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Reflection Quotes

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Reflection Quotes

“We launch our souls from the cannons of art and discipline, and on any one night, hovering over the chimney tops of Europe, halfway to the stars, there are armies of brightly spinning spirits that have risen like fireworks, tethered to the souls of those men and women who, by reflection, mortification, and devotion, effortlessly outdazzle kings.”

MenArtSoulSpiritNightStarsKingsDisciplineReflectionMen And WomenEuropeArmyDevotionHalfwayOne NightSpinningRisenCannonsFireworksChimneysMortificationHovering
Author:Mark Helprin
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“And since you know you cannot see yourself, so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself, that of yourself which you yet know not of.”

KnowsWellsReflectionGlassesMemorableLook At Yourself In The Mirror
Book:The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare: From the Text of Johnson, Stevens, and Reed; with Glossarial Notes, His Life, and a Critique on His Genius & Writings
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“He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister's. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three in the morning. He still saw that outside the window everything was beginning to grow light. Then, without his consent, his head sank down to the floor, and from his nostrils streamed his last weak breath.”

IfsStillsStatesLightLastsThreeGrowsEmotionMorningSawsReflectionWindowEmptyWeakAnd LoveBreathsConvictionDisappearPeacefulClockTowersConsentDeep Emotions
Book:The Metamorphosis
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“The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried [phrase-making] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment’s reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.”

PeopleGivingMindImportantMatterMomentsBigsEarthFunnyConversationReflectionPerfectionWideRangeHeightPhrasesEfficientAnimatedAmusingBig BusinessMind FreePithy
Author:W. Somerset Maugham
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“Wine talks; ask anyone. The oracle at the street corner; the uninvited guest at the wedding feast; the holy fool. It ventriloquizes. It has a million voices. It unleashes the tongue, teasing out secrets you never meant to tell, secrets you never even knew. It shouts, rants, whispers. It speaks of great plans, tragic loves, and terrible betrayals. It screams with laughter. It chuckles softly to itself. It weeps in front of its own reflection. It revives summers long past and memories best forgotten. Every bottle a whiff of other times, other places, everyone...a humble miracle”

LongPastAsksSpeakVoiceMemoriesSecretMillionsPlansStreetsFrontsFoolTerribleHolySummerLaughterReflectionMiracleWineForgottenCornersHumbleBetrayalTongueTragicBottlesScreamGuestsTeaseReviveOraclesRantStreet CornersChucklesUninvitedUninvited Guests
Author:Joanne Harris
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“He fell in love with Manhattan's skyline, like a first-time brothel guest falling for a seasoned professional. He mused over her reflections in the black East River at dusk, dawn, or darkest night, and each haloed light-in a tower or strung along the jeweled and sprawling spider legs of the Brooklyn Bridge's spans-hinted at some meaning, which could be understood only when made audible by music and encoded in lyrics.”

FirstsMadeLightNightFallBlackReflectionUnderstoodFirst TimeRiversLegsEastBridgesDawnGuestsTowersSpidersBrooklynManhattanDuskBrothelsSkylinesBrooklyn Bridge
Book:The Egyptologist: A Novel
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“Your life right now is a reflection of your past thoughts. That includes all the great things, and all the things you consider not so great. Since you attract to you what you think about most, it is easy to see what your dominant thoughts have been on every subject of your life, because that is what you have experienced. Until now!”

ThinkingLifeHas BeensPastEasySubjectsRight NowReflectionGreat ThingsDominantYour PastSecret Law Of Attraction
Book:THE MAGIC
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“As it unfolded, the structure of the story began to remind me of one of those Russian dolls that contain innumerable ever-smaller dolls within. Step by step the narrative split into a thousand stories, as if it had entered a gallery of mirrors, its identity fragmented into endless reflections.”

IfsStoriesStepsIdentityThousandReflectionMirrorsStructureEndlessNarrativeSplitsGalleryDollsFragmentedRussian Dolls
Book:The Shadow Of The Wind
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“Sometimes I think that the amount of time you live on earth is just an inverse reflection of how good you were in a previous existence. For example, infants who die from SIDs were actually great people when they were alive for real, so they get to go to heaven after a mere five weeks in purgatory. Meanwhile anyone Willard Scott ever congratulated for turning one hundred two was obviously a terrible individual who had many many previous sins to pay for and had to spend a century in his or her own unknown purgatory even though the person seemed perfectly wholesome in this particular world.”

PeopleThinkingWorldPersonsTwoRealSometimesEarthDiesIndividualHeavenSinPayExistenceFiveAliveWeekCenturyExampleParticularAmountTerribleReflectionHundredMereInfantGreat PeoplePurgatoryInverseSids
Book:Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story
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“From the tower battlements, Dustfinger looked down on a lake as black as night, where the reflection of the castle swam in a sea of stars. The wind passing over his unscarred face was cold from the snow of the surrounding mountains, and Dustfinger relished life as if he were tasting it for the first time. The longing it brought, and the desire. All the bitterness, all the sweetness, even if it was only for a while, never for more than a while, everything gained and lost, lost and found again.”

IfsFirstsFacesDesireNightFoundLostStarsBlackSeaWindColdMountainReflectionFirst TimeLongingPassingSnowPassingsLakesBitternessTowersSweetnessCastlesTastingLost And FoundDustfinger
Book:Inkdeath
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“Over the years I have forged intimate familial ties with these characters, who are reflections of a portion of myself. Consequently, even a character who appeared only once in a short story waits now in the wings, concealed by the curtain, for his next appearance on-stage. Not one of them has ever broken free of his familial ties with me and disappeared for ever - at least, not within the confines of my heart.”

YearsHeartCharacterStoriesNextWaitingStageBrokenMy HeartReflectionWingsAppearanceTiesIntimateShort StoryPortionsCurtainsConcealedForged
Author:Shusaku Endo
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“But let there be no misunderstanding: it is not that a real man, the object of knowledge, philosophical reflection or technological intervention, has been substituted for the soul, the illusion of theologians. The man described for us, whom we are invited to free, is already in himself the effect of a subjection more profound than himself. A 'soul' inhabits him and brings him to existence, which is itself a factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body. The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body.”

MenHas BeensRealSoulBodyPoliticalExistenceEffectsObjectsExerciseIllusionReflectionPhilosophicalInstrumentsPrisonProfoundFactorsMasteryTechnologicalInvitedMisunderstandingTheologianInterventionAnatomyReal MenSubjection
Author:Michel Foucault
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“Upon reflection, I decided I had three main weaknesses: I was confused (evidenced by a lack of facts, an inability to coordinate my thoughts, and an inability to verbalize my ideas); I had a lack of confidence, which cause me to back down from forcefully stated positions; and I was overly emotional at the expense of careful, 'scientific' though. I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.”

YearsStillsIdeasFactsThreeCausesPositionEmotionalReflectionWeaknessDecidedSevenCarefulThirtyConfusedExpensesDiscoveringMy ThoughtsInabilitySeven YearsCoordinatesLack Of Confidence
Book:My Life in France
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“Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercises, even over the appearance of external objects. Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.”

MenNeedsLooksHeartRealEyeDarkVisionInfluenceConditionsCryObjectsExerciseReflectionOptimismFellowsAppearanceOptimisticColourDelicateFellow ManGloomyHue
Book:Oliver Twist
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“I mean, if you were to find a shattered mirror, find all the pieces, all the shards and all the tiny chips, and have whatever skill and patience it took to put all that broken glass back together so that it was complete once again, the restored mirror would still be spiderwebbed with cracks, it would still be a useless glued version of its former self, which could show only fragmented reflections of anyone looking into it. Some things are beyond repair. And that was me.”

IfsMeanStillsSelfShowsTogetherPiecesBrokenSkillsReflectionMirrorsGlassesTinyVersionsFormerUselessCracksChipsShatteredBack TogetherFragmentedBroken Glass
Author:Elizabeth Wurtzel
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“You will walk differently alone, dear, through a thicker atmosphere, forcing your way through the shadows of chairs, through the dripping smoke of the funnels. You will feel your own reflection sliding along the eyes of those who look at you. You are no longer insulated; but I suppose you must touch life in order to spring from it.”

WayLifeFeelsLooksEyeOrderWalksSpringReflectionShadowDearSmokeAtmosphereChairsDripping
Book:The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works
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“A faith without some doubts is like a human body with no antobodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask the hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person's faith can collapse almost overnight if she failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection.”

PeopleIfsShouldYearsBelieveHumansPersonsLongHardBodyAsksDoubtSmartReflectionTragedyBusyCollapseIndifferentHuman BodyToo BusySkepticDiscardedDefenselessProbingHard Questions
Author:Timothy Keller
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“Given enough time, you could convince yourself that loneliness was something better, that it was solitude, the ideal condition for reflection, even a kind of freedom. Once you were thus convinced, you were foolish to open the door and let anyone in, not all the way in. You risked the hard-won equilibrium, that tranquility that you called peace”

WayKindHardEnoughGivenDoorsConditionsLonelinessSolitudeReflectionIdealsConvincedFoolishConvinceTranquilitySomething BetterEnough TimeEquilibrium
Book:The Good Guy
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“Have you ever happened, reader, to feel that subtle sorrow of parting with an unloved abode? The heart does not break, as it does in parting with dear objects. The humid gaze does not wander around holding back a tear, as if it wished to carry away in it a trembling reflection of the abandoned spot; but in the best corner of our hearts we feel pity for the things which we did not bring to life with our breath, which we hardly noticed and are now leaving forever. This already dead iventory will not be resurrected in one's memory.”

IfsFeelsHeartDoeMemoriesBreakForeverHappenedObjectsTearsReaderSorrowReflectionBreathsLeavingDearCornersPitySpotsWanderSubtleAbandonedPartingTremblingUnlovedAbodeHolding Back
Book:The Gift
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“Maybe we ought to look at a guy's response to our microwave from now on." Aunt Annie said. Really." Mom said. "The narcissist looks at his reflection in it. The OCD guy thinks you don't keep it clean enough.The antisocial--" Puts his fist through it because it reminds him of his father." Annie said. She'd read all of mom's books, too. And the paranoid one would be jealous of the amount of time you spend cooking." Mom said Were you using that microwave again? Is something going on between the two of you? I caught you looking right at its clock." Annie said.”

ThinkingLooksSaidTwoBookEnoughWould BeGuyFatherMomOughtAmountReflectionCookingCleanResponseCaughtClockJealousFistsAuntParanoidNarcissistOcdAnnieAntisocialBeing JealousMicrowaves
Book:The Secret Life of Prince Charming
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“Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost.”

IfsGivingMindDoeHas BeensWholeBodyLostLeftToo MuchImpossibleWrittenReflectionRootsOver ItStomachFewerSpoilChokeNourishmentPonderingTabletsOverload
Book:Essays of Schopenhauer
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