Devise Quotes

Once, when a religionist denounced me in unmeasured terms, I sent him a card saying, I am sure you believe that I will go to hell when I die, and that once there I will suffer all the pains and tortures the sadistic ingenuity of your deity can devise and that this torture will continue forever. Isn't that enough for you? Do you have to call me bad names in addition? ~ Isaac Asimov

If only [love] could be turned off. It's not a faucet. Love's a bloody river with level-five rapids. Only a catastrophic act of nature or a dam has any chance of stopping it- and then only succeeds in diverting it. Both measures are extreme and change the terrain so much you end up wondering why you bothered. No landmarks to gauge your position when it's done. Only way to survive is to devise new ways to map out life. ~ Karen Marie Moning

In my whole career, in fact, I can remember only two first nights when a show was at its peak on the first night. And I just wish we could devise a system where critics came not on a single evening but were given a choice of performances to attend. ~ Richard McCabe

In each human heart terror survives The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true: Hypocrisy and custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. They dare not devise good for man's estate, And yet they know not that they do not dare. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

There is a time when the soul lives in God, and a time when God lives in the soul. What is appropriate to one state is inconsistent with the other.

When God lives in the soul it ought to abandon itself entirely to his providence. When the soul lives in God it is obliged to procure for itself carefully and very regularly, every means it can devise by which to arrive at the divine union. The whole procedure is marked out; the readings, the examinations, the resolutions. The guide is always at hand and everything is by rule, even the hours for conversation.

When God lives in the soul it has nothing left of self, but only that which the spirit which actuates it imparts to it at each moment. Nothing is provided for the future, no road is marked out . . . No more books with marked passages for such a soul; often enough it is even deprived of a regular directior, for God allows it no other support than that which he gives it himself. Its dwelling is in darkness, forgetfulness, abandonment, death and nothingness. . .

Everything that others discover with great difficulty this soul finds in abandonment, and what they guard with care in order to be able to find it again, this soul receives at the moment there is occasion for it, and afterwards relinquishes so as to admit nothing but exactly what God desires it to have in order to live by him alone.

The former soul undertakes an infinity of good works for the glory of God, the latter is often c ~ Jean-Pierre De Caussade

We clutter the earth with our inventions, never dreaming that possibly they are unnecessary - or disadvantageous. We devise astounding means of communication, but do we communicate with one another? We move our bodies to and fro and incredible speeds, but do we really leave the spot we started from? Mentally, morally, spiritually, we are fettered. What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning? ~ Henry Miller

The Penny Post will do more for the circulation of ideas, for the fostering of domestic affections, for the humanizing of the mass generally, than any other single measure that our national wit can devise. ~ Harriet Martineau

If any atom of your body was gradually replaced by a new one, would you still be the same person? Or, to put it another way, if all the atoms in your body were gradually thrown out of your body, and then all these atoms were assembled in the new system to construct an artificial devise -- a 'humanoid robot', what would distinguish you, at an earlier time, from this robot, at a later time? To understand your personal identity over time, think over these questions above. ~ Elmar Hussein

We each devise our means of escape from the intolerable. ~ William Styron

The Magician should devise for himself a definite technique for destroying "evil." The essence of such a practice will consist in training the mind and the body to confront things which case fear, pain, disgust, shame and the like. He must learn to endure them, then to become indifferent to them, then to become indifferent to them, then to analyze them until they give pleasure and instruction, and finally to appreciate them for their own sake, as aspects of Truth. When this has been done, he should abandon them, if they are really harmful in relation to health and comfort. ~ Aleister Crowley

Then Prometheus, in his perplexity as to what preservation he could devise, stole from Hephaestus and Athena wisdom in the arts together with fire
since by no means without fire could it be acquired or helpfully used by any
and he handed it there and then as a gift to man. ~ Plato

However we assess the relief of the siege of Orleans and the subsequent successes in the Loire Valley, the military proficiency of the French shocked the English to the point that French victory now seemed almost inevitable. If the English had learned that the French had new materiel or a brilliant new commander, they might have been able to devise counter procedures. But they had underestimated everything, from the loyalty evoked by Joan's leadership at Orleans to the fresh resolve of the men who knew her. In a way she also stood for something like a principle of minimal violence, for although she was always exposed to injury and indeed sustained serious wounds, she never personally harmed an enemy solider. The events of the late spring and early summer of 1929 engendered a new collective spirit among the French. ~ Donald Spoto

To acknowledge the existence of the bully and his accompanying risks is not the same as accepting him as a permanent feature of our world. I know that if we accept trauma and fear, it wins.

"Bullies don't just go away. Their legacies don't just disappear. The bully must be confronted intentionally, his impact named and addressed. Even so, it seems there's no clear consensus on how to deal with the bully on our blocks. Do we confront him? Match violence with violence? Do we ignore him, or try to kill him with kindness? I don't think there's a silver bullet to handling the bully, no one-size-fits-all strategy. But the right strategy has to be rooted in a context bigger than the immediate one, has to be rooted in more than aiming to end the presence of the bully himself. We must focus on the type of world we want to live in and devise a plan for getting there, as opposed to devising a strategy centered on opposition. ~ DeRay Mckesson

Ancient one sleeping, waiting to rise
When earth's power bleeds sacred red
The mark strikes true; Queen Tsi Sgili will devise
He shall be washed from his entombing bed
Through the hand of the dead he is free
Terrible beauty, monstrous sight
Ruled again they shall be
Women shall kneel to his dark might
Kalona's song sounds sweet
As we slaughter with cold heat ~ Kristin Cast

We do not need to plan or devise a "world of the future"; if we take care of the world of the present, the future will have received full justice from us. A good future is implicit in the soils, forests, grasslands, marshes, deserts, mountains, rivers, lakes, and oceans that we have now, and in the good things of human culture that we have now; the only valid "futurology" available to us is to take care of those things. We have no need to contrive and dabble at "the future of the human race"; we have the same pressing need that we have always had - to love, care for, and teach our children.
(pg. 73, "Feminism, the Body, and the Machine") ~ Wendell Berry

I guess for major film industry players a film is a money making devise, so using formulas assures them that their investment will have returns. A lot of big studio films are created by formulas and committees, stripping away any individuality or personality from the work so that they could appeal to most everyone on there planet but to no one in particular. ~ Signe Baumane

Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.

Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.

Was Rorschach.

Does that answer your Questions, Doctor? ~ Alan Moore

If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

A startup's job is to (1) rigorously measure where it is right now, confronting the hard truths that assessment reveals, and then (2) devise experiments to learn how to move the real numbers closer to the ideal reflected in the business plan. ~ Eric Ries

But although the rules are vague
And widely disregarded now
Some precepts remain: live with love -
That is a rule we all can understand;
Forgive those who need forgiveness,
Which I think is everybody, more or less;
Be kind - that, perhaps, is first and foremost
In any postmodern, new-fangled
Code we devise for ourselves;
Yes, be kind: love one another,
And most of all tend with gentleness
The small patch of terra firma
That is allocated to each of us ... ~ Alexander McCall Smith

The Tale of Human Evolution

The subject most often brought up by advocates of the
theory of evolution is the subject of the origin of man.

The Darwinist claim holds that modern man evolved from ape-like
creatures. During this alleged evolutionary process, which is
supposed to have started 4-5 million years ago, some "transitional
forms" between modern man and his ancestors are
supposed to have existed. According to this completely
imaginary scenario, four basic "categories" are listed:

1. Australopithecus
2. Homo habilis
3. Homo erectus
4. Homo sapiens

Evolutionists call man's so-called first ape-like ancestors
Australopithecus, which means "South African ape."

These living beings are actually nothing but an old ape
species that has become extinct.

Extensive research done on various Australopithecus specimens by two world famous anatomists from England and the USA, namely,
Lord Solly Zuckerman and Prof. Charles Oxnard, shows
that these apes belonged to an ordinary ape species that
became extinct and bore no resemblance to humans.

Evolutionists classify the next stage of human evolution
as "homo," that is "man." According to their claim, the living
beings in the Homo series are more developed than
Australopithecus. Evolutionists devise a fanciful evolution
scheme by arranging different fossils of these creature ~ Harun Yahya

My first care the following morning was, to devise some means of discovering the man in the grey cloak. ~ Adelbert Von Chamisso

Unless we believe in the hero, what is there
To believe? Incisive what, the fellow
Of what good. Devise. Make him of mud ... ~ Wallace Stevens

A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And ev'n with Paradise devise the snake;
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blackened - Man's forgiveness give and take! ~ Omar Khayyam

It is impossible to devise an experiment without a preconceived idea; devising an experiment, we said, is putting a question; we never conceive a question without an idea which invites an answer. I consider it, therefore, an absolute principle that experiments must always be devised in view of a preconceived idea, no matter if the idea be not very clear nor very well defined. ~ Claude Bernard

To possess and exercise omniscience is to never have sensed temperature, experienced a single emotion, or practiced a single vice. It is to have never been amazed, concerned, analytical, or sympathetic. By exercising omniscience, an Omni-maximum being could not move, be moved, or inspired. Such a being could not interfere, empathise, interject, alter, adjust, or give advice. Ever. Such a being could not devise a plan, hear music, imagine a story, or recognise art or deviancy in any guise, for it could never differentiate creativity from cold reality. Such a being could not know doubt, desire, success, or failure. It could not, therefore, know itself, and if it is incapable of that, then it is incapable of experiencing pleasure. ~ John Zande

It occurs to me to devise mental tests on myself to see if I am who I think I am, but then I think, "I am who I think I am, or I probably am, and a test I conceive and answer about myself isn't a way to test if I'm another person pretending to be me, because no matter how I answer I'll answer like myself, thus falsely proving to myself that I am who I think I am." No, what I need is for my clone to create and administer the test. ~ Jarod Kintz

Would you believe I devise my entire show based upon a single one of these jewels? It's true I choose a color from my collection ( ... ) and with it I can imagine a whole world. ~ Dita Von Teese

The Church of Rome ... has become the most lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels, the very kingdom of sin, death and hell; so that not even antichrist ,if he were to come, could devise any addition to its wickedness. ~ Martin Luther

I close my eyes and feel the texture of brick on my fingers in my mind. I try to imagine the wall that surrounds your heart, so I can best devise a plan to breach it. ~ Jarod Kintz

The whole world is a gigantic legacy. Imagine having to start afresh each generation: who would invent the wheel, devise the lever, construct the alphabet and multiplication table? I could not; could you? ~ Sydney J. Harris

Adieu, valour: rust, rapier: be still, drum, for your manager is in love: yea, he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit: write, pen, for I am for whole volumes in folio. ~ William Shakespeare

After wearing and wasting her palpitating heart with every engine of regret that lonely inexperience could devise, common sense had illumined her. She felt that she would do well to be useful again - to taste anew sweet independence at any price. The past was past; whatever it had been, it was no more at hand. Whatever its consequences, time would close over them; ~ Thomas Hardy

In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfying the Irish nation. ~ Samuel Butler

The Journey of Reconciliation was organized not only to devise techniques for eliminating Jim Crow in travel, but also as a training ground for similar peaceful projects against discrimination in such major areas as employment and in the armed services. ~ Bayard Rustin

During most of my Bureau career I worked major economic fraud investigations and was amazed at the schemes con-artist and corrupt corporate and public officials would devise to steal other people's money. I've also had the opportunity to work bank robberies and drug investigations. The one thing I know for sure is… With a gun you can steal hundreds. With a pen you can steal millions. ~ Jerri Williams

Science could potentially do a better job explaining the meaning of life if scientists devise experiments that can weed out the best answers from the worst. The principle difference between religion and science is as follows: the religious make stuff up to explain what they don't understand. Scientists do the same, but scientists run their ideas through a very rigorous filter that consists of logic, experimentation and peer review. Such a filter eliminates the worst ideas and preserves the best.
So if a scientist answers the question, "What is the meaning of life," his answer, at the very worst, is no less valid than an answer that comes from the highest witchdoctor or priest. ~ G.M. Jackson

That's what education should be," I said, "the art of orientation. Educators should devise the simplest and most effective methods of turning minds around. It shouldn't be the art of implanting sight in the organ, but should proceed on the understanding that the organ already has the capacity, but is improperly aligned and isn't facing the right way. ~ Plato

Lastly, since the greatest room for each person's growth lies in his areas of greatest strength, you should devise ways to help each person grow his career without necessarily promoting him up the corporate ladder and out of his areas of strength. In this organization 'promotion' will mean finding ways to give prestige, respect, and financial reward to anyone who has achieved word-class performance in any role, no matter where that role is in the hierarchy. By doing so you will overcome the remaining two obstacles to building a strengths-based organization: the 'even though I'm now in the wrong role, it was the only way to grow my career' problem and the 'I'm in a pass-through role that no one respects' problem. ~ Donald O. Clifton

Rather than trying to recover and maintain a tradition that links back to the past (and former glories), Chaos Magick is an approach that enables the individual to use anything that s/he thinks is suitable as a temporary belief or symbol system. What matters is the results you get, not the 'authenticity' of the system used. So Chaos Magic then, is not a system - it utilises systems and encourages adherents to devise their own, giving magic a truly Postmodernist flavour. ~ Phil Hine

[On Jung's theory of psychological types:] My mother, Katharine C. Briggs, introduced it into our family and made it a part of our lives. She and I waited a long time for someone to devise an instrument that would reflect not only one's preference for extraversion or introversion but one's preferred kind of perception and judgment as well. In the summer of 1942 we undertook to do it ourselves. ~ Isabel Briggs Myers

Expert chess playing, for example, was once thought to epitomize human intellection. In the view of several experts in the late fifties: "If one could devise a successful chess machine, one would seem to have penetrated to the core of human intellectual endeavor. ~ Nick Bostrom

At the individual level, if we can identify the psychological mechanisms linking adverse environments to psychosis (and there has been a lot of progress with this despite minimal funding) we should be able to devise more effective interventions for those who are already ill. ~ Richard Bentall

Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly. ~ Wallace Stevens

He came from the gutters of England and anyone born and raised in those gutters knew that most persecution and oppression was inflicted by lawyers. Lawyers were the devil's servants who ushered men and women to the gallows, they were the vermin who gave orders to the bailiffs, they made their snares from statutes and became wealthy on their victims and when they were rich enough they became politicians so they could devise even more laws to make themselves even wealthier. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Thus were formed those immense coalfields, which nevertheless, are not inexhaustible, and which three centuries at the present accelerated rate of consumption will exhaust unless the industrial world will devise a remedy. ~ Jules Verne

Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you, was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strength: if no one can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miserable. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon: you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be flattered - you must have music, dancing, and society - or you languish, you die away. Have you no sense to devise a system which will make you independent of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? ~ Charlotte Bronte

It's amazing to me that we humans have the intellectual capacity to ask deep questions and to devise methods for learning how the universe works and how its contents evolve with time. ~ Alex Filippenko

Why do
You thus devise
Evil against her?' 'For that
She is beautiful, delicate;
Therefore. ~ Adelaide Crapsey

There is a certain climax in life, at which, notwithstanding all our freedom, and however much we may have denied all directing reason and goodness in the beautiful chaos of existence, we are once more in great danger of intellectual bondage, and have to face our hardest test. For now the thought of a personal Providence first presents itself before us with its most persuasive force, and has the best of advocates, apparentness, in its favor, now when it is obvious that all and everything that happens to us always turns out for the best. (...) We want to leave the Gods alone and (...) wish to content ourselves with the assumption that our own practical and theoretical skillfulness in explaining and suitably arranging events has now reached its highest point. (...) We do not want either to think too highly of this dexterity of our wisdom, when the wonderful harmony which results from playing on our instrument sometimes surprises us too much: a harmony which sounds too well for us to dare to ascribe it to ourselves. In fact, now and then there is one who plays with us beloved Chance: he leads our hand occasionally, and even the all wisest Providence could not devise any finer music than that of which our foolish hand is then capable. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

And these trajectories all have one thing in common: we no longer have to obey what the New Testament teaches. We can devise our own ideas about the direction things were heading at the end of the New Testament, even ideas that contradict direct New Testament commands. This method has no controls on it. It is subjective, and the final authority is not the Bible but anyone's guess as to where the trajectory was heading. ~ Wayne A. Grudem

He looked like a fallen angel, replete with all the dangerous male beauty that Lucifer could devise. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I always devise a background so that it makes what your character goes through logical and keeps up the continuity. ~ Dexter Fletcher

It is in vain for us to devise schemes by which competition can be put out of civilized life. Competition is the condition of life. ~ Lyman Abbott

Nothing is truly unnatural, because everything that exists, including human intelligence, is a product of nature. If human intelligence can devise ways for the genes from two men to result in a child, their doing so is an entirely natural event. ~ A.C. Grayling

The widow employed her woman's malice to devise a system of covert persecution. ~ Honore De Balzac

Perestroika was an impossible idea on the face of it. The Party was setting out to employ its structures of command to make the country, and itself, less command-driven. A system whose main afflictions were stagnation and inflexibility was setting out to change itself. Worst and probably intractable was the fact that people who had spent their lives securing power and individual leverage were expected to devise change that would dismantle the hierarchy of levers and might dislodge them. The system resisted change instinctively... ~ Masha Gessen

All-good, like the vain, capricious, cruel God of Job? With all of eternity at His disposal, what fiendish new tortures might He not devise? A limited ~ William Peter Blatty

Does that mean that religious texts are worthless as guides to ethics? Of course not. They are magnificent sources of insight into human nature, and into the possibilities of ethical codes. Just as we should not be surprised to discover that ancient folk medicine has a great deal to teach modern hightech medicine, we should not be surprised if we find that these great religious texts hold versions of the very best ethical systems any human culture will ever devise. But, like folk medicine, we should test it all carefully, and take nothing whatever on faith. ~ Daniel C. Dennett

The slower a clock, the nearer it approximated to the infinitely gradual and majestic progression of cosmic time - in fact, by reversing a clock's direction and running it backwards one could devise a time-piece that in a sense was moving even more slowly than the universe, and consequently part of an even greater spatio-temporal system. ~ J.G. Ballard

Those clocks are sophisticated instruments that calculate time by measuring electrical charges called coulombs
given the rapidity and volume of electrons that move through the measuring device the calibrator must adjust at certain points which was the delay you see
the delay is just recalibrating for the clock moving too quickly during the 10
10ths of a second before the delay
this insures that the actual playing time during a period is exactly 20 minutes That is not an opinion
that is science
amazing devise quite frankly. ~ Dean Lombardi

In all sensation we pick and choose, interpret, seek and impose order, and devise and test hypotheses about what we witness. Sense data are taken, not merely given: we learn to perceive ... The teacher has forgotten, and the student himself will soon forget, that what he sees conveys no information until he knows beforehand the kind of thing he is expected to see. ~ Peter Medawar

The Huicholes were dangerous because they were not tainted by the fear of death. They accepted life as something caught between the sun and the earth in which man could only participate briefly. No amount of defeat could make them regard themselves as inferior. They had none of the fear of losing their beliefs that drives modern man to devise fantastic schemes. Above all else, the Huicholes were dangerous because they believed that their hour of triumph had not yet arrived. In the celebration that would follow, centuries of occupation would disappear, like dust scattered by the wind. ~ Warren Eyster

Is it really beyond our wits to devise some form of censorship which would trap only the crudely sadistic? ~ Storm Jameson

I found it liberating of necessity to devise my own style and my own tactics and to look for a voice on the instrument because there weren't really any that impacted strongly on me. ~ Steve Swallow

In difficult ground, press on; In encircled ground, devise stratagems; In death ground, fight. ~ Sun Tzu

A status not freely chosen or entered into by an individual or a group is necessarily one of oppression and the oppressed are by their nature (i.e., oppressed) forever in ferment and agitation against their condition and what they understand to be their oppressors. If not by overt rebellion or revolution, then in the thousand and one ways they will devise with and without consciousness to alter their condition ~ Lorraine Hansberry

I look up but don't spot him. "I take care of myself. I ain't living with nobody. Got my own digs. What are you doing up there?"
"Tracking the Hag. Trying to devise a way to trap her. She's fast but she's not a sifter."
I jerk, and look around warily. That's all we need right now. "Is she here?"
"If you brought that crazy bitch near me again." Ryodan doesn't finish his sentence. He doesn't need to. ~ Karen Marie Moning

[T]he artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted ... ~ Thomas Jefferson

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

It has been said, by engineers themselves, that given enough money, they can accomplish virtually anything: send men to the moon, dig a tunnel under the English Channel. There's no reason they couldn't likewise devise ways to protect infrastructure from the worst hurricanes, earthquakes and other calamities, natural and manmade. ~ Henry Petroski

So for thy spirit did devise Its Maker seemly garniture, Of its own essence parcel pure.
From grave simplicities a dress, And reticent demureness, And love encinctured with reserve; Which the woven vesture would subserve. For outward robes in their ostents Should show the soul's habiliments. Therefore I say,
Thou'rt fair even so, But better Fair I use to know. ~ Francis Thompson

You love him still and struggle against your love, feeling that it will undo you. He knows this and he will tempt you by every lure he can devise, every deceit he can employ. Sorrow and sin will surely follow if you yield; happiness never can be yours with him; doubt, remorse and self-reproach will kill love, and a time will come when you will find that in gaining a brief joy you have lost your peace forever. Oh, Agatha, be warned in time, do not listen to your own weak heart but to the conscience that nothing can bribe or silence. ~ Louisa May Alcott

Piter: Ah-ah, Baron! Is it not regrettable you were unable to devise this delicious scheme by yourself?
Baron: Someday I will have you strangled, Piter.
Piter: Of a certainty, Baron. Enfin! But a kind act is never lost, eh?
Baron: Have you been chewing verite or semuta, Piter? ~ Frank Herbert

Of justice you will find none.... To judge is evil. To mete justice, more appalling still. Act from compassion and you will do better than to devise any code or facade of justice. ~ Jessica Amanda Salmonson

This is not my prison. I carry it with me. We devise cages of our own choosing. ~ Bernie Mcgill

Animals don't behave like men,' he said. 'If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don't sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures' lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality. ~ Richard Adams

This neuronal correlate of consciousness - the transient assembly - satisfies all the items on the shopping list of phenomena above. The efficacy of an alarm clock is explained as a very vigorous sensory input that triggers a large, synchronous assembly. Dreams and wakefulness differ because dreams result from a small assembly driven by weak internal stimuli, whereas wakefulness results from a larger assembly driven by stronger external stimuli. Anesthetics restrict the size of assemblies, thus inducing unconsciousness. Self-consciousness can arise only in a brain large and interconnected enough to devise extensive neuronal networks. The degree of consciousness in an animal or a human fetus depends on the sizes of their assemblies, too. ~ Scientific American

As Rousseau could not compose without his cat beside him, so I cannot play chess without my king's bishop. In its absense the game to me is lifeless and void. The vitalizing factor is missing, and I can devise no plan of attack. ~ Siegbert Tarrasch

You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not appearing to. ~ Richard M. Nixon

It is easy to make out three areas where scientists will be concentrating their efforts in the coming decades. One is in physics, where leading theorists are striving, with the help of experimentalists, to devise a single mathematical theory that embraces all the basic phenomena of matter and energy. The other two are in biology. Biologists-and the rest of us too-would like to know how the brain works and how a single cell, the fertilized egg cell, develops into an entire organism ~ Dennis Flanagan

Men and women may devise plans to satisfy their inner longings, but in the midst of all the "religions" of the world, God's way is available in the Bible for all who will come to Him on His terms. ~ Billy Graham

Last Will

Prologue:
We, Sacco and Vanzetti, sound of body and mind,
Devise and bequeath to all we leave behind,
The worldly wealth we inherited at our birth,
Each one to share alike as we leave this earth.

To Wit:
To babies we will their mothers' love,
To youngsters we will the sun above.
To spooners who wont to tryst the night,
We give the moon and stars that shine so bright.
To thrill them in their hours of joy,
When boy hugs maid and maid hugs boy.
To nature's creatures we allot the spring and summer,
To the doe, the bear, the gold-finch and the hummer.
To the fishes we ascribe the deep blue sea,
The honey we apportion to the bustling bee.
To the pessimist - good cheer - his mind to sooth,
To the chronic liar we donate the solemn truth.

And Lastly:

To those who judge solely seeking renown,
With blaring trumpets of the fakir and clown;
To the prosecutor, persecutor, and other human hounds,
Who'd barter another's honor, recognizing no bounds,
To the Governor, the Jury, who another's life they'd sell -
We endow them with the fiery depths of HELL!

(Industrial Worker, Aug. 20, 1927) ~ Nicola Sacco

First, what is a revolution? Sometimes I'm inclined to believe that many of our people are using this word "revolution" loosely, without taking careful consideration [of] what this word actually means, and what its historic characteristics are. When you study the historic nature of revolutions, the motive of a revolution, the objective of a revolution, and the result of a revolution, and the methods used in a revolution, you may change words. You may devise another program. You may change your goal and you may change your mind. ~ Malcolm X

Anyone can devise a plan by which good people may go to Heaven. Only God can devise a plan whereby sinners, who are His enemies, can go to Heaven. ~ Lewis Sperry Chafer

How insightful of Finland to devise a topic-based curriculum in their schools! This means that dicreet "subjects" that are taught may cross-fertilise each other, and the possibilities in this are amazing! ~ Suzy Davies

SANCTIFIED MATURED FERTILE UNIVERSAL CREATIVE SOUL MIRACLE WILL POWER WILL DEVISE DIVINE EXISTENCE BY SALVATION ~ Various

Devise a simple strategy so you can sleep at night. ~ Walter Schloss

Although human ingenuity may devise various inventions which, by the help of various instruments, answer to one and the same purpose, yet will it never discover any inventions more beautiful, more simple or more practical than those of nature, because in her inventions there is nothing lacking and nothing superfluous; and she makes use of no counterpoise when she constructs the limbs of animals in such a way as to correspond to the motion of their bodies, but she puts into them the soul of the body. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

A circular plot structure, often seen in adventure novels and quest fantasies, is a narrative devise involving setting, character, and theme. Typically a protagonist ventures from home (or the starting place of the story), goes on a journey, often a dangerous one in which many challenges are overcome, and then returns home a changed person. The plot is usually chronological, with the events occurring in a setting that becomes a circle. By returning the character to the place where he started, the author can emphasize the character's growth or change while also highlighting the theme of the story. ~ Carl M. Tomlinson

Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect. ~ Terry Pratchett

Voltaire made up his mind to destroy the superstition of his time. He fought with every weapon that genius could devise or use. He was the greatest of all caricaturists, and he used this wonderful gift without mercy. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

Why didn't the Democrats accomplish more right after the 2006 elections that gave them control of Congress? It wasn't just that they didn't have votes to override a presidential veto or block a filibuster. They didn't use their mandate to substantially change how the public--and the media-- thought about issues. They just tried to be rational, to devise programs to fit people's interests and the polls. Because there was little understanding of the brain, there was no campaign to change brains. Indeed, the very idea of "changing brains" sounds a little sinister to progressives-- a kind of Frankenstein image comes to mind. It sounds Machiavellian to liberals, like what the Republicans do. But "changing minds" in any deep way always requires changing brains. Once you understand a bit more about how brains work, you will understand that politics is very much about changing brains-- and that it can be highly moral and not the least bit sinister or underhanded. ~ George Lakoff

You have only to creep into a secluded corner or into a crocodile, to shut your eyes, and you immediately devise a perfect millennium for mankind. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The LORD said to Moses, 2"See, I have called by name x Bezalel the son of Uri, son of y Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3and I have z filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, 4to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, 5in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. ~ Anonymous

The men who pile up the heaps of discussion and literature on the ethics of means and ends... are passionately committed to a mystical objectivity where passions are suspect. They assume a nonexistent situation where men dispassionately and with reason draw and devise means and ends as if studying a navigational chart on land. ~ Saul D. Alinsky

The modern mind tends to be more and more critical and analytical in spirit, hence it must devise for itself an engine of expression which is logically defensible at every point and which tends to correspond to the rigorous spirit of modern science. ~ Edward Sapir

Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honour and recognition. It will devise subtle, religiously acceptable means to call attention to the service rendered. If we stoutly refuse to give in to this lust of the flesh, we crucify it. Every time we crucify the flesh, we crucify our pride and arrogance. ~ Richard J. Foster

The turning point in our 200-year present is pregnant with enormous potential to constructively impact affect the fundamental well-being of the human community. However, contrary to the range of scientific and political projections, this turn in humanity's journey does not rotate on which specific forms of governing political, economic, or social structures we devise. ~ John Paul Lederach