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I Quotes

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All I Quotes

“Imagination is not obligated to let practicalities dominate, nor to judge itself in terms of dualistic language (true vs untrue; reality vs fantasy; good vs evil, etc.) The paradox of imagination is that it cannot imagine itself while it is experienced and it can't judge itself while experienced. 'I promise never to imagine cutting a kittens throat' is a ridiculous proposition. Most of us wish that people would not get pleasure imagining such things to the exclusion of anything else. Even so, imagining per se leaves no traces, while planning may do so and preforming always does. Imagining leave no traces, which is not the same as saying imagining has no effect.”

“Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention aand innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared. Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places. And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.”

“Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared. [...] And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know. [...] Those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.”

“Imagination is our bioenergy shapeshifting into a version of reality that doesn’t exist locally. Our consciousness is just shifting infinitely fast to a version of the universe that occurred a moment later. We go forward in time to a place that exists prior in time. Humans are a time machine with consciousness running in reverse time to physical reality.”

“Imagination is paradise.”

“Imagination is strong in a man when that particular function of the brain which enables him to observe is roused to activity without any necessary excitement of the sense. Accordingly, we find that imagination is active just in proportion as our sense are not excited by external objects. A long period of solitude, whether in prison or in a sick room; quiet, twilight, darkness-these are the things that promote its activity; and under their influence it comes into play of itself.”

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”