Quotations about:
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The same holds true of almost every superstition — as astrology, dreams, omens, judgments, and the like — wherein men, pleased with such vanities, attend to those events which are fulfilments; but neglect and pass over the instances where they fail (though this is much more frequently the case).

[Eadem ratio est fere omnis superstitionis, ut in astrologicis, in somniis, ominibus, nemesibus, et hujusmodi; in quibus homines delectati hujusmodi vanitatibus advertunt eventus, ubi emplentur; ast ubi fallunt, licet multo frequentius, tamen negligunt et praetereunt.]

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Instauratio Magna [The Great Instauration], Part 2 “Novum Organum [The New Organon],” Book 1, Aphorism # 46 (1620) [tr. Johnson (1859)]
    (Source)

See also Bacon.

(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:

All superstition is much the same, whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omens, retributive judgment, or the like; in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more common.
[tr. Wood (1831)]

And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener, neglect and pass them by.
[tr. Spedding (1858)]

The same method is found, perhaps, in every superstition, like astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgements, and so on: people who take pleasure in such vanities notice the results when they are fulfilled, but ignore and overlook them when they fail, though they do fail more often than not.
[tr. Silverthorne (2000)]

That’s how it is with all superstition -- involving astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, and the like, Men get so much pleasure out of such vanities that they notice the confirming events and inattentively pass by the more numerous disconfirming ones.
[tr. Bennett (2017)]

 
Added on 28-Feb-24 | Last updated 28-Feb-24
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Old age is like an opium-dream. Nothing seems real except what is unreal.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Over the Teacups, ch. 2 “To the Reader” (1891)
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Added on 16-Feb-24 | Last updated 16-Feb-24
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It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.

Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) Catalan-Cuban-French author, diarist
The Novel of the Future, ch. 2 “Abstraction” (1968)
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Added on 29-Nov-23 | Last updated 29-Nov-23
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LSD reveals the whatness of things, their quiddity, their essence. The wateriness of water is suddenly revealed to you, the carpetness of carpets, the woodness of wood, the yellowness of yellow, the fingernailness of fingernails, the allness of all, the nothingness of all, the allness of nothing. For me music gives access to every one of these essences of existence, but at a fraction of the social or financial cost of a drug and without the need to cry ‘Wow!’ all the time, which is one of LSD’s most distressing and least endearing side-effects.

Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry (b. 1957) British actor, writer, comedian
Moab Is My Washpot, “Joining In,” ch. 3 (1997)
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Added on 14-Jun-23 | Last updated 25-Oct-23
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French food, by the way, isn’t fancy unless, like other cooking, it wants to be fancy; perhaps it sounds so because it is in a foreign language, but a Coq au Vin is a chicken stew, a Pot-au-feu is a boiled dinner, a Mayonnaise de Volaille is a chicken salad, Soubise is plain old rice cooked with onions, and there is nothing fancy about any of them.

Julia Child
Julia Child (1912-2004) American chef and writer
Julia Child’s Kitchen, Introduction (1975)
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Added on 25-May-23 | Last updated 25-May-23
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Apparently, on the screen, I look tall, dark, and close to omniscient, issuing jeopardy-laden warnings through gritted teeth. And then they look at me [in person] and say, “Why, God, this kid is five-foot-five, he’s got a broken nose, and looks about as foreboding as a bank teller on a lunch break.”

Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
Quoted in Anne Serling, As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling (2013)
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Added on 19-Jul-22 | Last updated 19-Jul-22
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Try to remember this: what you project
Is what you will perceive; what you perceive
With any passion, be it love or terror,
May take on whims and powers of its own.

Richard Wilbur
Richard Wilbur (1921-2017) American poet, literary translator
“Walking to Sleep” (1967)
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Published in <>The New Yorker (23 Dec 1967).
 
Added on 21-Jun-22 | Last updated 21-Jun-22
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If I had been on the hills of Bethlehem in the year one, I do not think I should have heard angels singing because I do not hear them now, & there is no reason to suppose that they have stopped.

Northrop Frye (1912-1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist
Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts, Notebook 11f, entry 5 (2003) [ed. Robert D. Denham]
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Added on 7-Mar-22 | Last updated 7-Mar-22
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The highest exercise of imagination is not to devise what has no existence, but rather to perceive what really exists, though unseen by the outward eye, — not creation, but insight.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet
“Table-talk”
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Added on 28-May-21 | Last updated 28-May-21
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Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
Meditations, Book 5, #16

Alt. trans.:
  • "Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts."
  • "Whatever kind of impressions you receive most often, so too will be your mind, for the soul is dyed with the color of one's impressions." [tr. Needleman & Piazza (2008)]
  • "Your manners will depend very much upon the quality of what you frequently think on; for the soul is as it were tinged with the color and complexion of thought." [tr. Collier (1887)]

The last clause is also frequently attributed to William Ralph Inge, who likely used it in an essay.
 
Added on 31-Aug-20 | Last updated 31-Aug-20
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What a man sees, Love can make invisible —
And what is invisible, that can Love make him see.

[Quel che l’huom vede Amor gli fa invisibile
E l’invisibil fa vedere Amore.]

Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) Italian poet
Orlando Furioso, Canto 1, st. 56 [ll. 396-97] (1532) [tr. Waldman]

Alt. trans.:
  • "Love, what we can see, can from our sight remove, / And things invisible are seen by Love." [tr. Hoole (1807)]
  • "Since love, who sees without one guiding gleam, / Spies in broad day but that which likes him best." [tr. Rose (1831)]
 
Added on 23-Mar-20 | Last updated 30-Mar-20
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There is no “True.” There are only ways of perceiving.

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) French writer, novelist
Letter to Léon Hennique (3 Feb 1880) [tr. Steegmuller (1982)]
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Added on 12-Mar-20 | Last updated 12-Mar-20
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True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907) American writer, poet, critic, editor
“Leaves From a Notebook,” Ponkapog Papers (1903)
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Added on 20-Feb-20 | Last updated 20-Feb-20
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Better keep yourself clean and bright: you are the window through which you must see the world.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
The Revolutionist’s Handbook, “Honor” (1905)
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Added on 24-Oct-17 | Last updated 24-Oct-17
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Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.

Paul Klee (1879-1940) Swiss-German artist
“Creative Credo,” sec. 1 (1920)
 
Added on 31-Jan-17 | Last updated 31-Jan-17
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You must look into people, as well as at them. Almost all people are born with all the passions, to a certain degree; but almost every man has one prevailing one, to which the others are subordinate. Search every one for that ruling passion; pry into the recesses of his heart, and observe the different workings of the same passion in different people; and when you have found out the prevailing passion of any man, remember never to trust him where that passion is concerned. Work upon him by it, if you please; but be upon your guard yourself against it, whatever professions he may make you.

Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #112 (4 Oct 1746)
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Added on 11-Oct-16 | Last updated 13-Oct-22
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I shut my eyes in order to see.

Gauguin - shut my eyes - wist_info quote

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) French painter [Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin]
(Attributed)
 
Added on 31-May-16 | Last updated 31-May-16
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“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Prince Caspian (1951)
 
Added on 25-Nov-15 | Last updated 25-Nov-15
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Even fools who keep silent are considered wise;
when they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent.

The Bible (The Old Testament) (14th - 2nd C BC) Judeo-Christian sacred scripture [Tanakh, Hebrew Bible], incl. the Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals)
Proverbs 17:28 [NRSV (2021 ed.)]
    (Source)

See Twain.

Alternate translations:

Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
[KJV (1611)]

If a fool can hold his tongue, even he can pass for wise, and pass for clever if he keeps his lips tight shut.
[JB (1966)]

After all, even fools may be thought wise and intelligent if they stay quiet and keep their mouths shut.
[GNT (1976)]

If the fool holds his tongue, he may pass for wise; if he seals his lips, he may pass for intelligent.
[NJB (1985)]

Fools who keep quiet are deemed wise;
those who shut their lips are smart.
[CEB (2011)]

Even fools who keep silent are deemed wise;
Intelligent, while their mouth is shut.
[RJPS (2023 ed.)]

 
Added on 30-Oct-14 | Last updated 6-Feb-24
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Life does not consist mainly — or even largely — of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one’s head.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Autobiography, Part 1, sec. 28 “New York, January 10, 1906” (2003)

Full text.
 
Added on 30-Jun-11 | Last updated 26-Jan-19
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Our experience is composed rather of illusions lost than of wisdom acquired.

Joseph Roux
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest: Thoughts, Part 4, #28 [tr. Hapgood (1886)]
 
Added on 29-Nov-10 | Last updated 28-Mar-16
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Nothing we use or hear or touch can be expressed in words that equal what is given by the senses.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
The Life of the Mind, Vol. 1 “Thinking,” Introduction (1977)
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Reprinted in "Thinking -- I" New Yorker (21 Nov 1977)
 
Added on 11-Mar-10 | Last updated 6-Nov-20
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But Yahweh said to Samuel, “Take no notice of his appearance or his height for I have rejected him; God does not see as man sees; man looks at appearances but Yahweh looks at the heart.”

The Bible (The Old Testament) (14th - 2nd C BC) Judeo-Christian sacred scripture [Tanakh, Hebrew Bible], incl. the Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals)
1 Samuel 16:7 [JB (1966)]
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God rejecting Eliab (and all of David's other brothers) to be the next king. Alternate translations:

But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
[KJV (1611)]

But the Lord said to him, “Pay no attention to how tall and handsome he is. I have rejected him, because I do not judge as people judge. They look at the outward appearance, but I look at the heart.”
[GNT (1976)]

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him, for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
[NRSV (1989)]

 
Added on 4-Jun-09 | Last updated 5-Sep-23
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There is a kind of courtesy in scepticism. It would be an offence against polite conventions to press our doubts too far and question the permanence of our estates, our neighbours’ independent existence, or even the justification of a good bishop’s faith and income. Against metaphysicians, and even against bishops, sarcasm was not without its savour; but the line must be drawn somewhere by a gentleman and a man of the world.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 1 “Reason in Common Sense,” ch. 4 (1905-06)
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Added on 6-Aug-07 | Last updated 16-Mar-20
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The limits of my language mark the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) Austrian-English philosopher
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 5.6 (1921)

Alt. trans:
  • "The boundary of my language is the boundary of my world." [tr. Kolak]
  • "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." [tr. Pears and McGuinness]
  • "The limits of my language stand for the limits of my world."
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 25-Feb-20
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CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things the way they are, and not as they ought to be.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Cynic,” The Cynic’s Word Book (1906)
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Included in The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

Originally appeared in his "The Cynic's Dictionary" column in the San Francisco Wasp (1881-10-28).

In his "Town Crier" column in the News Letter (1872-03-09), he wrapped up his personal philosophy so: "And, finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be."

 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 19-Sep-23
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In every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing.

Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
(Misattributed)

Carlyle uses this phrase in his The French Revolution: A History, Part 1, Book 1, ch. 2 (1.1.2) (1837), but brackets it in quotations, and prefaces it with "For indeed it is well said ...." Nevertheless, the phrase is often misattributed directly to Carlyle.

The second half of the phrase (and sometimes the whole thing) has also been misattributed to Johann von Goethe, as "The eye sees only what the eye brings means of seeing." This is not found in Goethe's work, but may be distorted from a line in the Prologue to Goethe's Faust: "Each one sees what he carries in his heart."
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 22-Feb-24
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If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.

Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
Meditations, Book 8, #47 [tr. Long (1862)]
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Modernized version (see below for original). Alternate translations:

  • "If therefore it be a thing external that causes thy grief, know, that it is not that properly that doth cause it, but thine own conceit and opinion concerning the thing: which thou mayest rid thyself of, when thou wilt." [tr. Casaubon (1634), #45]
  • "If externals put you into the spleen, take notice 'tis not the thing which disturbs you, but your notion about it: which notion you may dismiss if you please." [tr. Collier (1701)]
  • "If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now." [tr. Long (1862), original]
  • "If anything external vexes you, take notice that it is not the thing which disturbs you, but your notion about it, which notion you may dismiss at once if you please." [tr. Zimmern (1887)]
  • "If you suffer pain because of some external cause, what troubles you is not the thing but your decision about it, and this it is in your power to wipe out at once." [tr. Farquharson (1944)]
  • "If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing yourself but to your estaimte of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." [tr. Staniforth (1964)]
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 29-Mar-21
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Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Art,” Essays: First Series (1841)
 
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Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

[Jeder hält das Ende seines Gesichtskreises für das der Welt.]

Schopenhauer - Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world - wist.info quote

Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher
Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2, ch. 26 “Psychological Observations [Psychologische Bemerkungen],” § 338 (1851) [tr. Saunders (1890)]
    (Source)

(Source (German)). Alternate translation:

Everyone regards the limits of his field of vision as those of the world.
[tr. Payne (1974)]

 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 12-Oct-22
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