It is not given to a cylinder to move everywhere by its own motion, nor yet to water nor to fire nor to anything else which is governed by nature or an irrational soul, for the things which check them and stand in the way are many. But intelligence and reason are able to go through everything that opposes them, and in such manner as they are formed by nature and as they choose. Place before thy eyes this facility with which the reason will be carried through all things, as fire upwards, as a stone downwards, as a cylinder down an inclined surface, and seek for nothing further. For all other obstacles either affect the body only, which is a dead thing; or, except for opinion and the yielding of reason itself, they do not crush nor do any harm of any kind; for if they did, he who felt it would immediately become bad.
Marcus AureliusRelated topics
able affect anything bad body carry check choose crush cylinder dead everything facility felt fire given governed harm intelligence irrational kind manner motion move nature nor nothing opinion place reason seek soul stand stone surface thing water way yet yielding things eyesRelated quotes
Did you know that when God made the universe, he didn't lift one finger? He didn't turn one screw or pound one nail. He just spoke and every molecule lined up. That's incredible to think about. When He speaks, the waves lay down; the wind quits blowing. When He speaks, the dead come to life. When He speaks, the universe is created! Everything obeys the voice of God, except us. He's having some trouble out of us right now. But He's going to fix that one of these days when "every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father," coming to a city near you. But the scoffers are willingly ignorant of how God made the heavens by His Word, and they're ignorant of how the earth was standing out of the water and in the water.
Kent Hovind
I remained there [in The Netherlands, 1914-18] for the duration of the war, continuing my work of abstraction in a series of church. facades, trees, houses, etc. But I felt that I still worked as an Impressionist and was continuing to express particular feelings, not pure reality. Although I was thoroughly conscious that we can never be absolutely 'objective', I felt that one can become less and less subjective, until the subjective no longer predominates in one's work. More and more I excluded from my painting all curved lines, until finally my compositions consisted only of vertical and horizontal lines which formed crosses, each separate and detached from the other. Observing sea, sky and stars, I sought to indicate their plastic function through a multiplicity crossing verticals and horizontals.
Piet Mondrian
He took their facts for granted. He knew no more than a firefly about rays - or about race or sex - or ennui - or a bar of music - or a pang of love - or a grain of musk - or of phosphorus - or conscience - or duty - or the force of Euclidian geometry - or non-Euclidian - or heat - or light - or osmosis - or electrolysis - or the magnet - or ether - or vis inertiae - or gravitation - or cohesion - or elasticity - or surface tension - or capillary attraction - or Brownian motion - or of some scores, or thousands, or millions of chemical attractions, repulsions or indifferences which were busy within and without him; or, in brief, of Force itself, which, he was credibly informed, bore some dozen definitions in the textbooks, mostly contradictory, and all, as he was assured, beyond his intelligence.
Henry Adams
On...rare and great occasions, on which the national mind has fully declared itself, I do not doubt your Lordships would yield to the opinion of the country-otherwise the machinery of Government could not be carried on. But there is an enormous step between that and being the mere echo of the House of Commons...I have no fear of the conduct of the House of Lords in this respect. I am quite sure-whatever judgment may be passed on us, whatever predictions may be made, be your term of existence long or short-you will never consent to act except as a free, independent House of the Legislature, and that you will consider any other more timid or subservient course as at once unworthy of your traditions, unworthy of your honour, and, most of all, unworthy of the nation you serve.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
A great many individuals ever since the rise of the mathematical method, have, each for himself, attacked its direct and indirect consequences. ...I shall call each of these persons a paradoxer, and his system a paradox. I use the word in the old sense: ...something which is apart from general opinion, either in subject-matter, method, or conclusion. ...Thus in the sixteenth century many spoke of the earth's motion as the paradox of Copernicus, who held the ingenuity of that theory in very high esteem, and some, I think, who even inclined towards it. In the seventeenth century, the depravation of meaning took place... Phillips says paradox is "a thing which seemeth strange"-here is the old meaning...-"and absurd, and is contrary to common opinion," which is an addition due to his own time.
Augustus De Morgan
