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Activity Quotes

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Activity Quotes

“All morning, Spence has been a well-oiled machine of activity. Everyone doing her bit, quietly and efficiently. It's strange how deliberate people are after a death. All the indecision suddenly vanishes into clear, defined moments--changing the linens, choosing a dress or a hymn, the washing up, the muttering of prayers. All the small, simple, conscious acts of living a sudden defense against the dying we do every day.”

PeopleWellsHas BeensMomentsBitsPrayerSimpleMorningClearDyingStrangeActivityConsciousMachinesDressesDefenseDefinedDeliberateWashingHymnsIndecisionLinenMutteringSmall SimpleWell Oiled Machines
Book:A Great and Terrible Beauty
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“Dreaming is not merely an act of communication (or coded communication, if you like); it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself. Our dreams prove that to imagine--to dream about things that have not happened--is among mankind's deepest needs. Herein lies the danger. If dreams were not beautiful, they would be quickly forgotten.”

IfsNeedsDreamWould BeBeautifulLyingValuesGamesImaginationImagineHappenedMankindDangerCommunicationActivityProveForgottenAestheticOur DreamsYou Like It
Author:Milan Kundera
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“His overriding life necessity was not love, it was his profession…He had come to medicine not by coincidence or calculation but by a deep inner desire. Insofar as it is possible to divide people into categories, the surest criterion is the deep-seated desires that orient them to one or another lifelong activity. Every Frenchman is different. But all the actors the world over are similar.”

PeopleWorldDifferentDesireActorsActivityMedicineProfessionCategoriesDividesCoincidenceCriteriaLifelongCalculationsFrenchmen
Author:Milan Kundera
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“The only freedom that is of enduring importance is the freedom of intelligence, that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment, exercised in behalf of purposes that are intrinsically worth while. The commonest mistake made about freedom is, I think, to identify it with freedom of movement, or, with the external or physical side of activity.”

ThinkingMadeWisdomPurposeSidesMistakeMovementActivityJudgmentImportanceEndureObservationBehalf
Book:Experience and Education, 60th Anniversary Edition
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“I suppose the most important thing, the heaviest single factor in one's life, is whether one's born male or female. In most societies it determines one's expectations, activities, outlook, ethics, manners - almost everything. Vocabulary. Semiotic usages. Clothing. Even food. Women... women tend to eat less... It's extremely hard to separate the innate differences from the learned ones. Even where women participate equally with men in the society, they still after all do all the childbearing, and so most of the child-rearing.”

MenChildrenStillsImportantHardLife IsBornDifferencesActivityExpectationsEthicsFemaleImportant ThingsMalesDetermineFactorsMannersClothingsVocabularyOutlookInnateUsageChild RearingSemioticsChildbearing
Book:The Left Hand of Darkness
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“Elizabeth’s hands flew to her mouth; tears filled her eyes with happiness as she realized he was fulfilling yet another of her and her mother’s intended activities. “Why are you fulfilling all of my mother’s dreams?” she asked, studying his face and searching for answers. “So you don’t run away like she did in search of them,” he replied, taking her hand. “Come on, join in!” he said, leaping around.”

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Book:If You Could See Me Now
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“In a way, her strangeness, her naiveté, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of an idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings, had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the restlessness and preoccupation with whim for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for. And like an artist with no art form, she became dangerous.”

WayArtMightFormArtistImaginationHalfDangerousDisciplineActivityConsequencePaintCuriosityMetaphorStringsIdleEquationsClayCravingOther HalfWhimRestlessnessPreoccupationStrangeness
Author:Toni Morrison
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“But there was no hiding from Conscience. Not in new homes and new cars. In travel. In meditation or frantic activity. In children, in good works. On tiptoes or bended knee. In a big career. Or a small cabin. It would find you. The past always did. Which was why... it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you. And found you... Who wouldn't be afraid of this?”

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Book:The Brutal Telling: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel
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“A good book deserves an active reading. The activity of reading does not stop with the work of understanding what a book says. It must be completed by the work of criticism, the work of judging. The undemanding reader fails to satisfy this requirement, probably even more than he fails to analyze and interpret. He not only makes no effort to understand; he also dismisses a book simply by putting it aside and forgetting it. Worse than faintly praising it, he damns it by giving it no critical consideration whatever.”

GivingDoeBookReadingUnderstandingForgetEffortFailingJudgingReaderActivityDeserveCriticismPraiseCriticalActiveConsiderationRequirementsGood Book
Author:Mortimer Adler
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“There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it. To project one's soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of passion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in that - perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its aims.”

RealSoulMomentsAgeFormJoyPassionLeftPleasureViewsCommonInfluenceYouthStrangeExerciseActivityProjectsIntellectualAimSubtleSatisfyingVulgarPerfumeTemperamentGraciousFluidReal Joy
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays
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“In this modern world where activity is stressed almost to the point of mania, quietness as a childhood need is too often overlooked. Yet a child's need for quietness is the same today as it has always been--it may even be greater--for quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.”

WorldNeedsMayChildrenStoriesTodaySongGreaterModernChildhoodAwarenessActivityQuietEssentialsModern WorldStressedOverlookedQuietnessSleepyManiaQuiet TimeChildren's LiteratureChildren Literature
Author:Margaret Wise Brown
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“It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseeen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know, - and of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners, - is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole... to begin by opening up the lower subconscious, risking to raise up all that is foul or obscure in it, is to go out of one's way to invite trouble.”

KnowsMenWayWholeSeemsSecretTroubleActivityRaisesIllCornersSurfaceOpeningAnalysisInvitesPortionsInferiorsSubconsciousObscureLitFoulPsychoOpening UpDynamismSubliminalRaise Up
Author:Sri Aurobindo
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“Not all activities are equal in this regard. Those that involve genuine concentration—studying a musical instrument, playing board games, reading, and dancing—are associated with a lower risk for dementia. Dancing, which requires learning new moves, is both physically and mentally challenging and requires much concentration. Less intense activities, such as bowling, babysitting, and golfing, are not associated with a reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s. (254)”

MovingReadingGamesChallengesStudyRiskActivityEqualRegardInstrumentsDancingMusicalGenuineIntenseBoardsConcentrationGolfingDementiaAlzheimerBowlingAlzheimer'sMusical InstrumentsLearning NewIncidenceBoard GamesBabysitting
Book:The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
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“Imagine, [Kriezler] said, that you enter a large, somewhat crumbling hall that echoes with the sounds of people mumbling and talking repetitively to themselves. All around you these people fall into prostrate positions, some of them weeping. Where are you? Sara’s answer was immediate: in an asylum. Perhaps, Kreizler answered, but you could also be in a church. In the one place the behavior would be considered mad; in the other, not only sane, but as respectable as any human activity can be.”

PeopleHumansSaidWould BeFallSoundChurchAnswersTalkingImaginePositionActivityBehaviorMadHallsSaneEchoesWeepingRespectableAsylumsHuman ActivityCrumbling
Book:The Alienist: A Novel
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“. . . I feel we don’t really need scriptures. The entire life is an open book, a scripture. Read it. Learn while digging a pit or chopping some wood or cooking some food. If you can’t learn from your daily activities, how are you going to understand the scriptures? (233)”

IfsNeedsFeelsBookLife IsActivityMindfulnessCookingWoodsScripturePitsDiggingOpen BookChoppingDaily Activities
Book:Integral Yoga: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
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“Such excessive preoccupation with his faults is not a truly spiritual activity but, on the contrary, a highly egoistic one.The recognition of his own faults should make a man humbler, when it is beneficial, not prouder, which the thought that he ought to have been above these faults makes him.”

MenShouldHas BeensSpiritualOughtActivityFaultsContraryRecognitionBeneficialPreoccupation
Book:The Notebooks of Paul Brunton: Practices for the Quest; Relax and Retreat
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“Writing is not a job or activity. Nor do I sit at a desk writing for inspiration to strike. Writing is like a different kind of existence. In my life, for some of the time, I am in an alternative world, which I enter through day-dreaming or imagination. That world seems as real to me as the more tangible one of relationships and work, cars and taxes. I don't know that they're much different from each other.”

KnowsWorldWritingKindDifferentRealDreamInspirationSeemsJobsImaginationExistenceCarActivityTaxesStrikesAlternativesDifferent KindsDesksTangible
Author:John Marsden
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“Poets have tried to describe Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it's the sheer zestful vitality of the place, or maybe it's just that a city with a million inhabitants and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who prefer daffodils and no wonder. So let's just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.”

CitiesWonderMillionsDogPoetIndustryActivityHotOilLoudCurseCheeseSheerVitalityCathedralsRobustBruisesSlickSewersDaffodilBustleColourfulHot DaysAnkhDead Dog
Author:Terry Pratchett
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“Liz looks at the tissue box, which is decorated with drawings of snowmen engaged in various holiday activities. One of the snowmen is happily placing a smiling rack of gingerbread men in an oven. Baking gingerbread men, or any cooking for that matter, is probably close to suicide for a snowman, Liz thinks. Why would a snowman voluntarily engage in an activity that would in all likelihood melt him? Can snowmen even eat? Liz glares at the box.”

ThinkingMenLooksMatterActivitySuicideCookingBoxesVariousDrawingEngagedHolidayBakingTissuesLikelihoodOvensRacksGlareLizSnowmanGingerbread
Book:Elsewhere
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“Whether we eat, sleep, work, play, whatever we do life contains dissatisfaction, pain. If we enjoy pleasure, we are afraid to lose it; we strive for more and more pleasure or try to contain it. If we suffer pain we want to escape it. We experience dissatisfaction all the time. All activities contain dissatisfaction or pain, continuously.”

IfsWantTryingPlayPainSufferingEnjoyLosesSleepPleasureActivityStriveDissatisfactionWork Play
Book:Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
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