Blank Slates Quotes

I no longer believe the conservative message that children are naturally selfish and destructive creatures who need civilizing by hierarchies or painful controls. On the contrary, I believe that hierarchy and painful controls create destructive people. And I no longer believe the liberal message that children are blank slates on which society can write anything. On the contrary, I believe a unique core self is born into every human being; the result of millennia of environment and heredity combined in an unpredictable way that could never happen before or again. ~ Gloria Steinem

Inside each of us is a unique person resulting from millennia of environment and heredity combined in a way that could never happen again and could never have happened before. We aren't blank slates, but we are also communal creatures who are born before our brains are fully developed, so we're very sensitive to our environment. The question is: How to find the support and the circumstances that allow you to express what's inside you? ~ Gloria Steinem

The great appeal of the doctrine that the mind is a blank slate is the simple mathematical fact that zero equals zero. ~ Steven Pinker

Western culture prefers us not to believe we're defined or limited. It wants us to buy the fiction that the self is open, free, nothing but pure, bright possibility; that we're all born with the same suite of potential abilities, as neural 'blank slates', as if all human brains come off the production line at Foxconn. This seduces us into accepting the cultural lie that says we can do anything we set our minds to, that we can be whoever we want to be. This false idea is of immense value to our neoliberal economy. The game it compels us to play can best be justified morally if all the contestants start out with an equal shot at winning. Moreover, if we believe we're all the same, this legitimizes calls for deregulated corporation and smaller government: it means that men and women who lose simply didn't want it badly enough, that they just didn't believe - in which case, why should anyone else catch their fall? ~ Will Storr

Our understanding of life has only been enriched by the discovery that living flesh is composed of molecular clockwork rather than quivering protoplasm, or that birds soar by exploiting the laws of physics rather than defying them. In the same way, our understanding of ourselves and our cultures can only be enriched by the discovery that our minds are composed of intricate neural circuits for thinking, feeling, and learning rather than blank slates, amorphous blobs, or inscrutable ghosts. ~ Steven Pinker

I am a blank slate - therefore I can create anything I want. ~ Tobey Maguire

Music is the chalk to the blackboard of life. Without it everything is a blank slate ~ Ray Charles

There's a brief moment when you first wake up, where you have no memories. A blissful blank slate, a happy emptiness. ~ Candace Bushnell

Tell me what you make of Locke, then, and his difference with Descartes."
Vivian took the book from him and spread her small hand on the morocco leather binding. "Mr. Locke argues that the human mind is a blank tablet at birth... doesn't he?" She glanced at Morgan and received an encouraging nod. "And he claims that knowledge is founded in experience. Thought can only come after we learn through our senses. But I don't think I agree with him entirely. We are not born blank slates, are we? I think some things must exist in us at birth, before experience begins to work upon us. ~ Lisa Kleypas

We are here to inscribe ourselves on the universe, and it is not inappropriate to remind ourselves of this when blank slates are given us. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

I find myself drunk in the streets again.
A glass of wine and so my thoughts begin.
I smile at passersby to and fro,
Faces like blank slates minutes ago,
Now emotions readily painted on canvases:
Grief, despair, joy, and madnesses.

At this time, the clouds are sweating sweet water
And you can smell the scent of each corner:
Fish, dirt, rotten apples, and burning tires.
Close your eyes here to smell all your heart desires.
Everything is more colourful when you're not yourself.
So long as you're sound body and mind, you have your wealth.

I am now treading almost fleeting.
Birds singing, bicycle bells ringing.
I have lost my way but not my heart.
Have my head, those two are apart.
Take care dear city, I must soon head home.
Until tomorrow evening when again I will roam. ~ Kamand Kojouri

The brain is highly structured, but it is also extremely flexible. It's not a blank slate, but it isn't written in stone, either. ~ Alison Gopnik

If your life is a blank page, that only means you have room to write your story. You have the power to tell that story the way you want to. ~ Thea Harrison

It could be oddly dispiriting, the blank refusal of humankind to even attempt to function responsibly. ~ Jojo Moyes

The ruin or blank, that we see when we look at nature is in our own eye ... Love is as much its demand, as perception. Indeed neither can be perfect without the other. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't leave your life a blank page. Make each word count and leave behind something worth reading. ~ Mae East

Our actions are like blank rhymes, to which everyone applies what sense he pleases. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

In the other room Rateau was looking at the canvas, completely blank, in the center of which Jonas had merely written in very small letters a word that could be made out, but without any certainty as to whether it should be read solitary or solidary. ~ Albert Camus

The empty mind - the pure mind - is not a blank, zero-land, where you're not feeling or caring about anything. It's an effulgence of the mind. It's a brightness that is truly sensitive and accepting. It's an ability to accept life as it is. When we accept life as it is, we can respond appropriately to the way we're experiencing it, rather than just reacting out of fear and aversion. ~ Ajahn Sumedho

Olivia's heart pittered. A blank page. A pen in hand. Was there anything as exciting? The endless possibilities, the potential for beauty, even genius, waiting for that breath of life. ~ Terri-Lynne DeFino

You can't edit a blank page ~ Nora Roberts

Yes, I am Irish and Indian, which would be the coolest blend in the world if my parents were around to teach me how to be Irish and Indian. But they're not here and haven't been for years, so I'm not really Irish or Indian. I am a blank sky, a human solar eclipse. ~ Sherman Alexie

Constant attention wears the active mind, Blots out our pow'rs, and leaves a blank behind. ~ Charles Churchill

If your mind goes blank, don't forget to turn off the sound. ~ Steven Smith

Virtually everything inside me had spilled out and been lost. I was completely new, but I was also completely empty. I had to fill in that blank, little by little. With my own hands, I had to construct this thing I called 'I ~ Haruki Murakami

I deal with long blank stretches of empty boredom by laying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, imagining situations in which I might die. Apparently, Sherlock deals with it by microwaving shoes. ~ Eva Morgan

What do you like?
What do you want?
What do you believe?
What do you envision?
What do you dream will happen in the future?

Those who have lost a strong sense of personal identity answer those questions with blank expressions. ~ Paula White

Hello" and "good-bye" were a pair of bookends, propping up a vast library of blank volumes, void almanacs, novels full of sentiment I couldn't apprehend ~ Lauren Collins

A Single Blank Paper Is More influential then Thousand Love Letters Of Fake Feelings. ~ Yaganesh Derasari

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips black in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don't do it--she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don't do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it ~ Sharon Olds

I replayed the moment over and over, drawing a blank every time. ~ Miranda Dickinson

I'm always signing blank deeds. That's how an escrow company works. ~ Jeff Greene

Our life is a blank book and we are the authors......... Write and shape your story as much as the mind can imagine it ~ Jason Calder

The fact is that blank pages inspire me with terror. What will I put on them? Will it be good enough? Will I have to throw it out? ~ Margaret Atwood

When I was certain he was going to kill me, my mind went blank, and I didn't have any hope anymore. All I could do was scream my lungs out. I felt so helpless, I couldn't even bring myself to believe someone might save me. And then you showed up Al, and I realized that if we don't take care of each other then no one else will. So I'll do anything in my power to get our bodies back, even if it means being the militaries lap dog. And we'll just have to hope our powers are good enough to help us rise above our own limits. Because we're not Gods, we're humans, tiny insignificant humans. Who couldn't even save a little girl.
Edward- Elric ~ Hiromu Arakawa

We are the things we don't remember,
the blank spaces, the forgotten words. ~ Cecilia Ruiz

The religion of the atheist has a God-shaped blank at it's heart ... ~ H.G.Wells

Jesus H. Christ!" I exclaimed. I felt it again, unbelieving, but there it was. "You always said your head was solid bone, and I'll be damned if you weren't right. She shot you point-blank, and the bloody ball bounced off your skull!" Jamie, ~ Diana Gabaldon

Will you answer me? You don't have to." But he would, because he loved her. The thought froze him for a second before he sank into it like a feather bed. Before it became the comfort that helped him figure out how to speak. He loved Chloe. He loved Chloe like a blank canvas and a finished piece and all the exhilarating, painful, stop-and-start moments in between. ~ Talia Hibbert

Creativity is always a leap of faith. You're faced with a blank page, blank easel, or an empty stage. ~ Julia Cameron

Not intending to be funny: I sit at the keyboard, put my fingers on the keys and go. To me, it's the real secret of writing. Put yourself in front of the screen or the blank sheet of paper and get to work. ~ Robin Hobb

Mama," the child exclaimed, breathless and agitated.
Phoebe looked down at him in concern. "Justin, what is it?"
"Galoshes brought me a dead mouse. She dropped it on the floor right in front of me!"
"Oh, dear." Tenderly Phoebe smoothed his dark, ruffled hair. "I'm afraid that's what cats do. She thought it was a fine gift."
"Nanny won't touch it, and the housemaid screamed, and I had a fight with Ivo."
Although Phoebe's younger brother Ivo was technically Justin's uncle, the boys were close enough in age to play together and quarrel.
"About the mouse?" Phoebe asked sympathetically.
"No, before the mouse. Ivo said there's going to be a honeymoon and I can't go because it's for grownups." The boy tilted his head back to look up at her, his lower lip quivering. "You wouldn't go to the honeymoon without me, would you, Mama?"
"Darling, we've made no plans to travel yet. There's too much to be done here, and we all need time to settle in. Perhaps in the spring - "
"Dad wouldn't want to leave me behind. I know he wouldn't!"
In the electrified silence that followed, Tom shot a glance at West, who looked blank and startled.
Slowly Phoebe lowered to the ground until her face was level with her son's. "Do you mean Uncle West?" she asked gently. "Is that what you're calling him now?"
Justin nodded. "I don't want him to be my uncle - I already have too many of those. And if I don't have a dad, I'll never learn how to tie my shoes ~ Lisa Kleypas

A theatre is not a blank page for editorial, it is not a soapbox or a Tannoy system: it is a conscience that wakes with what is happening in the space, and wakes further still in response to what people are making of it. ~ Andrew O'Hagan

It would absolutely suck if you paid a few bucks for a book only to find that on the first page it said, 'Once upon a time they all lived happily ever after' and the rest of the book was blank. ~ Simon Travaglia

Babies are smart. They can tell the difference between a responsive face and a blank face, wiped clean of emotion. ~ Madeleine M. Kunin

No one but me will touch you." His tone was even but implacable.
She cocked an impervious brow at him. "Oh? And why, pray tell, is that?"
"For the same reason I asked you to be safe for me. You're my mate, Makenna."
Her mind went blank for a moment. He was kidding, right? He had to be. Only…he didn't look like he was. She cleared her suddenly dry throat. "Why would you think that?"
"I don't think it, I know it. The facts are there."
"What facts?"
"Since day one, all I've thought about is being balls deep in you. Your scent drives me insane. My wolf hates being apart from you. You're an outsider, a loner, but I'd fucking kill to protect you. And I'd kill to possess you. ~ Suzanne Wright

What are you going to do?" I asked, glancing between them. Their faces were completely blank. "You can't actually kill him. You know that, right?" "We don't kill people," Ruger said, his voice calm and almost soothing. "But sometimes assholes like him have accidents when they aren't careful. Can't control that - it's a fact of life. Show us where he is. ~ Joanna Wylde

Life is blank without love ~ Jagannath Hembram

The meaning of our self is not to be found in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless realization of yoga, of union; not on the side of the canvas where it is blank, but on the side where the picture is being painted. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Don't get seduced by your own stuff; work hard to keep a blank slate state of mind each time you watch your film. ~ James Cameron

It seems like it might go on for a while, so Tausolo takes a seat and looks around the sergeant's cubicle. There's not much to see, since the guy just arrived at the WTB, only a blank form tacked to a wall that looks like every other army form in the world.

"Hurt Feelings Report," it is titled. "Whiner's name," it says under that. "Which ear were the words of hurtfulness spoken into?" it says under that. "Is there permanent feeling damage?" "Did you require a 'tissue' for tears?" "Has this resulted in a traumatic brain injury?"

"Reason for filing this report," it says under that. "Mark all that apply." "I am a wimp." "I am a crybaby." "I want my mommy." "I was told that I am not a hero." "Narrative," it says under that. "Tell us in your own sissy words how your feelings were hurt." Finally at the bottom of the form:

We, as the Army, take hurt feelings seriously. If you don't have someone who can give you a hug and make things all better, please let us know and we will promptly dispatch a "hugger" to you ASAP. In the event we are unable to find a "hugger" we will notify the fire department and request that they send fire personnel to your location. If you are in need of supplemental support, upon written request, we will make every reasonable effort to provide you with a "blankey," a "binky" and/or a bottle if you so desire. ~ David Finkel

We'll take up where we left off, Esther', she had said, with her sweet martyr's smile. 'We'll act as if all this were a bad dream.'
A bad dream.
To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.
A bad dream.
I remembered everything. ~ Sylvia Plath

Pain has an element of blank ~ Emily Dickinson

But as he grew older he thought less of it, grew accustomed to the days lived. Each day he climbed the hill, as he used to, and helped build the factory. He visited the town. The seasons passed. Then the years. His father a curtained room. His mother, too. This blank space in his life that he was unable to paint. ~ Paul Yoon

Hey, Mays," Jordan yelled from behind me. I grudgingly turned back around, my back straight and my face blank.
"Yeah?"
Jordan cocked his head to the side, his eyes burning into mine. "Jaz may be pretty, but you're fucking gorgeous," he called out loud enough for me to hear over the thumping base of the band. He grinned at me and the freaking winked. I hated and loved it when he did that. ~ A Meredith Walters

Mornings are like almost clean slates. I say almost clean because the residue of yesterdays is sometimes stuck on them. ~ Medeia Sharif

If we were sensible we would seek death
the same blissful blank which we enjoyed before we existed. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

The village lay in the hollow, and climbed, with very prosaic houses, the other side. Village architecture does not flourish in Scotland. The blue slates and the grey stone are sworn foes to the picturesque; and though I do not, for my own part, dislike the interior of an old-fashioned pewed and galleried church, with its little family settlements on all sides, the square box outside, with its bit of a spire like a handle to lift it by, is not an improvement to the landscape. Still, a cluster of houses on differing elevations - with scraps of garden coming in between, a hedgerow with clothes laid out to dry, the opening of a street with its rural sociability, the women at their doors, the slow waggon lumbering along - gives a centre to the landscape. It was cheerful to look at, and convenient in a hundred ways. ("The Open Door") ~ Mrs. Oliphant

The world she was walking through was a pale nothingness, like a blank sheet of paper or an enormous, empty white room. It had no temperature, no smell, no texture and no taste. ~ Neil Gaiman