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Arcane Quotes

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Arcane Quotes

“Fear has always been a very important whistleblower. Our emotion and our history can provoke fear that may arrest us at any time or at any place. Above and beyond, fear might be contagious and its scent, sometimes sensual, sometimes mystical or animal, can exude the musty and arcane smell of destiny. ("One could still feel the smell of fear" )”

FearAnimalEmotionHistorySmellSensualScentMysticalContagiousArcaneWhistleblowerArrestProvokeExudeMusty
Author:Erik Pevernagie
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“Quinn seemed to have become one of a jaded philosophical society, a group of arcane deviates. Their raison d'etre was a kind of mystical masochism, forcing initiates toward feats of occult daredevilry - "glimpsing the inferno with eyes of ice", to take from the notebook a phrase that was repeated often and seemed a sort of chant of power. As I suspected, hallucinogenic drugs were used by the sect, and there was no doubt that they believed themselves communing with strange metaphysical venues. Their chief aim, in true mystical fashion, was to transcend common reality in the search for higher states of being, but their stratagem was highly unorthodox, a strange detour along the usual path toward positive illumination. Instead, they maintained a kind of blasphemous fatalism, a doomed determinism which brought them face to face with realms of obscure horror. Perhaps it was this very obscurity that allowed them the excitement of their central purpose, which seemed to be a precarious flirting with personal apocalypse, the striving for horrific dominion over horror itself. ("The Dreaming In Nortown")”

FearHorrorTerrorMysticismMysticalApocalypseMetaphysicalOccultSectsBlasphemyHigher ConsciousnessMagickFatalismArcaneTranscendOccultismMysticsOccult HorrorHallucinogenic DrugsSectHallucinogenicMystical EncounterPhilosophical InquiryBlasphemous
Book:The nightmare factory
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“Film theory has nothing to do with film. Students presumably hope to find out something about film, and all they will find out is an occult and arcane language designed only for the purpose of excluding those who have not mastered it and giving academic rewards to those who have. No one with any literacy, taste or intelligence would want to teach these courses, so the bona fide definition of people teaching them are people who are incapable of teaching anything else.”

PeopleWantGivingFilmPurposeCoursesLanguageTeachTeachingStudentsTheoryTasteRewardsDefinitionsAcademicIncapableLiteracyOccultArcaneFilm Students
Author:Roger Ebert
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“The value of market esoterica to the consumer of investment advice is a different story. In my opinion, investment success will not be produced by arcane formulae, computer programs or signals flashed by the price behavior of stocks and markets. Rather an investor will succeed by coupling good business judgment with an ability to insulate his thoughts and behavior from the super-contagious emotions that swirl about the marketplace.”

DifferentStoriesValuesAbilityEmotionOpinionAdviceSucceedBehaviorJudgmentComputerProgramInvestmentConsumersInvestorsSignalsMarketplaceContagiousGood BusinessSwirlsArcaneInvestment SuccessCoupling
Author:Warren Buffett
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“The rites of passage in the academic world are arcane and, in their own way, highly romantic, and the tensions and unplesantries of dissertations and final oral examinations are quickly forgotten in the wonderful moment of the sherry afterward, admission into a very old club, parties of celebration, doctoral gowns, academic rituals, and hearing for the first time "Dr.," rather than "Miss" Jamison.”

WorldWayFirstsMomentsPartyWonderfulMissingFirst TimeFinalsForgottenClubsHearingTensionRitualPassagesCelebrationAcademicDrsExaminationAdmissionGownsRiteRite Of PassageArcaneDissertationSherryWonderful Moments
Author:Kay Redfield Jamison
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“In spite of the fact that religion looks backward to revealed truth while science looks forward to new vistas and discoveries, both activities produce a sense of awe and a curious mixture of humility and arrogance in their practitioners. All great scientists are inspired by the subtlety and beauty of the natural world that they are seeking to understand. Each new subatomic particle, every unexpected object, produces delight and wonderment. In constructing their theories, physicists are frequently guided by arcane concepts of elegance in the belief that the universe is intrinsically beautiful.”

WorldLooksFactsBeautifulScienceReligionUniverseBeliefNaturalObjectsProduceHumilityTheoryActivityConceptsDiscoveryScientistInspiredDelightSeekingCuriousArroganceAweSpiteUnexpectedPhysicistEleganceMixturesParticlesNatural WorldSubtletyVistasGreat ScientistArcaneSubatomic Particles
Author:Paul Davies
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“The impediment to scientific thinking is not, I think, the difficulty of the subject. Complex intellectual feats have been mainstays even of oppressed cultures. Shamans, magicians and theologians are highly skilled in their intricate and arcane arts. No, the impediment is political and hierarchical.”

ThinkingHas BeensArtPoliticalCultureSubjectsIntellectualDifficultyComplexesOppressedTheologianMagicianIntricateFeatsImpedimentsArcane
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, squares, and the like, but for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite.”

IfsGivingMindHumansSpeakSoundEmotionMagicFiguresMathematicsInspiredMysteriousAbstractPoetry IsSpellsSquaresEquationsHuman EmotionsInclineTrianglesArcane
Author:Ezra Pound
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“Science, the largest religion of the twentieth century, had become tarnished by images of exploding space shuttles, crack babies, and a generation of complacent Americans who allowed the television to raise their children. People were looking for something - I think they just didn't know what. And even though they were once again starting to open their eyes to the world of magic and the arcane that had been with them all the while, they still thought I must be some kind of joke.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWorldKindChildrenStillsEyeSpaceGenerationsMagicCenturyTelevisionBabyJokesRaisesStartingCracksTwentieth CenturyComplacentExplodingSpace ShuttleArcane
Book:The Dresden Files Collection 1-6
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“The study of law can be disappointing at times, a matter of applying narrow rules and arcane procedure to an uncooperative reality; a sort of glorified accounting that serves to regulate the affairs of those who have power--and that all too often seeks to explain, to those who do not, the ultimate wisdom and justness of their condition. But that's not all the law is. The law is also memory; the law also records a long-running conversation, a nation arguing with its conscience.”

LongMatterRealityRunningLawNationsMemoriesStudyRecordsConditionsConversationConscienceUltimateAffairArguingProceduresAccountingDisappointingLaw SchoolArcaneDreams From My FatherUncooperative
Book:Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
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“Do you think I am a fool, Masha? All this time, and you speak to me as though I were a flighty pinprick of a girl. I am a magician! Did you never think, even once, that I loved lipstick and rouge for more than their color alone? I am a student of their lore, and it is arcane and hermetic beyond the dreams of alchemists. Did you never wonder why I gave you so many pots, so many creams, so much perfume?”

ThinkingDreamGirlSpeakWonderStudentsColorFoolPotCreamPerfumeMagicianLipstickAlchemistRougeArcane
Book:Deathless
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“I’ve often wished that I had some suave and socially acceptable hobby that I could fall back on in times like this. You know, play the violin (or was it the viola) like Sherlock Holmes, or maybe twiddle away on the pipe organ like the Disney version of Captain Nemo. But I don’t. I’m sort of the arcane equivalent of a classic computer geek. I do magic, in one form or another, and that’s pretty much it. I really need to get a life, one of these days”

KnowsNeedsPlayFormFallMagicComputerVersionsThese DaysClassicAcceptableOrgansCaptainsHobbiesGeekPipeViolinHolmesFall BackViolaArcaneNemoSuavePipe Organs
Book:Storm Front: Book one of The Dresden Files
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“The more passive one's life in the field, the greater the need to reverse the situation when one returns home, which is why the arcane and authoritative character of academic writing may be seen, to some extent, as a vengeful reaction to the inertia, uneventfulness, and waiting one had to endure as a guest at someone else's banquet. A way of redressing an existental imbalance, as it were reclaiming authorial will by superimposing one's own meaning on theirs...”

WayNeedsWritingMayCharacterHomeWaitingSituationGreaterFieldsReturnEndureRevengeReactionsGuestsAcademicPassiveReverseInertiaImbalanceBanquetsVengefulArcaneAcademic Writing
Author:Michael Jackson
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“People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely rickety substance in order to avoid it. I, on the other hand, see coincidence everywhere as an inevitable consequence of the laws of probability, according to which having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be.”

PeopleHandsLawScienceOrderReadyConsequenceStructureInevitableSubstanceUnusualCoincidenceProbabilityArcane
Book:The planet that wasn't
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“The quantum theory of parallel universes is not the problem, it is the solution. It is not some troublesome, optional interpretation emerging from arcane theoretical considerations. It is the explanation - the only one that is tenable - of a remarkable and counter-intuitive reality.”

ProblemRealityUniverseTheorySolutionsExplanationConsiderationRemarkableInterpretationQuantumIntuitiveParallelsTheoreticalEmergingTroublesomeOptionalQuantum TheoryParallel UniverseArcane
Author:David Deutsch
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“Some string theorists prefer to believe that string theory is too arcane to be understood by human beings, rather than consider the possibility that it might just be wrong.”

BelieveHumansMightHuman BeingsPossibilityTheoryUnderstoodStringsTheoristsString TheoryArcane
Book:The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next
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“One of the leading uses of photography by the mass media came to be called photojournalism. From the late 'twenties' to the early 'fifties' what might have been the golden age of this speciality - photographers worked largely as the possessors of special and arcane skills, like the ancient priests who practiced and monopolized the skills of pictography or carving or manuscript illumination. In those halcyon days the photographer enjoyed a privileged status.”

Has BeensUseMightAgeSpecialMediaSkillsLatePhotographyMassTwentiesPhotographerPhotographAncientGoldenEnjoyedPriestsPrivilegedMight Have BeenIlluminationManuscriptsGolden AgeMass MediaCarvingArcanePhotojournalismLate TwentiesHalcyon Days
Author:John Szarkowski
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