Quotessence
Home / Topics / Grasping Quotes

Grasping Quotes

Browse 219 quotes about Grasping.

Related topics

WayWorldMindHandsIfsMenPeopleMeanMomentsSufferingUnderstandingGivingHumansKnowsRealityTryingWantFactsFallFirstsPersonsPleasureThinking

Grasping Quotes

“[Wise men] have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.”

IfsMenDoeArtMatterStatesLawStarsWiseDemandEconomicsAll ThingsCirclesOnenessFrogsGraspingSupply And DemandBonaparte
Book:Lo!
Create image

“This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood, So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calm'd. See, here it is-- I hold it towards you.”

IfsHeartDreamHandsMightNightWishSilenceBloodColdCapableConscienceRedCalmWarmStreamsDryVeinsEarnestChillTombsGraspingIcy
Author:John Keats
Create image

“When I return to the world, I will be a man. I will walk among you. I will lick my lips with my small, dexterous tongue. I will shake hands with other men, grasping firmly with my opposable thumbs. And I will teach all people that I know. And when I see a man or a woman or a child in trouble, I will extend my hand, both metaphorically and physically. I will offer my hand. To him. To her. To you. To the world. I will be a good citizen, a good partner in the endeaver of life that we all share.”

PeopleKnowsMenWorldChildrenHandsWalksTeachTroubleShareReturnCitizensOffersLipsTonguePartnersShakesBe A ManThumbsGraspingGood Citizen
Author:Garth Stein
Create image

“Why are there beings at all instead of nothing? That is the question. Presumably it is not arbitrary question, "Why are there beings at all instead of nothing"- this is obviously the first of all questions. Of course it is not the first question in the chronological sense [...] And yet, we are each touched once, maybe even every now and then, by the concealed power of this question, without properly grasping what is happening to us. In great despair, for example, when all weight tends to dwindle away from things and the sense of things grows dark, the question looms.”

FirstsCoursesGrowsDarkExampleDespairHappeningsWeightTouchedNow And ThenArbitraryConcealedGrasping
Author:Martin Heidegger
Create image

“Of what is lost, irretrievably lost, all I wish to recover is the daily availability of my writing, lines capable of grasping me by the hair and lifting me up when I'm at the end of my strength. (Significant, said the foreigner.) Odes to the human and the divine. Let my writing be like the verses of by Leopardi that Daniel Biga recited on a Nordic bridge to gird himself with courage.”

WritingHumansSaidEndsLostWishLinesDivineHairCapableSignificantBridgesVersesForeignersLiftingGraspingAvailabilityOdesNordic
Author:Roberto Bolano
Create image

“The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists exists; what is is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced. Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality–it is our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see." -Richard”

ThinkingWayFirstsMeanI CanReasonFactsRealityLawLife IsChoicesWishEffortPrinciplesSurvivalBuiltToolsFoundationRefuseRejectsDiscoveringPenaltiesSovereignAbyssWhimGraspingBedrock
Book:Faith of the Fallen
Create image

“Crank, You See isn't any ordinary monster. It's like a giant octopus, weaving its tentacles not just around you, but through you, squeezing not hard enough to kill you, but enough to keep you from reeling until you try to get away. Try, and you hunger for it grasping clutch, the way its tendrils prop you up, your need intensifying exponentially every minute you refuse to admit its being (p.469)”

WayNeedsTryingHardEnoughMinutesOrdinaryHungerRefuseMonstersGiantsGet AwayPropsGraspingClutchWeavingCrankSqueezingOctopusTentacles
Book:Ellen Hopkins: Crank Trilogy
Create image

“Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me. The little we do understand, that grain of sand our minds are capable of grasping, those ideas such as God is good, God feels, God loves, God knows all, are enough to keep our hearts dwelling on His majesty and otherness forever.”

KnowsFeelsMindHeartLittlesMadeI CanIdeasEnoughChristianForeverCapableGod LoveComplexitySandBreakfastGrainGod KnowsMajestyDwellingChristian FaithTotalityGraspingGood GodPancakesOthernessGrains Of Sand
Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
Create image

“We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute.”

StillsWisdomHandsGovernmentWatchesIndustryProsperityCornersInventionPermitMultitudesGreedyTaxationRevenuePreySpoilTributePretenseGraspingTax DayCrevice
Book:Paine and Jefferson on Liberty
Create image

“This is where we go our seperate ways. Aware of the almost feel of his hand on my arm when he pulls me back to him and says, "Yes." I look at him, unsure of what he's saying yes to. "The questions you asked earlier, about wanting to settle down, start a family, see my family? Yes. Yes to all of it." I try to swallow but can't, try to speak but the words just won't come. His hands sliding around me, grasping me to him, he lets go of the vial, allows it to fall, to crash to the ground. The sparkling green liquid seeping out all around as he says, "But mostly yes to you.”

WayFeelsTryingLooksHandsFallSpeakArmsLetting GoMy FamilyGreenSettlingCrashLiquidGraspingSettling DownSparklingUnsureSaying Yes
Author:Alyson Noel
Create image

“To learn to see- to accustom the eye to calmness, to patience, and to allow things to come up to it; to defer judgment, and to acquire the habit of approaching and grasping an individual case from all sides. This is the first preparatory schooling of intellectuality. One must not respond immediately to a stimulus; one must acquire a command of the obstructing and isolating instincts.”

FirstsEyeIndividualSidesCasesHabitJudgmentInstinctCalmCome UpCommandAcquireCalmnessStimulusSchoolingGraspingIntellectualism
Book:The complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche: The first complete and authorized English translation
Create image

“The Lord gave the wonderful promise of the free use of His name with the Father in conjunction with doing His works. The disciple who lives only for Jesus' work and kingdom, for His will and honor, will be given the power to appropriate the promise. Anyone grasping the promise only when he wants something very special for himself will be disappointed, because he is making Jesus the servant of his own comfort. But whoever wants to pray the effective prayer of faith because he needs it for the work of the Master will learn it, because he has made himself the servant of his Lord's interests.”

WantNeedsMadeUseFatherJesusNamesGivenInterestPrayerLordWonderfulSpecialMastersPrayingHonorComfortPromiseKingdomsServantAppropriateDisappointedDiscipleWant SomethingGraspingConjunctions
Author:Andrew Murray
Create image

“I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You’d think we’d be getting better at it. But there’s just more and more chaos. The pieces—they’re everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it will mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe in that.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldWantBelieveMeanStillsFeelingsUsedFallPiecesHarderChaosComplicatedGet BetterRight ThingConfusingRight PlaceNobody KnowsGrasping
Author:David Levithan
Create image

“There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.”

KnowsFirstsKindMeanPersonsSelfUseSocialKindnessGreaterGoodnessUniqueLettersWeakSickImportanceUglyValuableSelfishReleaseRecognitionMannersConsiderationGraspingEgotisticalKinds Of LoveSelf-importance
Author:John Steinbeck
Create image

“The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are. To follow a path with heart, we must understand the whole process of making war within ourselves and without, how it begins and how it ends. War’s roots are in ignorance. Without understanding we can easily become frightened by life’s fleeting changes, the inevitable losses, disappointments, the insecurity of our aging and death. Misunderstanding leads us to fight against life, running from pain or grasping at security and pleasures that by their nature can never be satisfying.”

WayMindHeartWarEndsWholeRunningPainFightingProcessUnderstandingLossPleasurePathSecurityIgnoranceRootsAgingDisappointmentInevitableInsecurityFrightenedSatisfyingMisunderstandingFleetingGrasping
Author:Jack Kornfield
Create image

“There were times when the fact of impending death seemed as palpable as the bed they lay on, and they would cling together with a sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned soul grasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within five minutes of striking. But there were also times when they had the illusion not only of safety but of permanence.”

SoulFactsTogetherLastsPleasureFiveMinutesBedIllusionSafetyLaysSensualityClockFive MinutesGraspingPermanenceDamned SoulsImpending Death
Book:The Complete Novels of George Orwell: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Create image

“Free passion is radiation without a radiator, a fluid, pervasive warmth that flows effortlessly. It is not destructive because it is a balanced state of being and highly intelligent. Self-consciousness inhibits this intelligent, balanced state of being. By opening, by dropping our self-conscious grasping, we see not only the surface of an object, but we see the whole way through.”

WaySelfStatesWholePassionConsciousnessObjectsConsciousFlowIntelligentSurfaceOpeningBuddhistDestructiveWarmthRadiationBalancedDroppingFluidSelf ConsciousSelf ConsciousnessGraspingHighly Intelligent
Book:The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings
Create image

“Reason is man's faculty for grasping the world by thought, in contradiction to intelligence, which is man's ability to manipulate the world with the help of thought. Reason is man's instrument for arriving at the truth, intelligence is man's instrument for manipulating the world more successfully; the former is essentially human, the latter belongs to the animal part of man.”

MenWorldHumansReasonHelpingAbilityAnimalIntelligentInstrumentsFormerContradictionLatterFacultySaneManipulateArrivingGrasping
Book:Sane Society Ils 252
Create image

“There is no final solution to loneliness until you recognize that you need the resources which are in yourself to enpy, within limits, being alone being the kind of person that you like to be with, and reaching out to others, not in a grasping way, but in an attempt to be meaningful and loving and of service in their lives.”

WayLifeNeedsKindPersonsLonelinessLimitsSolutionsResourcesFinalsMeaningfulReachingReach OutGraspingFeeling Lonely
Author:Truman G. Madsen
Create image

“...any belief in supernatural creators, rulers, or influencers of natural or human process introduces an irreparable split into the universe, and prevents us from grasping its real unity. Any belief in Absolutes, whether the absolute validity of moral commandments, of authority of revelation, of inner certitudes, or of divine inspiration, erects a formidable barrier against progress and the responsibility of improvement, moral, rational, and religious.”

HumansRealInspirationUniverseBeliefProcessNaturalReligiousResponsibilityMoralProgressAtheismDivineAuthorityAbsolutesUnityCreatorImprovementRationalRevelationsBarriersIntroducingRulersSplitsCommandmentsValidityGraspingFormidableCertitudeDivine InspirationIrreparable
Author:Julian Huxley
Create image

“In the field one has to face a chaos of facts, some of which are so small that they seem insignificant; others loom so large that they are hard to encompass with one synthetic glance. But in this crude form they are not scientific facts at all; they are absolutely elusive, and can be fixed only by interpretation, by seeing them sub specie aeternitatis, by grasping what is essential in them and fixing this. Only laws and generalizations are scientific facts, and field work consists only and exclusively in the interpretation of the chaotic social reality, in subordinating it to general rules.”

HardFactsRealitySeemsFacesFormLawScienceSocialSeeingFieldsEssentialsChaosFixedInterpretationGlancesInsignificantChaoticElusiveCrudeFixingGraspingGeneralizationSyntheticScientific Facts
Author:Bronislaw Malinowski
Create image

“Once, at a seminar, I heard a Westernized lama say that a meditator's state of mind should be like that of a hotel doorman. A doorman lets the guests in, but he doesn't follow them up to their rooms. He lets them out, but he doesn't walk into the street with them to their next appointment. He greets them all, then lets them go on about their business. Meditation is, in its initial stages, simply accustoming oneself to letting thoughts come and go without grasping at their sleeves or putting up a velvet rope to keep them out.”

ShouldMindStatesNextWalksRoomsMeditationHeardStreetsStageGoes OnLetting GoOneselfHotelState Of MindGuestsRopeInitialsComes And GoesSleevesAppointmentsGraspingVelvetLamaSeminars
Book:The Compassionate Life: Walking the Path of Kindness
Create image