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Transcendence Quotes

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Transcendence Quotes

“There is a yearning that is as spiritual as it is sensual. Even when it degenerates into addiction, there is something salvageable from the original impulse that can only be described as sacred. Something in the person (dare we call it a soul?) wants to be free, and it seeks its freedom any way it can. ... There is a drive for transcendence that is implicit in even the most sensual of desires.”

WayWantPersonsSoulSpiritualDesireOriginalsSacredAddictionDareSensualImpulseYearningTranscendenceDegeneratesImplicit
Author:Mark Epstein
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“I would simply ask why so many critics, so many writers, so many philosophers take such satisfaction in professing that the experience of a work of art is ineffable, that it escapes by definition all rational understanding; why are they so eager to concede without a struggle the defeat of knowledge; and where does their irrepressible need to belittle rational understanding come from, this rage to affirm the irreducibility of the work of art, or, to use a more suitable word, its transcendence.”

NeedsDoeArtUseAsksUnderstandingStruggleArt IsCriticsDefeatDefinitionsPhilosopherSatisfactionRageRationalWorks Of ArtTranscendenceSuitableBelittleIneffableIrrepressibleUnderstanding Why
Author:Pierre Bourdieu
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“Self-awareness is a trait that not only makes us human but also paradoxically makes us want to be more than merely human. As I said in my BBC Reith Lectures, “Science tells us we are merely beasts, but we don’t feel like that. We feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, forever craving transcendence”

WantFeelsHumansSaidSelfBodyForeverAwarenessAngelSelf AwarenessBeastTraitsTrappedCravingTranscendenceLectures
Author:Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
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“I'm very nearly drunk enough to be transcendent," Calla said after a space. She was not the only psychic drinking, but she was the closest one to transcendence. Persephone peered dubiously into the bottom of her own glass. In a very small voice (her voice was always small), she said sadly, "I am not drunk at all." Maura offered, "It's the Russian in you." "Estonian,"Persephone replied.”

SaidEnoughVoiceSpaceDrinkingBottomGlassesDrunkClosestPsychicsTranscendenceTranscendentPersephoneSmall VoiceCallasEstonians
Author:Maggie Stiefvater
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“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”

WorldLifeInspirationalMomentsChangeForeverInspirational LifeGratitudeExperienceEverydayEncountersAweAllowingReverenceLife ExperienceThankfulnessBeing ThankfulTranscendenceTranscendentEpiphanyThankful GratitudeExpressing GratitudeTranscendingThanksgiving And GratitudeGratitude And ThanksThankfulness And GratitudeGreat GratitudeReverence For LifeThankful For YouGratitude For HelpGratitude For Life
Author:John Milton
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“Math . . . music .. . starry nights . . . These are secular ways of achieving transcendence, of feeling lifted into a grand perspective. It's a sense of being awed by existence that almost obliterates the self. Religious people think of it as an essentially religious experience but it's not. It's an essentially human experience.”

PeopleThinkingWayHumansSelfFeelingsNightReligiousExistenceAtheismAchievePerspectiveAtheistMathSecularHuman ExperienceTranscendenceReligious ExperienceStarry Night
Author:Rebecca Goldstein
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“These are the only two situations possible, and you are in the sad situation. Everybody may know about you - who you are - but you yourself are completely oblivious of your transcendence, of your real nature, of your authentic being. This is the only sadness in life. You can find many excuses, but the real sadness is this: you don't know who you are. How can a person be happy not knowing who he is, not knowing from where he comes, not knowing where he is going? A thousand and one problems arise because of this basic self-ignorance.”

KnowsMayPersonsTwoRealSelfProblemSituationKnowingSadnessIgnoranceThousandWho You AreExcuseAriseNot KnowingTranscendenceOblivious
Author:Rajneesh
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“Transcendence or detachment, leaving the body, pure love, lack of jealousy-that's the vision we are given in our culture, generally, when we think of the highest thing. . . . Another way to look at it is that the aim of the person is not to be detached, but to be more attached-to be attached to working; to be attached to making chairs or something that helps everyone; to be attached to beauty; to be attached to music.”

ThinkingWayLooksPersonsHelpingBodyCultureGivenVisionPureHighestCommitmentAimLeavingChairsAnother WayTranscendenceDetachmentDetachedPure Love
Author:Robert Bly
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“I assure you, my children, that when a Christian carries out with love the most insignificant everyday action, that action overflows with the transcendence of God. That is why I have told you so often, and hammered away at it, that the Christian vocation consists in making heroic verse out of the prose of each day. Heaven and earth seem to merge, my children, on the horizon. But where they really meet is in your hearts, when you sanctify your everyday lives.”

HeartChildrenInspirationSeemsActionEarthChristianFaithHeavenEverydayChristian InspirationalMy ChildrenEach DayProseCarrieHorizonHeroicVersesEveryday LifeVocationInsignificantTranscendenceHeaven And EarthOverflowSanctifyHammeredTold You So
Author:Josemaria Escriva
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“Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence. It is an invitation to savor life and to dream of the future. That is why the beauty of created things can never fully satisfy. It stirs that hidden nostalgia for God which a lover of beauty like Saint Augustine could express in incomparable terms: 'Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you!'.”

DreamInspirationFaithTermMysteryKeysLoversLateSaintNostalgiaChristian InspirationalInvitationsTranscendenceI Loved YouIncomparableAugustine
Author:Pope John Paul II
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“Have you ever lost yourself in a kiss? I mean pure psychedelic inebriation. Not just lustful petting but transcendental metamorphosis when you became aware that the greatness of this being was breathing into you. Licking the sides and corners of your mouth, like sealing a thousand fleshy envelopes filled with the essence of your passionate being and then opened by the same mouth and delivered back to you, over and over again - the first kiss of the rest of your life.”

LoveLifeFirstsMeanLostSidesGreatnessThousandPureKissingMouthsRomanticEssenceFilledPassionateCornersBreathingLove LifeRapperTranscendenceRest Of Your LifePsychedelicFirst KissTranscendentalEnvelopesMetamorphosisLickingLustfulPassionate KissIntimate MomentsLost YourselfInebriation
Author:Saul Williams
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“What is wrong with looking muscular? Muscles are beautiful. Strength is beautiful. Muscle tissue is beautiful. It is metabolically, medically, and philosophically beautiful. Muscles retreat when they're not used, but they will always come back if you give them good reason. No matter how old you get, your muscles never lose hope. Few cells of the body are as capable as muscle cells are of change and reformation, of achievement and transcendence.”

IfsGivingMatterReasonBodyBeautifulUsedLosesAchievementCapableCellsMusclesRetreatTranscendenceReformationTissuesOld YouNever Lose Hope
Book:Woman: An Intimate Geography
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“So the Buddha is presenting awakening not as a single mystical experience that may come upon us at some meditation, some private moment of transcendence, but rather as a new engagement with life. He is offering us a relationship to the world that is more sensitized to suffering and the causes of suffering, and he gives rise to the possibility of another kind of culture, another kind of civilization.”

WorldGivingKindMayMomentsSufferingCultureCausesMeditationPossibilityCivilizationAwakeningEngagementOfferingMysticalTranscendencePresentingMystical Experiences
Author:Stephen Batchelor
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“I feel like when we talk about post-apocalyptic themes that's what we're really talking about. We're always returning to this sense of being alone in a strange new place where all is bleak and all is lost. And it is this sense of isolation that permeates the whole album. I wanted to go into the balance between fear and transcendence.”

FeelsWholeWantedLostTalkingStrangeBalanceAlbumsPostsThemeIsolationTranscendenceBleakApocalypticNew PlacesPost Apocalyptic
Author:Colin Stetson
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“I have managed not to finish certain books. With barely a twinge of conscience, I hurl down what bores me or doesn't give what I crave: ecstasy, transcendence, a thrill of mysterious connection. For, more than anything else, readers are thrill-seekers, though I don't read thrillers, not the kind sold under that label, anyway. They don't thrill; only language thrills.”

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Book:Ruined By Reading: A Life in Books
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“The body, the mind, and the spirit don't form a pyramid, they form a circle. Each of them runs into the other two. The body isn't below the mind and the spirit; from the point of view it's between them. if you reside too much in the mind, then you get too abstract and cut off from the world. You long for the spiritual life, but you can't get to it, and you fall into despair. The exercise of the senses frees you from abstraction and opens the way to transcendence.”

IfsWorldWayMindLongTwoBodyRunningSpiritualFormSpiritFallViewsToo MuchCuttingBalanceExerciseDespairPoint Of ViewCirclesSensesAbstractSpiritual LifeAbstractionTranscendencePyramids
Book:Moo
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“What happens with your sex energy depends on how you use it. What it can become does not depend on it alone, but on your understanding and on how you live your life. Have you not observed that it becomes brahmacharya, the state of celibacy when it is transformed? bramhacharya is not hostile to passion; brahmacharya is the purification, the transcendence, the sublimation of passion. In the same way, the energy that manifests itself in violence becomes peace, serenity and tranquility. It is only a question of transformation.”

WayDoeStatesUseHappensPassionEnergySexUnderstandingViolenceDependsTransformationTransformedSerenityLive Your LifeTranquilityHostileTranscendenceCelibacyPurificationBrahmacharya
Author:Rajneesh
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“Every day we have a choice. We can take the easier road, the more cynical road, which is a road sometimes based on a dream of a past that never was, fear of each other, distancing and blame, or we can take the much more difficult path, the road of transformation, transcendence, compassion, and love, but also accountability and justice.”

SometimesDreamPastChoicesDifficultJusticeCompassionPathEasierAnd LoveTransformationBlameAccountabilityThought ProvokingCynicalProvokingTranscendence
Author:Jacqueline Novogratz
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“We live in a world of breathtaking material plenty. That has freed hundreds of millions of people from day-to-day struggles and liberated us to pursue more significant desires: purpose, transcendence, and spiritual fulfillment.”

PeopleWorldSpiritualDesirePurposeMillionsStruggleMaterialsSignificantPursuePlentyFulfillmentDay To DayTranscendenceLiberatedBreathtaking
Book:A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future
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“Love remains a relation with the Other that turns into need, transcendent exteriority of the other, of the beloved. But love goes beyond the beloved... The possibility of the Other appearing as an object of a need while retaining his alterity, or again,the possibility of enjoying the Other... this simultaneity of need and desire, or concupiscence and transcendence,... constitutes the originality of the erotic which, in this sense, is the equivocal par excellence.”

NeedsDesireTurnsEnjoyPossibilityObjectsRelationRemainsExcellenceBelovedOriginalityEroticTranscendenceAppearingTranscendentRetaining
Author:Emmanuel Levinas
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“Classically, there are three ways in which humans try to find transcendence--religious meaning--apart from God as revealed through the cross of Jesus: through the ecstasy of alcohol and drugs, through the ecstasy of recreational sex, through the ecstasy of crowds. Church leaders frequently warn against the drugs and the sex, but at least, in America, almost never against the crowds.”

WayTryingHumansAmericaThreeJesusSexChurchReligiousLeaderDrugCrossesCrowdsAlcoholEcstasyTranscendenceThree WaysChurch Leaders
Author:Eugene H. Peterson
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“Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine. ... to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple: to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.”

WorldFeelsSimpleCommonMysteryDivineEternalAll ThingsDignityUltimateIntuitionSupremePassingPassingsRealizationPerceiveAnalysisAweStillnessTranscendence
Book:I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology
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“The Singularity denotes an event that will take place in the material world, the inevitable next step in the evolutionary process that started with biological evolution and has extended through human-directed technological evolution. however, it is precisely in the world of matter and energy that we encounter transcendence, a principal connotation of what people refer to as spirituality.”

PeopleWorldHumansMatterSpiritualityNextEnergyProcessStepsEventsMaterialsEvolutionInevitableEncountersPrincipalTechnologicalTranscendenceNext StepsSingularityMaterial WorldConnotationBiological EvolutionMatter And Energy
Book:The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
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“Gaia's main problems are not industrialization, ozone depletion, overpopulation, or resource depletion. Gaia's main problem is the lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement in the noosphere about how to proceed with those problems. We cannot rein in industry if we cannot reach mutual understanding and mutual agreement based on a worldcentric moral perspective concerning the global commons. And we reach the worldcentric moral perspective through a difficult and laborious process of interior growth and transcendence.”

IfsProblemProcessDifficultUnderstandingGrowthMoralPerspectiveIndustryResourcesAgreementMutualInteriorsTranscendenceReinsIndustrializationOverpopulationMutual UnderstandingGaiaOzoneOzone DepletionResource Depletion
Author:Ken Wilber
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“The disenfranchised offspring, along with an entire ageless class of human discards, know only that they are doomed. They are drawn to spikes and pentagrams, gasoline, guitars screaming like whips, MIDI-programmed Thanatos, with sufficient amplitude to occupy that hollow space where consciousness once resided. These Dionysians obliterate themselves by removing filters, ultimately becoming insensate with sensation. This mode of behaviour originates in the superstitious belief that transcendence is acquired in the precise ratio by which reason is destroyed.”

KnowsHumansReasonBeliefSpaceConsciousnessClassBecomingGuitarDestroyedSufficientSensationsBehaviourDoomedPreciseTranscendenceHollowWhipsOffspringFiltersSuperstitiousRatiosGasolineAgelessDisenfranchisedThanatosMidiPentagrams
Author:Adam Parfrey
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