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Mechanism Quotes

Browse 770 quotes about Mechanism.

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Mechanism Quotes

“Of all the systems of the body - neurological, cognitive, special, sensory - the cardiological system is the most sensitive and easily disturbed. The role of society must be to shelter these systems from infection and decay, or else the future of the human race is at stake. Like a summer fruit that is protected from insect invasion, bruising, and rot by the whole mechanism of modern farming; so must we protect the heart.”

HumansHeartWholeBodyRaceRolesModernSpecialProtectSummerFruitHuman RaceSensitiveStakesMechanismProtectedDecayShelterInsectsFarmingInvasionDisturbedCognitiveSensoryInfection
Book:Delirium: The Complete Collection: Delirium, Hana, Pandemonium, Annabel, Raven, Requiem
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“So I make no effort to hide my pain. I don’t ever put it all on display like this—but for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will be magnified a hundred times over, then dissected by the pundits and talking heads. But I’m told it’s necessary; the world needs to see me vulnerable and wounded. I cannot appear not to care or to lack remorse, but that removes a crucial component of my self- defense mechanism and leaves me bleeding for all the world to see. I suppose that’s rather the point.”

WorldNeedsSelfCareTodayPainEffortTalkingHundredDefenseTrialsVulnerableRemoveCrucialMechanismDisplayWoundedRemorseComponentsLeaving MeBleedingSelf DefenseFlickerPunditsDefense MechanismsTalking Heads
Author:Ann Aguirre
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“Had it taken her this long to discover that she lacked some simple mental trick that everyone else had, a mechanism so ordinary that no one ever mentioned it, an immediate sensual connection to people and events, and to her own needs and desires? All these years she had lived in isolation within herself and, strangely, from herself, never wanting or daring to look back.”

PeopleNeedsYearsLooksLongDesireSimpleTakenEventsOrdinaryConnectionsTricksSensualIsolationMechanismDaring
Author:Ian Mcewan
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“If you are deemed insane, then all actions that would oherwise prove you are not do, in actuality, fall into the framework of an insane person’s actions. Your sound protests constitute denial. Your valid fears are deemed paranoia. Your survival instincts are labeled defense mechanisms. It’s a no-win situation. It’s a death penalty really.”

IfsPersonsActionFallWinningSoundSituationProveSurvivalInstinctDefenseInsaneDenialProtestMechanismPenaltiesFrameworkDeath PenaltyParanoiaSurvival InstinctActualityDefense MechanismsInsane Person
Author:Dennis Lehane
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“For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don't we all secretly know this? It's a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark.”

KnowsMenWorldMomentsHappensUniverseDarkLossBehindsClearMysteryStageHorrorGunChaosGlassesStormMortalsWheelsPretendingKnivesMechanismBalancedEchoesTwistsHammersDefianceBelittleCogs
Book:11/22/63: A Novel
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“When anesthesia was developed, it was for many decades routinely withheld from women giving birth, since women were "supposed" to suffer. One of the few societies to take a contrary view was the Huichol tribe in Mexico. The Huichol believed that the pain of childbirth should be shared, so the mother would hold on to a string tied to her husband's testicles. With each painful contraction, she would give the string a yank so that the man could share the burden. Surely if such a mechanism were more widespread, injuries in childbirth would garner more attention.”

IfsMenGivingShouldPainMotherSufferingViewsAttentionShareBirthHusbandEmpathyPainfulBurdenDecadesContraryInjuryStringsMechanismMexicoTiedWomens RightsTribesChildbirthGiving BirthContractionsTesticlesAnesthesia
Author:Nicholas D. Kristof
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“At the moment, he is in shock," said Magnus. "He has believed one thing for five years, and now he has realized that all this time he has been looking at the world through a faulty mechanism - that all the things he sacrificed in the name of what he thought was good and noble have been a waste, and that he has only hurt what he he loved." "Good God," said Woolsey. "Are you quite sure you've helped him?”

WorldYearsHas BeensSaidMomentsNamesHurtFiveOne ThingWasteNobleFive YearsShockMechanismGood God
Book:Clockwork Prince
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“I was too tired to think. I merely felt the town as a unique unreality. What was it? I knew -- the moon's picture of a town. These streets with their houses did not exist, they were but a ludicrous projection of the moon's sumptuous personality. This was a city of Pretend, created by the hypnotism of moonnight. -- Yet when I examined the moon she too seemed but a painting of a moon and the sky in which she lived a fragile echo of color. If I blew hard the whole shy mechanism would collapse gently with a neat soundless crash. I must not, or lose all.”

IfsThinkingHardWholeHouseFeltLosesCitiesSkyStreetsColorPaintingPersonalityMoonUniqueTownsTiredShyFragileMechanismCollapseCrashEchoesProjectionNeatUnrealitySumptuousThese Streets
Book:The Enormous Room
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“So one must be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox.”

MenLoveShouldHumansWellsIdeasAgeUsedOrderGrowsExistenceRecordsDespairAnd LoveProfoundAncientEvery ManComicClockRepeatsTunesMakersPassagesMechanismRepetitionTormentCoinsHuman ExistencePassage Of TimeResignedDrunkardsJukebox
Author:Stanislaw Lem
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“What is an adjective? Nouns name the world. Verbs activate the names. Adjectives come from somewhere else. The word adjective (epitheton in Greek) is itself an adjective meaning 'placed on top', 'added', 'appended', 'foreign'. Adjectives seem fairly innocent additions, but look again. These small imported mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity. They are the latches of being.”

WorldLooksSeemsNamesInnocentGreekMechanismSomewhere ElseVerbsAdjectivesNounsActivateLatches
Book:Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse
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“Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the best of intentions a spiritual man finds himself exhausted and deadened and debased by the constant noise of machines and loudspeakers, the dead air and the glaring lights of offices and shops, the everlasting suggestion of advertising and propaganda. The whole mechanism of modern life is geared for a flight from God and from the spirit into the wilderness of neurosis.”

ThinkingMenWholeLightSpiritualLife IsSpiritCitiesMeditationAirModernOfficeMachinesConstantIntentionNoiseFlightAdvertisingPropagandaShopsWildernessMechanismExhaustedSuggestionsEnteringEverlastingModern LifeNeurosisCity Life
Author:Thomas Merton
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“I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections. and it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill. I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self, and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help and patience, and a certain difficult repentance long difficult repentance, realization of life’s mistake, and the freeing oneself from the endless repetition of the mistake which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.”

LongSoulSelfHelpingCertainDifficultMistakeMankindEmotionalLong TimeIllOneselfVariousWoundsEndlessChosenRealizationRepentanceMechanismRepetitionSectionsOnly TimeAssemblySanctifyDeep Emotional
Book:Complete Poems by Lawrence: Easyread Super Large 24pt Edition
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“It did not seem possible that Wendy Wright had been born out of blood and internal organs like other people. In proximity to her he felt himself to be a squat, oily, sweating, uneducated nurt whose stomach rattled and whose breath wheezed. Near her he became aware of the physical mechanisms which kept him alive; within him machinery, pipes and valves and gas-compressors and fan belts had to chug away at a losing task, a labor ultimately doomed. Seeing her face, he discovered that his own consisted of a garish mask; noticing her body made him feel like a low-class wind-up toy.”

PeopleFeelsMadeBodySeemsFacesFeltBornClassAliveSeeingBloodFansWindLosingLowsLaborTasksBreathsGasInternalsMaskStomachMechanismOrgansToysDoomedMachineryBeltsPipeNoticingUneducatedProximitySweatingSquatWendyValve
Book:Ubik
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“I hope that George doesn't internalize her scare tactics. I want to argue with her, tell her that "sins of the flesh" is just a control mechanism -- if you demonize a person's pleasure, then you can control his or her life. I can't say how many times this tool has been wielded against me, in a variety of forms. But I see no sin in a kiss. I only see sin in the condemnation.”

IfsWantPersonsHas BeensI CanFormSinPleasureKissingToolsArguingFleshVarietyScareMechanismTacticsCondemnationSins Of The FleshScare Tactics
Book:Every Day
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“For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments.”

EasyFreedomPracticeWillingTasksInstrumentsPerceivePropagandaMechanismUrgentIndoctrinationBrainwashingMedia PropagandaWar Propaganda
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“The nerves of the skin send pain signals to the brain to warn us of the danger from and impending injury. In the case of self-inflicted wounding, this pain acts as the body's own defense mechanism to stop one from proceeding in the effort at physical injury. If a person proceeds despite the pain, that means that he or she is motivated by something stronger than the pain, something that makes him or her capable of ignoring or enduring it.”

IfsMeanPersonsSelfBodyPainEffortBrainCasesDangerCapableSkinsStrongerEndureDefenseDespiteInjuryNervesMotivatedMechanismSignalsProceedingDefense MechanismsSelf Inflicted
Author:Steven Levenkron
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“Denial is a critical part of the human coping mechanism. Without it, we would all wake up terrified every morning about all the ways we could die. Instead, our minds block out our existential fears by focusing on stresses we can handle—like getting to work on time or paying our taxes.”

WayMindHumansDiesMorningTaxesStressWake UpCriticalHandleBlockDenialMechanismEvery MorningExistentialTerrifiedCopingInfernoCoping Mechanisms
Book:Inferno: Special Illustrated Edition (Enhanced): Featuring Robert Langdon
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“One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference.”

IfsKnowsNeedsKindProblemLife IsHouseChallengesDifferencesBreakFireNecksBreastsThroatMechanismCopingLumpsInconvenienceInconvenientCoping MechanismsOatmealLump In The Throat
Author:Robert Fulghum
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“The Seventeenth Amendment serves not the public's interest but the interests of the governing masterminds and their disciples. Its early proponents advanced it not because they championed 'democracy' or the individual, but because they knew it would be one of several important mechanisms for empowering the federal government and unraveling constitutional republicanism.”

ImportantGovernmentWould BeIndividualInterestDemocracyEmpoweringMechanismAmendmentsDiscipleFederal GovernmentGoverningRepublicanismUnravelingMastermind
Book:The Liberty Amendments
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“I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. We should not allow it to be believed that all scientific progress can be reduced to mechanisms, machines, gearings, even though such machinery has its own beauty.”

ThinkingShouldChildrenScienceNaturalProgressMachinesScientistAccountsTalesFairyMechanismFairy TaleImpressMachineryLaboratoryMarieTechniciansNatural PhenomenaScientific Progress
Author:Marie Curie
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“The true and lasting genius of humour does not drag you thus to boxes labelled 'pathos,' 'humour,' and show you all the mechanism of the inimitable puppets that are going to perform. How I used to laugh at Simon Tapperwit, and the Wellers, and a host more! But I can't do it now somehow; and time, it seems to me, is the true test of humour. It must be antiseptic.”

DoeI CanShowsHumorSeemsUsedLaughingHumourGeniusTestsBoxesLastingHostMechanismDragPuppetsPathos
Author:Mark Twain
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“Motivation and inspiration energize people, not by pushing them in the right direction as control mechanisms do but by satisfying basic human needs for achievement, a sense of belonging, recognition, self-esteem, a feeling of control over one's life, and the ability to live up to one's ideals. Such feelings touch us deeply and elicit a powerful response.”

PeopleNeedsHumansSelfFeelingsInspirationMotivationLeadershipAbilityPowerfulSelf EsteemAchievementIdealsResponseEsteemRecognitionPushingBelongingSatisfyingMechanismRight DirectionHuman NeedsInspiration And MotivationBasic Human Needs
Book:John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do
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“In short, evolution is as close to being a scientific fact as is possible for any theory, given that science is open - ended and no one can predict with certainty what may change in the future. The prospect that evolution by natural selection, at least as a broad mechanism, will be overthrown in the future is about as likely as the prospect of finding out some day that the Earth is really flat. Unfortunately, those who regard these scientific facts as a threat to faith have chosen to distort and misrepresent them to the public.”

MayFactsEarthReligionGivenNaturalAtheismTheoryEvolutionFindingsRegardThreatChosenCertaintyFlatsBroadsMechanismSelectionNatural SelectionScientific Facts
Author:Victor J. Stenger
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“Most people think that aging is irreversible and we know that there are mechanisms even in the human machinery that allow for the reversal of aging, through correction of diet, through anti-oxidants, through removal of toxins from the body, through exercise, through yoga and breathing techniques, and through meditation.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsHumansBodyAgeFunnyMeditationExerciseYogaAgingTechniqueBreathingDietsMechanismOld PeopleEldersMachineryCorrectionsRemovalIrreversibleSenior CitizenReversalToxins
Author:Deepak Chopra
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“Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.”

HumansAirTheoryEvolutionOutcomesApplesMechanismAncestorReplacedNewtonGravitationPending
Book:Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History
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“Genius and science have burst the limits of space, and few observations, explained by just reasoning, have unveiled the mechanism of the universe. Would it not also be glorious for man to burst the limits of time, and, by a few observations, to ascertain the history of this world, and the series of events which preceded the birth of the human race?”

MenWorldHumansScienceUniverseSpaceRaceEventsThis WorldEvolutionBirthGeniusLimitsSeriesObservationHuman RaceGloriousReasoningMechanism
Author:Georges Cuvier
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“To produce a really good biological theory one must try to see through the clutter produced by evolution to the basic mechanisms lying beneath them, realizing that they are likely to be overlaid by other, secondary mechanisms. What seems to physicists to be a hopelessly complicated process may have been what nature found simplest, because nature could only build on what was already there.”

TryingMayHas BeensSeemsScienceLyingFoundProcessNatureRealizingProduceTheoryEvolutionSimplicityComplicatedBiologyMechanismSimplestPhysicistClutter
Author:Francis Crick
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“Skilled shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. [Visa quotas] have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism. In the process we have created [a] privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at non-competitively high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals. Eliminating such restrictions would reduce at least some of the income inequality.”

WorldHas BeensAmericaForceProcessLevelsLaborCompetitionImmigrationIncomeInequalityMechanismElitesPrivilegedRestrictionShortageHigh LevelEliminatingVisaIncome InequalityQuotaPricingLabor Force
Author:Alan Greenspan
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“Your automatic creative mechanism is teleological. That is, it operates in terms of goals and end results. Once you give it a definite goal to achieve, you can depend upon its automatic guidance system to take you to that goal much better than "you" ever could by conscious thought. "You" supply the goal by thinking in terms of end results. Your automatic mechanism then supplies the means whereby.”

ThinkingGivingMeanEndsGoalTermResultsCreativeAchieveDependsConsciousGuidanceMechanismDefiniteBetter Than YouSuppliesEnd Results
Book:Psychocybernetics
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