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Form Quotes

“The actual infinite arises in three contexts: first when it is realized in the most complete form, in a fully independent otherworldly being, in Deo, where I call it the Absolute Infinite or simply Absolute; second when it occurs in the contingent, created world; third when the mind grasps it in abstracto as a mathematical magnitude, number or order type.”

WorldMindFirstsFormOrderThreeNumbersTypeLogicThirdsAbsolutesInfiniteIndependentAriseCertaintyMathematicalUncertaintyReasoningMagnitudeOntologyFinite Number
Author:Georg Cantor
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“We were the children of white flight, the first generation to grow up in postwar American suburbs. By the time the ’60s rolled around, many of us, the gay ones especially, were eager to make a U-turn and fly back the other way. Whether or not the city was obsolete, we couldn’t imagine our personal futures in any other form. The street and the skyline signified to us what the lawn and the highway signified to our parents: a place to breathe free.”

WayFirstsChildrenFormTurnsGrowsParentWhiteCitiesGrowing UpImagineGenerationsStreetsGayBreatheFlightHighwaysObsoleteSuburbsLawnsSkylines
Author:Herbert Muschamp
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“And it may be that a crowd at a particular moment of history creates the object to justify its gathering, as it did at the first Human Be-In and Monterey Pop and Woodstock. Or it may be that two generations of war and surveillance had left people craving the embodiment of their own unease in the form of a lone, unsteady man on a slide guitar.”

PeopleMenFirstsHumansMayTwoWarMomentsFormLeftGenerationsObjectsParticularGuitarCrowdsPopsJustifyGatheringCravingSlidesSurveillanceEmbodimentLoneWoodstockMonterey
Book:A Visit From the Goon Squad
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“In our quest to quickly make three-dimensional objects, we can miss out on the experience of making something that helps give us our first understandings of form and material, of the way a material behaves--'I press too hard here, and it breaks here' and so on. Some of the digital rendering tools are impressive, but it's important that people still really try and figure out a way of gaining direct experience with the materials.”

PeopleWayGivingTryingFirstsStillsImportantHardHelpingFormThreeUnderstandingBreakMissingFiguresObjectsMaterialsToolsDirectPressesBehaveDigitalQuestsImpressiveRendering
Author:Jonathan Ive
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“The character of greatness must be measured in two ways, else the measurement is flawed. First, and by far most popular of all, is by one's ability to succeed in times of trial where others may fail. But of no less importance, and perhaps foundational to any form of greatness, is one's willingness to start over in spite of failure, when success seems farthest away.”

WayFirstsMayTwoCharacterSeemsFormAbilityFailingGreatnessSucceedImportanceTrialsSpiteWillingnessFlawedStarting OverMeasurementTwo WaysAbility To Succeed
Author:Guy Finley
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“Where do you put a form? It will move all around, bellow out and shrink, and sometimes it winds up where it was in the first place. But at the end it feels different, and it had to make the voyage. I am a moralist and cannot accept what has not been paid for, or a form that has not been lived through.”

FeelsFirstsDifferentEndsSometimesMovingFormAcceptingWindPaidShrinksVoyagesMoralist
Book:Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations
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“It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist: the threat is rather to life itself.”

WayLifeShouldFirstsFormExistenceSituationEnvironmentSeaChangedActivityOceanThreatEnvironmentalCuriousConservationThreatenedOur EnvironmentSinisterEnvironmentalistBiologistMarine LifeSave The EnvironmentOcean SeaSilent SpringOceans And SeasSea LifeThe Wild NatureBeach And OceanBeach OceanOcean ConservationMarine BiologyMarine BiologistWild Sea
Book:The Sea Around Us
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“Organic life beneath the shoreless waves Was born and rais’d in Ocean’s pearly caves First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass, Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass; These, as successive generations bloom, New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume; Whence countless groups of vegetation spring, And breathing realms of fin, and feet and wing.”

FirstsMovingFormBornGenerationsGroupsFeetMinutesOceanMassSpringWingsAssumingGlassesWaveBreathingRealmsAcquireUnseenMudCavesLimbsPierceVegetationFinsOrganic Life
Author:Erasmus Darwin
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“By firm immutable immortal laws Impress'd on Nature by the GREAT FIRST CAUSE, Say, MUSE! how rose from elemental strife Organic forms, and kindled into life; How Love and Sympathy with potent charm Warm the cold heart, the lifted hand disarm; Allure with pleasures, and alarm with pains, And bind Society in golden chains.”

FirstsHeartHandsPainFormLawScienceCausesNatureNaturalPleasureColdRoseWarmGoldenChainsFirmCharmImmortalMuseImpressStrifeAlarmsElementalsAllureCold Heart
Book:The Botanic Garden: A Poem, in Two Parts ... The Economy of Vegetation, and The Loves of the Plants. With Philosophical Notes
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“There must be a union between the spirit in wood and the spirit in man. The grain of the wood must relate closely to its function. The abutment of the edge of one board to an adjoining board can mean the success or failure of a piece. () Gradually a form evolves, much as nature produces the tree in the first place. The object created can live forever. The tree lives on in its new form. The object cannot follow a transitory “style”, here for a moment, discarded the next. Its appeal must be universal. Cordial and receptive, it should invite a meeting with man”

MenShouldFirstsMeanMomentsFormSpiritNextForeverPiecesTreeStyleDesignObjectsProduceUniversalFunctionUnionsMeetingsEdgesWoodsRelateAppealsEvolveBoardsInvitesGrainFurnitureLive ForeverReceptiveDiscardedTransitoryCraftsmanSuccess Or FailureTree Of LifeArtisansWoodworking
Author:George Nakashima
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“Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own government, to levy their own taxes, and to make their own laws.... There was second, the liberty of the individual man to live his own life, within the limits of decency and decorum, as he pleased -- freedom from the despotism of the majority.”

PeopleMenFirstsTwoWholeGovernmentFormLawIndividualJusticeLibertyHonorLimitsTaxesMajorityDetermineIndividualismTaxationDecencyDespotismBoonDecorum
Book:Alexander Hamilton: Lapham's Quarterly - Special Issue
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“Literacy is much more than an educational priority - it is the ultimate investment in the future and the first step towards all the new forms of literacy required in the twenty-first century. We wish to see a century where every child is able to read and to use this skill to gain autonomy.”

FirstsChildrenUseAbleFormReadingWishEducationStepsLearningCenturyPoliticianFutureSkillsGainsUltimateTwentiesInvestmentEducationalPrioritiesFirst StepsLiteracyAutonomyIlliteracyChildren LearningUnesco
Author:Irina Bokova
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“When we trust the makers of baby formula more than we do our own ability to nourish our babies, we lose a chance to claim an aspect of our power as women. Thinking that baby formula is as good as breast milk is believing that thirty years of technology is superior to three million years of nature's evolution. Countless women have regained trust in their bodies through nursing their children, even if they weren't sure at first that they could do it. It is an act of female power, and I think of it as feminism in its purest form.”

IfsThinkingYearsFirstsBelieveChildrenBodyFormThreeLosesChanceAbilityMillionsTechnologyFeminismBabyEvolutionFemaleAspectClaimsSuperiorsThirtyBreastsMakersFormulasMilkNursingThirty YearsBreastfeedingFemale Power
Author:Christiane Northrup
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“I compelled myself all through to write an exercise in verse, in a different form, every day of the year. I turned out my page every day, of some sort - I mean I didn't give a damn about the meaning, I just wanted to master the form - all the way from free verse, Walt Whitman, to the most elaborate of villanelles and ballad forms. Very good training. I've always told everybody who has ever come to me that I thought that was the first thing to do.”

WayGivingWritingYearsFirstsMeanDifferentWantedFormMastersExercisePagesTrainingVery GoodDamnThings To DoVersesCompelledWaltBalladsDays Of The YearFree Verse
Author:Conrad Aiken
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“One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself. If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you're going east, and you will be walking east when you think you're going west.”

PeopleIfsThinkingShouldFirstsFormYoungDecisionSeeingHabitWalkingIntelligentWestEastThink For Yourself
Author:Malcolm X
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“I think art is the only political power, the only revolutionary power, the only evolutionary power, the only power to free humankind form all repression. I say not that art has already realized this, on the contrary, and because it has not, it has to be developed as a weapon, at first there are radical levels, then you can speak about special details.”

ThinkingFirstsArtFormPoliticalSpeakLevelsSpecialWeaponsArt IsDetailsContraryRadicalRevolutionaryHumankindRepressionPolitical Power
Author:Joseph Beuys
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“Henceforward the Christian Churches having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, came into the hands of the Encratites: and the Heathens, who in the fourth century came over in great numbers to the Christians, embraced more readily this sort of Christianity, as having a greater affinity with their old superstitions, than that of the sincere Christians; who by the lamps of the seven Churches of Asia, and not by the lamps of the Monasteries, had illuminated the Church Catholic during the three first centuries.”

FirstsHandsChristianFormThreeChurchNumbersChristianityGreaterCenturyCatholicSevenSincereFourthSuperstitionsAsiaLampsGodlinessAffinityChristian ChurchHeathenMonasteries
Book:Observations
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“Our principle is: to prevent all command over man by his fellowmen, to, make state, government, laws, or whatsoever form of compulsion existing, a thing of the past, to establish full freedom for all. Anarchism means first and foremost freedom from all government.”

MenFirstsMeanStatesGovernmentPastFormLawPrinciplesCommandCompulsionAnarchismState Government
Book:The Social Monster: A Paper on Communism and Anarchism
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“Born and nurtured when the human being first asked questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in different modes and forms that the desire for truth is part of human nature itself.”

FirstsHumansDifferentReasonPhilosophyShowsFormDesirePurposeBornHuman BeingsHuman NatureTruth Is
Book:Faith and Reason: Encyclical Letter Fides Et Ratio of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Relationship Between Faith and Reason
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“If we wish to influence our own life in a particular direction, which is constantly threatened by the danger of the emergence of alien life-forms, and protect it from deterioration, then we must either allow Nature to rule or, if we wish to intervene, we must first acquaint ourselves with the simplest principles of life.”

IfsFirstsFormWishPrinciplesInfluenceDangerParticularProtectAliensThreatenedSimplestEmergenceDeteriorationAlien Life
Book:The Energy Evolution – Harnessing Free Energy from Nature: Volume 4 of Renowned Environmentalist Viktor Schauberger’s Eco-Technology Series
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“I have gained very great inspiration from the Cornish land- and seascape, the horizontal line of the sea and the quality of light and colour which reminds me of the Mediterranean light and colour which so excites one's sense of form; and first and last there is the human figure which in the country becomes a free and moving part of a greater whole. This relationship between figure and landscape is vitally important to me. I cannot feel it in a city.”

FeelsFirstsHumansImportantCountryWholeLightInspirationLastsMovingFormLinesCitiesQualityGreaterSeaLandFiguresLandscapeColourHorizontalFirsts And LastsMoving PartsHorizontal Lines
Author:Barbara Hepworth
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“Slavery was a central concern of governance form the time of the first nation-state. The Code of Hammurabi, the earliest know set of laws for governing an empire, prescribed death for anyone who harbored a fugitive or otherwise helped a slave to escape. The relationship between the law and bondage goes back even farther: Indeed, the oldest extant legal documents don't concern the sale of land, houses, or even animals, but slaves.”

KnowsFirstsStatesFormLawHouseNationsAnimalLandConcernSlaverySlaveCodeEmpiresDocumentsBondageGovernanceGoverningFugitive
Book:The Culture of Make Believe
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“There is, however, in art another kind of external similarity which is founded on a fundamental truth. When there is a similarity of inner tendency in the whole moral and spiritual atmosphere, a similarity of ideals, at first closely pursued but later lost to sight, a similarity in the inner feeling of any one period to that of another, the logical result will be a revival of the external forms which served to express those inner feelings in an earlier age.”

FirstsKindArtWholeFeelingsAgeSpiritualFormLostResultsMoralPeriodsIdealsSightFundamentalsTendenciesAtmosphereLogicalRevivalPursuedSimilarityInner Feelings
Book:Concerning the spiritual in art
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“The unphilosophical and philosophical attitudes can be very sharply distinguished (with scarcely any intermediate forms) by the fact that the first accepts everything that happens as regards its general form, and finds occasion for surprise only in that special content by which something that happens here today differs from what happened there yesterday; whereas for the second, it is precisely the common features of all experience, such as characterise everything we encounter, which are the primary and most profound occasion for astonishment.”

FirstsFactsHappensTodayFormCommonAttitudeAcceptingHappenedSpecialPhilosophicalRegardSurpriseProfoundYesterdayOccasionsPrimariesFeaturesEncountersDistinguishedAstonishment
Author:Erwin Schrodinger
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“There is some other form that you contain within yourself that is not will or purpose and, when applied to art, serves you best. If you systematically apply to the art that you create the aggression of the world that turned you towards art in the first place; if you, in turn, become the aggressor towards your canvas, the thing that you're doing; if you, in turn, work your will upon this thing that you want - you will then cause a dissatisfaction in this life that you create.”

IfsWorldWantFirstsArtFormPurposeTurnsCausesThis LifeAggressionCanvasDissatisfactionAggressors
Author:Milton Resnick
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“Incorporating in their colorful, slashing, superbly readable pages, the major themes of the "left" opposition under Walpole, these libertarian tracts, emerging first in the form of denunciations of standing armies in the reign of William III, left an indelible imprint on the "country" mind everywhere in the English-speaking world.”

WorldMindFirstsCountryFormLeftMajorsPagesStandingArmyLibertarianThemeOppositionReignEmergingColorfulIndelibleIncorporatingEnglish Speaking
Book:The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
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“In the beginning, there were bacteria.... [A] nearly universal assumption is that all subsequent life descended from the original life form through a continuous chain of ancestor-descendant pairs. This assumption looks good because all living organisms share biochemical traits. It is conceivable, of course, that life originated more than once on the early earth but that all except one life form died out early, leaving a single lineage as the ancestor of life as we know it. If this did happen, it was the first important species extinction.”

IfsKnowsFirstsLooksImportantHappensEarthFormCoursesShareUniversalDiedOriginalsSpeciesLeavingChainsAssumptionPairsAncestorTraitsOrganismsExtinctionDescendantsBacteriaLineageLiving OrganismsSpecies Extinction
Author:David M. Raup
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“For thousands of years humankind's finest minds have been struggling with the theoretical problem of finding the forms that would give peoples the possibility, without the greatest of torment, without internecine strife, of living side by side in friendship and brotherhood. Practically speaking, the first step in this direction is only being taken now, today.”

GivingYearsMindFirstsHas BeensProblemTodayFormSidesStepsStruggleTakenPossibilityFindingsBrotherhoodFirst StepsHumankindFinestStrifeTormentTheoretical
Author:Mikhail Kalinin
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“I made the first 'Blumen' picture after looking at Robert Mapplethorpe's Pictures book. I was struck by how much freedom Mapplethorpe was able to extract from his model's restraint-that in tying up and cropping his models, he appears to be able to work with people as forms. I never thought about my flowers as related to his (which I saw as annoyingly erotic); I thought of them in relationship to bondage. I wanted to make the flowers more aggressive and ironic and less docile and sensual.”

PeopleFirstsMadeBookAbleWantedFormSawsFlowerModelsSensualRelatedAggressiveIronicRestraintBondageEroticPicture BooksDocile
Author:Collier Schorr
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“It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around.... It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.”

WayFirstsBelieveFactsFormI BelieveProcessCasesAtheismTheoryEvidenceHistoricalPositive AtheismNarrativeWiserAccordEmergingGeneralizationArranging
Book:Practicing History: Selected Essays
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