Thinking & Reason

“I think the Internet is the super-set of all media. It is the be-all and the end-all of all media. One will see print, broadcast, arguably, radio, essentially all media folding into the Internet.”

“... the brilliant aurora australis. ... flush of daylight has moved to the north, ... but it shows nevertheless that we have daylight here at the darkest time of the year, so there is not the absolute darkness that people think.”

“Always think of yourself as everyone's servant; look for Christ Our Lord in everyone and you will then have respect and reverence for them all.”

“I think about the personal accomplishment, but there's more of a sense of the grand achievement by all the people who could put this man on the moon.”

“One might think that through ecstasy we would have access to a world as far from reality as that of the dream. – The repugnant can become desirable, affection cruelty, the ugly beautiful, faults qualities, qualities black miseries.”

“[to] think, in a certain way, of the power and severity of Romanesque paintings.. .Go to the beach and make graphic signs in the sand, draw by pissing on the dry ground, design in space by recording the songs of the birds, the sounds of water and wind.. ..and the chant of insects.”

“The reforms of Diocletian were a work of genius and made many people temporarily happy, but failed in the end and added greatly to human misery. I see no reason why this inferior modern copy of them should succeed.”

“If now you shall think that "How many are the countries which King Darius held?" look at the sculptures [of those] who bear the throne, then shall you know, then shall it become known to you: the spear of a Persian man has gone forth far; then shall it become known to you: a Persian man has delivered battle far indeed from Persia.”

“And when the devil hath seen that they have set so little by him, after certain essays, made in such times as he thought most fitting, he hath given that temptation quite over. And this he doth not only because the proud spirit cannot endure to be mocked, but also lest, with much tempting the man to the sin to which he could not in conclusion bring him, he should much increase his merit.”

“As seen in my loneliness, there was this difference between the Bible and the newspapers. The one reminded one that, apart from God, my life was but a bubble of air, and it bade me remember my Creator; the other fostered arrogance and loneliness.”

“If we give the attributes of a medium to the artist, we must then deny him the state of consciousness on the aesthetic plane about what he is doing or why he is doing it. All this decisions in the artistic execution of the work rest with pure intuition and cannot be translated into a self-analysis, spoken or written, or even thought out.”

“I think South Africa is a great country.”

“to try also, inasmuch as possible, to go beyond easel painting, which in my opinion has a narrow goal, and to bring myself closer, through painting, to the human masses I have never stopped thinking about.”

“Yoga is the cessation of movements of the mind. Then there is abiding in the seer's own form.”

“Now among the other things proper to recreate man and give him pleasure, music is either the first or one of the principal;and we must think that it is a gift of God deputed for that purpose'.”

“The world is nearly all parcelled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonised. To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far.”

“From the moment I arrived in Cadaqués [Summer of 1929] I was assailed by a resurgence of my childhood period. The six years of secondary school, the three years in Madrid and the trip I had just made to Paris, all totally faded into the background, while all the fantasies and representations of my childhood period came back to take victorious possession of my mind.”

“We may also fitly remember that Satan has his miracles, which, though they are deceitful tricks rather than true powers, are such a sort as to mislead the simple-minded and untutored [2 Thes, 2:9-10] ... Idolatry has been nourished by wonderful miracles, yet these are not sufficient to sanction the superstition either of magicians or of idolators.”

“I think the whole attitude towards climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top. They don't give a damn for anybody else who may be in distress and it doesn't impress me at all that they leave someone lying under a rock to die.”

“The answer was we thought it could be done.”

“As far as Lautrec is concerned, I believe the truest reason is that Lautrec thinks of one thing only, that's himself and not the others. So it's probable that these gentlemen will have judged it preferable to do the same, i.e., to manage without him.”

“The square is not a subconscious form. It is the creation of intuitive reason. The face of the new art. The square is a living, regal infant. The first step of pure creation in art.”

“In the degree that the images of concrete irrationality approach phenomenal reality, the corresponding means of expression approach those of the great realist painters - Velasquez and Vermeer of Delft - to paint realistically according to irrational thought, according to the unknown imagination.”

“My brother [the sculptor artist Raymond Duchamp-Villon had a kitchen in his little house in Puteaux, and he had the idea of decorating it with pictures by his buddies. He asked Gleizes, Metzinger, , and I think Leger [all Cubist painters, then] to do some little paintings of the same size, like a sort of frieze. He asked me too, and I painted a coffee grinder which I made to explode.”

“Thought the moon was made of green cheese.”

“As touching nature I am a worm of this earth, and yet a subject of this commonwealth; but as touching the office wherein it has pleased God to place me [head of the Reformed church in Scotland], I am a watchman...For that reason I am bound in conscience to blow the trumpet publicly.”

“Yea, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rhyme; before it was neither rhyme nor reason.”

“As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, passion will break through an unreflecting mind.”

“[Their] things [works of Die Brücke-artists] must be exhibited. But I think it is incorrect to immortalize them in the document [Almanac] of our modern art (and, this is what our book ought to be) or as a more or less decisive, leading factor. At any rate I am against large reproductions [of Die Brücke paintings in The Blaue Reiter Almanac].”

“Sanskrit is constructed like geometry and follows a rigorous logic. It is theoretically possible to explain the meaning of the words according to the combined sense of the relative letters, syllables and roots. Sanskrit has no meanings by connotations and consequently does not age. Panini's language is in no way different from that of Hindu scholars conferring in Sanskrit today.”

“If we had said 30 years ago that we were going to have only two incidents with casualties, we would have thought, 'Boy, that's great. To me, that indicates that the program has really exceeded what the early expectations were.”

“When I think about my career, my successes are built on learning from failures.”

“We have rejected reason because we have found another reason that could be called trans-rational, which has its own law, construction, and sense.. .This reason has found a way-Cubism-of expressing the object.”

“A thought is as vivid as an act, to a lover.”

“How did I think up my drawings and my ideas for painting? Well I'd come home to my Paris studio in Rue Blomet at night, I'd go to bed, and sometimes I hadn't any supper. I saw things, and I jotted them down in a notebook. I saw shapes on the ceiling..”

“I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. ... If there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible.”

“There was good reason for the silence of the Holy Spirit as to how, when, in what form Christ ordained the apostles, the reason being to show the indifferency of all forms of words.”

“What I think needs to be done in 2018 is more dialogue around the ethics, the principles that we can use for the engineers and companies that are building AI [artificial intelligence], so that the choices we make do not cause us to create systems with bias.”

“Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.”

“For this reason Ahuramazda bore aid, and the other gods who are, because I was not hostile, I was not a Lie-follower, I was not a doer of wrong -- neither I nor my family. According to righteousness I conducted myself. Neither to the weak nor to the powerful did I do wrong.”

“It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.”

“If a professor thinks what matters most<br />Is to have gained an academic post<br />Where he can earn a livelihood, and then<br />Neglect research, let controversy rest,<br />He's but a petty tradesman at the best,<br />Selling retail the work of other men.”

“<p>Life at Papeete soon became a burden.</p><p>It was Europe, the Europe which I had thought to shake off — and that under the aggravating circumstances of colonial snobbism, and the imitation, grotesque even to the point of caricature, of our customs, fashions, vices, and absurdities of civilization.</p><p>Was I to have made this far journey, only to find the very thing which I had fled?</p>”

“I do no­body harm, I say none harm, I think none harm, but wish everybody good. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith, I long not to live.”

“The world, and whatever that be which we call the heavens, by the vault of which all things are enclosed, we must conceive to be a deity, to be eternal, without bounds, neither created nor subject at any time to destruction. To inquire what is beyond it is no concern of man; nor can the human mind form any conjecture concerning it.”

“..[to gather] under a new banner.. ..[that the poets of yesterday's Futurism ] change the means of battle with thought, content, and logic.. ..advance Alogism after Futurism.”

“I cannot think such language either right, or becoming, or suitable. ... To call the Virgin Mary the mother of God can only serve to confirm the ignorant in their superstitions.”

“Everything is soothed by oil, and this is the reason why divers send out small quantities of it from their mouths, because it smooths every part which is rough.”

“Did the great Creator first draw her in a masterpiece, <br> And then touch life into his art? <br> Or did he make her in his mind alone, <br> Drawing on beauty’s every part? <br> No—considering her singular perfection <br> And her maker’s true omnipotence, <br> I suppose her some quite unique creation <br> In femininity’s treasure house.”

“opened his mouth, <br /> saying to Gilgamesh: <br /> "where you've set your mind begin the journey,<br /> let your heart have no fear, keep your eyes on me!"”

“And thus methinks should men of judgment frame<br />Their means of traffic from the vulgar trade,<br />And, as their wealth increaseth, so inclose<br />Infinite riches in a little room.”

“The reason generally assigned for this absence of early records is that Diocletian burned all writings of the Egyptians bearing upon alchemy, because, as he said, these taught the art of making gold and silver; and, by destroying them, he took away... the power of enriching themselves and rebelling against the Romans.”

“Now there was a young gentleman which had married a merchant's wife. And having a little wanton money, which him thought burned out the bottom of his purse, in the first year of his wedding took his wife with him and went over sea, for none other errand but to see Flanders and France and ride out one summer in those countries.”

“Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked.”

“Frankly, I think there is something wrong with Jawlensky's dots [in his paintings, then]. Anybody can pick up that style if they want to.”

“They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is.”

“Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence. When the mind has settled, we are established in our essential nature, which is unbounded Consciousness. Our essential nature is usually overshadowed by the activity of the mind.”

“He abused me, he struck me, he overcame me, he robbed me' -- in those who do not harbor such thoughts hatred will cease.”

“But hereof be assured, that all is not lawful nor just that is statute by civil laws; neither yet is everything sin before God, which ungodly persons allege to be treason.”

“Strange how one acts sometimes as if mad, spurning even one’s good fortune! You throw a garland round the neck of a blind man and he shakes it away frightened, thinking it a snake.”

“I wanted to kill art for myself.. ..a new thought for that object.”