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Elements Quotes

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Elements Quotes

“Some discouragement, some faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary, is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind, and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.”

PeopleIfsShouldHumansHeartRealFactsFeelingsWould BeLyingDiesGrowsSidesEmotionSilenceVisionMankindBearsElementsBeatsOrdinaryTragedyMovedHearingHuman LifeGrassUnusualImaginaryFrequencyDiscouragementSquirrelsHeart BeatCoarse
Author:George Eliot
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“What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.”

IfsNeedsMeanDoeCharacterFeelingsActionPastRaceAttitudeDestinyElementsResponsibleBackgroundsChemistryBondageInheritanceOur DestinyOur ActionsDiscouragingAltered
Author:Anais Nin
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“The need of black conservatives to gain the respect of their white peers deeply shapes certain elements of their conservatism. In this regard, they simply want what most people want, to be judged by the quality of their skills, not by the color of their skin. But the black conservatives overlook the fact that affirmative action policies were political responses to the pervasive refusal of most white Americans to judge black Americans on that basis.”

PeopleWantNeedsFactsActionPoliticalCertainBlackWhiteQualityPolicyColorJudgingShapesSkillsElementsGainsSkinsBasesRegardResponseJudgedPeersConservatismRefusalAffirmative ActionAffirmative
Author:Cornel West
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“He's of the colour of the nutmeg. And of the heat of the ginger.... he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him; he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts.”

MayEarthWaterFireAirPureElementsHorsePatientHeatBeastColourDullStillnessRidersGingerJade
Book:Second Tetralogy In Plain and Simple English: Includes Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V
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“In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what's human and magical that still live and glow despite the times' darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it.”

WorldWayHumansArtStillsSeemsDarkFictionDarknessAlivePossibilityThis WorldElementsDefinitionsDespiteWorldviewGood ArtDark TimesCpr
Author:David Foster Wallace
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“Autobiography is not important. Authenticity is important. The writer must fire herself through the text, be the molten stuff that welds together disparate elements. I believe there is always exposure, vulnerability, in the writing process, which is not to say it is either confessional or memoir. Simply, it is real.”

WritingBelieveImportantRealTogetherI BelieveStuffProcessFireElementsMemoirAuthenticityVulnerabilityAutobiographyWriting ProcessExposure
Book:Weight
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“The road now stretched across open country, and it occured to me - not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience - that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good. It was a pleasant diaphragmal melting, with elements of diffused tactility, all this enhanced by the thought that nothing could be nearer to the elimination of basic physical laws than deliberately driving on the wrong site of the road.”

WayWellsCountryFeelingsMightLawHumanityLeftSidesNovelElementsDrivingSymbolsPleasantProtestSiteTrafficHighwaysMeltingDisregardEliminationDisregardedDriving On
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
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“It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity. Through Mary, and the other holy women, the feminine element stands at the heart of the Christian religion.”

HeartImportantChristianWomenChristianityHolyElementsFeminineCatholicismMary
Book:God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time : a Conversation with Peter Seewald
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“I refuse to turn to theology to justify the life or redeem it. There is a question always of the connection to the eternal. I say to myself above all, keep alive your conviction that there are sacred elements in the life in the practice of the life that must be respected. But the conviction in the existence of the sacred does not necessarily imply that you need to believe in a creator, because we are the ones that made the sacred.”

NeedsBelieveDoeMadeTurnsExistencePracticeAliveElementsEternalConnectionsSacredRefuseConvictionCreatorTheologyJustify
Author:Stanley Kunitz
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“I know what I should love to do - to build a study; to write, and to think of nothing else. I want to bury myself in a den of books. I want to saturate myself with the elements of which they are made, and breathe their atmosphere until I am of it. Not a bookworm, being which is to give off no utterances; but a man in the world of writing - one with a pen that shall stop men to listen to it, whether they wish to or not.”

ThinkingKnowsMenWorldWantGivingShouldWritingMadeBookWishStudyElementsBreatheAtmospherePensUtteranceDensBookworms
Book:An autobiography
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“The central question is, is this guy right? Or is he mad? What do you, the reader, think about this? Which struck me as a properly anarchist solution. I didn't want to tell people what to think, I just wanted to tell people to think and consider some of these admittedly extreme little elements, which nevertheless do recur fairly regularly throughout human history.”

PeopleThinkingWantHumansLittlesWantedGuyReaderElementsSolutionsMadExtremesNeverthelessThis GuyHuman HistoryAnarchist
Author:Alan Moore
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“No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath... We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?" -Donald Miller,Through Painted Deserts”

PersonsStoriesWould BeFallCrimeElementsPagesUnderstoodRiversEmptyBreathsFalling In LoveSettingSettingsDesertBridgesFlatsResolutionVentureSonnetClimax
Book:Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road
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“when the sky is as grey as this - impeccably grey, a denial, really of the very concept of colour - and the stooped millions lift their heads, it's hard to tell the air from the impurities in our human eyes, as if the sinking climbing paisley curlicues of grit were part of the element itself, rain, spores, tears, film, dirt. Perhaps, at such moments, the sky is no more then the sum of the dirt that lives in our human eyes.”

IfsHumansHardMomentsEyeFilmMillionsAirSkyTearsElementsConceptsRainDenialLiftsColourClimbingDirtGreyGritSinkingImpurityHuman EyesPaisley
Book:Money
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“No doubt very few people understand the purely subjective nature of the phenomenon that we call love, or how it creates, so to speak, a supplementary person, distinct from the person whom the world knows by the same name, a person most of whose constituent elements are derived from ourselves.”

PeopleKnowsWorldPersonsNamesSpeakDoubtElementsNo DoubtPhenomenonSubjectiveConstituents
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Marcel Proust (Illustrated)
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“It's far easier to write why something is terrible than why it's good. If you're reviewing a film and you decide "This is a movie I don't like," basically you can take every element of the film and find the obvious flaw, or argue that it seems ridiculous, or like a parody of itself, or that it's not as good as something similar that was done in a previous film. What's hard to do is describe why you like something. Because ultimately, the reason things move people is very amorphous. You can be cerebral about things you hate, but most of the things you like tend to be very emotive.”

PeopleIfsWritingHardReasonDoneSeemsFilmMovingHateTerribleEasierElementsCriticismObviousArguingRidiculousFlawsLike SomethingParodyCerebralThings You Like
Author:Chuck Klosterman
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“So you want another story?" Uhh... no. We would like to know what really happened." Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?" Uhh... perhaps in English. In Japanese a story would have an element of invention in it. We don't want any invention. We want the 'straight facts,' as you say in English." Isn't telling about something--using words, English or Japanese--already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?”

KnowsWorldWantFactsStoriesHappenedThis WorldElementsInventionUsing Words
Book:Life of Pi
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“Thus we arrive at the singular conclusion that of all the information passed by our cultural assets it is precisely the elements which might be of the greatest importance to us and which have the task of solving the riddles of the universe and of reconciling us to the sufferings of life -- it is precisely those elements that are the least well authenticated of any.”

WellsMightSufferingUniverseInformationElementsTasksImportanceConclusionAssetsRiddle
Author:Sigmund Freud
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“I had always wanted to love Eve as Denny loved her, but I never had because I was afraid. She was my rain. She was my unpredictable element. She was my fear. But a racer should not be afraid of the rain; a racer should embrace the rain. I, alone, could manifest a change around me. By changing my mood, my energy, I allowed Eve to regard me differently. And while I cannot say that I am a master of my own destiny, I can say that I have experienced a glimpse of mastery, and I know what I have to work toward.”

KnowsShouldI CanWantedEnergyMy OwnDestinyMastersElementsRainRegardEmbraceMoodManifestMasteryUnpredictableGlimpseRacers
Author:Garth Stein
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“Wolfe was drinking beer and looking at pictures of snowflakes in a book someone had sent him from Czechoslovakia... ...Wolfe seemed absorbed in the pictures. Looking at him, I said to myself, "He's in a battle with the elements. He's fighting his way through a raging blizzard, just sitting there comfortably looking at pictures of snowflakes. That's the advantage of being an artist, of having imagination." I said aloud, "You mustn't go to sleep, sir, it's fatal. You freeze to death." The League of Frightened Men”

MenWaySaidBookArtistFightingImaginationSleepBattleElementsSittingAdvantageDrinkingRageBeerLeagueFrightenedGoing To SleepFreezeBeing An ArtistSnowflakeDrinking BeerBlizzardCzechoslovakia
Author:Rex Stout
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“I feel as if one would only discover on one's death-bed what one ought to have lived for, and realise too late that one's life has been wasted. Any passionate and courageous life seems good in itself, yet one feels that some element of delusion is involved in giving so much passion to any humanly attainable object. And so irony creeps into the very springs of one's being.”

IfsGivingFeelsHas BeensSeemsPassionObjectsOughtInvolvedBedElementsLateSpringPassionateIronyToo LateDelusionCourageousRealisingCreepsDeath Bed
Book:The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
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“at least nine-tenths of all the original reality ever created lies outside the multiverse, and since the multiverse by definition includes absolutely everything that is anything, this puts a bit of a strain on things. Outside the boundaries of the universe lie the raw realities, the could-have-beens, the might-bes, the never-weres, the wild ideas, all being created and uncreated chaotically like elements in fermenting supernovas. Just occasionally where the walls of the worlds have worn a bit thin, they can leak in.”

WorldHas BeensIdeasRealityMightLyingUniverseBitsWallElementsOriginalsDefinitionsBoundariesNineWornStrainCould Have BeenLeaksMultiverseSupernova
Author:Terry Pratchett
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“Each person is made of five different elements, she told me. Too much fire and you had a bad temper. That was like my father, whom my mother always critized for his cigarette habit and who always shouted back that she should feel guilty that he didn't let my mother speak her mind. Too little wood and you bent too quickly to listen to other people's ideas, unable to stand on your own. This was like my Auntie An-mei. Too much water and you flowed in too many different directions. like myself.”

PeopleFeelsShouldMindLittlesPersonsMadeIdeasDifferentMotherFatherSpeakWaterFireFiveToo MuchHabitElementsWoodsGuiltyTemperCigaretteBentDifferent DirectionsBad TemperAuntie
Author:Amy Tan
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“If gold has been prized because it is the most inert element, changeless and incorruptible, water is prized for the opposite reason -- its fluidity, mobility, changeability that make it a necessity and a metaphor for life itself. To value gold over water is to value economy over ecology, that which can be locked up over that which connects all things.”

IfsHas BeensReasonValuesWaterEconomyElementsAll ThingsGoldOppositesMetaphorLockedEcologyLocked UpMobilityFluidity
Book:Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics
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“For half of the world's population, roughly three billion people around the world living on less than two dollars a day, an election is at best a means, not an end; a starting point, not deliverance. These people are looking less for an "electocracy" than for the basic elements that for most of us define a decent life--food, shelter, electricity, basic health care, education for their children, and the ability to make their way through life without having to endure corruption, violence, or arbitrary power.”

PeopleWorldWayMeanChildrenTwoEndsCareThreeAbilityHalfViolenceElementsElectionDollarsEndureStartingPopulationCorruptionBillionsAround The WorldHealth CareDecentShelterElectricityArbitraryLiving OnDeliveranceStarting PointDecent Life
Book:The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
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“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson...”

KnowsRealMatterGovernmentAmericaFreedomElementsFinancialCorruptionNew WorldConspiracyBankingBankersNew World OrderWorld OrderAndrewFederal ReserveWorld GovernmentCentral BanksOne World GovernmentReal TruthCorporatismCentral BankingEconomic OrderCentral GovernmentCorrupt Government
Author:Franklin D. Roosevelt
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“Knowing is not simply a material act, since the object that is known always conceals something beyond the empirical datum. All our knowledge, even the most simple, is always a minor miracle, since it can never be fully explained by the material instruments that we apply to it. In every truth there is something more than we would have expected, in the love that we receive there is always an element that surprises us.”

SimpleKnownKnowingObjectsMaterialsElementsMiracleInstrumentsSurpriseExpectedDataMinors
Book:Charity in Truth
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“We knew so little about eachother. We lay mostly submerged, like ice floes with our visible social selves projecting only cool and white. Here was a rare sight below the waves, of a man's privacy and turmoil, of his dignity upended by the overpowering necessity of pure fantasy, pure thought, by the irreducible human element - Mind.”

MenMindHumansLittlesSelfSocialWhiteFantasyPureElementsDignitySightLaysWaveIceVisiblePrivacyTurmoilSubmergedOverpowering
Author:Ian Mcewan
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