Floating World Quotes

When the Internet first came into public use, it was hailed as a liberation from conformity, a floating world ruled by passion, creativity, innovation and freedom of information. When it was hijacked first by advertising and then by commerce, it seemed like it had been fully co-opted and brought into line with human greed and ambition. ~ Neil Strauss

Knowing that it is the earth we tread, we learn to tread carefully, lest it be rent open. Realizing that it is the heavens that hang above us, we come to fear the echoing thunderbolt. The world demands that we battle with others for the sake of our own reputation, and so we undergo the sufferings bred of illusion. While we live in this world with its daily business, forced to walk the tightrope of profit and loss, true love is an empty thing, and the wealth before our eyes mere dust. ~ Soseki Natsume

The best things, he always used to say, are put together of a night and vanish with the morning. What people call the floating world, Ono, was a world Gisaburo knew how to value. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

Why do you weep, child? We of the Floating World live only for the moment, giving all our time to the pleasures of cherry blossoms and snow and maple leaves, the calling of a cricket, the beauty of the moon, waning and growing and being reborn, singing our songs and drinking cha and saké, knowing perfumes and the touch of silks, caressing for pleasure, and drifting, always drifting. Listen, child: never sad, always drifting as a lily on the current in the stream of life. How lucky you are, Kiku-chan, you're a Princess of Ukiyo, the Floating World, drift, live for the moment. . . . ~ James Clavell

Year's end, all
corners of this
floating world, swept. ~ Matsuo Basho

Imagine what it would be like for our descendants to experience the fall of civilization. Imagine failures of reasonableness so total that our largest bombs finally fall upon our largest cities in defense of our religious differences. What would it be like for the unlucky survivors of such a holocaust to look back upon the hurtling career of human stupidity that led them over the precipice? A view from the end of the world would surely find that the six billion of us currently alive did much to pave the way to the Apocalypse. ~ Sam Harris

Do not despair - many are happy much of the time; more eat than starve, more are healthy than sick, more curable than dying; not so many dying as dead; and one of the thieves was saved. Hell's bells and all's well - half the world is at peace with itself, and so is the other half; vast areas are unpolluted; millions of children grow up without suffering deprivation, and millions, while deprived, grow up without suffering cruelties, and millions, while deprived and cruelly treated, none the less grow up. No laughter is sad and many tears are joyful. At the graveside the undertaker doffs his top hat and impregnates the prettiest mourner. Wham, bam, thank you Sam. ~ Tom Stoppard

I wish you could simply extirpate violence and war from the world, abolish all the armed forces, and destroy all the bombs. But this is probably not very realistic. Ultimately, everyone has to start with themselves. Many want to be active somewhere else, at best in a country where they don't currently live. But what's the point, if there's no peace in your own life? So be at peace with yourself. And how? Through peaceful dealings with others. Start by ensuring peace at home before you go out into the world. Or work for peace in both spheres. You can't be working for a peace camp in the Middle East during the day and then in the evening have a quarrel with your family over the phone. ~ Jon Gnarr

For these are the bolt-holes of cornered Man - not to burrow or cower, not to spit or howl or chew off the limb snared, but to mend his broken bow with his own heartstrings, and ere his spark is snuffed out to fit to it and hurl forth everything at his back, be it his home and the very world he leaves. ~ Harley J. Sims

It is said that a hundred gamecocks will live in perfect harmony together it you do not put a hen with them; and so it would have been with Billy and Bob, had there been no women in the world. ~ Augustus Baldwin Longstreet

Persons who would never think of announcing boldly to the world, 'I am a scholar,' 'I am a great artist,' 'I am a beautiful woman,' nevertheless seem to think it wholly within the bounds of good taste to announce that they are Christians! ~ Georgia Harkness

Watch your thoughts. Every thought accepted as true is sent by your brain to your solar plexus - your abdominal brain - and is brought into your world as a reality. ~ Joseph Murphy

The power to move the world is in the subconcious mind ~ William James

I've got to give my brother a lot of credit because he's always introduced me to a lot of things and those films spiked an interest of, "Wow, this is an incredible world, how do you be a part of that?" That definitely helped me through my school years of doing theater. ~ Ed Speleers

My teachings are easy to understand
and easy to put into practice.
Yet your intellect will never grasp them,
and if you try to practice them,you'll fail.
My teachings are older than the world.
How can you grasp their meaning?
If you want to know me,
Look inside your heart. ~ Lao-Tzu

The only theism worthy of our respect believes in God not because of the way the world is made but in spite of that. The only theism that is no less profound than the Buddha's atheism is that represented in the Bible by Job and Jeremiah. ~ Walter Kaufmann

Long ago, there was a dream within a dream that allowed joy to reign, but that youthful breath drifted away as swiftly as a summer rain. There was nothing left after the dawn, except for a world darkened by a King's broken heart. Now only Morpheus induced silhouettes dance in these lightless plains. They dance in sequence to the sound of time – unmoved by existence – trapped in a single thought I hope lies within you. ~ H.S. Crow

Who ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the literature of the world ~ H.L. Mencken

much of the developing world - no longer suffers from diseases of deficiency. Instead we get the diseases of excess. This ~ Scott Carney

I may be able to concentrate on a move, but it may not look exactly how I need it to look like, as far as in the ballroom world. Hip-hop is different; it is a lot more flowy with ballroom. ~ Joey Fatone

Theology is a study of the series of disagreements that are the world's religions. Atheism fundamentally disagrees with these disagreements that preceded it. ~ Stewart Stafford

My parents warned me about horror movies
Blood and guts and Stephen King.
They told me to stop reading such disturbing stories
Stop playing such cutthroat games
But when I swapped my novels for newspapers
Changed the channel from AMC to CNN
My thoughts only grew darker
The world only seemed icier
AND I WISHED I HAD STUCK TO FICTION. ~ Holly Riordan

… You see,' said Marthe. 'I am not here to mock. I have worn out my revenge. You have guided me into a world which has been closed to me all my life. You have shown me that what I hold by, you hold by and more. You have shown me strength I do not possess, and humanity I thought belonged only to women. You are a man, and you have explained all men to me.…'

His eyes were closed, nor did he give any sign that he had heard her. Marthe smiled and, moving closer, laid her hand for the first time on his. 'Francis. It is morning. Come and sleep. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

This is my world. You step into my world, you will step out a loser - I guarantee it. ~ Frank Shamrock

I love the 1,500 meters. I knew that, if I had to do it to win, I'd run under 4:05. That means I could pick up 100 points, maybe even 150 points, on anybody in the world. ~ Caitlyn Jenner

Vladimir Putin bribed a soccer official with a Picasso painting so he would support Russia's bid to host the 2018 World Cup. Putin was like, 'It wasn't Picasso, just picture of what his face would look like if he said no.' (Nose over here, eye up here, ear in forehead.) ~ Jimmy Fallon

The ocean of solutions is within, enliven that ... It's a world of clues, a world of mystery but the mystery can get solved, you can find a lot of answers for these things within. ~ David Lynch

I like going to Burning Man, for example. An environment where people can try new things. I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out new things and figure out the effect on society. What's the effect on people, without having to deploy it to the whole world. ~ Larry Page

My "home" is a controversial topic. I don't exactly have one. I live all over the world. ~ Lady Gaga

We do not have the right to forget that reactionary imperialism exists and its forces actively operate in the world, that they encourage the arms race and that they try to restore the spirit of the Cold War. ~ Andrei Grechko

The casting of the brash United States Army Air Force officer Colonel Robert E. Hogan and the pompous German Luftwaffe officer Colonel Wilhelm Klink was inspired. For this series - a comedy with the serious backdrop of war - to succeed, the lead players had to be the perfect fit. The dynamic portrayal of this military odd couple had to be articulate, accurate, and precise. For the show to work, for the concept to be accepted, for one of the most outlandish premises in television history to be believed, the actors signed to play the two leading characters not only had to bring these extreme individuals to life with broad, fictional strokes, they had to make them real in the details. ~ Carol M. Ford

When I immersed myself in prayer and united myself with all the Masses that were being celebrated all over the world at that time, I implored God, for the sake of all these Holy Masses, to have mercy on the world and especially on poor sinners who were dying at that moment. At the same instant, I received an interior answer from God that a thousand souls had received grace through the prayerful mediation I had offered to God. We do not know the number of souls that is ours to save through our prayers and sacrifices; therefore, let us always pray for sinners. ~ Mary Faustina Kowalska

The only woman to whom it has been given to touch what is decisive in the present world and to have a presentiment of the world of the future. ~ Margaret Fuller

Magic is the only way to describe it, climbing pitch after pitch of the most perfect, beautifully sculpted granite in the world. ~ Ron Kauk

What do you think an artist is? ... he is a political being, constantly aware of the heart breaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war. ~ Pablo Picasso

I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am ~ John Newton

I like to receive money for my work. But I can pass that up this time. I like to have people know my work is done by me. But I can pass that up. I like to have tenants made happy by my work. But that doesn't matter too much. The only thing that matters, my goal, my reward, my beginning, my end is the work itself. My work done my way. Peter, there's nothing in the world that you can offer me, except this. Offer me this and you can have anything I've got to give. My work done my way. A private, personal, selfish, egotistical motivation. That's the only way I function. That's all I am. ~ Ayn Rand

The merely worldly is disparaged in all religions, rejected for its relativity. But what they mean is only that you should not forget the dependence of our reality and pretend against all evidence of change that it is constant and eternal. Praise of the world, rightly understood as a reflection of the absolute, is just as central to religion. Myths ~ Barbara C. Sproul

His fingers unhooked from hers, following that same path up her arm, and then back down it again. The feeling was so distracting, so good, so sweet against her clammy skin. She didn't choose a piece from her repertoire; Etta gave herself over to the notes that started streaming through her mind, rising from somewhere deep inside of her.

The melody of her heart had no name; it was quick, and light. It rolled with the waves, falling as the breath left his chest, rising as he inhaled. It was the rain sliding down the glass; the fog spreading its fingers over the water. The creaking of a ship's great body. The secrets whispered by the wind, and the unseen life that moved below.

It was the flame against the candle.

Nicholas's arm was a map of hard muscles and delicate sinews, heartbreakingly perfect. She wondered if he could hear her humming the piece against his skin over the droning roars overhead. Maybe. His free hand skimmed up her skin, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake.

With the world blacked out around them, she could catalog all over her senses, capture this moment in the warm darkness forever. He brushed back the loose hair across her forehead, cheek, the corner of her lips, her jaw, and she knew it had to be the same for him, that they'd never been so aware of another person in their entire lives.

She released his arm, and he drew it up around her, guiding both of them down so they were on their sides, their hea ~ Alexandra Bracken

In the innermost recesses of humanism, as its very soul, there rages a frantic prisoner who, as a Fascist, turns the world into a prison. ~ Theodor W. Adorno

He admired her for throwing off her aristocratic shackles
his terms, that
and making her own way in the world.
He didn't realize that the truth was so much more complex, so much less impressive. She had less thrown than been thrown. ~ Lauren Willig

I smoke. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your fuckin' mouth. ~ Bill Hicks

As a screenwriter - if you are completely honest with yourself - you can't help but admit that your greatest threat is the audience, where audience is not understood as a demographic category but as a character outside the script to whom the story is addressed. A good part of the drama necessary for uncovering the story resides in the conflict between the storyteller and his/her audience. Audience plays the part of antagonist to the writer's role as protagonist. The writer drives the action, which is forever complicated, frustrated and undermined by the audience's needs and sensibilities. Audience wants you to prove it. Audience has a chip on its shoulder, and doesn't give a damn. Audience has been there and done that in the guise of your mother, your father, your ex-, your worst enemy. Audience laughs at your stupidity and dares you to change its view of you and the story world that you would have it care about. Audience is defiant. It has your number. The only way you can defeat it is by carrying a bigger stick - your only defence is an inspired offence, namely the story. ~ Billy Marshall Stoneking

The Moon may not be quite as appealing as Mars, but it's still a complex and poorly understood world, with many questions still unanswered. ~ Henry Spencer