I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“It seems to be almost a law of human nature, that it is easier for people to agree on a negative programme, on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off, than on any positive task. The contrast between the “we” and the “they,” the common fight against those outside the group, seems to be an essential ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit together a group for common action. It is consequently always employed by those who seek, not merely support of a policy, but the unreserved allegiance of huge masses. From their point of view it has the great advantage of leaving them greater freedom of action than almost any positive programme.”
Source: The Road to Serfdom
“It seems to be almost a law of physics, that the winds of change awaken fear and fundamentalism.”
“It seems to be characteristic of the human mind that when it sees a black box in action, it imagines that the contents of the box are simple.
A happy example is seen in the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes".
Calvin is always jumping in a box with his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, and travelling back in time, or "transmogrifying" himself into animal shapes, or using it as a "duplicator" and making clones of him-self. A little boy like Calvin easily imagines that a box can fly like an airplane (or something), because Calvin doesn't know how airplanes work.
In some ways, grown-up scientists are just as prone to wishful thinking as little boys like Calvin.
For example, centuries ago it was thought that insects and other small animals arose directly fom spoiled food. This was easy to believe, because small animals were thought to be very simple (before the invention of the microscope, naturalists thought that insects had no internal organs). But as biology progressed and careful experiments showed that protected food did not breed life, the theory of spontaneous generation retreated to the limits beyond which science detect what was really happening.
(...)
The key to persuading people was the portrayal of the cells as "simple". One of the chief advocates of the spontaneous generation during the middle of the nineteenth century was Ernst Haeckel, a great admirer of Darwin and an eager popularizer of Darwin's theory.
From the limited view of cells that microscope provided, Haeckel believed that a cell was a "simple lump of albuminous combination of carbon" not much different from a piece of microscopic Jell-O. So it seemed to Haeckel that such simple life, with no internal organs, could be produced easily from inanimate material. Now, of course, we know better.”
Source: Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
“It seems to be characteristic of the human mind that when it sees a black box in action, it imagines that the contents of the box are simple.
A happy example is seen in the comic strip .
Calvin is always jumping in a box with his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, and travelling back in time, or himself into animal shapes, or using it as a and making clones of him-self. A little boy like Calvin easily imagines that a box can fly like an airplane (or something), because Calvin doesn't know how airplanes work.
In some ways, grown-up scientists are just as prone to wishful thinking as little boys like Calvin.
For example, centuries ago it was thought that insects and other small animals arose directly fom spoiled food. This was easy to believe, because small animals were thought to be very simple (before the invention of the microscope, naturalists thought that insects had no internal organs). But as biology progressed and careful experiments showed that protected food did not breed life, the theory of spontaneous generation retreated to the limits beyond which science detect what was really happening.
(...)
The key to persuading people was the portrayal of the cells as . One of the chief advocates of the spontaneous generation during the middle of the nineteenth century was Ernst Haeckel, a great admirer of Darwin and an eager popularizer of Darwin's theory.
From the limited view of cells that microscope provided, Haeckel believed that a cell was a not much different from a piece of microscopic Jell-O. So it seemed to Haeckel that such simple life, with no internal organs, could be produced easily from inanimate material. Now, of course, we know better.”
Source: Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
“It seems to be expected of every pilgrim up the slopes of the mathematical Parnassus, that he will at some point or other of his journey sit down and invent a definite integral or two towards the increase of the common stock.”
Source: The Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester
“It seems to be extensively believed by photographers that meanings are to be found in the world much in the way rabbits are found in downs, and all that is required is the talent to spot them and the skill to shoot them... But those moments of truth for which the photographic opportunist waits, finger on the button, are as great a mystification as the notion of autonomous creativity.”
Source: Situational Aesthetics: Selected Writings by Victor Burgin
“It seems to be generally acknowledged that sexism is far from defeated, flourishing through religions and other reactionary ideologies, which would definitely and gladly erase the concept of feminism.”
“It seems to be hard wired into our pleasure centres to move to music.”
“It seems to be impossible to hold a credible election without reforming the electoral system.”
“It seems to be in fashion among Russian politicians to blame Berezovsky for everything. Soon they'll be holding him responsible for global warming, earthquakes and tsunamis.”
“It seems to be my destiny to discourse on truth, insofar as I discover it, in such a way that all possible authority is simultaneously demolished.”
“It seems to be my mission in life to wait on a dog.”
“It seems to be overwhelmingly likely that there is life out there and eventually we will make contract. And when contact is made, it will be the end of Earth's cultural evolution. It will be the greatest discovery in the history of humankind.”
“It seems to be part of the human condition to need someone you can look down on. I still don't get that one.”
“It seems to be really trendy to get excited about a random-ass radio song. Which, I like radio songs, don't get me wrong. But I'm just confused at which ones seem to be heralded as some sort of genius-like concoction. It doesn't totally make sense to me.”
“It seems to be remarkable that death increases our veneration for the good, and extenuates our hatred for the bad.”
Source: The Rambler: In Four Volumes
“It seems to be saying perpetually; 'I am the end of the nineteenth century; I am glad they built me of iron; let me rust.' ... It is like a passing fool in a crowd of the University, a buffoon in the hall; for all the things in Paris has made, it alone has neither wits nor soul.”
“It seems to be that loneliness is a small price to pay for peace and quiet.”
Source: The Brothers Bishop
“It seems to be that southern Europeans are just more intimate socially, whereas I like a lot of personal space - like, a mile from the nearest person is fine for me.”
“It seems to be that way with most things. No one to do the really disagreeable jobs except oneself.”
Source: The Essential Kate DiCamillo Collection
“It seems to be the case that for the people who actually are all in with Donald Trump - which is who knows: 35, 38, 40 per cent of the electorate - apparently nothing can dissuade them.”
“It seems to be the easiest thing in the world these days to make scurrilous accusations against Muslims, and in my case it directly impacts on my relief work and damages my reputation as an artist. The harm done is often difficult to repair.”
“It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.”
“It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity.”
“It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity. The time present is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.”
“It seems to be the heart of much of my work. I grew up seeing a lot of racism in the South, but I've seen it all over the world. Don't care for it at all. I was poor, so I'm used to the underdog position.”
“It seems to be the sense that once you throw guys in prison they're not going to come out. No, they're going to come out and, you know, what kind of beast have you created from that process?”
“It seems to be the special peculiarity of human beings that they reflect: they think about thinking and know that they know. This, like other feedback systems, may lead to vicious circles and confusions if improperly managed, but self-awareness makes human experience resonant. It imparts that simultaneous "echo" to all that we think and feel as the box of a violin reverberates with the sound of the strings. It gives depth and volume to what would otherwise be shallow and flat.”
“It seems to be the thing now that young people are getting back into politics.”
“It seems to be this hot-bed for these ideas and bringing these groups together. You find that the one thing that everybody has in common, whether they're a teenager who has run away from his parents, or a divorcee who lost her husband, is that they all have in common this feeling of searching for a meaning in their lives.”
“It seems to be typical of life in America ... that the second generation has no time to talk to the first.”
“It seems to be typical of life in America, where opportunities, real and fancied, are thicker than anywhere else on the globe, that the second generation has no time to talk to the first.”
Source: Notes of a Native Son
“It seems to be unfathomable to people that I just happen to be 49 and look good. I am totally capable of accepting myself.”
“It seems to be very hard for people to live with riddles or to let them live, although one would think that life is so full of riddles as it is that a few more things we cannot answer would make no difference. But perhaps it is just this that is so unendurable, that there are irrational things in our own psyche which upset the conscious mind in its illusory certainties by confronting it with the riddle of its existence.”
Source: The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
“It seems to Henry, as he takes his seat in his usual middle pew, that women are far braver than men”
Source: Olive Kitteridge
“It seems to her that her education is more than just a way to escape poverty. It is a weapon of choice against stagnation in a kind of feminine condition that arouses her pity, the tendency to lose oneself in a man, which she has experienced, and of which she is ashamed. She feels no desire to marry or have children. Mothering and the life of the mind seem incompatible. In any case, she'd be sure to be a bad mother. Her ideal is the union libre in the poem by Andre Breton.”
Source: The Years
“It seems to her that most of what she's done in her life has been of this ilk. Projects, ultimately inconsequential. Who have they helped?”
Source: Old Babes in the Wood: Stories
“It seems to leave the darkness rather blacker than before.”
Source: Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection
“It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order.”
“It seems to Marithe that her life has undergone two changes: one, when her father left. And two, about a year ago, when she turned thirteen, when her life and the way she felt about it and the way she viewed it suddenly tilted; like the deck of a ship in a storm.
At first it seemed to her that her house, her family, her dogs, her accordion, her books, her room with its geology samples, its display of feathers, its pictures of foxes and wolves, all took on an unreal aspect. Everything felt like a stage set: she kept viewing herself as if from the outside. Instead of just acting, just doing, just running or speaking or playing or collecting, she would feel this sense of externalisation: and so, a voice inside her head would comment, you are running. Do you need to run? Where are you going? You're picking up that rock but do you want it, do you really need it, are you going to carry it home?
[...]
And her body! Some mornings she woke and it was as if lead weights had been attached to her limbs by some ill-meaning fairy. Even if she had the urge to walk across the paddock to feed the neighbours' horses -- which she hardly ever did any more, she didn't know why -- she wouldn't have the energy, the sap in her to do it.
She wanted it returned to her, Marithe did, that sense of security in her life, of certainty, of knowing who she was and what she was about. Would it ever come back?”
Source: This Must Be the Place
“It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true.”
“It seems to me a measure of the true perversity
of the human race, that one of its very few
reliably pleasurable activities should be the
subject of so much hysteria and repression.”
“It seems to me a most dreadful thing to go out of the world and not leave one person behind you who is sorry you are gone,' said Anne, shuddering.”
Source: LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY - The Woman Behind The Books: Autobiography & Private Letters (Including The Complete Anne of Green Gables Series, Emily Starr Trilogy & The Blue Castle): The Alpine Path (Memoirs), Complete Chronicles of Avonlea, The Story Girl, The Golden Road, Jane of Lantern Hill, Rainbow Valley, Emily of New Moon and more
“It seems to me a purely lyric poet gives himself, right down to his sex, to his mood, utterly and abandonedly, whirls himself roundtill he spontaneously combusts into verse. He has nothing that goes on, no passion, only a few intense moods, separate like odd stars, and when each has burned away, he must die.”
“It seems to me a worthy goal: try to create a representation of consciousness that's durable and truthful, i.e., that accounts, somewhat, for all the strange, tiny, hard-to-articulate, instantaneous, unwilled things that actually go on in our minds in the course of a given day, or even a given moment.”
“It seems to me absolutely true, that our world, which appears to us the surface of all things, is really the bottom of a deep ocean: all our trees are submarine growths, and we are weird, scaly-clad submarine fauna, feeding ourselves on offal like shrimps. Only occasionally the soul rises gasping through the fathomless fathoms under which we live, far up to the surface of the ether, where there is true air.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)
“It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist. ... I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.”
“It seems to me after a fellow has been mutinied against three or four times, there is something to it besides bad luck.”
“It seems to me, alas, that if you can so thoroughly dissect your children who are still to be born, you don’t get horny enough to actually to father them.”
“It seems to me an utterly futile task to prescribe rules and limitations for the conduct of war. War is not a game; hence one cannot wage war by rules as one would in playing games. Our fight must be against war itself. The masses of people can most effectively fight the institution of war by establishing an organization for the absolute refusal of military service.”
Source: Einstein on Peace