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Essentials Quotes

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Essentials Quotes

“Imagination transforms one substance into another. It changes what is into what might be, what was into what might have been. Straw becomes gold, gold straw, and neither is more real nor, I submit, more precious than the other. Pebbles turn into luminous pearls and pearls into little gray rocks, both solid and beautiful, both essential. Human beings take shape from clay, angels' wings are spun out of water, fire gives rise to the long tongues of demons, love emerges out of thin air, and the basic elements reconstitute themselves again and again.”

GivingHumansLittlesLongHas BeensRealMightBeautifulTurnsWaterImaginationHuman BeingsFireAirRocksShapesEssentialsElementsAngelGoldWingsTongueSubstanceDemonGraySubmitAgain And AgainPearlsMight Have BeenClayLuminousStrawsPebblesSpunThin AirAngel Wings
Book:The Man on the Ceiling
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“It is rewarding to find someone you like, but it is essential to like yourself. It is quickening to recognize that someone is a good and decent human being, but it is indispensable to view yourself as acceptable. It is a delight to discover people who are worthy of respect and admiration and love, but it is vital to believe yourself deserving of these things.”

PeopleBelieveHumansHuman BeingsViewsHealingSelf EsteemLike YouEssentialsAnd LoveDelightWorthyEsteemDecentBelieve In YourselfAdmirationAcceptableIndispensableDeservingLike YourselfQuickeningSomeone You Like
Book:Advice from a Failure
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“Every victory of man over man has in itself a taste of defeat.... There is no essential difference between the various human groups, creatures whose bones and brains and members are the same; and every damage we do there is a form of mutilation, as if the fingers of the left hand were to be cut off by the right.”

IfsMenHumansHandsFormWinningLeftDifferencesBrainCuttingGroupsVictoryTasteCreaturesMembersEssentialsFingersDefeatVariousBonesDamageLeft HandMutilation
Book:the zodiac arch
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“It may indeed prove to be far the most difficult and not the least important task for human reason rationally to comprehend its own limitations. It is essential for the growth of reason that as individuals we should bow to forces and obey principles which we cannot hope fully to understand, yet on which the advance and even the preservation of civilization depend.”

ShouldHumansMayImportantReasonIndividualForceDifficultGrowthPrinciplesDependsCivilizationProveEssentialsTasksLimitationBowsPreservationHuman Reason
Author:Friedrich August von Hayek
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“They are inherently good - the bad reactions aren't basic. Every human being is a child of God and has more good in him than evil - but circumstances and associates can step up the bad and reduce the good. I've got great faith in the essential fairness and decency - you may say goodness - of the human being.”

HumansMayChildrenEvilHuman BeingsStepsCircumstancesEssentialsGoodnessReactionsFairnessAssociatesDecencyChild Of GodStep UpGreat Faith
Author:Norman Vincent Peale
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“Most of the complexity of the stories has developed as the stories came along (and may be a product of the principle that "nothing is what it seems"). I did start with some essential ambiguousness in the aliens' motivation and the questions this raises in human minds, which I consider to have been disregarded in Contact (novel and film). That, in part, may be what has delayed the writing of the fifth and sixth novelettes in the series.”

WritingMindHumansMayHas BeensStoriesSeemsFilmMotivationPrinciplesNovelProductsEssentialsRaisesSeriesContactAliensComplexityHuman MindFifthAmbiguityDelayedDisregarded
Author:James Gunn
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“The "environmental movement" is becoming an economic movement, is joining the social justice movement, is becoming a sustainability movement. It's leaving behind the "People's Needs versus Nature's Needs" conflict in favor of making the case for environmental health as the essential underpinning of prosperous and stable human civilization.”

PeopleNeedsHumansSocialJusticeBehindsCasesEconomicMovementBecomingCivilizationConflictEssentialsSocial JusticeMental HealthEnvironmentalLeavingFavorsSustainabilityStableVersusProsperousJoiningHuman CivilizationEnvironmental Health
Author:Edward Norton
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“The identification with the common lot which is the essential idea of Democracy becomes the source and expression of social ethics. It is as though we thirsted to drink at the great wells of human experience, because we knew that a daintier or less potent draught would not carry us to the end of the journey, going forward as we must in the heat and jostle of the crowd.”

HumansWellsIdeasEndsSocialCommonDemocracyJourneyExpressionSourceDrinkEssentialsEthicsCrowdsHeatHuman ExperienceIdentificationDraught
Book:Democracy and Social Ethics
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“The human brain became large by natural selection (who knows why, but presumably for good cause). Yet surely most "things" now done by our brains, and essential both to our cultures and to our very survival, are epiphenomena of the computing power of this machine, not genetically grounded Darwinian entities created specifically by natural selection for their current function.”

KnowsHumansDoneCultureCausesNaturalBrainEssentialsSurvivalMachinesFunctionCurrentsEntityGroundedSelectionNatural SelectionHuman BrainComputingGood Causes
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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“I must make MAGICK the essential factor in the life of ALL. In presenting this book to the world, I must then explain and justify my position by formulating a definition of MAGICK and setting forth its main principles in such a way that ALL may understand instantly that their souls, their lives, in every relation with every other human being and every circumstance, depend upon MAGICK and the right comprehension and right application thereof.”

WorldWayHumansMayBookSoulHuman BeingsPrinciplesPositionDependsCircumstancesEssentialsRelationDefinitionsSettingFactorsSettingsJustifyApplicationComprehensionPresenting
Book:Magick: In Theory and Practice
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“Let us admit that most of us writers feel an essential aversion to politics. By taking such a position, however, we accept the perverted principle of specialization, according to which some are paid to write about the horrors of the world and human responsibility and others to deal with those horrors and bear the human responsibility for them.”

WorldFeelsWritingHumansDealsResponsibilityAcceptingPrinciplesPositionBearsHorrorEssentialsPaidAversionSpecialization
Author:Vaclav Havel
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“Anybody who has ever owned a dog who barked when strangers came near its owner's property has experienced the essential continuity between animal territoriality and human property. Our domesticated cousins of the wolf know, instinctively, that property is no mere social convention or game, but a critically important evolved mechanism for the avoidance of violence. (This makes them smarter than a good many human political theorists.)”

HumansPoliticalAnimalDogEssentialsPropertyStrangerOwnersGood ManSmarterCousinContinuityTheorists
Author:Eric S. Raymond
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“Human beings any one of us, and our species as a whole are not all-important, not at the center of the world. That is the one essential piece of information, the one great secret, offered by any encounter with the woods or the mountains or the ocean or any wilderness or chunk of nature or patch of night sky.”

WorldHumansImportantWholeNightHuman BeingsSecretPiecesSkyInformationMountainEssentialsOceanSpeciesWoodsEncountersWildernessPatchesNight SkyChunksCenter Of The World
Book:The end of nature
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“In a revolutionary age talk of equality may well have represented a passion to provide full human dignity to those who had previously been denied it by systems of political and economic domination; but in the present age it softens the spiritual requirements that are an essential ingredient in human dignity. Thus the slogans of equality serve not so much to elevate individuals to the dignity of being human as to free them from the responsibility of rising to this vocation.”

HumansWellsMayAgeSpiritualPoliticalPassionIndividualResponsibilityEconomicEssentialsDignityRevolutionaryRisingIngredientsDeniedRequirementsBeing HumanDominationVocationSlogansHuman Dignity
Book:Kierkegaard's Critique of Reason and Society
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“My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts (as well as unable to take such a course of action) if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. On the other hand, if such a traditional god does not exist, our curiosity and our intelligence are the essential tools for managing our survival. In either case, the enterprise of knowledge is consistent with both science and religion, and is essential for the welfare of the human species.”

IfsHumansWellsDoeHandsWould BeActionUniversePassionCoursesBeliefCasesEssentialsSurvivalToolsSpeciesCuriosityTraditionalWelfareEnterpriseConsistentScience And ReligionHuman Species
Book:Broca's brain: reflections on the romance of science
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“One of the most essential and mundane of human activities - taking care of children - requires high levels of anxious vigilance. ... [Parents] dare not risk assuming that the sudden quiet from the toddlers' room means they are studying with Baby Einstein. Visualize fratricidal stranglings and electric outlets stabbed with forks: this is how we have reproduced our genomes.”

HumansMeanChildrenCareParentLevelsRoomsStudyRiskBabyActivityQuietEssentialsAssumingDareAnxiousElectricOutletsMundaneForksHigh LevelHuman ActivityVigilanceToddlerGenomeStrangling
Author:Barbara Ehrenreich
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“For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner. It is not a mechanical routine, but something essential to my daily life. I go to the piano, and play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I cannot think of doing otherwise. It is a sort of benediction on the house. But that is not its only meaning for me. It is a rediscovery of the world of which I have the joy of being a part. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with a feeling of the incredible marvel of being a human being.”

ThinkingWorldYearsHumansTwoPlayFeelingsPastJoyHouseHuman BeingsWonderAwarenessEssentialsIncrediblesPianoEach DayDaily LifeRoutineEightyPreludeBenedictionWonder Of LifeFugueRediscovery
Author:Pablo Casals
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“Cops never took anything on faith, and disbelieved every story that was told them on principle until and unless they could confirm that the story was fact in all its essentials, and even then remained wary and unconvinced. Cop shops bred skeptics. Skeptics cherished few illusions about human nature, and therefore were seldom disappointed.”

HumansFactsStoriesPrinciplesHuman NatureEssentialsIllusionShopsDisappointedCopLaw EnforcementSkeptic
Author:Dana Stabenow
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“Since zombies are not fully dead, they upset the essential balance of nature: no animals eat zombies, apparently, and zombies do not seem to decay, at least, not to the point of disintegration and reintegration back into the soil, so the food chain, or the circle of life, seems to end or be short-circuited by their existence. Zombies fulfill the worst potentialities of humans to create a hellish kingdom on earth of endless, sterile repetition and boredom.”

HumansEndsSeemsEarthAnimalExistenceWorstBalanceEssentialsCirclesEndlessKingdomsChainsUpsetBoredomSoilDecayRepetitionZombieFood ChainDisintegrationCircle Of LifeReintegration
Book:Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth
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“When human laws contradict or discountenance the means, which are necessary to preserve the essential rights of any society, they defeat the proper end of all laws, and so become null and void.”

HumansMeanEndsLawRightsEssentialsDefeatPreservesVoidNull
Book:The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc
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“The human animal, like others, is adapted to a certain amount of struggle for life [and] the mere absence of effort from his life removes an essential ingredient of happiness. [. . .] He forgets that to be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”

WantHumansCertainForgetAnimalEffortStruggleAmountEssentialsMereAbsenceRemoveIngredientsIndispensableAdaptedHuman Animal
Book:The Conquest of Happiness
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“Everybody needs a fan, and the support and the encouragement. We're human beings; that is an essential part of the equation. When that fan is not there and when you're in a situation that triggers you on a historical level, you behave impulsively. You can destroy years worth of work professionally, personally, in a moment of being triggered by that.”

NeedsYearsHumansMomentsHuman BeingsLevelsSituationSupportFansEssentialsEncouragementHistoricalBehaveEquationsTriggers
Author:Jillian Michaels
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“The Gnostics believed that exile was the essential condition of man. Do you agree? I do. The artist and the addict both wrestle with this experience of exile. They share an acute, even excruciating sensitivity to the state of separation and isolation, and both actively seek a way to overcome it, to transcend it, or at least to make the pain go away. What is the pain of being human? It's the condition of being suspended between two worlds and being unable to fully enter into either.”

MenWorldWayHumansTwoStatesPainArtistShareConditionsEssentialsOvercomingAgreeSeparationIsolationGoing AwayBeing HumanSensitivityAddictExileSuspendedTwo Worlds
Book:Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work
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“All deductions having been made, democracy has done less harm, and more good, than any other form of government. It gave to human existence a zest and camaraderie that outweighed its pitfalls and defects. It gave to thought and science and enterprise the freedom essential to their operation and growth. It broke down the walls of privilege and class, and in each generation it raised up ability from every rank and place.”

HumansMadeDoneGovernmentFormGrowthAbilityExistenceClassDemocracyGenerationsWallEssentialsRaisedPrivilegeHarmBrokeOperationsEnterpriseDefectsHuman ExistenceForms Of GovernmentDemocracies HaveDeductionsCamaraderieZestPitfalls
Book:The Lessons of History
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“It may be safely affirmed that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition.... They both speak by and to the same organs; the bodies in which both of them are clothed may be said to be of the same substance, their affections are kindred, and almost identical, not necessarily differing even in degree; Poetry sheds no tears "such as Angels weep," but natural and human tears; she can boast of no celestial ichor that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose; the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both.”

HumansMaySaidBodyPoetrySpeakLanguageNaturalDifferencesBloodTearsPoetEssentialsDegreesAngelAffectionSubstanceProseOrgansShedCompositionVeinsBoastJuiceIdenticalCelestialKindred
Author:William Wordsworth
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“There are of course people who are more important than others in that they have more importance in the world but this is not essential and it ceases to be. I have no sense of difference in this respect because every human being comprises the combination form.”

PeopleWorldHumansImportantFormCoursesDifferencesHuman BeingsEssentialsImportanceEqualityCeaseCombination
Book:A primer for the gradual understanding of Gertrude Stein
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“We have imagined ourselves a special creation, set apart from other humans. In the last twentieth century, we see that our povertyis as absolute as that of the poorest nations. We have attempted to deny the human condition in our quest for power after power. It would be well for us to rejoin the human race, to accept our essential poverty as a gift, and to share our material wealth with those in need.”

NeedsHumansWellsWould BeLastsNationsWealthRaceAcceptingPovertyShareSpecialConditionsCenturyCreationMaterialsEssentialsAbsolutesDenyHuman RaceHuman ConditionQuestsTwentieth CenturyPoorestThose In NeedMaterial Wealth
Author:Robert Neelly Bellah
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