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Function Quotes

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Function Quotes

“Clothes, when abstracted from the flow of present time and their transmogrifying function on the human body, and seen as forms in themselves, are strange tubes and excrescences worthy of being classed with such facial decorations as the ring through the nose or the lip-stretching disk. But how enchanting they become when seen togetherwith the qualities they bestow on their wearer! What happens then is no less than the infusion, into some tangled lines on a piece of paper, of the meaning of a great word.”

HumansBodyHappensFormLinesQualityPiecesStrangePaperClothesFlowFunctionLipsWorthyRingsNosesHuman BodyStretchingTubesDecorationTangledPresent TimeFacialEnchantingDiskInfusion
Author:Robert Musil
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“The physical universe was created when Oneness became duality, and we can see this duality, this yin and yang, everywhere in the universe, in every atom, every action, and in every function of the human body. Yin and yang are manifest everywhere, except at the very center of being, the perfect point of balance, at that infinite moment where the future becomes the past.”

HumansMomentsBodyActionPastSpiritualUniversePerfectBalanceFunctionInfiniteOnenessManifestAtomsHuman BodyDualityYangYin And Yang
Author:Robert Tisserand
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“The demands of our reality function require that we adapt to reality, that we constitute ourselves as a reality and that we manufacture works which are realities. But doesn't reverie, by its very essence, liberate us from the reality function? From the moment it is considered in all its simplicity, it is perfectly evident that reverie bears witness to a normal useful irreality function which keeps the human psyche on the fringe of all the brutality of a hostile and foreign non-self.”

HumansSelfMomentsRealityBearsDemandNormalEssenceFunctionSimplicityWitnessEvidentHostileFringeBrutalityReverieHuman Psyche
Author:Gaston Bachelard
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“Alpha waves in the human brain are between 6 and 8 hertz. The wave frequency of the human cavity resonates between 6 and 8 hertz. All biological systems operate in the same frequency range. The human brain's alpha waves function in this range and the electrical resonance of the earth is between 6 and 8 hertz. Thus, our entire biological system - the brain and the earth itself - work on the same frequencies. If we can control that resonate system electronically, we can directly control the entire mental system of humankind.”

IfsHumansEarthBrainFunctionWaveRangeHumankindFrequencyElectricalHuman BrainResonanceAlphas
Author:Nikola Tesla
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“Junk turns the user into a plant. Plants do not feel pain since pain has no function in a stationary organism. Junk is a pain killer. A plant has no libido in the human or animal sense. Junk replaces the sex drive. Seeding is the sex of the plant and the function of opium is to delay seeding. Perhaps the intense discomfort of withdrawal is the transition from plant back to animal, from a painless, sexless, timeless state back to sex and pain and time, from death back to life.”

FeelsHumansStatesPainTurnsSexAnimalFunctionPlantIntenseTransitionKillersUsersOrganismsTimelessDelayDiscomfortJunkWithdrawalOpiumStationaryPainlessLibidoSex Drive
Author:William S. Burroughs
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“Advertising is the modern substitute for argument, its function is to make the worse appear the better article. A confused competition of all propagandas -- those insults to human nature -- is carried on by the most expert psychological methods -- for instance, by always repeating a lie.”

HumansLyingModernHuman NatureArgumentFunctionMethodCompetitionPsychologicalAdvertisingInstancePropagandaExpertsConfusedInsultSubstitutesArticles
Book:The Works of George Santayana
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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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“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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“In conscious life, we achieve some sense of ourselves as reasonably unified, coherent selves, and without this action would be impossible. But all this is merely at the 'imaginary' level of the ego, which is no more than the tip of the iceberg of the human subject known to psychoanalysis. The ego is function or effect of a subject which is always dispersed, never identical with itself, strung out along the chains of the discourses which constitute it.”

HumansSelfWould BeActionLevelsKnownImpossibleAchieveSubjectsEffectsEgoConsciousFunctionChainsImaginaryDiscourseIdenticalPsychoanalysisUnifiedIcebergTip Of The Iceberg
Book:Literary Theory: An Introduction
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“No slave system has ever been able to continue to function on the slaves provided by its own biological reproduction because the rate of human reproduction is too slow and the expense from infant mortality and years of unproductive upkeep of the young make this prohibitively expensive. This relationship is one of the basic causes of the American Civil War, and was even more significant in destroying ancient Rome.”

YearsHumansWarAbleYoungCausesFunctionSlaveRateAncientSignificantCivil WarExpensiveExpensesMortalityDestroyingRomeInfantAmerican Civil WarReproductionAncient RomeUnproductiveInfant MortalityUpkeep
Book:The evolution of civilizations: an introduction to historical analysis
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“The one function that most gods seem to have in common is to give human existence some ultimate purpose - and, while it is not possible to disprove an ultimate purpose, there does not seem to be any evidence for it. This is not to say, of course, that there is no purpose in life at all: we all make our own purposes as we go through life. And life does not lose its value simply because it it not going to last forever.”

GivingHumansDoeSeemsLastsPurposeValuesCoursesLosesCommonExistenceForeverAtheismEvidenceUltimateFunctionPositive AtheismPurpose Of LifeHuman Existence
Author:Barbara Smoker
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“Feminism is really the right of women to be full human beings and to not be defined only by their childbearing function. Feminism is really the right of women to be human beings. That's it, yet that's so frightening to a lot of people. A full human being wants satisfying work and love. A full human being is entitled to both, and is not simply defined by only one aspect of her being.”

PeopleWantHumansHuman BeingsFeminismAspectAnd LoveFunctionDefinedSatisfyingFrighteningEntitledChildbearingWork And LoveSatisfying Work
Author:Erica Jong
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“What being among the 'right people' entails is the possession of human capital, rather than organizational capital: an individual reputation, portable skills, and network connections. Career responsibility is squarely in the hands of individuals, a function of their knowledge and networks. Transferable knowledge is more important to a career than firm-specific knowledge.”

PeopleHumansImportantHandsIndividualWorkResponsibilityCareersSkillsConnectionsFunctionPossessionReputationFirmNetworkingOrganizational
Book:Men and Women of the Corporation
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“Self-painting is a further development of painting. The pictorial surface has lost its function as sole expressive support. It was led back to its origins, the wall, the object, the living being, the human body. By incorporating my body as expressive support, occurrences arise as a result, the course of which the camera records and the viewer can experience”

HumansSelfBodyCoursesLostResultsSupportRecordsObjectsPaintingWallDevelopmentFunctionCamerasSurfaceAriseSoleViewersHuman BodyExpressivePictorialIncorporating
Author:Gunter Brus
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“The religion of art, like the religion of politics, was born from the ruins of Christianity. Art inherited from the old religion the power of consecrating things and endowing them with a sort of eternity; museums are our temples, and the objects displayed in them are beyond history. Politics--or more precisely, Revolution--co-opted the other function of religion: changing human beings and society. Art was an asceticism, a spiritual heroism; Revolution was the construction of a universal church.”

HumansArtSpiritualPoliticsBornChurchHuman BeingsChristianityObjectsRevolutionUniversalEternityFunctionRuinsTemplesMuseumsConstructionHeroismAsceticism
Book:1904-1912
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“Whoever considers morality the main objective of human existence, seems to me like a person who defines the purpose of a clock asnot going wrong. The first objective for a clock, is, however, that it does run; not going wrong is an additional regulative function. If not a watch's greatest accomplishment were not going wrong, unwound watches might be the best.”

IfsFirstsHumansPersonsDoeSeemsMightRunningPurposeExistenceWatchesMoralityFunctionPrioritiesObjectivesClockAccomplishmentBeing The BestHuman ExistenceGreatest Accomplishment
Author:Franz Grillparzer
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“Technologically, modern man does everything he can do-he functions on this single boundary principle. Modern man, seeing himself as autonomous, with no personal-infinite God who has spoken, has no adequate universal to supply an adequate second boundary condition; and man being fallen is not only finite, but sinful. Thus man's pragmatically made choices have no reference point beyond human egotism. It is dog eat dog, man eat man, man eat nature.”

MenHumansDoeMadeChoicesCan DoPrinciplesSeeingModernConditionsDogUniversalFunctionInfiniteEnvironmentalBoundariesFallenFiniteAdequateStewardshipEgotismModern ManAutonomous
Author:Francis Schaeffer
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“The idea that we are "stewards of the earth" is another symptom of human arrogance. Imagine yourself with the task of overseeing your body's physical processes. Do you understand the way it works well enough to keep all its systems in operation? Can you make your kidneys function? Can you control the removal of waste? Are you conscious of the blood flow through your arteries, or the fact that you are losing a hundred thousand skin cells a minute?”

WayHumansWellsIdeasEnoughFactsBodyEarthProcessImagineBloodMinutesThousandWasteLosingConsciousHundredFlowTasksSkinsFunctionEnvironmentalYour BodyCellsOperationsArroganceSymptomsStewardshipRemovalKidneysStewardsArteriesBlood FlowOverseeing
Author:Lynn Margulis
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“The most ancient parts of truth . . . also once were plastic. They also were called true for human reasons. They also mediated between still earlier truths and what in those days were novel observations. Purely objective truth, truth in whose establishment the function of giving human satisfaction in marrying previous parts of experience with newer parts played no role whatsoever, is nowhere to be found. The reasons why we call things true is the reason why they are true, for to be true means only to perform this marriage-function.”

GivingHumansMeanStillsReasonTruthFoundRolesNovelFunctionAncientSatisfactionObjectivesBeing TrueObservationReason WhyEstablishmentPlasticMarryingHuman ReasonObjective Truth
Author:William James
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