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Function Quotes

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Function Quotes

“Every physical quality admired by men in women is in direct connection with the manifold functions of women for the propagation of the species.”

MenWomenQualityDirectConnectionsFunctionSpeciesManifoldPropagation
Book:A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN (Awakening of Stephen Dedalus): An Autobiographical Novel from the Author of Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, Dubliners, Stephen Hero, Chamber Music & Exiles
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“But it is recognized that punishment for the abuse of the liberty accorded to the press is essential to the protection of the public, and that the common law rules that subject the libeler to responsibility for the public offense, as well as for the private injury, are not abolished by the protection extended in our constitutions. The law of criminal libel rests upon that secure foundation. There is also the conceded authority of courts to punish for contempt when publications directly tend to prevent the proper discharge of judicial functions.”

WellsLawCommonResponsibilityLibertySubjectsEssentialsAuthorityAbuseFunctionConstitutionFoundationCourtPressesProtectionCriminalsPunishmentSecureInjuryContemptOffensePublicationJudicialDischargeLibelConcededCommon Law
Author:Charles Evans Hughes
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“The American psychologist Julian Jaynes, in a controversial study on the origin of consciousness, argued that the bicameral mind - in which one of the hemispheres becomes specialized in silent reading - is a late development in humankind's evolution, and that the process by which this function develops is still changing.”

MindStillsReadingProcessConsciousnessStudyDevelopmentEvolutionLateFunctionSilentHumankindControversialPsychologistHemisphere
Author:Alberto Manguel
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“The difference between a pessimistic and an optimistic mind is of such controlling importance in regard to every intellectual function, and especially for the conduct of life, that it is out of the question to admit that both are normal, and the great majority of mankind are naturally optimistic.”

MindDifferencesMankindNormalIntellectualFunctionImportanceRegardMajorityOptimisticPessimistic
Book:Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance)
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“Things don't have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What's the function of a galaxy? I don't know if our life has a purpose and I don't see that it matters. What does matter is that we're a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass.”

IfsKnowsDoeMatterPurposeUniverseOur LivesFieldsWindMachinesFunctionGrassThreadGalaxyBladesWind Blowing
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“When persons are present to one another they can function not merely as physical instruments but also as communicative ones. This possibility, no less than the physical one, is fateful for everyone concerned and in every society appears to come under strict normative regulation, giving rise to a kind of communication traffic order.”

GivingKindPersonsOrderPossibilityCommunicationConcernedFunctionInstrumentsRegulationTrafficStrict
Book:Behavior in Public Places
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“Psychic disturbances are the consequences of the sexual chaos of society. For thousands of years, this chaos has had the function of psychically subjecting man to the prevailing conditions of existence, of internalizing the external mechanization of life. It has served to bring about the psychic anchoring of a mechanized and authoritarian civilization by making man incapable of functioning independently.”

MenYearsExistenceConditionsCivilizationConsequenceFunctionChaosIncapablePsychicsPrevailingDisturbanceMechanizationInternalizing
Author:Wilhelm Reich
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“Since the Greeks the predominant attitude of thinkers towards intellectual activity was to glorify it insofar as (like aesthetic activity) it finds its satisfaction in itself, apart from any attention to the advantages it may procure. Most thinkers would have agreed with Renan's verdict that the man who loves science for its fruits commits the worst of blasphemies against that divinity. The modern clercs have violently torn up this charter. They proclaim the intellectual functions are only respectable to the extent that they are bound up with the pursuit of concrete advantage.”

MenMayAttentionAttitudeModernWorstHe ManActivityIntellectualAdvantageFunctionFruitBoundsSatisfactionPursuitCommitGreekDivinityThinkerAestheticConcreteTornRespectableGlorifyBlasphemyCharterVerdictScience Love
Author:Julien Benda
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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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“It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. ... Some of the worst tyrannies of our day genuinely are "vowed" to the service of mankind, yet can function only by pitting neighbor against neighbor. The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor. In a Communist state love of neighbor may be classed as counter-revolutionary.”

MayStatesWholeEyeHumanityNextSeeingDoorsWorstMankindEasierFunctionNeighborTyrannyRevolutionaryCommunistRegimesNext Door NeighborsTotalitarian Regimes
Book:Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
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“To play with baubles is our ambition, not to deal with grave questions in a spirit of serious energy. But while we are playing with baubles, with our Legislative Councils, our Simultaneous Examinations, our ingenious schemes for separating the judicial from the executive functions, - while we, I say, are finessing about trifles, the waters of the great deep are being stirred and that surging chaos of the primitive man over which our civilised societies are superimposed on a thin crust of convention, is being strangely and ominously agitated.”

MenPlaySpiritEnergyWaterDealsSeriousAmbitionFunctionChaosGravesExecutivesConventionsPrimitiveSchemesCouncilExaminationTriflesJudicialIngeniousSeparatingCivilisedSimultaneousPrimitive ManCivilised Society
Author:Sri Aurobindo
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“The essence of religion is inertia; the essence of science is change. It is the function of the one to preserve, it is the function of the other to improve. If, as in Egypt, they are firmly chained together, either science will advance, in which case the religion will be altered, or the religion will preserve its purity, and science will congeal.”

IfsTogetherCasesEssenceFunctionPreservesPurityEgyptAlteredInertiaChained
Book:The Martyrdom of Man
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“Under the natural course of things each citizen tends towards his fittest function. Those who are competent to the kind of work they undertake, succeed, and, in the average of cases, are advanced in proportion to their efficiency; while the incompetent, society soon finds out, ceases to employ, forces to try something easier, and eventually turns to use.”

TryingKindUseTurnsCoursesForceNaturalCasesCitizensEasierSucceedFunctionAverageCeaseProportionEfficiencyCompetentIncompetent
Book:Essays--scientific, political and speculative
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“What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the only established defense against nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. How do we prevent the use of nuclear weapons? By threatening to use nuclear weapons. And we can't get rid of nuclear weapons, because of nuclear weapons. The intransigence, it seems, is a function of the weapons themselves.”

UseSeemsWeaponsFunctionDefenseNuclearPrioritiesTargetNuclear WeaponsThreateningNuclear WarProvocation
Author:Martin Amis
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“The condition of the theater is always an accurate measure of the cultural health of a nation. A play always exists in the present tense (if it is a valuable one), and its music -- its special noise -- is always contemporary. The most valuable function of the theater as an art form is to tell us who we are, and the health of the theater is determined by how much of that we want to know.”

IfsKnowsWantArtPlayFormNationsSpecialConditionsFunctionTheaterValuableDeterminedTheatreContemporaryNoiseWho We AreAccurateTensePresent Tense
Book:Stretching My Mind: The Collected Essays of Edward Albee
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“Organized business has assumed that greater profits would be pretty much of a cure-all, and it has to a major extent ignored the fact that the welfare of business rests upon the welfare of the consumers of a nation; that business or free enterprise will function in a democracy only so long as the democracy functions.”

LongFactsWould BeNationsDemocracyGreaterMajorsFunctionProfitCuresConsumersWelfareOrganizedEnterpriseIgnoredFree Enterprise
Author:Saul Alinsky
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“When the head of a goat is severed from its body, the trunk struggles for some time, still showing signs of life. Similarly, though ahamkara (egotism) is slain in the perfect man, yet enough of its vitality is left to make him carry on the functions of physical life; but it is not sufficient to bind him again into the world.”

MenWorldStillsEnoughBodyLeftPerfectStruggleFunctionSufficientVitalityEgotismGoatsTrunksPerfect ManSigns Of Life
Book:Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna: The Most Exhaustive Collection of Them, Their Number Being 1120
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“The function of the rebel is to shake the fixated mores of the rigid order of civilization; and this shaking, though painful, is necessary if the society is to be saved from boredom and apathy. Obviously I do not refer to everyone who calls himself a rebel, but only to the authentic rebel. Civilization gets its first flower from the rebel.”

IfsFirstsOrderFlowerCivilizationFunctionPainfulSavedBoredomShakesRebelApathyShaking
Book:Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence
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“Whatever the practical origins of aesthetic discernment may have been, it has been used to create great works of art. When the very loftiest human creations are seen to derive from humble origins and functions, what needs revision is not our esteem for these creations but our notion of nobility.”

NeedsHumansMayHas BeensArtUsedCreationFunctionNotionHumblePracticalsEsteemWorks Of ArtAestheticNobilityGreat WorkDiscernmentRevision
Book:The Nature of Rationality
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