Shape Quotes - page 63
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
William Butler Yeats
The interest of research workers has frequently been focused on the phenomenon of regularly shaped crystals suddenly forming from a liquid, e.g. a supersaturated salt solution. According to the atomic theory the forming force in this process is to a certain extent the symmetry characteristic of the solution to Schrödinger's wave equation, and to that extent crystallization is explained by the atomic theory. Nevertheless this process retains a statistical and - one might almost say - historical element which cannot be further reduced: even when the state of the liquid is completely known before crystallization, the shape of the crystal is not determined by the laws of quantum mechanics. The formation of regular shapes is just far more probable than that of a shapeless lump. But the ultimate shape owes its genesis partly to an element of chance which in principle cannot be analysed further.
Werner Heisenberg
To illustrate the vain conceit that the universe must be somehow preordained for us, because we are so well suited to live in it, he mimed a wonderfully funny imitation of a puddle of water, fitting itself snugly into a depression in the ground, the depression uncannily being exactly the same shape as the puddle.
Douglas Adams
He concludes... that the Paracelsian elements-their "salt," "sulphur," and "mercury"-are not the first and most simple principles of bodies; but that these consist, at most, of concretions of corpuscles or particles more simple than they, and possessing the radical and universal properties of volume, shape, and motion.
Robert Boyle
Things get shaped straight and thin for reasons of aerodynamics. Missiles and skyscrapers are shaped the way they are on the soundest principles of engineering, not as monuments to the dick. In fact, so is the dick. The dick is shaped like a dick because that is the most efficient shape for a dick to be. That's why it's dick shaped. I mean a dick shaped like a table would cause all sorts of practical spatial problems.
Ben Elton
It does not seem impossible,” murmured Her Exactitude. "Moreover, it accords with our ethical imperative. Luckily, our imperative is based upon experience, rather than upon artifacts or scriptures, so we are not likely to be thrown into disorganization by judgments made centuries ago. We do not assert as true anything which we have not proven or seen proven by others. Thus, we never claimed that we were the center either of the universe or of a deity's attention. While we do not deny deity, we do not presume to understand it, plea bargain with it, or tell others what shape it takes. It does make life easier.
Sheri S. Tepper
It seems to me that I am being born into a new life and that all the methods and habits of the past can no longer be of any use. It seems to me that what was once a result is now only a preparation ... It is as if I was stripped of all my past, of my errors as well as my conquests, as if all that had disappeared to give place to one new-born whose whole existence has yet to take shape ... An immense gratitude rises from my heart. I seem to have at last arrived at the threshold which I have long sought.
Mirra Alfassa
It was contrary to his habit to finish at one painting, and he used to say that a poet who improvises cannot hope to form pure verses. But of i condiments ' in the shape of last retouches he was particularly fond. Now and then he would model the light into half tint with a rub of his finger; or with a touch of his thumb he would dab a spot of dark pigment into some corner to strengthen it ; or throw in a reddish stroke-a tear of blood, so to speak-to break the parts superficially. In fact, when finishing, he painted much more with his fingers than with his brush.
Titian
I too died. But in the depth of my oblivion I heard Him speak and say, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."
And His voice sought my drowned spirit and I was brought back to the shore.
And I opened my eyes and I saw His white body hanging against the cloud, and His words that I had heard took the shape within me and became a new man. And I sorrowed no more.
Who would sorrow for a sea that is unveiling its face, or for a mountain that laughs in the sun?
Was it ever in the heart of man, when that heart was pierced, to say such words?
What other judge of men has released His judges? And did ever love challenge hate with power more certain of itself?
Was ever such a trumpet heard 'twixt heaven and earth?
Was it known before that the murdered had compassion on his murderers? Or that the meteor stayed his footsteps for the mole?
The seasons shall tire and the years grow old, ere they exhaust these words: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Kahlil Gibran
But, in my state of mind, this appearance of superiority to illusion added to the effect which Bentham's doctrines produced on me, by heightening the impression of mental power, and the vista of improvement which he did open was sufficiently large and brilliant to light up my life, as well as to give a definite shape to my aspirations.
John Stuart Mill
If you take a glass bottle and toss it up into the air so that when it hits the earth it shatters against the ground, and then you take the shards and glue them back together in the shape of a bird, then you no longer have a bottle, you've made something new. Any parts of my personal history I use in my fiction are only interesting to me as the rawest of raw material that I'm shaping into the form of a bird.
Rion Amilcar Scott
It's not only corruption that distorts the utopian impulse when it begins to take some specific social shape. The prospect of more freedom stirs anxiety. We want it, but we fear it; it goes against our most deeply ingrained Judeo-Christian definitions of morality and order. At bottom, utopia equals death is a statement about the wages of sin.
Ellen Willis
I've been tremendously inspired by artists like Judy Baca, who is a muralist in Los Angeles who has transformed what murals mean in our communities and has also built her own institution. Artists like Nina Simone and James Baldwin, who were able to create work that really spoke about the conditions facing Black people and work that would remain universal contributions to culture-something that would continue to shape generations. I'm inspired by people like Víctor Jara, who was a musician in Chile during the very oppressive government. He was actually killed by the government, but nevertheless, his music continues to inspire generations today. I was also inspired by Frida Kahlo. She was the only Latina artist I was exposed to in high school, so she was a role model because she was the only one I studied when I was younger.
Favianna Rodriguez
You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. Compassion is all to the good, but vindictiveness is the verity Faulkner forgot: the organic force in every creative effort, from the poetry of Villon to the Brinks Express Robbery, that gives shape and color to all our dreams. [...] A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery. The strong-armer isn't out merely to turn a fast buck any more than the poet is out solely to see his name on the cover of a book, whatever satisfaction that event may afford him. What both need most deeply is to get even. And, of course, neither will.
Nelson Algren
The social influence model illustrates three fundamental points:
1. Local convergence can lead to global polarization.
2. The interplay between different features of culture can shape the process of social influence.
3. Even simple mechanisms of change can give counterintuitive results, as shown by the present model, in which large territories generate surprisingly little polarization.
Robert Axelrod
![When the [Mystical Shit] CD first started to take shape, I was very unsure about what was happening-I wasn't sure I liked what these guys were coming up with. I missed Dogbowl's melodies, and I didn't like that it was loud. But other people seemed to like it a lot, and at that time, that was important to me, so I went with it. As time went by, I started to appreciate the oddity of me in a rock band. Unfortunately, I didn't really embrace the idea fully until that band had broken up. Nowadays, I can look back and think it was fun and funny that I was in a rock band, but at the time, it bothered me a lot and I complained about it all the time, but I lacked the moral character to do anything about it. (John S. Hall)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/95/john-s-hall-anything-1007395.webp)
If perchance there should be foolish speakers who, together with those ignorant of all mathematics, will take it upon themselves to decide concerning these things, and because of some place in the Scriptures wickedly distorted to their purpose, should dare to assail this my work, they are of no importance to me, to such an extent do I despise their judgment as rash. For it is not unknown that Lactantius, the writer celebrated in other ways but very little in mathematics, spoke somewhat childishly of the shape of the earth when he derided those who declared the earth had the shape of a ball. So it ought not to surprise students if such should laugh at us also. Mathematics is written for mathematicians to whom these our labors, if I am not mistaken, will appear to contribute something even to the ecclesiastical state the headship of which your Holiness now occupies.(Author's preface to de revolutionibus)
Nicolaus Copernicus
Roberto also tried to get Mazeroski to stay in baseball longer. Bill was having problems with his weight, and just thought he couldn't continue to fight the battle anymore. It was in his genes. His mother was very overweight, and Bill battled his weight from start to finish. Clemente told him, "Cash is OK and Stennett is OK, but you're still a better second baseman. You can come down to Puerto Rico with me and get in shape." Bill told him, "I think I can still play, but I can't fight this weight thing anymore." Maz had his own pride. But he didn't understand the pride thing with Clemente. Clemente was painting a picture every time he played. He didn't want to play unless he could perform at his absolute best.
Roberto Clemente
All oppression creates a state of war. And this is no exception. The existent who is regarded as inessential cannot fail to demand the re-establishment of her sovereignty.
Today the combat takes a different shape; instead of wishing to put man in a prison, woman endeavours to escape from one; she no longer seeks to drag him into the realms of immanence but to emerge, herself, into the light of transcendence.
Simone de Beauvoir
Almighty Freedom! give my venturous song
The force, the charm that to thy voice belong;
Tis thine to shape my course, to light my way,
To nerve my country with the patriot lay,
To teach all men where all their interest lies,
How rulers may be just and nations wise:
Strong in thy strength I bend no suppliant knee,
Invoke no miracle, no Muse but thee.
Joel Barlow
