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Musings Quotes

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Musings Quotes

“[Regarding] the soul, I'm a little wary of any discourse on that topic that pretends to have an answer, so I tend to keep my musings to myself. There is interesting, legitimate metaphysical work on the topic going at least as far back as Leibniz and continuing today, following the theme that consciousness, or at least computation, might be at least as fundamental as phenomena such as space, time, energy, and matter, which are the usual subject matter of physics. I follow that sort of thing with interest but with very modest expectations that answers will be arrived at during my lifetime.”

LittlesSoulMatterMightTodayEnergyInterestSpaceAnswersInterestingConsciousnessSubjectsExpectationsFundamentalsLifetimeFollowingPhysicsThemeUsualContinuingModestDiscourseTopicsMetaphysicalSubject MatterMusingsSpace TimeComputation
Author:Neal Stephenson
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“Kings built tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry or in high cold towers asking questions of the stars. And so the kingdom of Gondor sank into ruin, the line of kings failed, the white tree withered and the rule of Gondor was given over to lesser men.”

MenHouseNamesGivenStarsLinesWhiteLordTreeSonColdKingsBuiltAskingKingdomsRuinsSatHallsTowersSplendidTombsDescentAsking QuestionsMusingsWitheredGondor
Author:J. R. R. Tolkien
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“Insomnia is a variant of Tourette's--the waking brain races, sampling the world after the world has turned away, touching it everywhere, refusing to settle, to join the collective nod. The insomniac brain is a sort of conspiracy theorist as well, believing too much in its own paranoiac importance--as though if it were to blink, then doze, the world might be overrun by some encroaching calamity, which its obsessive musings are somehow fending off.”

IfsWorldBelieveWellsMightRaceBrainToo MuchImportanceSettlingCollectivesTouchingWakingConspiracyInsomniaCalamityObsessiveBlinkTheoristsMusingsInsomniacSamplingTourettes
Author:Jonathan Lethem
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“Musings The little poets sing of little things: Hope, cheer, and faith, small queens and puppet kings; Lovers who kissed and then were made as one, And modest flowers waving in the sun. The mighty poets write in blood and tears And agony that, flame-like, bites and sears. They reach their mad blind hands into the night, To plumb abysses dead to human sight; To drag from gulfs where lunacy lies curled, Mad, monstrous nightmare shapes to blast the world. [click on the thumbnail by Jack "King" Kirby]”

WorldWritingHumansLittlesMadeHandsLyingNightSunBloodTearsPoetFlowerKingsLoversShapesSightBlindMadQueensFlamesNightmareLittle ThingsCheerBitesDragAgonyModestAbyssMonstrousBlastClicksPuppetsMusingsLunacySears
Book:The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard
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“The Z’s will kill us all, and then the Z’s will die out and in sixty years there will be no one to remember our silly war, Caroline’s wasted ammunition, my year of zombic survivalism, Rene DesCartes’s musings, or Michelangelo’s sculptures. And that is really only the sadness here as I drink a thousand-dollar bottle of wine down here in the cellar: We did a few things worth remembering, and I wish for someone to remember them.”

YearsWarRememberDiesWishSadnessDrinkThousandWineDollarsSillyBottlesSixtySculptureCellarsMusingsAmmunitionBottles Of Wine
Author:John Green
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“Musing takes place in a kind of meadowlands of the imagination, a part of the imagination that has not yet been plowed, developed, or put to any immediately practical use…time spent there is not work time, yet without that time the mind becomes sterile, dull, domesticated. The fight for free space — for wilderness and public space — must be accompanied by a fight for free time to spend wandering in that space.”

MindKindUseFightingImaginationSpacePracticalsWanderDullWildernessFree TimeTime SpentMusings
Author:Rebecca Solnit
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“All her knowledge is gone now. Everything she ever learned, or heard, or saw. Her particular way of looking at Hamlet or daisies or thinking about love, all her private intricate thoughts, her inconsequential secret musings – they’re gone too. I heard this expression once: Each time someone dies, a library burns. I’m watching it burn right to the ground.”

ThinkingWayDiesSecretGoneSawsHeardParticularExpressionLibraryIntricateDaisiesMusingsInconsequential
Book:The Sky Is Everywhere
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“Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year old school girl. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I feel like writing.”

FeelsWritingYearsWellsMatterSeemsSchoolGirlWrittenStrangeLike MeDiariesThirteenOld SchoolMusingsOh WellThirteen Year OldsSchool Girl
Book:The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition
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“The thorn tree just began to bud And greening stained the sheltering hedge, An many a violet beside the wood Peeped blue between the withered sedge; The sun gleamed warm the bank beside, 'Twas pleasant wandering out a while Neath nestling bush to lonely hide, Or bend a musings o'er a stile.”

SunTreeSpringLonelyBlueWoodsWarmWanderPleasantVioletBudMusingsWitheredGreeningStiles
Book:Careless Rambles by John Clare: A Selection of His Poems Chosen and Illustrated by Tom Pohrt
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“I live here among the ignorant like a lost man in fact like one whom the rest seems careless of having anything to do with — they hardly dare talk in my company for fear I shoud mention them in my writings & I find more pleasure in wandering the fields then in mixing among my silent neighbours who are insensible of everything but toiling & talking of it & that to no purpose.”

MenShouldWritingFactsPurposeLostPleasureCompanyTalkingFieldsSilentDareIgnorantWanderNeighbourCarelessMusingsInsensibleToiling
Author:John Clare
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“To choose a writer for a friend is like palling around with your cardiologist, who might be musing as you talk to him that you are a sinking man. A writer's love for another writer is never quite free of malice. He may enjoy discussing your failures even more than you do. He probably sees you as tragic, like his characters - or unworthy of tragedy, which is worse.”

MenMayCharacterMightEnjoyTragedyTragicNever QuitMaliceUnworthyDiscussingSinkingMusingsCardiologist
Author:Anatole Broyard
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“To say anything about women and men without marking oneself as either feminist or anti-feminist, male-basher or apologist for men seems as impossible for a woman as trying to get dressed in the morning without inviting interpretations of her character. Sitting at the conference table musing on these matters, I felt sad to think that we women didn't have the freedom to be unmarked that the men sitting next to us had. Some days you just want to get dressed and go about your business. But if you're a woman, you can't, because there is no unmarked woman.”

IfsThinkingMenWantTryingMatterCharacterSeemsNextFeltMorningImpossibleHe ManSittingMen And WomenTablesMalesOneselfFeministInterpretationSay AnythingConferencesInvitingMusingsAnti FeministBashers
Author:Deborah Tannen
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“May I suggest that you write, that you keep journals, that you express your thoughts on paper. Writing is a great discipline. It is a tremendous educational effort. It will assist you in various ways, and you will bless the lives of many-your families and others-now and in the years to come, as you put on paper some of your experiences and some of your musings.”

WayWritingYearsMayEffortDisciplinePaperVariousEducationalOur FamilyBlessJournalMusings
Author:Gordon B. Hinckley
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