Centre Of Gravity Quotes

When the centre of gravity of life is placed, not in life itself, but in "the beyond" - in nothingness - then one has taken away its centre of gravity altogether. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The French need a thrashing. If the Prussians win, the centralisation of the state power will be useful for the centralisation of the German working class. German predominance would also transfer the centre of gravity of the workers' movement in Western Europe from France to Germany, and one has only to compare the movement in the two countries from 1866 till now to see that the German working class is superior to the French both theoretically and organisationally. Their predominance over the French on the world stage would also mean the predominance of our theory over Proudhon's, etc. ~ Karl Marx

[ ... ] but just as formerly these pursuits and ideas had seemed petty and insignificant in comparison with the darkness that overshadowed all existence, so now they seemed as petty and insignificant in comparison with the brilliant sunshine in which the future was bathed. He went on with his work but now he felt that the centre of gravity of his attention had shifted, making him look at his work quite differently and with greater clarity. Formerly this work had been an escape from life: he used to feel that without it life would be too gloomy. Now he needed it so that life might not be too uniformly bright. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

The determination of the average man is not merely a matter of speculative curiosity; it may be of the most important service to the science of man and the social system. It ought necessarily to precede every other inquiry into social physics, since it is, as it were, the basis. The average man, indeed, is in a nation what the centre of gravity is in a body; it is by having that central point in view that we arrive at the apprehension of all the phenomena of equilibrium and motion. ~ Adolphe Quetelet

Most of these Mountains and Inland places whereon these kind of Petrify'd Bodies and Shells are found at present, or have been heretofore, were formerly under the Water, and that either by the descending of the Waters to another part of the Earth by the alteration of the Centre of Gravity of the whole bulk, or rather by the Eruption of some kind of Subterraneous Fires or Earthquakes, great quantities of Earth have been deserted by the Water and laid bare and dry. ~ Robert Hooke

It follows at once from the last proposition that the centre of gravity of any triangle is at the intersection of the lines drawn from any two angles to the middle points of the opposite
sides respectively. ~ Archimedes

Adaptedness) of the conscious mind by adding to it contents of the unconscious, our aim is to create a wider personality whose centre of gravity does not necessarily coincide with the ego, but which, on the contrary, as the patient's insights increase, may even thwart his [sheer] ego-tendencies. Like a magnet, the new centre [i.e., self] attracts to itself that which is proper to it.80 ~ C. G. Jung

It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the universe. ~ Thomas Carlyle

Overthrow is a nicely judged word. It suggests a wrestler being flung to the mat. That only happens when you move outside your centre of gravity. Your enemy can't throw you if you have your feet firmly planted. Which ~ M.R. Carey

The centre of gravity of any parallelogram lies on the straight line joining the middle points of opposite sides. ~ Archimedes

The centre of gravity of any cylinder is the point of bisection of the axis. ~ Archimedes

The key issue is the shift of the centre of gravity from the West to the East, the rise of China and India. ~ Klaus Schwab

If someone dies of anything other than extreme old age and natural causes, and often even then the death leaves a great void in the lives of the survivors, an emptiness like an abandoned mine that can never be filled. A deep chasm. If you're lucky, you might be able to cover it with plywood and rebar, to surround it with chain link and "Danger" signs, but at best, these are only ever temporary remedies, patches that might briefly hold up to the storms that will come and come again until the ground around the chasm grows so weakened and diminished that to approach the emptiness becomes ever more dangerous. And that's if you're lucky. If you're not, then the loss leaves a void as dark and desolate as a black hole, with a gravity so great that no light can escape. ~ Tyler Dilts

The art of new, and perhaps the art of happiness, is not absolute victory for either new or old but balance between them. Birds do not defy gravity or let it bind them to the ground. They use it to fly. ~ Kevin Ashton

Perhaps the virtue of coming from a place like Tasmania is that you had the great gift of knowing that you were not the centre of things, yet life was no less where you were. ~ Richard Flanagan

You can feel the North. It takes hold of you, marks you. No matter how far you move from its center of gravity, you are invariably drawn to it by an invisible current, like water droplets to the earth, like a needle to a magnet, like blood to blood, desire to desire. ~ Laura Esquivel

There's something covering my face, I can't breathe, I'm suffocating. When I surface into wakefulness, I'm gasping for air and my chest hurts. I sit up, eyes wide, and see something moving in the corner of the room, a dense centre of blackness that keeps growing, and I almost cry out - and then I'm properly awake and there's nothing there, but I am sitting up in bed and my cheeks are wet with tears. ~ Paula Hawkins

A brick could be used to measure the speed of gravity, but an apple offers a tastier option. ~ Jarod Kintz

Selfishness is the making a man's self his own centre, the beginning and end of all he doeth. ~ John Owen

But if we establish the working hypothesis that the UFOs are machines, we also have to assume the following:
a) They are not built by human beings..
b) They are flying by means of artificial fields of gravity..
c) They produce high-tension electric charges in order to push the air out of their paths, so it does not start glowing, and strong magnetic fields to influence the ionized air at higher altitudes. ~ Hermann Oberth

defects. I escape the force of gravity again when ~ Philip Yancey

The study of the powers that shape, maintain and alter the state is the basis of all political insight and leads to the understanding that the law of power governs the world of states just as the law of gravity governs the physical world. ~ Ludwin Von Rochau

Dear lieutenant, I think we all seduced you, deflected you from a course that might have let you live. Seeking something in the quick of us, searching to secure a kind of love with the provenance of age and land and family, you took over our premises; you presumed to the legacy that was ours, and if you did not see that such assumptions have their own ramifying repercussions, and that the stones demand their own continuity of blood, if you did not understand the gravity of their isolation, the solitude of their trapped state or the hardness of their old responsibility, still you cannot fault the castle or either one of us, or complain that you were led to your own conclusion.
I left the castle; you brought us all back. ~ Iain Banks

One of the string theory pioneers, the Italian physicist Daniele Amati, characterized it as "part of the 21st century that fell by chance into the 20th century." Indeed, there is something about the very nature of the theory at present that points to the fact that we are witnessing the theory's baby steps. Recall the lesson learned from all the great ideas since Einstein's relativity-put the symmetry first. Symmetry originates the forces. The equivalence principle-the expectation that all observers, irrespective of their motions, would deduce the same laws-requires the existence of gravity. The gauge symmetries-the fact that the laws do not distinguish color, or electrons from neutrinos-dictate the existence of the messengers of the strong and electroweak forces. Yet supersymmetry is an output of string theory, a consequence of its structure rather than a source for its existence. What does this mean? Many string theorists believe that some underlying grander principle, which will necessitate the existence of string theory, is still to be found. If history is to repeat itself, then this principle may turn out to involve an all-encompassing and even more compelling symmetry, but at the moment no one has a clue what this principle might be. Since, however, we are only at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Amati's characterization may still turn out to be an astonishing prophecy. ~ Mario Livio

When I sit with students, I do not just want to help them solve their problems. I want to find a moment with each person where their mind stops and their eyes open. I want us to be together as if we were lying in a field on the underside of the earth on a clear summer night, held only by the magnet of gravity, looking down into a bottomless sea of stars. I want us to remember together the beauty all around us. ~ Jack Kornfield

Kate had the shape of a pixie, all noodle arms and legs; and when she bent to the ground and kicked up her feet, it looked as delicate as a spider walking a wall. Me, I sort of defied gravity with a thud. ~ Jodi Picoult

Painting something that defies the law of the land is good. Painting something that defies the law of the land and the law of gravity at the same time is ideal. ~ Banksy

So: What is the world made of? Subject, as ever, to addition and correction, here is the multifaceted answer that modern physics provides:

1) The primary ingredient of physical reality, from which all else is formed, fills space and time.

2) Every fragment, each space-time element, has the same basic properties as every other fragment.

3) The primary ingredient of reality is alive with quantum activity. Quantum activity has special characteristics. It is spontaneous and unpredictable. And to observe quantum activity, you must disturb it.

4) The primary ingredient of reality also contains enduring material components. These make the cosmos a multilayered, multicolored superconductor.

5) The primary ingredient of reality contains a metric field that gives space-time rigidity and causes gravity.

6) The primary ingredient of reality weighs, with a universal density. ~ Frank Wilczek

A month ago she would have been embarrassed at the confidence. Now she felt a surprising kinship. She was a citizen of the new land, a country she had never before visited, only a rumor, this vast unseen tract, its boundary exactly that of the whole world, taking up the space and shape of the world but completely unlike it. It had a different atmosphere, hard to breathe, and how heavy you were here, it pulled you down like the gravity on Jupiter. ~ Janet Fitch

Everything in the universe exists because of a force between gasses and gravity like when we die we decompose because our gasses reflects off the walls of our body and every time it reflects it gains a little speed and eventually gains enough force to cause an unbalanced force in the gravity disrupting out magnetic fields that holds all our atoms together and our atoms disperse into the atmosphere and like when you blow up a balloon the gas molecules reflects off the walls of the balloon causing an unbalanced force in the gravity disrupting its magnetic field that holds all its atoms together and the atoms disperse into the atmoshere ~ Jordan Brown

Children have a remarkable talent for not taking the adult world with the kind of respect we are so confident it ought to be given. To the irritation of authority figures of all sorts, children expend considerable energy in "clowning around." They refuse to appreciate the gravity of our monumental concerns, while we forget that if we were to become more like children our concerns might not be so monumental. ~ Conrad Hyers

Tony is back on the filed. Every hole is a burn and a pull. Now he feels as if he might not float up but instead fall inside of something underneath him. There is an anchor, something he's been rooted to all this time, as if in each hole there is a hook attached to a line pulling him down. A wind from the bay sweeps through the stadium, moves through him. Tony hears a bird. Not outside. From where he's anchored, to the bottom of the bottom, the middle of the middle of him. The center's center. There is a bird for every hole in him. Singing. Keeping him up. Keeping him from going. Tony remembers something his grandma said to him when she was teaching him how to dance. "You have to dance like birds sing in the morning," she said, and showed him how light she could be on her feet. She bounced and her toes pointed in just the right way. Dancer's feet. Dancer's gravity. Tony needs to be light now. Let the wind sign through the holes in him listen to the birds singing. Tony isn't going anywhere. And somewhere in there, inside him, where he is, where he'll always be, even now it is morning, and the birds, the birds are singing. ~ Tommy Orange

The character and fight against fascism moved centre stage when, in 1936, Franco attempted to overthrow by force the Popular Front Government of Republican Spain. ~ Bill Alexander

There is on the earth no institution which Friendship has established; it is not taught by any religion; no scripture contains its maxims. It has no temple nor even a solitary column ... However, out fates at least are social. Our courses do not diverge; but as the web of destiny is woven it is fulled, and we are cast more and more into the centre. Men naturally, though feebly, seek this alliance, and their actions faintly foretell it. We are inclined to lay the chief stress on likeness and not on difference, and in foreign bodies we admit that there are many degrees of warmth below blood heat, but none of cold above it. ~ Henry David Thoreau

A man's center of gravity, the substance of his being, consists in what he has executed and performed in his life; the woman's, in what she is. ~ Isak Dinesen

I always loved Japanese movies. And they had an enormous impact in France - the Nouvelle Vague took so much from them. It taught us how the camera was placed in the centre of the action. ~ Jacques Perrin

The most famous story about gravity involves Isaac Newton and an apple that supposedly fell on his head, inspiring him to concoct his theory of universal gravitation. (It's mostly famous because Newton himself couldn't stop telling it later in life, in an unnecessary attempt to add some extra juice to his reputation as a genius.) ~ Sean Carroll

The Gedalists were nearly run down by a Dodge truck on which two grand pianos had been loaded: two uniformed officers were playing, in unison, with gravity and commitment, the 1812 Overture of Tchaikowsky, while the driver wove among the wagons with brusque swerves, pressing the siren at full volume, heedless of the pedestrians in his way. ~ Primo Levi

It's part of the art,' she explained, motioning toward the stream. 'The bringing together of the pieces, then the way they disappear when it time - the wind, or water, or gravity, whatever - makes the art lose its hold. It's not meant to stay forever. Some people,' and she paused. 'Some people wouldn't get it. They'd do all sorts of unnatural things to make it stay just like it was. Glue it, staple it, cement it. Even though that would ruin it. ~ Nikki Loftin

As she lies in the bed she weeps, for Bing, for the melting, shimmering candles, the filigree on the holiday tablecloth. She is an unwilling astronaut, bumping against the thick glass of the ship, her line tangling lazily in zero gravity, face mask fogged with fear. My sister reaches across, over the bed, and we both embrace the mother, holding her on earth, pulling her onto the ship, breathing our oxygen into her line. Ten hours later she is dead. ~ Jo Ann Beard

At the centre of Christianity is community; we are gathered by the Lord around the altar. ~ Timothy Radcliffe

Apply the blacksmith's homely principle when you are speaking. If you feel deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else. Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say - fill your mind with your speech-material and, like the infilling water in the glass, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears. ~ Dale Carnegie

Men have been barbarians much longer than they have been civilized. They are only precariously civilized, and within us there is the propensity, persistent as the force of gravity, to revert under stress and strain, under neglect or temptation, to our first natures. ~ Walter Lippmann

When I'm with you,
The gravity of our moments,
The weight of our smiles
Makes time nearly stop. ~ L. Austen Johnson