Quotessence
Home / Topics / Modernity Quotes

Modernity Quotes

Browse 366 quotes about Modernity.

Related topics

ModernModernismIfsThinkingWorldPeopleHumansAgeWayChristianContemporaryFirstsFormMayMenPastProblemTodayTradition

Modernity Quotes

“Few understand that procrastination is our natural defense, letting things take care of themselves and exercise their antifragility; it results from some ecological or naturalistic wisdom, and is not always bad - at an existential level, it is my body rebelling against its entrapment. It is my soul fighting the Procrustean bed of modernity.”

SoulBodyCareFightingNaturalLevelsResultsExerciseBedTake CareDefenseMy SoulProcrastinationExistentialModernityEcologicalEntrapment
Book:Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
Create image

“We are becoming like cats, slyly parasitic, enjoying an indifferent domesticity. Nice and snug in the social, our historic passions have withdrawn into the glow of an artificial coziness, and our half-closed eyes now seek little other than the peaceful parade of television pictures.”

LittlesEyePassionSocialPeaceEnjoyHalfNiceTelevisionBecomingCatPeacefulArtificialIndifferentHistoricModernityModernismParadesDomesticityClosed Eyes
Book:Cool memories
Create image

“One would love nonetheless to know how to be a man, how to be a woman before God, in the mirror of one's own conscience, in the looks of those who surround us. One would wish to find the strength to beautify one's thoughts and to purify one's heart. It is everyone's hope and expectation to live in serenity and to plod along in transparency: the palms of the hands patiently directed towards heaven, at the heart of all this modernity.”

KnowsMenLooksHeartHandsHeavenWishKnow HowExpectationsConscienceMirrorsSurroundSerenityPalmsBe A ManTransparencyModernityHopes And Expectations
Book:Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity
Create image

“How has The Grand Illusion held up over the years? It is not enough to say that it has retained its power. Not only has the stature of the film remained undiminished by the passage of time (except in a few minor details), but the innovation, the audacity, and, for want of a better word, the modernity of the direction have acquired an even greater impact.”

WantYearsEnoughFilmGreaterIllusionInnovationImpactDetailsPassagesMinorsModernityStatureAudacityPassage Of Time
Author:Andre Bazin
Create image

“He who sups with the devil had better have a long spoon. The devilry of modernity has its own magic: The [believer] who sups with it will find his spoon getting shorter and shorter--until that last supper in which he is left alone at the table, with no spoon at all and with an empty plate. The devil, one may guess, will by then have gone away to more interesting company.”

MayLongLastsLeftInterestingCompanyGoneMagicDevilEmptyTablesBelieverPlatesModernitySpoonsLeft AloneSupperGone AwayLast Supper
Author:Peter L. Berger
Create image

“We live in a world where our social system is old, our language is old, the way we acquire goods and services is outdated, our cities are detrimental to our health, chaotic and a tremendous waste of resource, and most of all our politics and values no longer serve us.”

WorldWayPoliticalValuesLanguageSocialCitiesPolicyHealthWasteResourcesChaosAcquireGoodsModernityChaoticSocial SystemsDetrimentalOutdatedGoods And ServicesFuturistObsolescence
Author:Jacque Fresco
Create image

“The narrow gauge mindset of the past is insufficient for today’s wicked problems. We can no longer play the music as written. Instead, we have to invent a whole new scale.”

MindPlayWholeProblemTodayPastMusicWrittenCreatingInnovationMindsetScalesInventionWickedModernityInventingInsufficientGaugesNarrow-mindedActive Minds
Book:The Designful Company: How to build a culture of nonstop innovation
Create image

“Human cultures are all experiments in trying to find a form that will fit the matter of our immediacy; but it is absolutely not the case that all such experiments are of equal merit or value. Some cultures - and modernity is patently one - have managed to transmute consciousness into the "disease" that Nietzsche called it, the self-affliction of a self-centeredness that has purged itself of all vestiges of wisdom and value.”

TryingHumansSelfMatterFormValuesCultureConsciousnessCasesWords Of WisdomFitEqualDiseaseExperimentsMeritAfflictionModernityImmediacySelf CenterednessCenteredness
Author:Kenny Smith
Create image

“Being concerned about other people is especially relevant in today's world. If we consider the complex inter-connected ness of our modern lives, how we depend on others and others depend on us, our outlook will change. We’ll begin to see 'others' not as somehow distant from us, but as people we are in touch with, people close to us; we will no longer feel indifferent to them.”

PeopleIfsWorldFeelsTodayChangeModernBuddhismDependsConcernedComplexesConnectedBuddhistIndifferenceRelevantIndifferentDependenceOutlookModern LifeModernityClosenessPeople In Your LifeInterconnectednessToday's World
Author:Dalai Lama
Create image

“In late modernity we grow more and more accustomed to politicians and public figures who are indebted to their appetites for their "values," to their intellectual sloth for their "principles," to their rhetorical cleverness for their "conscience," and to their regimented conformism for their "philosophy."”

PhilosophyValuesGrowsPrinciplesFiguresPoliticianLateIntellectualConscienceAppetiteAccustomedModernityClevernessSlothIndebtedRhetoricalPublic Figures
Author:Kenny Smith
Create image

“The authority and influence of France on the world scene in the 21st century will not depend solely on its modernity and cohesion, nor even on the continuity and professionalism of its foreign policy. France will be heeded if it has a message to convey. Faced with the temptations of laissez-faire, France must stand out as the nation with the imagination and determination to pursue an ambition that combines cogency with generosity.”

IfsWorldNationsImaginationInfluenceCenturyPolicyDependsSceneAuthorityAmbitionMessagesDeterminationPursueTemptationFranceGenerosityForeign Policy21st CenturyStanding OutContinuityModernityProfessionalismLaissez FaireCohesion
Author:Jacques Chirac
Create image

“The hope that fuels the pursuit of endless economic growth - that billions of consumers in India & China will one day enjoy the lifestyles of Europeans and Americans - is as absurd & dangerous a fantasy as anything dreamt up by Al-Qaeda. It condemns the global environment to early destruction & looks set to create reservoirs of nihilistic rage & disappointment among hundreds of millions of have-nots - the bitter outcome of the universal triumph of Western Modernity, which turns the revenge of the East into something darkly ambiguous, and all its victories truly Pyrrhic.”

LooksTurnsEnjoyGrowthMillionsFantasyEnvironmentEconomicDangerousVictoryOne DayDestructionUniversalIndiaWesternDisappointmentChinaRevengeEastRageBillionsLifestylePursuitEndlessAbsurdBitterConsumersTriumphOutcomesFuelAlsEconomic GrowthModernityAl QaedaAmbiguousReservoirs
Author:Pankaj Mishra
Create image

“Modernity sees humanity as having ascended from what is inferior to it - life begins in slime and ends in intelligence - whereas traditional cultures see it as descended from its superiors. As the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins put the matter: We are the only people who assume that we have ascended from apes. Everybody else take it for granted that they are descended from gods.”

PeopleEndsMatterReligionHumanityCultureAssumingSuperiorsTraditionalGrantedInferiorsModernityApesAnthropologistsSlime
Author:Huston Smith
Create image

“To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world - and at the same time that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.”

KnowsWorldJoyGrowthPowerEnvironmentModernAdventurePromiseTransformationContemporaryDestroyingThreateningModernityDuality
Book:All that is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity
Create image

“For those who do not make the transition to a matured, more spiritual self-will reason will indeed be no more than rationalization. Here is a prodigious parallel: just as in antiquity the dysdaimonic personality could not appreciate how his mentality was bound in by his characterological (banausic, doulic) biases, so in modernity the facile or abstractivist rationalist cannot comprehend how his "rationality" merely slavishly subserves his appetites, delusions, preconceptions, ideologies, etc.”

SelfReasonPhilosophySpiritualPersonalityAppreciateBoundsIdeologyEtcDelusionTransitionAppetiteMentalityRationalityParallelsModernityAntiquityPreconceptionsMaturedProdigiousSelf Will
Author:Kenny Smith
Create image