Actually, however, life begins less by reaching upward, than by turning upon itself. But what a marvelously insidious, subtle image of life a coiling vital principle would be! And how many dreams the leftward oriented shell, or one that did not conform to the rotation of its species, would inspire!
Gaston Bachelard
Related A belief, however necessary it may be for the preservation of a species, has nothing to do with trut... FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE A true prophet would rather be believed false by many but actually true than believed true by many b... CRISS JAMI I would love to be a field biologist. I would love to do what Jane Goodall did, just totally immerse... ISABELLA ROSSELLINI People usually start off with so many dreams and visions but as life progresses, most of their dream... SUNDAY ADELAJA We would not be Human if we did not prefer to be the devourers rather than the devoured, but either ... MARGARET ATWOOD Love is a growing, or full constant light, And his first minute, after noon, is night. JOHN DONNE The life of states cannot, any more than the life of individuals, be conditioned by the force and th... LESTER B. PEARSON Beauty fades, but knowledge is eternal ANDREW FAIRCHILD From the Kindle Book Reflections in the Mirror of Life: “In a slum somewhere in India As... THE PROPHET OF LIFE Maya Angelou had the ability to glean inspiration out of pain. THE PROPHET OF LIFE If we cannot always be entirely sane in our relationships, the kindest thing we can do for those who... THE SCHOOL OF LIFE Love in all its subtleties is nothing more, and nothing less, than the more or less direct trace mar... PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN The consequences of a collapse would not be pretty. Whichever country precipitated it - Germany by t... BARRY EICHENGREEN If we had this back, and in full measure; if society were infused by it, through and through, and me... RALPH ADAMS CRAM The Supreme Being I would sign up for would not prove his omnipotence by saving one life while endin... JEFF GREENFIELD In real life, however, you don't react to what someone did; you react only to what you think she did... JONATHAN HAIDT Pain (any pain--emotional, physical, mental) has a message. The information it has about our life ca... PETER MCWILLIAMS The idea of turning over thousands of detainees to a system that's barely got itself together, much ... JUMANA MUSA We admit no faith to be justifying, which is not itself and in its own nature a spiritually vital pr... JOHN OWEN I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib... C. JOYBELL C. How much easier life was once you learned how to lie. I had gotten into trouble by speaking out of t... ZOë MARRIOTT Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you... C. JOYBELL C. Gravity is something that people take for granted ,but you would not no that it was generated by the... GARY F EVANS... Each man lives in his own universe and when he dies the world is over BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA What does it mean to be cultured? Who is the cultured person? The cultured individual is not defined... C. JOYBELL C. The rehabilitation of order as a universal principle, however, suggested at the same time that order... RUDOLF ARNHEIM Maybe we are less than our dreams, but that less would make us more than some Gods would dream of. SISTER CORITA KENT Maybe we are less than our dreams, but that less would make us more than some Gods would dream of. SISTER CORITA KENT I did not imagine that the second half of my life would be spent on efforts to avert a mortal danger... JOSEPH ROTBLAT In sorting out my feelings and beliefs, there is, however, one piece of moral ground of which I am a... HELEN PREJEAN To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the vis... FERNANDO PESSOA You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part. HENRY JAMES A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no me... CARL JUNG We have to distinguish two classes of instincts, one of which, the sexual instincts or Eros, is by f... SIGMUND FREUD As a kid, this is what I wanted my life to be. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever dare to dream tha... SMOKEY ROBINSON The cloning procedure is similar to IVF. The only difference is that the DNA of sperm and egg would ... NATHAN MYHRVOLD Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of... JOHN BERGER Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation ... JOHN BERGER Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding... And could you keep your h... KAHLIL GIBRAN How many times had Paladin looked into this human face, its features animated by neurological impuls... ANNALEE NEWITZ There are so many works of the mind, so much humanity, that to disburden ourselves of ourselves is a... MARILYNNE ROBINSON It would be very difficult, if not altogether impossible, to establish any principle upon which the ... KARL MARX Life is a fight, but not everyone’s a fighter. Otherwise, bullies would be an endangered species... ANDREW VACHSS Whether or not an utterance can be called law depends on how it is heard, not on how it is meant. La... WILLIAM MCDAVID Nothing in the world matters if you don't matter. STEVEN CUOCO He did not want to play. He wanted to meet in the real world the unsubstantial image which his soul ... JAMES JOYCE Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happiness would lose its mea... ALISHIA SOUTHALL An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonv... MAHATMA GANDHI Cant is always rather nauseating; but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it... ALDOUS HUXLEY The law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better ... VACLAV HAVEL Every form, not being the whole, must, of necessity, be imperfect; less than the whole, it cannot be... ANNIE BESANT Put your foot upon the neck of the fear of criticism by reaching a decision not to worry about what ... NAPOLEON HILL It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles - the oppression... ABRAHAM LINCOLN I live my life progressing for nothing else but the best. JONATHAN ANTHONY BURKETT if someone got to see the Beautiful itself, absolute, pure, unmixed, not polluted by human flesh or ... PLATO The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its ow... ADOLF HITLER Little did they suspect that the years would end by wearing away the disharmony. Little did the... JORGE LUIS BORGES Each life is formed by its unique image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a... JAMES HILLMAN If one considered life as a simple loan, one would perhaps be less exacting. We possess actually not... EUGENE DELACROIX The Taoist and Zen conception of perfection... the dynamic nature of their philosophy laid more stre... KAKUZō OKAKURA It is essential for genetic material to be able to make exact copies of itself; otherwise growth wou... MAURICE WILKINS Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that ro... GABRIEL GARCíA MáRQUEZ Something like that changes the quality of life here. I would rather have a trailer over there than ... GREG WILLIAMSON How would I explain to him that I couldn’t make peace with him? How would I explain that if I did ... MILAN KUNDERA At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailo... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Your life is an island separated from all other islands and continents. Regardless of how many boats... KAHLIL GIBRAN Many people feel so pressured by the expectations of others that it causes them to be frustrated, mi... JOYCE MEYER I fully expected that, by the end of the century, we would have achieved substantially more than we ... NEIL ARMSTRONG Carefully execute every instruction given to you by the director, producer, and studio. But that wou... CARTER BURWELL By what principle of original right is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by c... ABRAHAM LINCOLN A city is not gauged by its length and width, but by the broadness of its vision and the height of i... HERB CAEN I mean to say, we all sprang from humble origins. Goodness gracious, who would have thought that a s... R. CHETWYND-HAYES An object is chiral if it cannot be brought into congruence with its mirror image by translation and... VLADIMIR PRELOG Coping with the demands of everyday life would be exceedingly trying if one could arrive at solution... ALBERT BANDURA Live the life you would like to inspire others to live. A life of kindness. Joy. Doing what you love... LORRIN L. LEE Let me explain. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mi... J.K. ROWLING Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to... KATHERINE MANSFIELD For us, then, life is a confidence trick we must run on ourselves, hoping we do not catch on to any ... THOMAS LIGOTTI The world of the commodity is a world upside-down, which bases itself not upon life but upon the tra... RAOUL VANEIGEM The More Citizens Conform To The Law Of Love. The Less Governing Would Be Required SUNDAY ADELAJA Good. There are many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. ... CARL GUSTAV JUNG There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Eve... CARL GUSTAV JUNG The claim of the State Socialists, however, that this right would not be exercised in matters pertai... BENJAMIN TUCKER Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but by how we react to what happens, not by what ... ANON. Having one's image, and effectively, life, democratized, dehumanizes and sometimes objectifies i... JACK GLEESON By the life we live through the grace of Christ, the character is formed. The original loveliness be... ELLEN G. WHITE We are hell different but vanity keeps us stuck. PARUL WADHWA A painting is more than the sum of its parts,' he would tell me, and then go on to explain how the c... WENDELIN VAN DRAANEN It is an established principle of jurisprudence in all civilized nations that the sovereign cannot b... ROGER B. TANEY The life of a seamstress is no smaller than the life of a queen, the life of a child with Down syndr... DEAN KOONTZ And how can you achieve such concentration? By recognizing that everything you do is important to Go... MENACHEM MENDEL SCHNEERSON If my cuisine were to be defined by just one taste, it would be that of subtle, aromatic, extra-virg... ALAIN DUCASSE After the dinosaurs, it is us the humans that have become the dominant species on planet earth. Howe... ABHIJIT NASKAR Death is the great hope of all life; the desire to expend itself; to be used and consumed by its own... BRYANT H. MCGILL Be the first in your group of friends to be the 'accomplished one'. Be the example on how to create ... ROXE I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contrib... JONATHAN SWIFT Men, discouraged by their failure to accomplish exactly what they desire, often speak of their lives... JOHN A. WIDTSOE The Church as a divine society possess an internal principle of life which is capable of assimilatin... CHRISTOPHER DAWSON Perhaps looking out through big baby eyes - if we could - would not be as revelatory experience as m... PAUL BLOOM Our intellect is not the most subtle, the most powerful, the most appropriate, instrument for reveal... MARCEL PROUST
More Gaston Bachelard
Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child's world and thus a world eve... GASTON BACHELARD Poetry is one of the destinies of speech... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, ope... GASTON BACHELARD The great function of poetry is to give back to us the situations of our dreams. GASTON BACHELARD So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us. GASTON BACHELARD The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears th... GASTON BACHELARD When the image is new, the world is new. GASTON BACHELARD I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one ... GASTON BACHELARD To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no lon... GASTON BACHELARD The repose of sleep refreshes only the body. It rarely sets the soul at rest. The repose of the nigh... GASTON BACHELARD To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in... GASTON BACHELARD The characteristic of scientific progress is our knowing that we did not know. GASTON BACHELARD Two half philosophers will probably never a whole metaphysician make. GASTON BACHELARD One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. To rema... GASTON BACHELARD I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. ... GASTON BACHELARD The words of the world want to make sentences. GASTON BACHELARD There is no original truth, only original error. GASTON BACHELARD Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need. GASTON BACHELARD If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreamin... GASTON BACHELARD A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language. GASTON BACHELARD Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child's world and thus a world event. GASTON BACHELARD Man is an imagining being. GASTON BACHELARD Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectification of this kind one ... GASTON BACHELARD Ideas are refined and multiplied in the commerce of minds. In their splendor, images effect a very s... GASTON BACHELARD Reverie is not a mind vacuum. It is rather the gift of an hour which knows the plenitude of the soul... GASTON BACHELARD Literary imagination is an aesthetic object offered by a writer to a lover of books. GASTON BACHELARD A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen whic... GASTON BACHELARD A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen whi... GASTON BACHELARD One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. GASTON BACHELARD I was born in a country of brooks and rivers, in a corner of Champagne, called Le Vallage for the gr... GASTON BACHELARD How concrete everything becomes in the world of the spirit when an object, a mere door, can give ima... GASTON BACHELARD Here is Menard's own intimate forest: 'Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and... GASTON BACHELARD Baudelaire writes: In certain almost supernatural inner states, the depth of life is entirely reveal... GASTON BACHELARD Rilke wrote: 'These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space... GASTON BACHELARD A creature that hides and “withdraws into its shell,” is preparing a “way out.” This is true... GASTON BACHELARD We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection. Something closed must retain our memories, ... GASTON BACHELARD Therefore, the places in which we have experienced daydreaming reconstitute themselves in a new dayd... GASTON BACHELARD All art is a confession. GASTON LACHAISE Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature's strong commitment to increase access to Advanced Pla... GASTON CAPERTON The gap in education in this country, the unfairness of the schools, is one of the great unfairness ... GASTON CAPERTON It is our hope that the AP program can serve as an anchor for increasing rigor in our schools. Rigor... GASTON CAPERTON They played at hearts as other children might play at ball; only, as it was really their two hearts ... GASTON LEROUX That's the value of a college education... I don't know anywhere in the world where you can ... GASTON CAPERTON The team has been doing everything right mentally and physically, so now we just have to hope that w... ANDREA GASTON The course was not as difficult today. We need to bring our fourth and fifth scores down and see wha... ANDREA GASTON We have to continue to grind and never take a position for granted. Irene (Cho) has done a tremendou... ANDREA GASTON We were able to work on both our strengths and weaknesses, and it's encouraging to see that. The rea... ANDREA GASTON She's one of our top players, but she's struggled all semester. ANDREA GASTON We were the top-ranked team; it's nice to win the tournament. It's exciting to finish the regular se... ANDREA GASTON The course played hard and they let the rough grow very long. We lost a lot of strokes on that hole ... ANDREA GASTON In Paris, I met a young American person who immediately became the primary inspiration which awakene... GASTON LACHAISE Are people so unhappy when they love?" "Yes, Christine, when they love and are not sure of bein... GASTON LEROUX The media would have exposed it, and the fans would have eaten him alive, ... I just decided that wa... BOBBY GASTON The fans would have eaten him alive. I just decided that was not a fair thing for him. He's a great ... BOBBY GASTON The media would have exposed it, and the fans would have eaten him alive. I just decided that was no... BOBBY GASTON We got it right. That's what it's all about. BOBBY GASTON Well, we emphasize that you call it when it occurs at the point of attack and if it has a bearing on... BOBBY GASTON Well, we emphasize that you call it when it occurs at the point of attack and if it has a bearing on... BOBBY GASTON We're walking on uncharted waters, BOBBY GASTON [I posed this question yesterday to Bobby Gaston , the Southeastern Conference Supervisor of Officia... BOBBY GASTON Actually, our goal is to have no plays overturned by instant replay. BOBBY GASTON The rule said 'He must intentionally use his helmet to spear,' and we felt like it's hard to find an... BOBBY GASTON We're back to planning for a strike. We're disappointed. That almost goes without saying. We're stri... CHERYL GASTON Florida Crystals was searching for an agency that could provide a fully integrated campaign. GASTON CANTENS Look!You want to see? See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's fac... GASTON LEROUX I didn't know Garcia-Lopez that well, GASTON GAUDIO We could have passed a hat around the stadium and gotten our money back (to pay for the cost of repl... BOBBY GASTON If we'd passed a hat around the stadium we would have gotten our money back. BOBBY GASTON We're going to start growing sugar cane over there. GASTON CANTENS I played really well during the first set. I think he was a little tired, he seemed asleep. So I too... GASTON GAUDIO I came here to see if I could win some points and now I'm in the final. Tomorrow's another match and... GASTON GAUDIO For me, it would be better if I can reach a few rounds or if I can win a couple of rounds here to ge... GASTON GAUDIO I was expecting to make a better tournament here, but I play a guy that today was better than me. It... GASTON GAUDIO I think it all went with the first set. Losing a tiebreak like that is painful, ... It affected me m... GASTON GAUDIO And then from the baseline, he was playing pretty well too. So serving well and playing well from th... GASTON GAUDIO While there are things about which one does not boast, there are others for which to be pitied would... GASTON LEROUX Our capacity to compete in a knowledge-based economy is going to depend on our ability to offer the ... GASTON CAPERTON You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adore... GASTON LEROUX We have deserving students who are kept out of college or have difficulty completing their degrees b... GASTON CAPERTON Then I made her understand that, where she was concerned, I was only a poor dog, ready to die for he... GASTON LEROUX No, of course not.... Why, you love him! Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love o... GASTON LEROUX ... My mother, daroga, my poor, unhappy mother would never... let me kiss her... She used to run awa... GASTON LEROUX ...the girl with the tip-tilted nose, the forget-me-not eyes, the rose red cheeks and the lily-... GASTON LEROUX Does he love you so much?" "He would commit murder for me. GASTON LEROUX why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself... GASTON LEROUX When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me. She loves me forever. GASTON LEROUX Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be 'someone,' like every... GASTON LEROUX Our lives are one masked ball. GASTON LEROUX He stared dully at the desolate, cold road and the pale, dead night. Nothing was colder or more dead... GASTON LEROUX But do you love me? If Erik were good-looking, would you love me, Christine? GASTON LEROUX And, despite the care which she took to look behind her at every moment, she failed to see a shadow ... GASTON LEROUX Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, My spirit longs with thee to rest GASTON LEROUX He fills me with horror and I do not hate him. How can I hate him, Raoul? Think of Erik at my feet, ... GASTON LEROUX I am going to die of love....daroga....I am dying of love .... That's how it is... I loved her so! A... GASTON LEROUX She's singing to-night to bring the chandelier down! GASTON LEROUX Sometimes, the Angel [of Music] leans over the cradle... and that is how there are little prodigies ... GASTON LEROUX Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her ou... GASTON LEROUX Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her hair was as golden as the sun's rays, and her so... GASTON LEROUX Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! A ghost who bleeds is less dangerous! GASTON LEROUX None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learned to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and ... GASTON LEROUX Erik: Are you very tired? Christine: Oh, tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. Erik: ... GASTON LEROUX You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All... GASTON LEROUX Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead." - Christine, from Gaston Leroux's: The Phantom of the Op... GASTON LEROUX Know that it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!...Look, I am ... GASTON LEROUX He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to conte... GASTON LEROUX Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be 'some one,' like ever... GASTON LEROUX I tore off my mask so as not to lose one of her tears... and she did not run away!...and she did not... GASTON LEROUX All I wanted was to be loved for myself." (Erik) GASTON LEROUX Erik is not truly dead. He lives on within the souls of those who choose to listen to the music of t... GASTON LEROUX If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because yo... GASTON LEROUX It was a very good match, I played very well during the first set. He seemed tired or asleep or some... GASTON GAUDIO He was actually too good. I played a great first set and then he was playing much better than me. GASTON GAUDIO I think all of the guys have been talking about getting a big win and Florida would be a really good... COLT GASTON I think South Carolina would love to beat us and improve their ranking. Beating us would help them o... COLT GASTON The Texas A&M match was a close one for us. I think everybody would rather start over and finish the... COLT GASTON I remember he wore us out. He made some great, great catches on us. We're going to miss him. His fam... CITO GASTON I remember he wore us out. He made some great, great catches on us. CITO GASTON He was serving pretty well today, GASTON GAUDIO I was expecting to make a better tournament here, but I play a guy that today was better than me, ..... GASTON GAUDIO I think I've always had it in me. I just haven't been able to put it together for a whole match. GASTON GAUDIO He was better than me today. I didn't do anything. GASTON GAUDIO Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature's strong commitment to increase access to Advanced Placeme... GASTON CAPERTON Affordability is essential to opportunity, GASTON CAPERTON [The declining role of grants, which students do not need to pay back,] concerns all of us, ... Affo... GASTON CAPERTON The growth accomplishes a parallel increase in students taking demanding courses such as pre-algebra... GASTON CAPERTON Although there are more students from low-income families with college aspirations and more first-ge... GASTON CAPERTON That's the value of a college education, ... I don't know anywhere in the world where you can make a... GASTON CAPERTON It's unfair to those kids who don't get to take those good courses and don't get the chance to go to... GASTON CAPERTON It's a concept that makes sense and would be very beneficial to the communities on the lake. GASTON CANTENS You've got candidates that have in the past been certainly supportive of some of the issues that the... GASTON CANTENS They would love to see nothing more than having homes out there. GASTON CANTENS You can't do right by the students in an economic vacuum, JAMES GASTON There's no doubt that this project is needed, ... But if you want more money for the air conditionin... JAMES GASTON We must grieve his passing, thank God for his life, and celebrate it. ... This is the end of a chapt... JAMES GASTON He died preparing to serve others, JAMES GASTON To judge the real importance of an individual, we should think of the effect his death would produce... PETER DE GASTON LEVIS