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Absolutes Quotes

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Absolutes Quotes

“A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.”

PeopleThinkingWorldLifeNeedsPersonsDoeMotivationalAblePoliticalWalksDealsKnowingThis WorldHumilityCircumstancesAll ThingsAbsolutesCharityGoodObjectivesMaturityMatureGood And BadObjectivityMature Person
Book:You learn by living
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“When we both experienced the love that consumes, we shared in the Absolute. The Absolute shows each of us who we really are; it is an enormous web of cause and effect, where every small gesture made by one person affects the life of someone else. This morning, that slice of the Absolute was still very much alive in my soul. I was seeing not only you but everything there is in the world, unlimited by space or time.”

WorldPersonsMadeStillsSoulShowsCausesSpaceMorningAliveSeeingEffectsAbsolutesEnormousMy SoulGesturesUnlimitedCause And EffectSmall Gestures
Book:The diary of a magus
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“He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.”

WorldTwoMomentsLightEyeRunningEarthUniverseBlackAnimalDarknessSunSawsDogColdSorrowAbsolutesBlindCrushGrayFoxesRelentlessVacuumsBorrowedTremblingAbsolute TruthHuntedBrief MomentsBorrowed Time
Book:The Road
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“Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons.”

IfsWorldBelieveStillsStatesGovernmentHappensWishAbilityLibertyRiskSecurityCitizensTerribleIdealsClaimsAbsolutesSafetyWorthyThings HappenDefinedTerrible ThingsBlanketInterference
Author:Ron Paul
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“Choking with dry tears and raging, raging, raging at the absolute indifference of nature and the world to the death of love, the death of hope and the death of beauty, I remember sitting on the end of my bed, collecting these pills and capsules together and wondering why, why when I felt I had so much to offer, so much love, such outpourings of love and energy to spend on the world, I was incapable of being offered love, giving it or summoning the energy with which I knew I could transform myself and everything around me.”

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Author:Stephen Fry
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“The people in the world, and the objects in it, and the world as a whole, are not absolute things, but on the contrary, are the phenomena of perception... If we were all alike: if we were millions of people saying do, re, mi, in unison, One poet would be enough... But we are not alone, and everything needs expounding all the time because, as people live and die, each one perceiving life and death for himself, and mostly by and in himself, there develops a curiosity about the perceptions of others. This is what makes it possible to go on saying new things about old things.”

PeopleIfsWorldNeedsEnoughWholeWould BeDiesMillionsObjectsPoetGoes OnPerceptionAbsolutesCuriosityContraryLife And DeathNew ThingsNot AloneOld ThingsUnisonPerception Of Others
Author:Wallace Stevens
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“You haven't yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior's way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability--to the world, to life, and to the Presence you felt. All along I've shown you by example that a warrior's life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is a warrior's sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death.”

WorldWayGivingHeartMomentsLife IsFeltLove IsCuttingHavensExampleVictoryPerfectionAbsolutesPeacefulWarriorVulnerabilityWay Of The WarriorPeaceful WarriorInvulnerability
Book:Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives
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“A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation. For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable. While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back. In the coffee houses, in the government buildings, in boats of Lake Geneva, people look at their watches and take refuge in time. Each person knows that somewhere is recorded the moment she was born, the moment she took her first step, the moment of her first passion, the moment she said goodbye to her parents.”

PeopleKnowsWorldFirstsLooksPersonsSaidMomentsGovernmentPassionHouseParentBornStepsWatchesMovementBuildingAbsolutesCoffeeBoatGoodbyeLakesFirst StepsRefugeLooking BackUnpredictableConsolationPredictableDoubtedSkipGenevaCoffee Houses
Author:Alan Lightman
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“Without memories to cloud it, the mind perceives with absolute clarity. Each observation stands out in stark relief. In the beginning, when there's not yet a smudge, the slate still blank, there is only the present moment: each vital detail, shocked color, the fall of light. Like film stills. The mind relentlessly open to the world, deeply impressed, even hurt by it: not yet gauzed by memory.”

WorldMindStillsMomentsLightFilmFallHurtMemoriesColorAbsolutesCloudsDetailsClarityObservationPerceiveReliefPresent MomentBlankImpressedShockedStanding OutStarksSlate
Book:Man Walks Into a Room
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“What do believers in the Absolute mean by saving that their belief affords them comfort? They mean that since in the Absolute finite evil is ‘overruled’ already, we may, therefore, whenever we wish, treat the temporal as if it were potentially the eternal, be sure that we can trust its outcome, and, without sin, dismiss our fear and drop the worry of our finite responsibility. In short, they mean that we have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better hands than ours and are none of our business.”

IfsWorldWayMayMeanFeelingsHandsEvilBeliefWishSinResponsibilityMoralWorryIssuesComfortEternalTreatsAbsolutesBelieverSavingOutcomesHolidayFiniteWagsAnon
Author:William James
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“Morality is neither rational nor absolute nor natural. World has known many moral systems, each of which advances claims universality; all moral systems are therefore particular, serving a specific purpose for their propagators or creators, and enforcing a certain regime that disciplines human beings for social life by narrowing our perspectives and limiting our horizons.”

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Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp. And the world seems so fresh as though it had all just come into existence. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.”

ThinkingWorldWayFeelsI CanMomentsSeemsLastsRealizingExistenceSilenceAbsolutesNoiseClarityMeant To BeSecondsFadesWere Meant To BeSingle ManMoments Of Clarity
Author:Christopher Isherwood
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“He read a lot. He used a lot of big words. I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking. Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often. A couple of times I tried to tell him it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things. He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go on to the next thing.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWorldKindSometimesHardBigsUsedNextStuffAnswersMistakeToo MuchTroubleFiguresGoes OnCoupleAbsolutesStuckMake SenseAlexRight AnswersToo Deep
Book:Into the Wild
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“What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me - that I understand. And these two certainties - my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle - I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my conditions?”

KnowsWorldHumansMeanI CanTwoLyingTermPrinciplesConditionsThis WorldLimitsAbsolutesUnityRationalCertaintyReasonableAppetiteImpossibilityReducingReconcileSisyphusMyth Of Sisyphus
Author:Albert Camus
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“The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul and that I am sure is why he does it.”

WorldWantNeedsGivingPersonsDoeSoulFactsHappensWalksFictionMastersFoolDrinkAbsolutesCompensationWhiskyAbsolute FreedomFaith HopeDaze
Book:Boy: Tales of Childhood
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“My husband, Andrius, says that evil will rule until good men or women choose to act. I believe him. This testimony was written to create an absolute record, to speak in a world where our voices have been extinguished. These writing may shock or horrify you, but that is not my intention. It is my greatest hope that the pages in this jar stir your deepest well of human compassion. I hope they prompt you to do something, to tell somone. Only then can we ensure that this kind of evil is never allowed to repeat itself.”

MenWorldWritingBelieveHumansWellsKindMayHas BeensEvilSpeakI BelieveVoiceCompassionRecordsWrittenHusbandPagesAbsolutesIntentionRepeatsShockGood ManMy HusbandTestimonyJarsPromptsHuman Compassion
Author:Ruta Sepetys
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“He built up a situation that was far enough from the truth. It never occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the intensity of their talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity, the magic of Oniton under darkness and of the whispering river. Helen loved the absolute. Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had appeared to her as a man apart, isolated from the world. A real man, who cared for adventure and beauty, who desired to live decently and pay his way, who could have travelled more gloriously through life than the Juggernaut car that was crushing him.”

MenWorldWayRealEnoughPaySituationDarknessMagicCarAdventureBuiltRiversAbsolutesBlameCrushCharmIntensitySincerityIsolatedRuinedWhisperingReal MenHelenJuggernaut
Book:Howards End: England Literature
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“Americans have become conditioned to believe the world is a gray place without absolutes; this is because we’re simultaneously cowardly and arrogant. We don’t know the answers, so we assume they must not exist. But they do exist. They are unclear and/or unfathomable, but they’re out there. And—perhaps surprisingly—the only way to find those answers is to study NBA playoff games that happened twenty years ago. For all practical purposes, the voice of Brent Musburger was the pen of Ayn Rand.”

KnowsWorldWayYearsBelievePurposeGamesVoiceAnswersStudyHappenedYears AgoAbsolutesTwentiesAssumingPracticalsPensNbaGrayArrogantCowardlyPlayoffsUnfathomableUnclearPlayoff Games
Book:Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
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“The arrogant elimination of the Djaouts of our world must nerve us to pursue our own combative doctrine, namely: that peaceful cohabitation on this planet demands that while the upholders of any creed are free to adopt their own existential absolutes, the right of others to do the same is thereby rendered implicit and sacrosanct. Thus the creed of inquiry, of knowledge and exchange of ideas, must be upheld as an absolute, as ancient and eternal as any other.”

WorldIdeasPlanetsDemandEternalAbsolutesAncientDoctrinePursuePeacefulOur WorldNervesArrogantCreedsExistentialInquiryEliminationImplicitCohabitation
Author:Wole Soyinka
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“You can’t run away. The past will be only too happy to chase you —- in absolute, complete, and total earnest. Do you know why? Because they’re lonely. The past and memories are very lonely things. I don’t believe in God. Because he doesn’t have a fixed form. The past certainly does exist, even in a world where the future doesn’t have a fixed form. Even if it’s being colored by misunderstandings and delusions, a person’s past can’t be anything but the truth as long as he believes in it. If that’s what you base your actions or your way of life on, isn’t that like being god?”

IfsKnowsWorldWayBelievePersonsLongDoeRunningActionPastFormMemoriesLonelyAbsolutesDon't BelieveFixedDelusionDo You KnowBelieve In GodRunning AwayMisunderstandingEarnest
Author:Ryohgo Narita
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“We godless lack that certainty, and we know the world is a complex place that requires compromise and is not ruled by a moral force - virtue is subject to negotiation, and is found in working together with others to find mutually satisfactory solutions. Good is not absolute, it is an emergent property that arises from successful networks of individuals. It is also something that is measured by evidence: we look at the good that people do, not the promises that they make and never keep, or the lies that dovetail nicely into dogma. Competence is a virtue. Intent is meaningless without action.”

PeopleKnowsWorldLooksActionTogetherLyingFoundIndividualForceMoralVirtueSuccessfulSubjectsPromiseSolutionsEvidenceAbsolutesPropertyComplexesAtheistAriseCompromiseCertaintyWorking TogetherMeaninglessDogmaNegotiationCompetence
Author:PZ Myers
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“It is certain that there may be extraordinary mental activity with an extremely small absolute mass of nervous matter: thus the wonderfully diversified instincts, mental powers, and affections of ants are notorious, yet their cerebral ganglia are not so large as the quarter of a small pin's head. Under this point of view, the brain of an ant is one of the most marvelous atoms of matter in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of a man.”

MenWorldMayMatterCertainViewsBrainActivityMassAbsolutesInstinctExtraordinaryAffectionPoint Of ViewNervousAtomsQuartersMarvelousPinsAntsNotoriousCerebralMental Power
Book:Darwinism Stated by Darwin Himself: Characteristic Passages from the Writings of Charles Darwin
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“In rare moments of deep play, we can lay aside our sense of self, shed time's continuum, ignore pain, and sit quietly in the absolute present, watching the world's ordinary miracles. No mind or heart hobbles. No analyzing or explaining. No questing for logic. No promises. No goals. No relationships. No worry. One is completely open to whatever drama may unfold.”

WorldMindHeartMaySelfPlayMomentsPainFunGoalWorryPromiseDramaOrdinaryLogicMiracleAbsolutesLaysShedExplainingSense Of SelfAnalyzingContinuumNo WorriesRare Moments
Book:Deep Play
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“To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance, and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance of others, by expressing in the world of forms- truth, love, purity and beauty - this is the sole game which has any intrinsic and absolute worth. All other happenings, incidents and attainments can, in themselves, have no lasting importance.”

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Book:Infinite Intelligence
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“Prayer is that which enables the soul to realize its divinity. Through prayer human beings worship absolute truth, and seek an eternal reward. Prayer is the foundation-stone of religion; and religion is the means by which the soul is purified of all that pollutes it. Prayer is the worship of the first cause of all things, the supreme ruler of all the world, the source of all strength. Prayer is the adoration of the one whose being is necessary.”

WorldFirstsHumansMeanSoulWisdomCausesRealizingPrayerHuman BeingsSourceEternalWorshipAll ThingsStonesAbsolutesFoundationRewardsSupremeIslamicDivinityRulersAdorationAbsolute Truth
Author:Avicenna
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“I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.”

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Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy.”

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Book:Collected Prose: Autobiographical Writings, True Stories, Critical Essays, Prefaces, Collaborations with Artists, and Interviews
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“There are two laws that we had better take to be absolute. The first is that as we cannot exempt ourselves from living in this world, then if we wish to live, we cannot exempt ourselves from using the world. If we cannot exempt ourselves from use, then we must deal with the issues raised by use. And so the second law is that if we want to continue living, we cannot exempt use from care.”

IfsWorldWantFirstsTwoUseCareLawWishInspiringDealsIssuesThis WorldAbsolutesRaised
Author:Wendell Berry
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“Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?”

IfsThinkingWorldBelieveWarSufferingHouseI BelieveBreakCasesSupportMurderAbsolutesPropertyTreasureThievesOffensiveKill MeNational Defense
Author:Thomas Paine
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“Art is the way to the absolute and to the essence of human life. The aim of art is not the one-sided promotion of spirit, soul and senses, but the opening of all human capacities – thought, feeling, will – to the life rhythm of the world of nature. So will the voiceless voice be heard and the self be brought into harmony with it.”

WorldWayHumansArtSoulSelfFeelingsSpiritVoiceHeardArt IsCapacityEssenceAbsolutesHarmonyPhilosophicalAimSensesOpeningRhythmHuman LifePromotionOne SidedVoicelessHuman Capacity
Book:Tao of Jeet Kune Do
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“Artistic creation, after all, is not subject to absolute laws, valid from age to age; since it is related to the more general aim of mastery of the world, it has an infinite number of facets, the vincula that connect man with his vital activity; and even if the path towards knowledge is unending, no step that takes man nearer to a full understanding of the meaning of his existence can be too small to count.”

IfsMenWorldAgeLawUnderstandingNumbersExistenceStepsPathSubjectsCreationActivityAbsolutesInfiniteAimArtisticRelatedMasteryFacetsUnendingArtistic Creation
Author:Andrei Tarkovsky
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“Meaning can only be understood in relation to its environment. Therefore, the words only make full sense in context... There are no absolutes, there is no meaning without relationships, everything is not only interacting but interdependent. The kahunas use this idea to help give a person a powerfully secure sense of significance, while at the same time teaching him that to heal himself is to heal the world, and to heal the world is to heal himself. This is not a loss of individuality, but an understanding that individuality itself is a relationship with the environment.”

WorldGivingPersonsIdeasHelpingUseSpiritualUnderstandingLossEnvironmentTeachingUnderstoodRelationAbsolutesIndividualityHealSecureSignificanceInteractingHeal The World
Author:Serge King
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“Women represent 70 percent of the 1.3 billion people in our world who live in absolute poverty. Consequently, as Joan Holmes, president of the Hunger Project, points out, any realistic efforts to change patterns of chronic hunger and poverty require changing traditions of discrimination against women.”

PeopleWorldPresidentEffortPovertyProjectsPercentTraditionAbsolutesHungerPatternsBillionsDiscriminationOur WorldRealisticHolmesHunger And Poverty
Book:The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics
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