belief that the Lord of conscience loves and accepts each faithful sacrifice is the ultimate and sufficient support of all goodness; dispensing with the chorus of approving voices; replacing all vain self-reliance with a Divine strength; and with the peace of a reconciled nature consoling the inevitable sorrows of a devoted life.

  James Martineau

  Sacrifice, Self, Voice

  James Martineau (1879). “Hours of thought on sacred things, sermons”

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• Whatever Kurt Vonnegut's ultimate status will be in the annals of literature, he was important to a lot of people right now. That's what most writers really care about.

  Michael Dirda

  People, Important, Literature

  "Kurt Vonnegut". Live discussion, www.washingtonpost.com. April 12, 2007.

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• Space is the ultimate frontier. I think when people historically thought of the frontier, there was where you were living and then there was some edge beyond which no one had explored.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Thinking, Space, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• That's the ultimate thing I want to do in making music - to be able to inspire somebody else.

  Kendrick Lamar

  Inspire, Want, Able

  Interview with Erykah Badu, www.interviewmagazine.com. April 23, 2013.

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• Water and stones. Those are the unpromising ingredients of two very different endeavors... painting, because artists' pigments are made from fluids... mixed together with powdered stones to give color... and the other is alchemy, the stone the ultimate goal.

  James Elkins

  Artist, Color, Two

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• No amount of technical knowledge and competence is, of itself, sufficient to make a craftperson into an artist. That requires caring - passionate caring about ultimate things.

  Freeman Patterson

  Passion, Caring, Artist

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• I want to strip my work of 'effects' until it stands monolithic, based on reality and yet transcending it. It must flow naturally from my materials, from the way of the chisel and the way of the block... It is the ultimate ideal.

  Shiko Munakata

  Block, Reality, Way

  Shikō Munakata (1991). “The Woodblock and the Artist: The Life and Work of Shiko Munakata”

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• My mother was pragmatic, focused and extremely, exceedingly practical, and she was the ultimate self-determining person.

  Ursula Burns

  Mother, Self, Pragmatic

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• Don’t trade the ultimate for the immediate. Don’t settle for less, wait for God’s best.

  Alex Gonzaga

  Waiting, Settling, Trade

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• We thought it was only in science fiction that things created by humans could actually take over what is inherently our human heritage. But Thom Hartmann shows how we've already let that happen on a frightening scale - not in Frankenstein's monsters or Kubrick's creeping computer Hal - but in the corporations that present their friendly 'faces' to us as if we have nothing to fear from this ultimate usurpation of our rights as real humans.

  Ed Ayres

  Real, Rights, Friendly

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• We are not doomed to an ultimate conflict with no hope of resolution. The message of the Scripture is one of victory - full, final and ultimate victory. It is not our doom that is certain, but Satan's. His head has been crushed by the heel of Christ, who is the Alpha and Omega.

  R. C. Sproul

  Victory, Finals, Scripture

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• Human nature turns out to be more complicated than the idea that people will get along if only the rules are clear enough. Uncertainty, the ultimate evil that modern law seeks to eradicate, generally fosters cooperation, not the opposite.

  Philip K. Howard

  Law, Opposites, Ideas

  Philip K. Howard (2011). “The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America”, p.183, Random House

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• I've always wanted to be an animator. That's an ultimate art form, right there

  Jason Marsden

  Art, Form, Wanted

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• The Ultimate decision, the fastest decision there is, is ACTION!

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Decision, Action

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• Our conviction that the world is meaningless is due in part to the fact (discussed in a later paragraph) that the philosophy of meaningless lends itself very effectively to furthering the ends of political and erotic passion; in part to a genuine intellectual error - the error of identifying the world of science, a world from which all meaning has deliberately been excluded, with ultimate reality.

  Aldous Huxley

  Philosophy, Passion, Reality

  Aldous Huxley (2017). “Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals”, p.153, Routledge

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• To oscillate between drill exercises that strive to attain efficiency in outward doing without the use of intelligence, and an accumulation of knowledge that is supposed to be an ultimate end in itself, means that education accepts the present social conditions as final, and thereby takes upon itself the responsibility for perpetuating them. A reorganization of education so that learning takes place in connection with the intelligent carrying forward of purposeful activities is a slow work. It can be accomplished only piecemeal, a step at a time.

  John Dewey

  Mean, Responsibility, Exercise

  John Dewey (2012). “Democracy and Education”, p.129, Courier Corporation

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• The physicists are getting down to the nitty-gritty, they've really just about pared things down to the ultimate details, and the last thing they ever expected to happen is happening. God is showing through.

  John Updike

  Details, Lasts, Physicist

  "Roger's Version". Book by John Updike, 1986.

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• An intelligent couple can read their Darwin and know that the ultimate reason for their sexual urges is procreation. They know that the woman cannot conceive because she is on the pill. Yet they find that their sexual desire is in no way diminished by the knowledge. Sexual desire is sexual desire and its force, in an individual's psychology, is independent of the ultimate Darwinian pressure that drove it. It is a strong urge which exists independently of its ultimate rationale.

  Richard Dawkins

  Strong, Couple, Independent

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.253, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The Socratic demonstration of the ultimate unity of tragic and comic drama is forever lost. But the proof is in the art of Chekhov.

  George Steiner

  Art, Drama, Forever

  George Steiner (1980). “The death of tragedy”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Our forebears are deserving of tribute for one indisputable reason, if for no other: without them we should not be here. Let us recognize that we are not the ultimate triumph but rather we are beads on a string. Let us behave with decency to the beads that were strung before us and hope modestly that the beads that come after us will not hold us of no account simply because we are dead.

  Robertson Davies

  Triumph, Reason, Should

  "Haunted by Halloween". The New York Times, October 31, 1990.

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• I'll always be happy if they'd leave me alone in that delightful and unknown furthest corner, apart from struggles, putrefactions and nonsense; the ultimate corner of sugar and toast, where the mermaids catch the branches of the willows and the heart opens to a flute's sharpness.

  Federico Garcia Lorca

  Struggle, Heart, Mermaid

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• What matters most has an ultimate metallic quality of death. The chasuble and the wagon wheel, the razor and the prickly beards of shepherds, the bare moon, a fly, humid cupboards, rubble piles, the images of saints covered in lace, quicklime, and the wounding edges of the rooflines and watchtowers.

  Federico Garcia Lorca

  Moon, What Matters, Quality

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