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Figments Quotes

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Figments Quotes

“Religions have been universal in the sense that all the people we know anything about have had a religion. But the differences among them are so great and so shocking that any common element that can be extracted is meaningless.... The older apologists for Christianity seem to have been better advised than some modern ones in condemning every religion but one as an impostor, as at bottom some kind of demon worship or at any rate a superstitious figment.”

PeopleKnowsKindHas BeensSeemsDifferencesCommonChristianityAtheismModernElementsWorshipUniversalBottomRatePositive AtheismDemonMeaninglessShockingSuperstitiousCondemningFigments
Book:The Essential Dewey: Pragmatism, education, democracy
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“"What is my job on the planet?" is one question we might do well to ask ourselves over and over again. Otherwise, we may wind up doing somebody else's job and not even know it. And what's more, that somebody else might be a figment of our own imagination, and maybe a prisoner of it as well.”

KnowsWellsMayMightJobsAsksImaginationPlanetsWindPrisonerFigments
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
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“We perceive and interpret the outer world through a set of incredibly fine internal receptors. But we are incapable, by ourselves, of grasping or tweezing out any permanent, sharable figment of it. Practically speaking, we ritually verify what is there, and are disposed to call it reality. But, with photographs, we have concrete proof that we have not been hallucinating all our lives.”

WorldRealityOur LivesFinePhotographProofPermanentPerceiveInternalsConcreteIncapableGraspingOuter WorldsVerifyFigments
Book:Photography & Fascination: Essays
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“There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But he still says so. There was no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida. But he still says so. And thus, gripping firmly these figments of his own imagination, Mr. Cheney lives on, in defiance, and spreads - around him and before him - darkness, like some contagion of fear. They are never wrong, and they never regret - admirable in a French torch singer, cataclysmic in an American leader.”

StillsImaginationLeaderDarknessRegretWeaponsMassDestructionIraqSpreadSingersAlsLinksSaddamHusseinDefianceAdmirableWeapons Of Mass DestructionMass DestructionTorchesGrippingContagionNever RegretFigments
Author:Keith Olbermann
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“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”

PeopleLifeHas BeensSometimesHardImaginationApproachMirrorsGlassesRefuseInvisibleSurroundingsCircusFigmentsSideshows
Book:Invisible Man
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“Already all confusion. Things and imaginings. As of always. Confusion amounting to nothing. Despite precautions. If only she could be pure figment. Unalloyed. This old so dying woman. So dead. In the madhouse of the skull and nowhere else. Where no more precautions to be taken. No precautions possible. Cooped up there with the rest. Hovel and stones. The lot. And the eye. How simple all then. If only all could be pure figment. Neither be nor been nor by any shift to be. Gently gently. On. Careful.”

IfsEyeSimpleTakenDyingPureStonesCarefulConfusionDespiteSkullsPrecautionMadhousesFigments
Book:Company / Ill Seen Ill Said / Worstward Ho / Stirrings Still
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“I felt no shame in these activities, because I understood what almost no one else seemed to grasp: that there was only an infinitesimal difference, a difference so small that it barely existed except as a figment of the human imagination, between working in a tall green glass building on Park Avenue and collecting litter in a park. In fact, there may have been no difference at all.”

HumansMayHas BeensFactsFeltImaginationDifferencesBuildingActivityUnderstoodShameGreenGlassesParksTallAvenuesCollectingHuman ImaginationFigments
Author:Jennifer Egan
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“Understanding God is not attained by calling into session all arguments for and against Him, in order to debate whether He is a reality or a figment of the mind. God cannot be sensed as a second thought, as an explanation of the origin of the universe. He is either the first and the last, or just another concept.”

MindFirstsRealityLastsOrderUniverseUnderstandingAtheismCallingConceptsArgumentAtheistDebateExplanationSessionSecond ThoughtsFigmentsUnderstanding God
Book:God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism
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“The wonders of the music of the future will be of a higher & wider scale and will introduce many sounds that the human ear is now incapable of hearing. Among these new sounds will be the glorious music of angelic chorales. As men hear these they will cease to consider Angels as figments of their imagination.”

MenHumansInspirationSoundImaginationWonderHigherAngelEarsHearingScalesCeaseContemplationGloriousIntroducingIncapableAngelicFigmentsChorale
Author:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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“Some years ago I wrote a book called The House on Eccles Street. To write this book I had to think my way into the existence of Marion Bloom...Marion Bloom was a figment of James Joyce's imagination. If I can think my way into the existence of a being who has never existed, then I can think my way into the existence of a bat or a chimpanzee or an oyster, any being with whom I share the substrate of life.”

IfsThinkingWayWritingYearsI CanBookHouseImaginationAnimalExistenceShareStreetsEthicsYears AgoMy WayPetBatsOystersChimpanzeesJoyceAnimal EthicsFigments
Author:J. M. Coetzee
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“Vain vision! when the changing world each day Sees some such lordly pleasance pass away; When the mere stripling knows my symbols all Worn tokes, heaven hypothetical, Nature indifferent, and the dreams of men Figments of longing which we must condemn. Yet keep these plants, O Man! a kinder time May yet be moved by them to better rhyme, Or moved, like me, to place his pleasure low, On the firm Earth, whence Men and Blossoms grow.”

KnowsMenWorldMayDreamEarthDeathHeavenGrowsPleasureVisionDyingLowsMovedLongingPlantMereLike MeSymbolsVainFirmEach DayWornIndifferentRhymePassing AwayImpermanenceKinderHypotheticalFigments
Author:Ruth Pitter
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“I've frequently been asked over the years who Lily Savage was based on and I've always answered that it was no one in particular and she was just a figment of my imagination. The truth, I realise now, is that Lily owes a lot to the women I encountered in my childhood. Characteristics and attitudes were observed and absorbed, Aunty Chris's in particular, and they provided the roots and compost for the Lily that would germinate and grow later on.”

YearsGrowsImaginationAttitudeChildhoodParticularRootsCharacteristicsRealisingSavagesMy ImaginationLiliesFigmentsCompost
Author:Paul O'Grady
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“It is a great profession. There is the fascination of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings jobs and homes to men. Then it elevates the standards of living and adds to the comforts of life. That is the engineer's high privilege.”

MenHomeJobsMovingScienceEnergyImaginationPlansComfortPaperStandardsStonesAddPrivilegeProfessionAidsRealizationPresidentialMetalsEngineeringEngineersFascinationStandards Of LivingFigmentsCivil EngineerCivil EngineeringEngineering Inspirational
Book:The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of adventure, 1874-1920
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“Sunday morning in America is the greatest hour of idolatry in the whole week. Why? Because most people who are even worshiping God, are worshiping a God they don't know. They're worshiping a god that looks more like Santa Claus than the God of Scripture. They're worshiping a god that is a figment of their own imagination. They created a god in their own likeness and they worship the god they've made.”

PeopleKnowsLooksMadeWholeAmericaHoursImaginationMorningWeekWorshipScriptureSundaySantaIdolatrySanta ClausWorship GodSunday MorningFigments
Author:Paul Washer
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“I believe that ideas such as absolute certitude, absolute exactness, final truth, etc. are figments of the imagination which should not be admissible in any field of science... This loosening of thinking seems to me to be the greatest blessing which modern science has given to us. For the belief in a single truth and in being the possessor thereof is the root cause of all evil in the world.”

ThinkingWorldShouldBelieveIdeasSeemsEvilBeliefGivenI BelieveCausesImaginationModernFieldsBlessingRootsAbsolutesFinalsEtcModern ScienceCertitudeRoot CauseGreatest BlessingsFigmentsExactness
Author:Max Born
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“There is a philosophy that says that if something is unobservable -- unobservable in principle -- it is not part of science. If there is no way to falsify or confirm a hypothesis, it belongs to the realm of metaphysical speculation, together with astrology and spiritualism. By that standard, most of the universe has no scientific reality -- it's just a figment of our imaginations.”

IfsWayPhilosophyRealityTogetherScienceUniverseImaginationPrinciplesStandardsRealmsBelongingUnseenMetaphysicalHypothesisSpeculationPhysicistObservingAstrologySpiritualismFigments
Author:Leonard Susskind
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“Now, we deny not, but that politicians may sometimes abuse religion, and make it serve for the promoting of their own private interests and designs; which yet they could not do so well neither, were the thing itself a mere cheat and figment of their own, and had no reality at all in nature, nor anything solid at the bottom of it.”

WellsMaySometimesRealityPoliticsInterestDesignPoliticianAbuseMereBottomDenyCheatPromotingFigments
Book:The True Intellectual System of the Universe: Wherein All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted, and Its Impossibility Demonstrated
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“I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”

WorldHumansBookCharacterStoriesTogetherImaginationLossFictionPaperPagesLettersBonesSentencesAbsenceAssociationAdolescenceLimbsNew ThoughtHuman RelationsHuman RelationshipsLove And LossFigments
Author:Tahereh Mafi
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