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Natural Quotes

“The appearances of natural objects are in themselves meaningless; the essential thing is feeling - in itself and completely independent of the context in which it has been evoked.”

Has Beens Feelings Natural Emotion Objects Essentials Independent Appearance Meaningless

Author:Kazimir Malevich

“Man is distinguished from the brute animals in proportion as thought prevails over sense: but in the healthy processes of the mind, a balance is constantly maintained between the impressions from outward objects and the inward operations of the intellect:--for if there be an overbalance in the contemplative faculty, man thereby becomes the creature of mere meditation, and loses his natural power of action.”

Source: Lectures Upon Shakspeare

“Hamlet 's character is the prevalence of the abstracting and generalizing habit over the practical. He does not want courage, skill, will, or opportunity; but every incident sets him thinking; and it is curious, and at the same time strictly natural, that Hamlet, who all the play seems reason itself, should he impelled, at last, by mere accident to effect his object. I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so.”

Source: The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions

“When you think about the complexity of our natural world - plants using quantum mechanics for photosynthesis, for example - a smartphone begins to look like a pretty dumb object.”

Thinking World Looks Natural Example Objects Plant Dumb Complexity Quantum Mechanic Natural World Quantum Mechanics Smartphones Photosynthesis

Author:Jeff VanderMeer

“Natural writers will often try to force themselves into a form - novel, story, screenplay, or poem - that is not necessarily the appropriate form for the way they see the world... if, in fact, they are writing from the artist's impulse, which is a deep, inchoate vision of some sort of order behind the apparent chaos of life on planet earth, they'll be driven then to express that vision in the creation of the object - the art object.”

Ifs World Way Writing Trying Art Facts Stories Earth Form Artist Order Force Natural Behinds Vision Novel Creation Objects Planets Chaos Driven Impulse Appropriate Screenplays Planet Earth

Author:Robert Olen Butler

“Mankind will possess incalculable advantages and extraordinary control over human behavior when the scientific investigator will be able to subject his fellow men to the same external analysis he would employ for any natural object, and when the human mind will contemplate itself not from within but from without.”

Men Mind Humans Able Natural Subjects Mankind Objects Behavior Advantage Fellows Extraordinary Analysis Human Mind Contemplating Human Behavior Fellow Man Investigators

Book:Essential works

Source: Essential works

“Every purely natural object is a conductor of divinity, and we have but to expose ourselves in a clean condition to any of these conductors, to be fed and nourished by them. Only in this way can we procure our daily spirit bread.”

Way Spirit Natural Conditions Objects Clean Bread Divinity Feds Conductor

Book:John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir

Source: John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir

“Curiosity is natural to the soul of man and interesting objects have a powerful influence on our affections. Let these influencing powers actuate, by the permission or disposal of Providence, from selfish or social views, yet in time the mysterious will of Heaven is unfolded, and we behold our conduct, from whatever motives excited, operating to answer the important designs of heaven.”

Men Important Soul Heaven Social Natural Answers Interesting Views Powerful Influence Design Objects Curiosity Affection Excited Selfish Mysterious Motive Providence Permission

Author:Daniel Boone

“The taste of the more recent accessions to the leisure class proper and of the middle and lower classes still requires a pecuniary beauty to supplement the aesthetic beauty, even in those objects which are primarily admired for the beauty that belongs to them as natural growths.”

Stills Growth Natural Class Middle Objects Taste Aesthetic Leisure Supplements Lower Class Aesthetic Beauty

Book:The Theory of the Leisure Class

Source: The Theory of the Leisure Class

“The laws of thought are natural laws with which we have no power to interfere, and which are of course not to be in any way confused with the artificial laws of a country, which are invented by men and can be altered by them. Every science is occupied in detecting and describing the natural laws which are inflexibly observed by the objects treated in the Science.”

Men Way Country Law Courses Natural Objects Treated Confused Artificial Interfere Describing Altered Natural Law

Book:Elementary lessons in logic

Source: Elementary lessons in logic

“I HAVE no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary.”

Source: Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry Into Its Laws and Consequences

“The effects of heat are subject to constant laws which cannot be discovered without the aid of mathematical analysis. The object of the theory is to demonstrate these laws; it reduces all physical researches on the propagation of heat, to problems of the integral calculus, whose elements are given by experiment. No subject has more extensive relations with the progress of industry and the natural sciences; for the action of heat is always present, it influences the processes of the arts, and occurs in all the phenomena of the universe.”

“It is natural to man to regard himself as the object of the creation, and to think of all things in relation to himself, and the degree in which they can serve and be useful to him.”

Thinking Men Natural Creation Objects Degrees All Things Relation Regard Egotism

Book:Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of His Life

Source: Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of His Life

“Vanity is a natural object of temptation to a woman.”

Natural Objects Temptation Vanity

Author:Jonathan Swift

“When one is a child, the disposition of objects, tables and chairs and doors, seems part of the natural order: a house-move lets in chaos - as it does for a dog.”

Children Doe Seems Moving Order House Natural Doors Dog Objects Tables Chaos Chairs Disposition Natural Order Tables And Chairs

Book:Bowen's Court

Source: Bowen's Court

“There is no small degree of malicious craft in fixing upon a season to give a mark of enmity and ill-will: a word--a look, which at one time would make no impression, at another time wounds the heart, and, like a shaft flying with the wind, pierces deep, which, with its own natural force, would scarce have reached the object aimed at.”

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Laurence Sterne (Illustrated)

“No doubt the testimony of natural reason, on whatever exercised, must, of necessity, stop short of those truths which it is the object of revelation to make known; still it places the existence and personal attributes of the Deity on such grounds as to render doubts absurd and atheism ridiculous.”

Stills Reason Natural Existence Known Doubt Atheism Objects Ridiculous Absurd No Doubt Revelations Attributes Testimony Deities

Author:John Herschel

“All these stupendous objects are daily around us; but because they are constantly exposed to our view, they never affect our minds, so natural is it for us to admire new, rather than grand objects. Therefore the vast multitude of stars which diversify the beauty of this immense body does not call the people together; but when any change happens therein, the eyes of all are fixed upon the heavens.”

People Mind Doe Body Happens Eye Together Heaven Stars Natural Views Objects Admire Fixed Exposed Immense Multitudes

Author:Saint Basil

“Photography is not only drawing with light, though light is the indispensable agent of its being. It is modeling or sculpturing with light, to reproduce the plastic form of natural objects. It is painting with light.”

Light Form Natural Objects Painting Photography Drawing Agents Plastic Indispensable Modeling

Book:A guide to better photography

Source: A guide to better photography

“Every object in the world can pass from a closed, silent existence to an oral state, open to appropriation by society, for there is no law, whether natural or not, which forbids talking about things”

World States Law Natural Existence Talking Objects Silent Appropriation

Book:Barthes: Selected Writings

Source: Barthes: Selected Writings

“Giving free advice is a sad waste of effort. In the first place, no man will act upon it unless he is already inclined to do so. Secondly, when a man lays his case before you, the idea that he is asking your advice is a polite fabrication. He merely is suggesting that he is doing so, while as a fact his real object is to acquaint you with his personal activity. He wants to talk to somebody, being a natural gossip or gadder, and he plays upon your propensity for "giving advice" in order to get an audience.”

“The primary purpose of the Legislature in establishing "Arbor Day," was to develop and stimulate in the children of the Commonwealth a love and reverence for Nature as revealed in trees and shrubs and flowers. In the language of the statute, "to encourage the planting, protection and preservation of trees and shrubs" was believed to be the most effectual way in which to lead our children to love Nature and reverence Nature's God, and to see the uses to which these natural objects may be put in making our school grounds more healthful and at-tractive.”

“The slightest force, when it is applied to assist and guide the natural descent of its object, operates with irresistible weight; and Jovian had the good fortune to embrace the religious opinions which were supported by the spirit of the times and the zeal and numbers of the most powerful sect. Under his reign, Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory; and, as soon as the smile of royal patronage was withdrawn, the genius of Paganism, which had been fondly raised and cherished by the arts of Julian, sunk irrecoverably in the dust.”

Source: THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages

“Careless of books, yet having felt the power Of Nature, by the gentle agency Of natural objects, led me on to feel For passions that were not my own, and think (At random and imperfectly indeed) On man, the heart of man, and human life.”

Thinking Men Feels Humans Heart Book Passion Felt Nature Natural My Own Objects Gentle Human Life Agency Humankind Careless Power Of Nature

Book:The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth

Source: The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth

“In youth the human body drew me and was the object of my secret and natural dreams. But body after body has taken away from me that sensual phosphorescence which my youth delighted in.”

Humans Dream Body Natural Secret Taken Objects Youth Sensual Human Body Delighted

Author:Haniel Long

“He who has learned what is commonly considered the whole art of painting, that is, the art of representing any natural object faithfully, has as yet only learned the language by which his thoughts are to be expressed.”

Art Whole Artist Language Natural Objects Painting Representing

Book:The True and the Beautiful in Nature, Art, Morals, and Religion, Selected from the Works of John Ruskin

Source: The True and the Beautiful in Nature, Art, Morals, and Religion, Selected from the Works of John Ruskin

“There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities, with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice or good-will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us.”

Source: The Natural History of Religion

“In spite of the fact that religion looks backward to revealed truth while science looks forward to new vistas and discoveries, both activities produce a sense of awe and a curious mixture of humility and arrogance in their practitioners. All great scientists are inspired by the subtlety and beauty of the natural world that they are seeking to understand. Each new subatomic particle, every unexpected object, produces delight and wonderment. In constructing their theories, physicists are frequently guided by arcane concepts of elegance in the belief that the universe is intrinsically beautiful.”

“Mix salt and sand, and it shall puzzle the wisest of men, with his mere natural appliances, to separate all the grains of sand from all the grains of salt; but a shower of rain will effect the same object in ten minutes.”

Men Science Nature Natural Minutes Effects Objects Ten Rain Mere Sand Salt Grain Showers Puzzles Wisest Grains Of Sand Appliances Grain Of Salt

Book:Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews

Source: Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews

“We are thus assisted by natural objects in the expression of particular meanings. But how great a language to convey such pepper-corn informations!”

Language Natural Objects Particular Expression Corn Peppers

Book:The Portable Emerson: New Edition

Source: The Portable Emerson: New Edition

“It is natural that a man should consider the work of his hands or his brain to be useful and important. Therefore nobody will object to an ardent experimentalist boasting of his measurements and rather looking down on the 'paper and ink' physics of his theoretical friend, who on his part is proud of his lofty ideas and despises the dirty fingers of the other. Experiment and Theory in Physics”

Men Should Important Ideas Hands Natural Brain Objects Theory Proud Paper Fingers Physics Experiments Dirty Despise Boast Ink Theoretical Measurement Lofty Ardent Looking Down

Author:Max Born

“Superficial knowledge ... is hurtful to those who possess true genius; for it necessarily draws them away from their main object, wastes their industry over details and subjects foreign to their needs and natural talent, and lastly does not serve, as they flatter themselves, to prove the breadth of their mind. In all ages there have been men of very moderate intelligence who knew much, and so on the contrary, men of the highest intelligence who knew very little. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.”

“Even in intake, the one steadfast thought is said to be the natural state. Nirvikalpa Samadhi will result when the sensory objects are not present.”

Said States Natural Results Objects Sensory Steadfast Samadhi

Author:Ramana Maharshi