W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“What is called Western Civilization is in an advanced state of decomposition, and another Dark Ages will soon be upon us, if, indeed, it has not already begun. With the Media, especially television, governing all our lives, as they indubitably do, it is easily imaginable that this might happen without our noticing...by accustoming us to the gradual deterioration of our values.”
“What is called zazen is sitting on a zafu [pillow] in a quiet room, absolutely still, in the exact and proper position and without uttering a word, the mind empty of any thought, good or wicked. It is continuing to sit peacefully, facing a wall, and nothing more. Every day.”
“What is called “apathy” is, I believe, a feeling of helplessness on the part of the ordinary citizen, a feeling of impotence in the face of enormous power. It’s not that people are apathetic; they do care about what is going on, but don’t know what to do about it, so they do nothing, and appear to be indifferent.”
“What is Camille Paglia doing, writing that an actress as gifted as Anne Heche has the mental depth of a pancake? How many pancake brains could do what Heche did with David Mamet's dialogue in Wag the Dog? No doubt Heche has been stuck with a few bad gigs, but Paglia, of all people, must be well aware that being an actress is not the same safe ride as being the tenured university professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.”
“What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation - if not beauty?”
“What is carried by grace will never be lost.”
Source: The Light in the Heart
“What is carried by grace will never be lost.
Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart”
Source: The Light in the Heart
“What is causing you to put things down "for now"? Are you feeling too rushed in your everyday life? Is there never a chance to reset?
As you go through the process of clearing out your clutter, you will see that things become easier to put away when there is a home for them and that home is easier to access.
When you are tempted to put something down, ask yourself, "Will I really have more time to deal with this later? Will I know where to find this later when I'm looking for it?"
Be kind to your future self and put it away now. Next week you will thank me.”
Source: Clutter Free: Quick and Easy Steps to Simplifying Your Space
“What is central to business is the joy of creating.”
“What is central to morality is rational self-constraint (acting from duty), in cease where there is no other incentive to do your duty except that the moral law commands it.”
“What is certain in death is somewhat softened by what is uncertain; it is an indefiniteness in the time, which holds a certain relation to the infinite, and what is called eternity.”
“What is certain is that for thinking believers to-day, faith is, before all and above all, wishing that God may exist.”
“What is certain is that plurality and diversity are not, and never can be, a natural 'byproduct' of unregulated market forces.”
“What is certain is that setting a piece of nature in place and drawing it are two very different things.”
“What is certain is that singing is not merely modulating a song by means of the voice: we sing and we celebrate the beauty that we can grow and live every day. If you want to sing and give emotions to those who are listening, you must have something to tell through your singing; you have to use singing like an instrument to tell something.”
“What is certain is that the immutable classes, the nobility, the clergy, the bourgeoisie, the people, had loftier souls at that time. You can prove it: society has done nothing but deteriorate in the four centuries separating us from the Middle Ages.
"True, a baron then was usually a formidable brute. He was a drunken and lecherous bandit, a sanguinary and boisterous tyrant, but he was a child in mind and spirit. The Church bullied him, and to deliver the Holy Sepulchre he sacrificed his wealth, abandoned home, wife, and children, and accepted unconscionable fatigues, extraordinary sufferings, unheard-of dangers.
"By pious heroism he redeemed the baseness of his morals. The race has since become moderate. It has reduced, sometimes even done away with, its instincts of carnage and rape, but it has replaced them by the monomania of business, the passion for lucre. It has done worse. It has sunk to such a state of abjectness as to be attracted by the doings of the lowest of the low.
...cupidity was repressed by the confessor, and the tradesman, just like the labourer, was maintained by the corporations, which denounced overcharging and fraud, saw that decried merchandise was destroyed, and fixed a fair price and a high standard of excellence for commodities. Trades and professions were handed down from father to son. The corporations assured work and pay. People were not, as now, subject to the fluctuations of the market and the merciless capitalistic exploitation. Great fortunes did not exist and everybody had enough to live on. Sure of the future, unhurried, they created marvels of art, whose secret remains for ever lost.
"All the artisans who passed the three degrees of apprentice, journeyman, and master, developed subtlety and became veritable artists. They ennobled the simplest of iron work, the commonest faience, the most ordinary chests and coffers. Those corporations, putting themselves under the patronage of Saints—whose images, frequently besought, figured on their banners—preserved through the centuries the honest existence of the humble and notably raised the spiritual level of the people whom they protected.
...The bourgeoise has taken the place forfeited by a wastrel nobility which now subsists only to set ignoble fashions and whose sole contribution to our 'civilization' is the establishment of gluttonous dining clubs, so-called gymnastic societies, and pari-mutuel associations. Today the business man has but these aims, to exploit the working man, manufacture shoddy, lie about the quality of merchandise, and give short weight.
...There is one word in the mouths of all. Progress. Progress of whom? Progress of what? For this miserable century hasn't invented anything great.
"It has constructed nothing and destroyed everything...”
Source: Là-bas
“What is certain is this, that I never rested in that way again, my feet obscenely resting on the earth, my arms on the handlebars and on my arms my head, rocking and abandoned. It is indeed a delporable sight, a deplorable example, for the people, who so need to be encouraged, in their bitter toil, and to have before their eyes manifestations of strength only, of courage and joy, without which they might collapse, at the end of the day, and roll on the ground.”
Source: Molloy
“What is certainly true is that it is easier to forgive the evil done to others than to forgive the evil done to oneself, especially if in the first place we don't really like those others to whom the evil is done.”
Source: Out Into The Beautiful World
“What is certainly true is that the American people, just like the German people, just like the British and people around the world, are seeing extraordinarily rapid change. The world is shrinking, the economies have become much more integrated and demographics are shifting.”
“What is certainly true is that the United States has to have a presence to promote the values that we care about.”
“What is certainty but the refuge of those whose faith is not strong enough to entertain doubt.”
“What is characteristic of illusions is that they are derived from human wishes.”
Source: The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud
“What is characteristic of philosophy is not a
special subject-matter, but the aim of knowing one's way around with respect to the subject-matters of all the special disciplines.”
Source: Science, Perception and Reality
“What is charm then? The free giving of a grace, the spending of something given by nature in her role of spendthrift ... something extra, superfluous, unnecessary, essentially a power thrown away.”
“What is charm, it is not a moral quality, it is not intellectual for no man by much thinking is able to add a grain of it to his personality. One either has it or has it not, it cannot be acquired or even cultivated. It is not physical even, it seems to be added to the human personality, an aura, a glow, the gold dust upon a butterfly's wing, the bloom upon a peach.”
“What is cheaper than lust or of less value than alchemy or aphrodisiacs?”
Source: The Avram Davidson Treasury: A Tribute Collection
“What is chemistry in a relationship, Really? Chemistry can be spontaneous combustion that excites, incites, often harms. But not understood. Chemistry can also be that which is studied, intentional, and knows how to be repeated and improved upon. Do you have the right chemistry?”
“What is chess, do you think? Those who play for fun or not at all dismiss it as a game. The ones who devote their lives to it for the most part insist that it's a science. It's neither. Bobby Fischer got underneath it like no one before and found at its center, art.”
“What is childhood without stories? And how will children fall in love with stories without bookstores? You can't get that from a computer.”
Source: Goodnight June: A Novel
“What is childlike humility? It’s not the lack of intelligence, but the lack of guile. The lack of an agenda.”
Source: Heaven is for Real Movie Edition: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back
“What is China but a people and their stories?”
Source: Boxers
“What is Christianity all about? It is about an intimate relationship with God. And I HATE a christendom, a churchianity that God is not big enough and glorious enough so that we have to give them other things.”
“What is citizen within a social contract where our Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial can be suspended in the event of our completely legal (but extrajudicial) murder by police?”
Source: As Black As Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation
“What is civilization? It is a state of love.”
Source: Heart Force One: Need No Gun to Defend Society
“What is civilization? I answer, the power of good women.”
Source: The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson ...: v.1-
“What is civilized is unselfish.”
Source: Solo Standing on Guard: Life Before Law
“What is classical music if not the epitome of sensuality, passion, and understated erotica that popular music, even with all of its energy and life, cannot even begin to touch?”
“What is clear is that business leaders must commit to champion change - to be transparent about their goals for change, to align their incentives systems to drive the change, and to make sure their work environments are flexible in a way that allows men and women who choose to work to be able to achieve all of their potential.”
“What is clear is that consumers know a calorie isn't a calorie. There are good fats and bad fats and good proteins and bad ones.”
“What is clear is that Malcolm X incorporated within the framework of black nationalism a pan-Africanist and internationalist perspective. In doing so, he began to reassess radically earlier positions sexism and patriarchy. He began to break with notions of sexism that he had long held as a member of the Nation of Islam, and began to advance and push forward women leadership in the OAAU.”
“What is clear is that meaning may not be something we find. We found no meaning in our son's death, or in the deaths of countless others. The most we could hope was that we might be able to create meaning.”
Source: Why Religion? A Personal Story
“What is clear is that the earth is mandating that the human community assume a responsibility never assigned to any previous generation...Our task at this critical moment is to awaken the energies needed to create the new world and to evoke a universal communion of all parts of life.”
“What is clear is that the Gospel of Judas has joined the other spectacular discoveries that are exploding the myth of a monolithic Christianity and showing how diverse and fascinating the early Christian movement really was.”
“What is clear is that users own their data and should have control of how their data is used.”
“What is clear to one man may be doubtful to another.”
“What is clearer is that suicide attacks, and our responses to them, have been central to the formation of the modern age. They helped create the conditions that caused the Russian Revolution; they were in the forefront of the minds of men who created a nuclear epoch and, unwittingly, the Cold War that followed; they were there at the beginning of the War on Terror that still dominates our headlines and they have helped drag the Middle East into the quagmire that it is today. In so doing, they have fuelled fears about migrants and refugees the world over, they have challenged the UN to its very core, and they have fed off conspiracy theories, post-truth propaganda and a view that the world is witnessing a millenarian clash of civilliations that heralds the end of days.”
Source: The Price of Paradise
“What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.”
“What is comfortable fashion? To be comfortable, that can't be in the vocabulary of fashion. If you want to be comfortable, stay home in your pajamas.”
“What is common among all of these groups [Taliban, Islamic State etc.] is the intent to destroy. The majority of terrorists who come to Afghanistan are from China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or North Africa. They were expelled from their countries and pushed to ours - this is their battlefield - and all of them, be it the Taliban or others, are interlinked with the criminal economy.”
“What is common becomes sense, but what is sensible doesn't always become common.”
Source: Contradictionary