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Sublime Quotes

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Sublime Quotes

“There is something very sublime, though very fanciful, in Plato's description of the Supreme Being,--that truth is His body and light His shadow. According to this definition there is nothing so contradictory to his nature as error and falsehood.”

BodyLightTruthTruth IsShadowErrorsDefinitionsSupremeDescriptionFalsehoodSublimePlatoContradictorySupreme BeingPlato S
Book:Essays, Moral and Humorous. Also Essays on Imagination and Taste
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“the true art of the gods is the comic. The comic is a condescension of the divine to the world of man; it is the sublime vision, which cannot be studied, but must ever be celestially granted. In the comic the gods see their own being reflected as in a mirror, and while the tragic poet is bound by strict laws, they will allow the comic artist a freedom as unlimited as their own.”

MenWorldArtLawArtistVisionComedyDivinePoetMirrorsBoundsGrantedComicTragicStrictSublimeUnlimitedCondescensionStrict Laws
Book:Winter's Tales
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“When the life of the nation was attempted, when the cause of liberty and human rights called for their aid, they rushed forth to rally under the banner they loved, with grand singleness of purpose and heroic devotion--leaving all behind them, to meet toil and danger, hunger, sickness, wounds, and death, for nothing but the sublime satisfaction of doing their duty to their country and to mankind.”

HumansCountryPurposeNationsCausesBehindsLibertyRightsMankindDangerDutyLeavingHungerHuman RightsSatisfactionAidsWoundsDevotionSicknessHeroicSublimeToilBannerSinglenessSingleness Of Purpose
Author:Carl Schurz
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“There is a wide difference between admiration and love. The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects and terrible; the latter on small ones and pleasing; we submit to what we admire, but we love what submits to us: in one case we are forced, in the other, we are flattered, into compliance.”

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Book:A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
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“Magnificence is likewise a source of the sublime. A great profusion of things which are splendid or valuable in themselves is magnificent. The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur.”

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Book:A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
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“Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time. The very reverse may be said of love. In a great degree, love and friendship cannot subsist in the same bosom; even when inspired by different objects they weaken or destroy each other, and for the same object can only be felt in succession. The vain fears and fond jealousies, the winds which fan the flame of love, when judiciously or artfully tempered, are both incompatible with the tender confidence and sincere respect of friendship.”

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Book:A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
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“It is not without trepidation that I have appropriated the codes of the Sublime and the Picturesque in my work. After all, serious photographers have spent most of this century trying to expunge such extravagances from their art. The tradition lives on, mostly in calendars and picture postcards. I was challenged to rework and revitalize that which had been so roundly denigrated.”

TryingArtCenturySeriousTraditionPhotographerCodeSublimeCalendarsExtravagancePostcardsPicturesqueTrepidationRework
Author:John Pfahl
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“The patriarchal, the Jewish, and the Christian dispensations, are evidently but the unfolding of one general plan. In the first we see the folded bud; in the second the expanded leaf; in the third the blossom and the fruit. And now, how sublime the idea of a religion thus commencing in the earliest dawn of time; holding on its way through all the revolutions of kingdoms and the vicissitudes of the race; receiving new forms, but always identical in spirit; and, finally, expanding and embracing in one great brotherhood the whole family of man! Who can doubt that such a religion was from God?”

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Book:Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity
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“It is that faculty by which we discover and enjoy the beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime in literature, art, and nature; which recognizes a noble thought, as a virtuous mind welcomes a pure sentiment by a involuntary glow of satisfaction. But while the principle of perception is inherent in the soul, it requires a certain amount of knowledge to draw out and direct it.”

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Author:Robert Aris Willmott
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“During the age Atlantis, there were only several hundred thousand people living on our planet. They lived in a sublime state of harmony with nature. At that time, because of the purity of the earth's aura, it was much easier to meditate.”

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Book:Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap
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“None of the prophets old, So lofty or so bold! No form of danger shakes his dauntless breast; In loneliness sublime He dares confront the time, And speak the truth, and give the world no rest No kingly threat can cowardize his breath, He with majestic step goes forth to meet his death.”

WorldGivingFormSpeakStepsCourageLonelinessDangerBreathsThreatDareProphetShakesBreastsSublimeLoftySpeak The TruthMajesticDauntless
Book:The Life and Teachings of Our Lord in Verse: Being a Complete Harmonized Exposition of the Four Gospels, with Original Notes Textual Index, Etc. Two Volumes in One, Vol. 1 -- The Evangel (second Edition), Vol. 2 -- The Light of the World
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“The study of everything that stands connected with the death of Christ, whether it be in the types of the ceremonial law, the predictions of the prophets, the narratives of the gospels, the doctrines of the epistles, or the sublime vision of the Apocalypse, this is the food of the soul, the manna from heaven, the bread of life. This is "meat indeed" and "drink indeed."”

SoulLawHeavenChristVisionStudyTypeDrinkConnectedDoctrineBreadNarrativeMeatProphetSublimePredictionsApocalypseBread Of Life
Author:John Angell James
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“It is impossible for the mind which is not totally destitute of piety, to behold the sublime, the awful, the amazing works of creation and providence - the heavens with their luminaries, the mountains, the ocean, the storm, the earthquake, the volcano, the circuit of the seasons, and the revolutions of empires - without marking in them all the mighty hand of God, and feeling strong emotions of reverence toward the Author of these stupendous works.”

MindFeelingsHandsStrongHeavenEmotionImpossibleCreationRevolutionMountainOceanSeasonsStormAwfulEmpiresReverenceProvidenceSublimePietyEarthquakesCircuitsHands Of GodVolcanoesDestituteStrong EmotionsAmazing Work
Author:Timothy Dwight V
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“I'm trying to find these rare moments where you feel completely illuminated. Facts never illuminate you. The phone directory of Manhattan doesn't illuminate you, although it has factually correct entries, millions of them. But these rare moments of illumination that you find when you read a great poem, you instantly know. You instantly feel this spark of illumination. You are almost stepping outside of yourself and you see something sublime.”

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Author:Werner Herzog
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“Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me. Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day. Were all stars to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky And feel its total dark sublime, Though this might take me a little time.”

IfsThinkingKnowsMenGivingFeelsShouldWellsLooksLittlesI CanMightCareEarthDiesPassionStarsDarkHellSkyReturnEqualEmptyAffectionDisappearDamnIndifferenceBeastTake MeDreadSublimeLittle TimeGo To HellAdmirerAll StarsMissed Ones
Author:W. H. Auden
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“The relationship we have with God is not the same over a life; sometimes, as with human relationships, it goes through bad patches and sometimes it becomes very intense. It is a terrifying thing to have a relationship with one's creator, to spend one's life so that one is trying to converge with one's creator seems an extraordinarily difficult and sublime thing. But at the same time it's extremely simple. One of the things which perpetually amazes me is that at any moment or any day, anyone who is alive can talk with the creator of the cosmos.”

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Author:Kevin Hart
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“One of the most sublime and hazardous moments in human experience comes when two people lock eyes and realize that they are sexually attracted to one another. They may not act on the knowledge.They may file it away for future reference. They may deny it. They may never see each other again. But the moment has happened, and for an instant all other considerations are insignificant.”

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Book:Roger Ebert's Four Star Reviews--1967-2007
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“The mystery of God's providence is a most sublime consideration. It is easy to let our reason run away with itself. It is at a loss when it attempts to search into the eternal decrees of election or the entangled mazes and labyrinths in which the divine providence walks. This knowledge is too wonderful for us. Man can be very confident that God exercises the most accurate providence over him and his affairs. Nothing comes to pass without our heavenly Father. No evil comes to pass without his permissive providence, and no good without his ordaining providence to his own ends.”

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Author:Ezekiel Hopkins
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“If Abstract Expression reached for the sublime, Pop turned ordinary imagery into icons. Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol illuminated the transformative power of context and the process of reproduction. Claes Oldenburg's soft ice-cream cones and hamburgers changed sculpture from hard to soft, from stasis to transformation.”

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Author:Arne Glimcher
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“Soul one might say is more imperfectly infinite than spirit, because soul tends to abolish the ego-consciousness that it absorbs or overwhelms, reducing its particularizing structure to pure sublime feeling (immediacy); but spirit is more successfully infinite than soul, even though also more difficult and abstruse, because it digests the functions of consciousness into itself and thus preserves and deploys the senses and intelligence of conscious ego to higher ends.”

SoulEndsFeelingsMightSpiritDifficultConsciousnessHigherPureEgoConsciousFunctionInfiniteStructureSensesPreservesSublimeReducingAbolishImmediacy
Author:Kenny Smith
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“Love is the spirit that motivates the artist's journey. The love may sublime, raw, obsessive, passionate, awful. or thrilling, but whatever its quality, it's a powerful motive in the artist's life.”

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Book:Creativity for Life: Practical Advice on the Artist's Personality, and Career from America's Foremost Creativity Coach
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“To stroll is a science, it is the gastronomy of the eye. To walk is to vegetate, to stroll is to live.... To stroll is to enjoy, it is to assume a mind-set, it is to admire the sublime pictures of unhappiness, of love, of joy, of graceful or grotesque portraits; it is to plunge one's vision to the depths of a thousand existences: young, it is to desire everything; old, it is to live the life of the young, to marry their passions.”

MindEyeYoungJoyDesirePassionEnjoyWalksExistenceVisionWalkingThousandBehaviorAssumingDepthAdmireLive LifeUnhappinessLeisurePortraitsSublimePlungeGrotesqueMind Set
Author:Honore de Balzac
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