Artifices Quotes

But the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favour, and reason by degrees submits to absurdity, as the eye is in time accommodated to darkness. ~ Samuel Johnson

God, I hate rogue necromancers," said Magnus. "Why can't they just follow the rules?"
"Probably because the biggest rule is 'no necromancy'?" Emma suggested ~ Cassandra Clare

It has been many years since I have eaten freely at my choice, fair one, and a plate of strawberries is all that I desire." - Mark Blackthorn ~ Cassandra Clare

I am no faerie. I am Mark Blackthorn of the Los Angeles Institute. It doesn't matter what they say or what they do to me. I still remember who I am. ~ Cassandra Clare

The theatre, for all its artifices, depicts life in a sense more truly than history, because the medium has a kindred movement to that of real life, though an artificial setting and form. ~ George Santayana

He could sleep in the ruins of cities lost for centuries. ~ Cassandra Clare

It is clear enough that not every something can be elevated to the rank of a thing - otherwise everything and everyone would be speaking once more, and the chatter would spread from humans to things. Rilke privileges two categories of 'entities' [Seienden), to express it in the papery diction of philosophy, that are eligible for the lofty task of acting as message-things - artifices and living creatures - with the latter gaining their particular quality from the former, as if animals were being's highest works of art before humans. Inherent to both is a message energy that does not activate itself, but requires the poet as a decoder and messenger. ~ Peter Sloterdijk

Stripped of the cunning artifices of the tailor, and standing forth in the garb of Eden - what a sorry set of round-shouldered, spindle-shanked, crane-necked varlets would civilized men appear! ~ Herman Melville

I am saying the choices we make in captivity are not always the choices we make in freedom. And thus we question them. We cannot help it. ~ Cassandra Clare

She remembered what Jem, the ex-Silent Brother who'd helped preside over her parabatai ceremony, had said about what Julian was to her, that there was an expression for it in his native Chinese, zhi yin.
"The one who understands your music."
Emma couldn't play a note on any instrument , but Julian understood her music. ~ Cassandra Clare

So long as we see the stones and joints, and are not deceived as to the points of support in any piece of architecture, we may rather praise than regret the dexterous artifices which compel us to feel as if there were fibre in its shafts and life in its branches. ~ John Ruskin

This spirit of freedom is expanding even where it must struggle against the external obstacles of governments that misunderstand their own function. Such governments are illuminated by the example that the existence of freedom need not give cause for the least concern regarding public order and harmony in the commonwealth. If only they refrain from inventing artifices to keep themselves in it, men will gradually raise themselves from barbarism. ~ Immanuel Kant

THOU RIGHTEOUS AND HOLY SOVEREIGN,

In whose hand is my life
and whose are all my ways,
Keep me from fluttering about religion;
fix me firm in it,
for I am irresolute;
my decisions are smoke and vapour,
and I do not glorify thee,
or behave according to thy will;
Cut me not off before my thoughts grow to responses,
and the budding of my soul into full flower,
for thou art forbearing and good,
patient and kind.
Save me from myself,
from the artifices and deceits of sin,
from the treachery of my perverse nature,
from denying thy charge against my offences,
from a life of continual rebellion against thee,
from wrong principles, views, and ends;
for I know that all my thoughts,
affections, desires and pursuits
are alienated from thee.
I have acted as if I hated thee,
although thou art love itself;
have contrived to tempt thee to the uttermost,
to wear out thy patience;
have lived evilly in word and action.
Had I been a prince
I would long ago have crushed such a rebel;
Had I been a father
I would long since have rejected my child.
O, thou Father of my spirit,
thou King of my life,
cast me not into destruction,
drive me not from thy presence,
but wound my heart that it may be healed;
break it that thine own hand may make it whole. ~ Arthur Bennett

In the uproar, the confusion
of accents and inflections
how will you hear me when I open my mouth?
Look for me, one of the drab population
under fissured edifices, fractured
artifices. Make my various
names flock overhead,
I will follow you. ~ Li-Young Lee

The ordinary writer has an unmistakable preference for this style, because it causes the reader to spend time and trouble in understanding that which he would have understood in a moment without it; and this makes it look as though the writer had more depth and intelligence than the reader. This is, indeed, one of those artifices referred to above, by means of which mediocre authors unconsciously, and as it were by instinct, strive to conceal their poverty of thought and give an appearance of the opposite. their ingenuity in this respect is really astounding. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

In the midst of the disguises and artifices that reign among men, it is only attention and vigilance that can save us from surprises. ~ Jacques-Benigne Bossuet

I don't flatter myself with much dependence upon the present disposition of the Eastern Indians, who are many ways liable to be drawn into a rupture with us by the artifices of the French, their own weakness and the influence which the French Missionary Priests have over them. ~ William Shirley

This is the nature of having of a soul, Kieran, and a heart. We all stumble around in the dark and we cause each other pain and we try to make up for it the best we can. We are all confused. ~ Cassandra Clare

Was there to be any end to the gradual improvement in the techniques and artifices used by the replicators to ensure their own continuation in the world? There would be plenty of time for improvement. What weird engines of self-preservation would the millennia bring forth? Four thousand million years on, what was to be the fate of the ancient replicators?
They did not die out, for they are past masters of the survival arts. But do not look for them floating loose in the sea; they gave up that cavalier freedom long ago. Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.
They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines. ~ Richard Dawkins

It tastes of the most bitter poison . . I've never tasted something so disgusting." - Mark Blackthorn ~ Cassandra Clare

The mathematician is only too willing to admit that he is dealing exclusively with acts of the mind. To be sure, he is aware that the ingenious artifices which form his stock in trade had their genesis in the sense impressions which he identifies with crude reality, and he is not surprised to find that at times these artifices fit quite neatly the reality in which they were born. But this neatness the mathematician refuses to recognize as a criterion of his achievement: the value of the beings which spring from his creative imagination shall not be measured by the scope of their application to physical reality. No! Mathematical achievement shall be measured by standards which are peculiar to mathematics. These standards are independent of the crude reality of our senses. They are: freedom from logical contradictions, the generality of the laws governing the created form, the kinship which exists between this new form and those that have preceded it.

The mathematician may be compared to a designer of garments, who is utterly oblivious of the creatures whom his garments may fit. To be sure, his art originated in the necessity for clothing such creatures, but this was long ago; to this day a shape will occasionally appear which will fit into the garment as if the garment had been made for it. Then there is no end of surprise and of delight! ~ Tobias Dantzig

If a close examination of the evidences of Christianity may be expected of one class of men more than another, it would seem incumbent upon lawyers who make the law of evidence one of our peculiar studies. Our profession leads us to explore the mazes of falsehood, to detect its artifices, to pierce its thickest veils, to follow and expose its sophistries, to compare the statements of different witnesses with severity, to discover truth and separate it from error. ~ Simon Greenleaf

She'd heard of people having butterflies in their stomaches, and she knew what they meant. That flapping, uneasy feeling deep in your gut. But she had it now everywhere. Butterflies under all of her skin, fluttering, sending shivers that moved in waves up and down her body. ~ Cassandra Clare

The dramatic art would appear to be rather a feminine art; it contains in itself all the artifices which belong to the province ofwoman: the desire to please, facility to express emotions and hide defects, and the faculty of assimilation which is the real essence of woman. ~ Sarah Bernhardt

History is representational, while time is abstract; both of these artifices may be found in museums, where they span everybody's own vacancy. ~ Robert Smithson

The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men. ~ Samuel Adams

It is sometimes useful to pretend we are deceived, because when we show a deceiving man that we see through his artifices, we only encourage him to increase his deceptions. ~ Madeleine De Souvre, Marquise De ...

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line. ~ Arthur Miller

What does belief applied to the unconscious signify? What is an unconscious that no longer does anything but believe, rather than produce? What are the operations, the artifices that inject the unconscious with 'beliefs' that are not even rational, but on the contrary only too reasonable and consistent with the established order? ~ Gilles Deleuze

The theater, for all its artifices, depicts life in a sense more truly than history. ~ George Santayana

The whale without Ahab is just a whale. A whale with no problems. A stress-free whale." - Julian Blackthorn ~ Cassandra Clare

When no one you know tells the truth, you learn to see under the surface. ~ Cassandra Clare

A woman of class never admits to her artifices. ~ Gasmaskman

He had long observed with disapprobation and contempt the superstition which governed Madrid's inhabitants. His good sense had pointed out to him the artifices of the monks, and the gross absurdity of their miracles, wonders, and suppositious relics. He blushed to see his countrymen, the dupes of deceptions, so ridiculous, and only wished for an opportunity to free them from their monkish fetters. That opportunity, so long desired in vain, was at length presented to him. He resolved not to let it slip, but to set before the people, in glaring colours, how enormous were the abuses but too frequently practised in monasteries, and how unjustly public esteem was bestowed indiscriminately upon all who wore a religious habit. He longed for the moment destined to unmask the hypocrites, and convince his countrymen, that a sanctified exterior does not always hide a virtuous heart. ~ Matthew Gregory Lewis

It was dangerous to dream, he reminded himself. As dangerous as it was for Sleeping Beauty in her castle, where she'd fallen into dreams that had devoured her for a century. ~ Cassandra Clare

I have begun drafting a memorandum for the prosecuting authorities, together with all evidence necessary to establish not only the existence of numerous specific instances of scientific or economic fraud in relation to the official "global warming" storyline but also the connections between these instances, and the overall scheme of deception that the individual artifices appear calculated to reinforce. ~ Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton Of Brenchley

And, in fine, of false sciences I thought I knew the worth sufficiently to escape being deceived by the professions of an alchemist, the predictions of an astrologer, the impostures of a magician, or by the artifices and boasting of any of those who profess to know things of which they are ignorant. ~ Rene Descartes

We are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude, but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favor ~ Samuel Johnson

God created Adam master and lord of living creatures, but Eve spoilt all, when she persuaded him to set himself above God's will. 'Tis you women, with your tricks and artifices, that lead men into error. ~ Martin Luther

When a decision like that is made by a government, it emboldens those who are already prejudiced to speak their deepest thoughts of hate. They assume they are simply brave enough to say what everyone really thinks. ~ Cassandra Clare

Love is beautiful." - Malcolm Fade ~ Cassandra Clare

I still love Emma more than I ever thought was possible. I love her more every day, and more every time I try to stop. I love her like I'm being ripped in half. ~ Cassandra Clare

The Louis XIII style in perfumery, composed of the elements dear to that period - orris-powder, musk, civet and myrtle-water, already known by the name of angel-water - was scarcely adequate to express the cavalierish graces, the rather crude colours of the time which certain sonnets by Saint-Amand have preserved for us. Later on, with the aid of myrrh and frankincense, the potent and austere scents of religion, it became almost possible to render the stately pomp of the age of Louis XIV, the pleonastic artifices of classical oratory, the ample, sustained, wordy style of Bossuet and the other masters of the pulpit. Later still, the blase, sophisticated graces of French society under Louis XV found their interpreters more easily in frangipane and marechale, which offered in a way the very synthesis of the period. And then, after the indifference and incuriosity of the First Empire, which used eau-de-Cologne and rosemary to excess, perfumery followed Victor Hugo and Gautier and went for inspiration to the lands of the sun; it composed its own Oriental verses, its own highly spiced salaams, discovered intonations and audacious antitheses, sorted out and revived forgotten nuances which it complicated, subtilized and paired off, and in short resolutely repudiated the voluntary decrepitude to which it had been reduced by its Malesherbes, its Boileaus, its Andrieux, its Baour-Lormians, the vulgar distillers of its poems. ~ Joris-Karl Huysmans

You're the only person I've ever loved like this, and I know you're the only person I ever will. And I'm not myself without you, Emma. Once you dissolve dye in water, you can't take it back out. It's like that. I can't take you out of me. It means cutting out my heart, and I don't like myself without my heart, I know that now. ~ Cassandra Clare

It was hard to live normally when you were constantly pretending you didn't see what was going on in front of your face. ~ Cassandra Clare

and I attempted, above all, to get at the truth, not the masquerade that declares itself as genuineness when, habitually, the truth is invoked, but a wholesale leveling of the artifices of personality, a selfless plunge into...into what I had thought must remain forever hidden, to the substance of what I had always kept in shadow ... to that point where self becomes sorrow ... ~ Evan Dara

Cupid is naked and does not like artifices contrived by beauty. ~ Propertius

For I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me and quicken my pulse. To be always on one's guard, to catch every look and the significance of every word, to guess intentions, foil conspiracies, pretend to be deceived and then to overthrow with one blow the whole vast edifice of artifices and designs raised with so much effort - that is what I call life. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Our lives must be spent seeking our God, for God hides; but His artifices, once they be known, seem so simple and smiling! From that moment, the merest nothing reveals His presence, and the greatness of our life depends on so little. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck

Experiment is the sole interpreter of the artifices of Nature. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

She knew he couldn't love her, but in that moment it felt as if he did. ~ Cassandra Clare

One of the greatest artifices the devil uses to engage men in vice and debauchery, is to fasten names of contempt on certain virtues, and thus fill weak souls with a foolish fear of passing for scrupulous, should they desire to put them in practice. ~ Blaise Pascal

The tricks and artifices of advertising are available to the seller of the better product no less than to the seller of the poorer product. But only the former enjoys the advantage derived from the better quality of his product. ~ Ludwig Von Mises