Formed Quotes

Moammar Gadhafi and the revolt against Gadhafi was not started by the United States. It was started by the Libyan people. And the reason why I argued we needed to get involved is because he was going to go one way or the other. And my argument then was proven true, and that is, the longer that civil war took, the more militias would be formed and the more unstable the country would be after the fact. ~ Marco Rubio

Readers are made, not born. Few students spring out of the ground fully formed as readers. They need help, and we cannot assume that they will get it from home, but they should always get it from us, their teachers. ~ Donalyn Miller

Aldus Barnes, a structural engineer by training and member of the Advanced Geometry Unit (AGU) at Arup, has formed many successful collaborations and earned a prominent place for himself in architecture by adopting the language and skills of architects. "Talk in terms of texture and density, instead of torsion and shear. That way they don't think you are just another nerd," Barnes advises the young members of his team. ~ Yanni Alexander Loukissas

He had a gray face. As his sullen eyes, sunken into the shallow holes formed from years of suffering stared at me, from behind the dark lenses, I could feel myself being penetrated. Not in my pussy - though it was wet, stirred by the violent tension - I was being penetrated by his gaze. The gray faced one was fucking me with his mind, and the feeling of abject violation was grotesque. Despite my arousal, I could not deal with the unwanted intrusion on my personhood. I smiled, and gently led him by hand into the kitchen. The wallpaper was floral, in varying shades of orange and light brown. I gently guided one of his hands, to the moist slit between my legs, and I could feel his glee as it slid inside. And at that moment, I hit the switch. His other hand was completely shredded to bits of bone and flesh by the garbage disposal, spurting blood like a broken pipeline, an unstoppable wave of red. He died with 2 fingers inside me. ~ Klusterfvk, Bamafuk

The primary danger of the television screen lies not so much in the behavior it produces as the behavior it prevents-the talks, the games, the family activities and the arguments through which much of the child's learning takes place and his character is formed. ~ Urie Bronfenbrenner

Agreeable then to my present inclination, I formed the object of my own worship, which was no other than my own understanding. ~ Sarah Fielding

Many of the pathologies that run through the carceral state also run through American politics today. They include the unwarranted reverence for nonpartisanship at all costs, the uncritical acceptance of neoliberalism in all aspects of public policy, the stranglehold that economic and financial interests exert on politics and policy-making, the growing political and economic disenfranchisement of wide swaths of the population, and the gross limitations of oppositional strategies formed primarily around identity-based politics. ~ Marie Gottschalk

His lips touched the back of her neck and moved along her stubborn shoulder. One hand stroked her breasts, and the other moved unerringly between her thighs; he found the most sensitive part of her and moved against her and in her until her half-formed protests turned into soft, stifled moans. The moon moved lower in the sky, tangling itself in her eyes until he closed them with surprisingly gentle kisses. Her body was the ocean and his was the wild wind
turning ripples into foam-capped breakers that soared and curved translucently before they crashed into oblivion against distant shores. ~ Rosemary Rogers

A desire to rescue secular America from fallen grace has driven conservative evangelicals at least since the 1970s, when Jerry Falwell formed the Moral Majority as a vehicle for conservative Christians to muscle their way into national politics. ~ Nina Easton

I treat every student who walks through those doors the same because we are here to teach, if not political science, maybe a little something about critical thinking or even - gasp! - life. If students came to us fully formed and without insecurities, what would be the point? ~ Harlan Coben

Voltaire rejects all systems, and suspects that "every chief of a sect in philosophy has been a little of a quack."

"The further I go, the more I am confirmed in the idea that systems of metaphysics are for philosophers what novels are for women."

"It is only charlatans who are certain. We know nothing of first principles. It is truly extravagant to define God, angels, and minds, and to know precisely why God formed the world, when we do not know why we move our arms at will."

"Doubt is not a very agreeable state, but certainty is a ridiculous one. ~ Will Durant

Samsa looked down in dismay at his naked body. How ill-formed it was! Worse than ill-formed. It possessed no means of self-defense. Smooth white skin (covered by only a perfunctory amount of hair) with fragile blue blood vessels visible through it; a soft, unprotected belly; ludicrous, impossibly shaped genitals; gangly arms and legs (just two of each!); a scrawny, breakable neck; an enormous, misshapen head with a tangle of stiff hair on its crown; two absurd ears, jutting out like a pair of seashells. Was this thing really him? Could a body so preposterous, so easy to destroy (no shell for protection, no weapons for attack), survive in the world? ~ Haruki Murakami

Consider your origin. You were not formed to live like brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge. ~ Dante Alighieri

Men of God are not just born, they are formed ~ John Paul Warren

Like every man who appears at an epoch which is historical and rendered famous by his works, Jesus Christ has a history, a history which the church and the world possess, and which, surrounded by countless memorials, has at least the same authenticity as any other history formed in the same countries, amidst the same peoples and in the same times. As, then, if I would study the lives of Brutus and Cassius, I should calmly open Plutarch, I open the Gospel to study Jesus Christ, and I do so with the same composure. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

A city that had learned to make good bread had learned to make good cake also. A city that built itself up by good sense and industry had formed a powerful secondary intention of elegance. ~ Rebecca West

This water was very different from any ordinary food. It was born from the walk under the stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of carrying him in my arms. It did the heart good, like a present. When I was a little boy, the lights of the Christmas tree, the music of the midnight mass, the sweetness of people's smiles, all formed part of the radiance of the Christmas gifts I received. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

I think perhaps the adults we become are formed in childhood and there's no way around it. ~ John Boyne

How many minds
almost all the great ones
were formed in secrecy and solitude! ~ Matthew Arnold

A crowd isn't formed after people gather; people gather after the crowd forms. ~ Kobo Abe

The ordinary method of education is to imprint ideas and opinions, in the strict sense of the word, prejudices, on the mind of the child, before it has had any but a very few particular observations. It is thus that he afterwards comes to view the world and gather experience through the medium of those ready-made ideas, rather than to let his ideas be formed for him out of his own experience of life, as they ought to be. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Origen rejected anthropomorphism, not because the scriptures or unanimous Christian tradition specifically rejected it, but because the philosophers "despised" it: "The Jews indeed, but also some of our people, supposed that God should be understood as a man, that is, adorned with human members and human appearance. But the philosophers despise these stories as fabulous and formed in the likeness of poetic fictions. ~ Barry Robert Bickmore

But perhaps the greatest attraction of Mormonism was the promise that each follower would be granted an extraordinarily intimate relationship with God. Joseph taught and encouraged his adherents to receive personal communiqués straight from the Lord. Divine revelation formed the bedrock of the religion. ~ Jon Krakauer

For a very long time, ever since men formed societies in which some people bossed others, children have fulfilled this very important function. Every adult parent, however lowly or powerless, had at least some one that he could command, threaten, and punish. No man was so poor, even a slave, that he could not have these few slaves of his own. Today, when most "free" men feel like slaves, having their own homegrown slaves is very satisfying. Many could not do without them. ~ John Holt

I see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be in formed of the secret with which I am acquainted. That cannot be. ~ Mary Shelley

Far too many girls' and women's romantic relationships are formed around a negation of their own worth and attributes rather than a confirmation of them. ~ Mariella Frostrup

A relation is formed betwixt every man and the fruits of his own labour, the very thing we call property, which he himself is sensible of, and of which every other is equally sensible. Yours and mine are terms in all languages, familiar among savages, and understood even by children. This is a fact, which every human creature can testify. ~ Henry Home, Lord Kames

What has interested me all along is not the pronouncement of meaning but pointing toward the way meaning is formed. ~ Douglas Huebler

It is sometimes easier to form a party than to attain by degrees the head of a party already formed. ~ Luc De Clapiers

This belonged to my sister-in-law," Prometheus explained. "Pandora."
A lump formed in my throat. "As in Pandora's box?"
Prometheus shook his head. "I don't know how this box business got started. It was never a box. It was a pithos, a storage jar. I suppose Pandora's pithos doesn't have the same ring to it. ~ Rick Riordan

Step back in time; look closely at the child in the very arms of his mother; see the external world reflected for the first time in the yet unclear mirror of his understanding; study the first examples which strike his eyes; listen to the first words which arouse within him the slumbering power of thought; watch the first struggles which he has to undergo; only then will you comprehend the source of his prejudices, the habits, and the passions which are to rule his life. The entire man, so to speak, comes fully formed in the wrappings of his cradle. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

One day I was handed a few volumes of new literature unlike anything I had ever read before and so captivating as to make me utterly forget my hopeless state. They were the earlier works of Mark Twain and to them might have been due the miraculous recovery which followed. Twenty-five years later, when I met Mr. Clemens and we formed a friendship between us, I told him of the experience and was amazed to see that great man of laughter burst into tears. ~ Nikola Tesla

Memories are the height of poetry only when they are memories of happiness. When they graze wounds over which scars have formed they become an aching pain. ~ Ivan Goncharov

Thorne, I think I'm falling in love with you."

"Katie." He took her face in his hands. Roughly, and with a possessive power that thrilled her. A brooding divot formed between his eyebrows. "Katie, you're so - "

She wondered what delightfully misanthropic word he would choose this time. Wrongheaded? Foolish? Stubborn?

Kissable, apparently.

He gave up on words and claimed her mouth instead, kissing her with more passion and fire than she would have ever dared to hope. ~ Tessa Dare

But you don't know what I want, do you. You formed an idea of who I am and What I do, and you've woven that idea in your life. You may listen to my words, but you don't hear my thoughts. You don't hear my needs. You don't see me. You haven't seen me in years. ~ Barbara Delinsky

All the world over we are very conscious of the trees in spring, and watch with delight how the network of twigs on the wych-elms is becoming spangled with tiny puce flowers, like little beetles caught in a spider's web, and how little lemon-colored buds are studding the thorn. While as to the long red-gold buds of the horse-chestnuts - they come bursting out with a sort of a visual bang. And now the beech is hatching its tiny perfectly-formed leaves ~ Hope Mirrlees

I was a young black man, light-skinned enough so that four out of five people who met me, of whatever race, assumed I was white ... I was a homosexual who now knew he could function heterosexually.
And I was a young writer whose early attempts had already gotten him a handful of prizes ...
So, I thought, you are neither black nor white.
You are neither male nor female.
And you are that most ambiguous of citizens, the writer.
There was something at once very satisfying and very sad, placing myself at this pivotal suspension. It seemed, in the park at dawn, a kind of revelation
a kind of center, formed of a play of ambiguities, from which I might move in any direction. ~ Samuel R. Delany

All the weapons of hate and cruelty cannot stand against God's love. The spiritually blind and intentionally evil try to oppose it, but they cannot ultimately win. That's because all creation was formed and is sustained by God ~ Stormie O'martian

He knew Kandinsky by heart: every trickle of red, slash of black ink, and hemorrhage of gold. Each dissonant note in its allegro, the harmony in its adagio, and its deep blue intermezzo, formed a symphony he had memorized in his body. He couldn't say if Fragment 2 symbolized the Deluge, the Last Judgment, or the Resurrection. But it had become his religion, offering both redemption and pain.. ~ Kelly Oliver

Even the simple act which we describe as 'seeing someone we know' is, to some extent, an intellectual process. We pack the physical outline of the creature we see with all the ideas we already formed about him, and in the complete picture of him which we compose in our minds those ideas have certainly the principal place. In the end they come to fill out so completely the curve of his cheeks, to follow so exactly the line of his nose, they blend so harmoniously in the sound of his voice that these seem to be no more than a transparent envelope, so that each time we see the face or hear the voice it is our own ideas of him which we recognize and to which we listen. ~ Marcel Proust

Maybe we ought to consider that sometimes the most destructive outcomes in our lives are the ones that we've created. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

A person is formed by experiences. The past is a blind sculptor. To deny that artist his masterwork is to mock your own experience. ~ Jim Starlin

But that was the way life worked. Every human being was the result of a million different factors mixing together -- one of a million sperm arriving at the egg at exactly a certain time; even a millisecond off, and another entirely different person would result. Good things and bad--every friendship and romance formed, every accident, every illness--resulted from the conspiracy of hundreds of little things, in and of themselves inconsequential. ~ Angie Kim

Sometimes shows became almost obsessively obscure, as with the gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa) shows of nineteenth-century Britain, when workingmen in the industrial counties of northern England and the Midlands formed themselves into societies, constituted with presidents, secretaries, and stewards, for the purpose of running gooseberry shows - weight being the decisive factor. Quite why this fruit, always something of a minority taste, should become the subject of what only could be described as a cult remains a mystery. ~ Noel Kingsbury

Have you honestly pondered your individual worth? Consider every lower life form in the world - the animals, plants, fouls and fishes. Consider the land forms and numerous earthly wonders. Consider the countless worlds beyond this planet as well as their stars and galaxies. And then consider yourself. Of all God's creations, you were formed in His image, resembling the likeness of a God. That's something to think about. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I formed several possible stories out of her speech, formed them at once, so it was less like I failed to understand than that I understood in chords, understood in a plurality of worlds. ~ Ben Lerner

Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright. ~ Moby

This is so cool," I said loudly as Dad walked away. "Have you met the tattoo artist? Is he hot?" "He's a she," Mom said. "Is she hot? Cause I'm still young, you know. My sexual identity isnt fully formed." "Your father can't hear you anymore, Maya." Mom sighed. ~ Kelley Armstrong

Indeed, the zeal of Boston's rank-and-file marathoners rivaled, and in some ways echoed, the religious passion of Nathaniel Howe and his congregation. The runners indulged in orgies of self-denial-running 100 miles a week, working junk )ohs in order to have time to train, paying their own way to races, banding together in ascetic cells, forgoing the temptations of an idolatrous world in order to attain grace and salvation out on the road. As in Puritan New England, grace was not blithely attained. A believer-a runner-earned it by losing toenails and training down to bone and muscle, just as the Puritans formed calluses on their knees from
praying. No one made a cent from their strenuous efforts. The running life, like the spiritual life, was its own reward. ~ John Brant

The world, however bleak I have found it in the last few weeks, must nonetheless be formed of goodness, if but a few moments in Nature's company may suffice to renew one's health and mental aspect. ~ Stephanie Barron

Even when God chose Israel, he did not create the people of Israel as he created its human members, as natural beings. Instead, God formed the people of Israel from individual human beings already living in the natural world, calling them into a new historical identity. ~ David Novak

Instead of idleness, vanity, or an intellect formed by the spoon-feeding of others, my girls have acquired energy, industry, and independence. ~ Geraldine Brooks

It was my father who had taught me to love books for themselves, the smell of the vellum and paper, the rare authority of the pages. "Here, do you see this marvelous book, the skins of 182 sheep," he once pronounced as he slapped his hand down on the stamped leather cover boards. "The book is a flock, a jewel, a cemetery, a lantern, a garden, a piss pot; pigments ground of precious minerals, charred bone, lamp soot, rare plants and insects. Pigments formed at the corrosion of copper plates suspended above urine. ~ Regina O'Melveny

The girl's kind, good ... Totally too good for you."
"So were you." He kissed her cheek, singed it with his lips. "You still are."
"Bastard." She shoved him, ignoring the burning in her palm from touching him.
He put a hand on his shoulder, metling the ice that formed where she'd pushed too hard. It crackled under his touch. "Only because Beira murdered my father. ~ Melissa Marr

When most people think about the future, they dream up ways that they might live happier lives. But notice this phenomenon. When people remember the crucial events that formed them, they don't usually talk about happiness. It is usually the ordeals that seem most significant. Most people shoot for happiness but feel formed through suffering. ~ David Brooks

I opened the window to let some fresh air into the room and was surprised to see that the rain was not just falling, but that it formed an actual wall of water, as if the whole sky were falling. While I was staring at the strange phenomenon, the form of an angel began to appear before me… It was Matariel, the Angel of Rain, whom I had not seen since my descent and who on this occasion appeared in a shiny, blue-grey form. She was only an arm's length away and stared straight at me. She looked like a young woman floating on enormous wings -not a single drop of rain touched her. The smell of the cool rain swept the room as Matariel began talking to me. She never once moved her lips, but her every word was clearly audible in my head. ~ A.O. Esther

St. Peter announced the glad tidings of the Gospel to the people on the day of Pentecost, and converted, by the first Christian sermon, ever preached, three thousand - which formed the primitive Church. ~ John Strachan

The waves in our mind's ocean will keep on dashing against the rocks. The waves are the new thoughts and ideas that take shape in our mind. The rocks in our mind are the firm convictions that have been formed since our childhood. But we must learn to be flexible. It is a great advantage to be flexible rather than rigid in our mind. At the same time we must learn to be mindful. To be mindful is to allow the waves to flow and dash in their natural way. Let each wave flow and dash against each rock! ~ Avijeet Das

Beautiful in form and feature, lovely as the day, can there be so fair a creature formed of common clay? ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What is this earth and sea of which I have seen so much? Whence is it produced? And what am I and all the other creatures, wild and tame, humane and brutal? Whence are we?
Sure we are all made by some secret power, who formed the earth and sea, the air and sky; and who is that?
Then it followed most naturally, It is God that has made it all. Well, but then it came on strangely, if God has made all these things, He guides and governs them all, and all things that concern them; for the power that could make all things must certainly have power to guide and direct them.
If so, nothing can happen in the great circuit of His works, either without His knowledge or appointment.
And if nothing happens without His knowledge, He knows that I am here, and am in this dreadful condition; and if nothing happens without His appointment, He has appointed all this to befall me.
Nothing occurred to my thought to contradict any of these conclusions; and therefore it rested upon me with the greater force that it must need be, that God had appointed all this to befall me; that I was brought to this miserable circumstance by His direction, He having the sole power, not of me only, but of every thing that happened in the world. Immediately it followed:
Why has God done this to me? What have I done to be thus used? ~ Daniel Defoe

In high school, I began to dig my way into Ethiopian history, and began to understand myself as a young man formed by multiple narratives. ~ Dinaw Mengestu

I love those shorts."
A crinkled formed between her brows. "They're old and ratty." ...
"I like them, but if you don't, I'd be happy to take them off for you." He cocked one brow ... ~ Cat Johnson

We were always told: when something repeats, it gains significance. This is how a pattern is formed. And it felt like something was forming around me. Like I was being woven into something and couldn't work my way out. ~ Mary Watson

One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

You develop a sensibility when you're a young child. Some people say your personality is formed in the first three, four years of your life. ~ Joe Frank

In geology we cannot dispense with conjectures: [but] because we are condemned to dream let us ensure that our dreams are like those of sane men-e.g. that they have their foundations in truth-and are not like the dreams of the sick, formed by strange combinations of phantasms, contrary to nature and therefore incredible. ~ Scipione Breislak

As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door,
And hearing the hammers, as they smote
The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire.
And formed the seven-chorded lyre. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Babbage ... gave the name to the [Cambridge] Analytical Society, which he stated was formed to advocate 'the principles of pure d-ism as opposed to the dot-age of the university.' ~ W. W. Rouse Ball

If we turn now to such vestiges of cult as are associated otherwise than with time and season, we discover a definite recognition of the survival of these nearly a century ago. Keightley, the old fairy mythologist, who did such yeoman service in the collection of much valuable elfin lore, says, as long ago as 1850, when referring to the confused nature of his subject: 'Indeed it could not well be otherwise, when we recollect that all these beings (the larger and greater fairies) once formed part of ancient and exploded systems of religion and that it is chiefly in the traditions of the peasantry that their memorial has been preserved. ~ Lewis Spence

What happens is I speak to people outside of my circle of friends and they have already formed an opinion of me based on the things that people have written. That is the effect of journalism on my life, and sometimes it isn't very pleasant. ~ Robbie Williams

When we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which formed in us in early youth, undirected, and of its own accord. ~ Willa Cather

It is only because the majority opinion will always be opposed by some that our knowledge and understanding progress. In the process by which opinion is formed, it is very probable that, by the time any view becomes a majority view, it is no longer the best view: somebody will already have advanced beyond the point which the majority have reached. It is because we do not yet know which of the many competing new opinions will prove itself the best that we wait until it has gained sufficient support. ~ Friedrich August Von Hayek

Susan B. Anthony formed the Equal Rights Association, refuted ideas that women were inferior to men, and fought for a woman's right to vote. ~ Louise Slaughter

How fortunate, then, that we serve a God who quickens the dead. Who breathes life into the lifeless. Do you not think that a God who formed man out of dust can form a new creation in you? ~ Roseanna M. White

I spend my life folded between pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived loss and loved trough stories threaded in history. ~ Tahereh Mafi

It is agreed that all sound which is the material of music is of three sorts. First is harmonica, which consists of vocal music; second is organica, which is formed from the breath; third is rhythmica, which receives its numbers from the beat of the fingers. For sound is produced either by the voice, coming through the throat; or by the breath, coming through the trumpet or tibia, for example; or by touch, as in the case of the cithara or anything else that gives a tuneful sound on being struck. ~ Isidore Of Seville

Whatever happens to a baby contributes to the emotional and perceptual map of the world that its developing brain creates. As my colleague Bruce Perry explains it, the brain is formed in a "use-dependent manner."5 This is another way of describing neuroplasticity, the relatively recent discovery that neurons that "fire together, wire together." When a circuit fires repeatedly, it can become a default setting - the response most likely to occur. If you feel safe and loved, your brain becomes specialized in exploration, play, and cooperation; if you are frightened and unwanted, it specializes in managing feelings of fear and abandonment. As infants and ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

Ugly, degrading, rather terrible half-truths ... It is bad for the soul to know itself a coward, it is apt to take refuge in mere wordy violence ... Their hearts ached while their lips formed recriminations. Their hearts burst into tears while their eyes remained dry and accusing, staring in hostility and anger ... They could not forgive and they could not sleep, for neither could sleep without the other's forgiveness, and the hatred that leapt out at moments between them would be drowned in the tears that their hearts were shedding. ~ Radclyffe Hall

During the 1950s, Aristotle Onassis and I formed what grew to be a close friendship and association in several business ventures. ~ J. Paul Getty

Nothing proves evolution more than the survival of the religious belief. It shows we are still fearful, partially formed animals with a terror of death and the dark ~ Christopher Hitchens

The Pakistani film International Gorillay (International guerillas), produced by Sajjad Gul, told the story of a group of local heroes - of the type that would, in the language of a later age, come to be known as jihadis, or terrorists - who vowed to find and kill an author called "Salman Rushdie" . The quest for "Rushdie" formed the main action of the film and "his" death was the film's version of happy ending.

"Rushdie" himself was depicted as a drunk, constantly swigging from a bottle, and a sadist. He lived in what looked very like a palace on what looked very like an island in the Philippines (clearly all novelists had second homes of this kind), being protected by what looked very like the Israeli Army (this presumably being a service offered by Israel to all novelists), and he was plotting the overthrow of Pakistan by the fiendish means of opening chains of discotheques and gambling dens across that pure and virtuous land, a perfidious notion for which, as the British Muslim "leader" Iqbal Sacranie might have said, death was too light a punishment. "Rushdie" was dressed exclusively in a series of hideously coloured safari suits - vermilion safari suits, aubergine safari suits, cerise safari suits - and the camera, whenever it fell upon the figure of this vile personage, invariably started at his feet and then panned [sic] with slow menace up to his face. So the safari suits got a lot of screen time, and when he saw a videotape of the film the fashion insult ~ Salman Rushdie

Our words are often only vague, inadequate descriptions of our thoughts. Something gets lost in translation every time we try to express our thoughts in words. And when the other person hears our words, something gets lost in translation again, because words mean different things to different people. "A long time" may mean 10 hours to one person, but 10 days to another. So when a thought is formed in my brain, and my mouth expresses it in words, and your ears hear it, and your brain processes it, your brain and my brain never truly see exactly the same thing. Communication is always just an approximation. ~ Oliver Gaspirtz

The brutes do not admire each other. A horse does not admire his companion. Not that there is no rivalry between them in a race, but that is of no consequence; for, when in the stable, the heaviest and most ill-formed does not give up his oats to another as men would have others do to them. Their virtue is satisfied with itself. ~ Blaise Pascal

A final caution to students: in making judgments on literature, always be honest. Do not pretend to like what you really do not like. Do not be afraid to admit a liking for what you do like. A genuine enthusiasm for the second-rate is much better than false enthusiasm or no enthusiasm at all. Be neither hasty nor timorous in making your judgments. When you have attentively read a poem and thoroughly considered it, decide what you think. Do not hedge, equivocate, or try to find out others' opinions before forming your own. But having formed an opinion and expressed it, do not allow it to petrify. Compare your opinion then with the opinions of others; allow yourself to change it when convinced of its error: in this way you learn. Honestly, courage, and humility are the necessary moral foundations for all genuine literary judgment. ~ Laurence Perrine

I am a child of God, therefore I don't have to be afraid or dismayed. I know God is with me. He will strengthen me, help me, and uphold me with His hand (Isa. 41:10). I am a child of God, therefore no weapon formed against me shall succeed. God will disprove every tongue that rises against me in judgment (Isa. 54:17 ESV). I am a child of God, therefore God is in my midst, a mighty one who will save me; He will rejoice over me with gladness; He will quiet me with his love; He will exult over me with loud singing (Zeph. 3:17). I am a child of God, therefore God's Word is there for me. It is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path (Ps. 119:105). ~ Lysa TerKeurst

On the threshold of the moral world we meet the idea of Freedom, 'one of the weightiest concepts man has ever formed,' once a dogma, in the course of time a hypothesis, now in the eyes of many a fiction, yet we cannot do without it, even although we may be firmly convinced that our acts are determined by laws that cannot be broken. ~ Havelock Ellis

We approach Scripture with minds already formed by the mass of accepted opinions and viewpoints with which we have come into contact, in both the Church and the world ... It is easy to be unaware that it has happened; it is hard even to begin to realize how profoundly tradition in this sense has moulded us. ~ J.I. Packer

Love is the name of an irrepressible moment formed inside one complete pulsation of a heart ~ Munia Khan

Stop!" she called out.
To a one, the crewmen froze. A dozen heads swiveled to face her.
Sophia swallowed and turned to Mr. Grayson. "What about me? I'm also a virgin voyager."
His lips quirked as his gaze swept her from head to toe and then back up partway. "Are you truly?"
"Yes. And I haven't a coin to my name. Do you plan to dunk and shave me, too?"
"Now there's an idea." His grin widened. "Perhaps. But first, you must submit to an interrogation."
A lump formed in Sophia's throat, impossible to speak around.
Mr. Grayson raised that sonorous baritone to a carrying pitch. "What's your name then, miss?" When Sophia merely firmed her chin and glared at him, he warned dramatically, "Truth or eels."
Bang.
Excited whispers crackled through the assembly of sailors. Davy was completely forgotten, dropped to the deck with a dull thud. Even the wind held its breath in anticipation, and Sophia gave a slight jump when a sail smacked limp against the mast.
Though her heart pounded an erratic rhythm of distress, she willed her voice to remain even. "I've no intention of submitting myself to any interrogation, by god or man." She lifted her chin and arched an eyebrow. "And I'm not impressed by your staff."
She paused several seconds, waiting for the crew's boisterous laughter to ebb.
Mr. Grayson pinned her with his bold, unyielding gaze. "You dare to speak to me that way? I'm Triton." With each word, he stepped closer. "King of th ~ Tessa Dare

The paramanus [indivisible atoms] of mind-speech and body are effective. That is why things appear as good or bad. It shows good as being bad and bad as being good. And because of that, opinions are formed. The parmanus [indivisible atoms] of mind-speech-body themselves express opinions. ~ Dada Bhagwan

That was the strange thing, that one did not know where one was going, or what one wanted, and followed blindly, suffering so much in secret, always unprepared and amazed and knowing nothing; but one thing led to another and by degrees something had formed itself out of nothing, and so one reached at last this calm, this quiet, this certainty, and it was this process that people called living. ~ Virginia Woolf

The true reader must be an extension of the author. He is the higher court that receives the case already prepared by the lower court. The feeling by means of which the author has separated out the materials of his work, during reading separates out again the unformed and the formed aspects of the book - and if the reader were to work through the book according to his own idea, a second reader would refine it still more, with the result that, since the mass that had been worked through would constantly be poured into fresh vessels, the mass would finally become an essential component - a part of the active spirit.

Through impartial rereading of his book the author can refine his book himself. With strangers the particular character is usually lost, because the talent of fully entering into another person's idea is so rare. Often even in the author himself. It is not a sign of superior education and greater powers to justifiably find fault with a book. When receiving new impressions, greater sharpness of mind is quite natural. ~ Novalis

However, the natural symbol, without our being sufficiently conscious of the fact, is identical with the reality of the world that appears to us, for every object in the natural world is at the same time a symbolic reality to us. The psyche certainly does not use an "object" of nature as a "symbol," but rather the experience of an "object" itself is always already symbolic experience. The star or tree in us is no less real and no less symbolic than it is in outward experience. For each possibility of experience either presupposes a spiritually forming, that is to say a symbolic activity, or is identical with this. That is, everything spiritual appears to us first not just in nature but as nature; or we could formulate this just as well the other way around: everything natural, whether outward or inward, appears to us as an image, that is to say as formed spirit. We are surrounded by images, inwardly and outwardly, but at the same time formed and determined in all our experiences by the natural symbol as though by a unitary natural-spiritual reality, for our psychic system only grasps that which appears to us as the real world through the world of natural symbolism. ~ Erich Neumann

So real was this vision that I could hear the deity's sweet voice explain that there is a specific meditation for connecting with the Celestial Wisdom! Witnessing Kuan Yin lie face down on the Oriental Carpet with arms outstretched over Her head, I watched as Her thumb and forefinger formed a triangle It was then that Kuan Yin further explained the significance of this specific meditation's mudra; that it acts similar to a capstone on an obelisk - drawing wisdom to one who has demonstrated intention to be a teacher of wisdom. ~ Hope Bradford Cht

The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones. ~ Northrop Frye

A sixth sense is a miraculous thing, which in itself suggests a supernatural order. The human intellect, however, for all its power and triumphs, is largely formed by this world and is therefore corruptible. ~ Dean Koontz

The FDA has formed a rapid response team. ~ Andrew Von Eschenbach

All things are formed of patterns, from a single blade of grass to the most majestic of mountains: air and water, fire and earth; Life itself. ~ Melissa McPhail

Our own opinion of ourselves should be lower than that formed by others, for we have a better chance at our imperfections. ~ Thomas A Kempis

The sons of Adam are formed from dust; if not humble as the dust, they fall short of being men. ~ Saadi