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Precise Quotes

Browse 576 quotes about Precise.

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Precise Quotes

“She moved nearer, leaned her shoulder against me — and we were one, and something flowed from her into me, and I knew: this is how it must be. I knew it with every nerve, and every hair, every heartbeat, so sweet it verged on pain. And what joy to submit to this 'must'. A piece of iron must feel such joy as it submits to the precise, inevitable law that draws it to a magnet. Or a stone, thrown up, hesitating a moment, then plunging headlong back to earth. Or a man, after the final agony, taking a last deep breath — and dying.”

MenFeelsMomentsEarthPainLastsLawJoyPiecesDyingSweetHairDrawsStonesBreathsMovedFinalsShouldersInevitableThrownIronNervesSubmitAgonyPreciseHeartbeatMagnetDeep Breath
Book:We
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“I do shodo magic,” Dali said. “I curse through calligraphy. I have to write the curse out on a piece of paper and I can’t move while I do it. One smudge, and I might kill the lot of us.” Oh good. “But don’t worry.” Dali waved her arms. “It’s so precise, it usually doesn’t work at all.” Better and better.”

WritingSaidI CanMightMovingWorryPiecesMagicArmsPaperCursePreciseCalligraphy
Book:Magic Strikes: A Kate Daniels Novel: 3
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“Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life.”

KnowsMeanRealityAbleCoursesUnderstandingLosesGreaterDegreesComplexityPreciseConstructsFathom
Book:The Rings of Saturn
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“Love is a kind of dementia with very precise and oft-repeated clinical symptoms. You blush in each other's presence, you both hover in places where you expect the other to pass, you are both a little tongue-tied, you both laugh inexplicably and too long, you become quite nauseatingly girlish, and he becomes quite ridiculously gallant. You have also grown a little stupid.”

KindLittlesLongLove IsLaughingStupidTongueTiedPreciseSymptomsDementiaClinicalsGallantTongue Tied
Book:Corelli's Mandolin: A Novel
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“I have not been able to discover whether there exists a precise French equivalent for the common Anglo-American expression 'killing time.' It's a very crass and breezy expression, when you ponder it for a moment, considering that time, after all, is killing us.”

MomentsAbleCommonExpressionKillingConsideringPreciseEnglish LanguagePonderingCrassTime To KillBreezy
Book:Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays
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“And so, from the first, we separated our pleasure. She lay on the rug and I lay at right angles to her so that only our lips might meet. Kissing in this way is the strangest of distractions. The greedy body that clamors for satisfaction is forced to content itself with a single sensation and, just as the blind hear more acutely and the deaf can feel the grass grow, so the mouth becomes the focus of love and all things pass through it and are re-defined. It is a sweet and precise torture.”

WayFeelsFirstsBodyMightGrowsPleasureFocusSweetKissingMouthsAll ThingsBlindLaysLipsSatisfactionDefinedGrassTortureSensationsDistractionPreciseAngleGreedyDeafClamor
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“And I too wanted to be. That is all I wanted; and this is the last word. At the bottom of all these attempts which seemed without bounds, I find the same desire again: to drive existence out of me, to rid the passing moments of their fat, to twist them, dry them, purify myself, harden myself, to give back at last the sharp, precise sound of a saxophone note. That could even make an apologue: there was a poor man who got in the wrong world.”

MenWorldGivingMomentsWantedLastsDesireSoundPoorExistenceNotesBottomBoundsPassingFatsPassingsDryPreciseLast WordsTwistsGiving BackPoor ManSaxophonePassing Moments
Author:Jean-Paul Sartre
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“No story has a beginning, and no story has an end. Beginnings and endings may be conceived to serve a purpose, to serve a momentary and transient intent, but they are, in their fundamental nature, arbitrary and exist solely as a convenient construct in the minds of man. Lives are messy, and when we set out to relate them, or parts of them, we cannot ever discern precise and objective moments when any given event began. All beginnings are arbitrary.”

MenMindMayEndsMomentsStoriesPurposeGivenEventsFundamentalsObjectivesRelatePreciseConstructsArbitraryConvenientMessyTransientMomentaryBeginnings And Endings
Author:Caitlín R. Kiernan
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“The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations - all of them rearranging themselves so this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are just now arriving at the place you were always meant to be.”

KnowsFeelsHeartLongHas BeensMatterMomentsHappensFallUniverseRealizingSecretBehindsGenerationsCenturyFalling In LoveBonesSillyRemarkableMeant To BeLong AgoPrecisePointingArrowsArrivingIntersectionsRearranging
Book:Every Day
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“Perfect hexagonal tubes in a packed array. Bees are hard-wired to lay them down, but how does an insect know enough geometry to lay down a precise hexagon? It doesn't. It's programmed to chew up wax and spit it out while turning on its axis, and that generates a circle. Put a bunch of bees on the same surface, chewing side-by-side, and the circles abut against each other - deform each other into hexagons, which just happen to be more efficient for close packing anyway.”

KnowsDoeHardEnoughHappensSidesPerfectLaysSurfaceCirclesBunchEfficientBeesPreciseInsectsGeometrySpitTubesAxesChewingPacking
Book:Firefall
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“Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.”

WorldMindWarRealFactsAgeTodayHumanityStarsHoursSleepEmotionExistenceTechnologyFantasyDangerCivilizationStonesInstitutionsMereChaosCaughtConfusedReal WorldWakingDreamerPreciseMedievalGodlikeRest Of LifeStone Age
Author:E. O. Wilson
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“Because this exact leaf had to grow in that exact way, in that exact place, so that precise wind could tear it from that precise branch and make it fly into this exact face at that exact moment. And, if just one of those tiny little things had never had happened, I'd never have met ya. Which makes this leaf the most important leaf in human history”

IfsWayHumansLittlesImportantMomentsFacesGrowsHappenedTearsWindMetsTinyBranchesJust OneLittle ThingsPreciseLeafsHuman History
Author:Neil Cross
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“You can give words, but you can't take them. And when words are given, that is when they are shared. We remember what that was like. Words so real they were almost tangible. There are conversations you remember, for certain. But more than that, there is the sensation of conversation. You will remember that, even when the precise words begin to blur.”

GivingRealRememberCertainGivenConversationSensationsPreciseTangibleBlur
Book:Two Boys Kissing
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“It makes no sense to seek a single best way to represent knowledge-because each particular form of expression also brings its particular limitations. For example, logic-based systems are very precise, but they make it hard to do reasoning with analogies. Similarly, statistical systems are useful for making predictions, but do not serve well to represent the reasons why those predictions are sometimes correct.”

WayWellsSometimesHardReasonFormKnowledgeExampleParticularExpressionLogicBest WayLimitationReason WhyReasoningPrecisePredictionsAnalogies
Author:Marvin Minsky
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“But remember that intent is everything. One does not just jump, one lifts into the air, one rises. In the same way the lifted leg of an arabesque becomes a wing, and not a mechanical leverage like a raised trap door. This is the precise difference between dancing and acrobatics. The dancer tries to express something; the acrobat merely pulls, raises, stretches and grinds. The acrobat is lost in a web of muscles the dancer is all but invisible in projected idea.”

WayTryingDoeIdeasRememberLostDifferencesDoorsAirRaisesWingsDancingDanceRaisedLegsInvisibleLiftsMusclesDancerTrapsPreciseGrindAcrobatics
Author:Agnes de Mille
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“Disappointment is a good sign of basic intelligence. It cannot be compared to anything else: it is so sharp, precise, obvious, and direct. If we can open, then we suddenly begin to see that our expectations are irrelevant compared with the reality of the situations we are facing.”

IfsRealitySituationExpectationsDirectDisappointmentObviousPreciseIrrelevant
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
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“Absolute, true, and mathematical time, in and of itself and of its own nature, without reference to anything external, flows uniformly and by another name is called duration. Relative, apparent, and common time is any sensible and external measure (precise or imprecise) of duration by means of motion; such as a measure-for example, an hour, a day, a month, a year-is commonly used instead of true time.”

YearsMeanScienceUsedTimeNamesHoursCommonExampleMonthsFlowAbsolutesMathematicalRelativeSensiblePreciseMeasurementDuration
Book:Newton: Philosophical Writings
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“The end of the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth century are remarkable for the small amount of scientific movement going on in this country, especially in its more exact departments. Mathematics were at the last gasp, and astronomy nearly so; I mean in those members of its frame which depend upon precise measurement and systematic calculation. The chilling torpor of routine had begun to spread itself over all those branches of Science which wanted the excitement of experimental research.”

MeanEndsCountryWantedLastsScienceCenturyMovementDependsAmountMembersResearchAccountsMathematicsSpreadAstronomyExcitementBranchesDepartmentRemarkableRoutinePreciseChillMeasurementCalculationsSystematicNineteenth CenturySmall Amounts
Author:John Herschel
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“The incomplete knowledge of a system must be an essential part of every formulation in quantum theory. Quantum theoretical laws must be of a statistical kind. To give an example: we know that the radium atom emits alpha-radiation. Quantum theory can give us an indication of the probability that the alpha-particle will leave the nucleus in unit time, but it cannot predict at what precise point in time the emission will occur, for this is uncertain in principle.”

KnowsGivingKindLawSciencePrinciplesExampleTheoryEssentialsAtomsRadiationQuantumUncertainUnitsPreciseProbabilityParticlesTheoreticalIncompleteIndicationEmissionsAlphasQuantum TheoryNucleusIncomplete Knowledge
Author:Werner Heisenberg
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