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Reflection Quotes

Browse 3084 quotes about Reflection.

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Reflection Quotes

“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.”

IfsHumansFacesNaturalHurtQualityMankindObjectsPleaseMoonReflectionConsciousUniversalArmyCloudsTendenciesProjectionGood WillMaliceTransfersPropensityHuman FacesConceivingAnthropomorphism
Book:The Natural History of Religion
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“For the ordinary man, whose mind is a checkerboard of crisscrossing reflections, opinions, and prejudices, bare attention is virtually impossible; his life is thus centered not in reality itself but in his ideas of it. By focusing the mind wholly on each objects and every action, zazen strips it of extraneous thoughts and allows us to enter into a full rapport with life.”

MenMindIdeasRealityActionLife IsAttentionOpinionImpossibleObjectsOrdinaryReflectionPrejudiceOrdinary ManRapportCheckerboard
Book:The three pillars of Zen: teaching, practice, and enlightenment
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“Beautiful and familiar objects can help us to feel better. Photos of family and friends, which remind us of the people we love and who love us, are important mood-lifters. Items that inspire us or encourage periods of reflection do the same.”

PeopleFeelsImportantHelpingBeautifulObjectsInspirePeriodsReflectionMoodFamiliarFeel BetterFamily And FriendsItems
Book:Mood Mapping: Plot your way to emotional health and happiness
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“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.”

InspirationalBelieveHumansSoulGodBodySpiritualPurposeReligionIndividualI BelieveReligiousImagineAtheismCreationObjectsReflectionRewardsAtheistRidiculousTheologyRationalThought ProvokingBelieve In GodAgnosticEgotismHarborsAgnosticismAtheisticFrailtyReligion GodI Believe In GodHuman ThoughtNon BelieverGod Is Not GreatHuman Frailties
Book:The Ultimate Quotable Einstein
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“The stories that unfold in the space of a writer's study, the objects chosen to watch over a desk, the books selected to sit on the shelves, all weave a web of echoes and reflections of meanings and affections, that lend a visitor the illusion that something of the owner of this space lives on between these walls, even if the owner is no more.”

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Book:The Library at Night
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“People think that alien spaceships would be solid and made of metal and have lights all over them and move slowly through the sky because that is how we would build a spaceship if we were able to build one that big. But aliens, if they exist, would probably be very different from us. They might look like big slugs, or be flat like reflections. Or they might be bigger than planets. Or they might not have bodies at all. They might just be information, like in a computer. And their spaceships might look like clouds, or be made up of unconnected objects like dust or leaves.”

PeopleIfsThinkingLooksMadeDifferentBodyBigsLightMightWould BeAbleMovingSkyInformationObjectsPlanetsComputerReflectionBiggerCloudsDustAliensFlatsMetalsSpaceshipsSlugs
Author:Mark Haddon
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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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“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.”

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Book:Oliver Twist
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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.”

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Book:The Gift
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“When people learn to master their feelings, they can soon learn to master their reflections and thoughts in the degree requisite for attaining the objects they are seeking. But while they yield to a feeling or spirit that distracts their minds from a subject they wish to study and learn, so long they will never gain the mastery of their minds.”

PeopleMindLongFeelingsSpiritWishStudySubjectsObjectsMastersDegreesReflectionGainsSeekingYieldMastery
Book:Journal of Discourses
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“The physical body is an agent of the spirit and its mirror. It is an engine and a reflection of the spirit. It is the spirit's ingenious memorandum to itself and the spirit sees itself in my body, just as I see my own face in a looking glass. My nerves reflect this. The earth is literally a mirror of thoughts. Objects themselves are embodied thoughts. Death is the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything.”

IfsNeedsBodyEarthFacesSpiritDarkMy OwnObjectsReflectionMirrorsGlassesAgentsNervesEnginesIngeniousPhysical BodyMemorandum
Book:Humboldt's Gift
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“The loved object is simply one that has shared an experience at the same moment of time, narcissistically; and the desire to be near the beloved object is at first not due to the idea of possessing it, but simply to let the two experiences compare themselves, like reflections in different mirrors. All this may precede the first look, kiss, or touch; precede ambition, pride, or envy; precede the first declarations which mark the turning point—for from here love degenerates into habit, possession, and back to loneliness.”

FirstsLooksMayTwoIdeasDifferentMomentsDesireLonelinessObjectsPrideHabitKissingAmbitionReflectionMarkMirrorsPossessionDuesEnvyCompareBelovedDeclarationPossessingTurning PointsDegenerates
Book:The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea
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“If I love the other person, I feel one with him or her, but with him as he is, not as I need him to be as an object for my use. Respect thus implies the absence of exploitation: it allows the other to be, to change and to develop 'in his own ways.' This requires a commitment to know the other as a separate being, and not merely as a reflection of my own ego. According to Velleman this loving willingness and ability to see the other as they really are is foregrounded in our willingness to risk self-exposure.”

IfsKnowsWayNeedsFeelsPersonsSelfUseMy OwnAbilityRiskObjectsEgoReflectionCommitmentAbsenceWillingnessExploitationExposureAbility To SeeI Need Him
Author:Erich Fromm
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“Evolution is gaining the psychic zones of the world... life, being and ascent of consciousness, could not continue to advance indefinitely along its line without transforming itself in depth. The being who is the object of his own reflection, in consequence, of that very doubling back upon himself becomes in a flash able to raise himself to a new sphere.”

WorldLifeAbleLinesConsciousnessObjectsEvolutionReflectionConsequenceRaisesDepthZoneSpheresFlashPsychicsTransformingAscentWorld LifeEvolution Of Life
Author:Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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“Tis evident that all reasonings concerning matter of fact are founded on the relation of cause and effect, and that we can never infer the existence of one object from another, unless they be connected together, either mediately or immediately... Here is a billiard ball lying on the table, and another ball moving toward it with rapidity. They strike; and the ball which was formerly at rest now acquires a motion. This is as perfect an instance of the relation of cause and effect as any which we know, either by sensation or reflection.”

KnowsMatterReasonFactsTogetherMovingLyingCausesPerfectExistenceEffectsObjectsReflectionBallsRelationTablesConnectedStrikesInstanceReasoningAcquireSensationsEvidentCause And EffectMatter Of Fact
Author:David Hume
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“Meditation is object-less. If you use any object, then it is not meditation; it becomes thinking. It becomes contemplation; it becomes reflection, but not meditation. This is the most essential point to be understood. This is the essence of a meditative state: that it is object-less. Only consciousness is there, but not conscious ABOUT anything. Consciousness without being conscious of anything - this is the nature of meditation.”

IfsThinkingStatesUseConsciousnessMeditationObjectsEssentialsReflectionConsciousUnderstoodEssenceContemplation
Author:Rajneesh
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“We used to be a source of fuel; we are increasingly becoming a sink. These supplies of foreign liquid fuel are no doubt vital to our industry, but our ever-increasing dependence upon them ought to arouse serious and timely reflection. The scientific utilisation, by liquefaction, pulverisation and other processes, or our vast and magnificent deposits of coal, constitutes a national object of prime importance.”

UsedEnergyProcessDoubtObjectsSeriousSourceIndustryOughtBecomingReflectionImportanceOilUsed To BeNo DoubtFuelPrimeMagnificentDependenceCoalLiquidSuppliesDepositsTimely
Author:Winston Churchill
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“The second suggestion is to think as well as to read. I know people who read and read, and for all the good it does them they might just as well cut bread-and-butter. They take to reading as better men take to drink. They fly through the shires of literature on a motor-car, their sole object being motion. They will tell you how many books they have read in a year. Unless you give at least 45 minutes to careful, fatiguing reflection (it is an awful bore at first) upon what you are reading, your 90 minutes of a night are chiefly wasted.”

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Book:How To Live On Twenty-Four Hours A Day
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“This pedagogy makes oppression and its causes objects of reflection by the oppressed, and from that reflection will come their necessary engagement in the struggle for their liberation. And in the struggle this pedagogy will be made and remade”

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Book:Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition
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“One is quite astonished to find how many things there are in the landscape, and in every object in it, one never noticed before. And this is a tremendous new pleasure and interest which invests every walk or drive with an added object. So many colours on the hillside, each different in shadow and in sunlight; such brilliant reflections in the pool, each a key lower than what they repeat; such lovely lights gilding or silvering surface or outline, all tinted exquisitely with pale colour, rose, orange, green or violet.”

DifferentLightInterestWalksPleasureObjectsKeysReflectionShadowGreenRoseSurfaceBrilliantLovelyLandscapeRepeatsColourPoolLeisureSunlightPaleOrangeVioletOutlines
Book:Thoughts and Adventures: Churchill Reflects on Spies, Cartoons, Flying, and the Future
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“Whatsoever accidents or qualities our senses make us think there be in the world, they are not there, but are seemings and apparitions only. The things that really are in the world without us, are those motions by which these seemings are caused. And this is the great deception of sense, which also is by sense to be corrected. For as sense telleth me, when I see directly, that the colour seemeth to be in the object; so also sense telleth me, when I see by reflection, that colour is not in the object.”

ThinkingWorldLightScienceQualityObjectsReflectionAccidentsDeceptionColourSeemingApparitions
Author:Thomas Hobbes
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