Impersonal Subject Quotes

The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Albert liked to play the stoic, and he embraced the opportunity to do over the negotiations about the marriage. He insisted that Uncle Leopold know what a great sacrifice he was making for the Saxe-Coburg family and Germany. As he gloomily lectured his uncle, 'troubles are inseparable from all human positions and…therefore if one must be subject to plagues and annoyances, it is better to be so for some great or worthy object than for trifles or miseries.'

Unfortunately for Albert, Leopold was deaf to self-pitying emotional blackmail and remained determined on his course. ~ Kate Williams

Only in America do these peasants, our mothers, get their hair dyed platinum at the age of sixty, and walk up and down Collins Avenue in Florida in pedal pushers and mink stoles - and with opinions on every subject under the sun. It isn't their fault they were given a gift like speech - look, if cows could talk, they would say things just as idiotic. ~ Philip Roth

SHORTLY AFTER Louis Freeh was sworn in as the fifth director of the FBI on September 1, 1993, he turned in his White House pass. He refused to enter the Oval Office. His reasons were pure and simple. Freeh regarded President Clinton not as commander in chief but as the subject of a criminal case. The ~ Tim Weiner

Criticism has already settled all accounts with this subject. It no longer figures as an end in itself, but only as a means. Its essential pathos is indignation, its essential work is denunciation. ~ Karl Marx

She absolutely declined to be puzzled; she turned her eyes to the flame of the candle as if the question were as irrelevant, or at any rate as impersonal, as Mrs. Marcet or nine-times-nine. ~ Henry James

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The witness is frequent and insistent that God is inherently relational and personal. So God cannot be either received or understood apart from our being personal and realtional as well. That most emphatically excludes the detached intellect as a way of knowing God. It excludes programmatic work as a way of knowing God. It excludes cultivation of the ecstatic and visionary as a way of knowing God. God is not an abstract idea that can be mastered, not an impersonal force that can be used, not a private experience that can be indulged." Eugene Peterson, "Living the Resurrection" (106). ~ Eugene H. Peterson

A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject; must show it to the understanding in a clearer view, and display it to the fancy with greater dignity; but either of these qualities may be sufficient to recommend it ... That it may be complete, it is required to exhibit, independently of its references, a pleasing image; for a simile is said to be a short episode. ~ Samuel Johnson

History studies not just facts and institutions, its real subject is the human spirit. ~ Numa Denis Fustel De Coulanges

My earliest recollection is of coming upon some rabbit tracks in the backyard snow. I must have been three or so, but I had never seen a rabbit and can still recall the feeling of being completely captivated by the tracks: Someone had been here. And he left these prints. And he was alive. And he lived somewhere nearby, maybe even watching me at this very moment.
Four decades later, I do not need to be reminded that rabbits are often a nuisance to farmers and gardeners. My point is that when you look at a rabbit and can see only a pest, or vermin, or a meal, or a commodity, or a laboratory subject, you aren't seeing the rabbit anymore. You are seeing only yourself and the schemes and appetites we bring to the world
seeing, come to think of it, like an animal instead of as a moral being with moral vision. ~ Matthew Scully

It may be conceit, but I believe the subject will interest the public, and I am sure that the views are original. ~ Charles Darwin

Well, I think there was a time when I first started that there was such a thing called 'a woman's film' and there were certain scripts that women would make. But I think that's changed a lot now. I think that if a woman director walks into a room with a script, it doesn't really matter what the subject matter is, or the genre is, so long as the financiers feel that the woman has the skills to make the film ~ Gurinder Chadha

The strange and wonderful Book of Job treats of the same subject as we are discussing; its contents are a fiction, conceived for the purpose of explaining the different opinions which people hold on Divine Providence ... This fiction, however, is in so far different from other fictions that it includes profound ideas and great mysteries, removes great doubts, and reveals the most important truths. I will discuss it as fully as possible; and I will also tell you the words of our Sages that suggested to me the explanation of this great poem. ~ Maimonides

I'd be a very easy therapist's subject. ~ James Nesbitt

[W]hen a message is squeezed through a twenty-second news spot, so much can be lost that what is left will fail to move anyone enough to make them turn off the set and actually do something. Meanwhile, the viewers will believe that they have learned everything they need to know on that subject and will be bored the next time they hear it. ~ Jerry Mander

The subject may be crude and repulsive. Its expression is artistically modulated and balanced. This is style. This is art. This is the only thing that really matters in books. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

It is best to study from a teacher of ANY subject, as long as you focus on the teachings and NOT on the teacher. All of the real important answers to life's questions lie within your own mind. ~ Frederick Lenz

One aspect of modern life which has gone far to stifle men is the rapid growth of tremendous corporations. Enormous spiritual sacrifices are made in the transformation of shopkeepers into employees ... The disappearance of free enterprise has led to a submergence of the individual in the impersonal corporation in much the same manner as he has been submerged in the state in other lands. ~ William O. Douglas

If our subject persuades himself to believe contrary to the evidence in order to evade, somehow, the unpleasant truth to which he has already seen that the evidence points, then and only then is he clearly a self-deceiver. ~ Herbert Fingarette

Therefore, in regard to this very subject of which we here treat, since we have the clear word and command of God, by which magistrates are ordered to punish blasphemy. ... This is particularly the duty of the Magistrate, to take care that sins against the first Table are avenged ~ Theodore Beza

Over the past eighteen years I have acted as a scientific consultant to the U.S. Air Force on the subject of unidentified flying objects - UFO's. As a consequence of my work on the voluminous air force files and, to a greater extent, of personal investigation of many puzzling cases and interviews with witnesses of good repute, I have long been aware that the subject of UFO's could not be dismissed as mere nonsense. ~ J. Allen Hynek

The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields ... they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story. ~ David Albert

Voting for impersonal parties and their programmes is a false substitute for the only true way to elect people's representatives: voting by an actual person for an actual candidate. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If the subject is in a suffering circumstance, it is all the more preferable to apply craft to the utmost. Call it art or not, we photographers should always try to pass on our observations with the utmost clarity. ~ Dennis Stock

[Obama's reelection] would subject the country to what might be a fatal last dose of statism. ~ Mitch Daniels

I am raising my children with the Christian faith and life lessons I was taught. I am equipping them with all of the information and guidance as a parent and hope they will make sound decisions. The most important thing is to teach kids to stand firm in what they believe and not be swayed by detractors no matter what the subject matter. ~ Gretchen Carlson

Have you ever cheated on someone?"
Whoa. Where did that come from?
"Well?"
Was this an interview to date her brother?
Staring her straight in the eye so she would know I was being deadly serious, I replied more honestly than ever, trusting Ellie not to push me too much on the subject, "I never get close enough to anyone for that to be an issue. ~ Samantha Young

Our jobs, our relationships, our lives can all be taken for granted until they bore us-although if they are threatened, appreciation returns quickly enough. Sexual conquest is also subject to this rule. But the personal relationship we have with someone we love has strong subconscious and underpinning-like a mother's feeling for her baby. This is why 'What many women cannot give, one woman can'. Having said which, it is necessary to return to the basic fact that, for the male, there is always an element of 'conquest' in sexual fulfillment. There is probably an element of conquest in a woman's attitude to the male, but it is of a different kind. If she feels, of the man who is making love to her, 'He's mine', it is because she feels that he now belongs to her. Before that, he was fair game to all the females in the world; now she has him pinned down. He has become her property-hopefully. This attitude-although it certainly can exist in a man- is certainly less typical of the male. He feels that the world is full of beddable girls who are inaccessible to him for various reasons, but at least he's got this one undressed… ~ Alan Bold

We believe that arithmetic as it has been taught in grade schools until quite recently has such a meagre intellectual content that the oft-noted reaction against the subject is not an unfortunate rebellion against a difficult subject, but a perfectly proper response to a preoccupation with triviality. ~ Lynn Steen

In both her sacramental life and in her proclamation of the Word, the Church constitutes a distinctive subject whose memory preserves the seemingly past word and action of Jesus as a present reality. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Finally, the tern 'asceticism' is also susceptible to being misunderstood by those who view Buddhism from the outside. Evola reminds his readers that the original meaning of the term asceticism is "practical exercise," or 'discipline' - one could even say 'learning.' It certainly does not mean, as some are inclined to think, a willingness to mortify the body that derives from the idea of penance, and even leads to the practice of self-flagellation, since it is believed that one must suffer in order to expiate one's sins. Asceticism is rather a school of the will, a pure heroism (that is, it is disinterested) that Evola, a real expert in this subject, compares to the efforts of a mountain climber. To the layman, mountain climbing may be a pointless effort, but to the climber it is a challenge in which the test of courage, perseverance, and hero-ism is its only purpose. In this we recognize an attitude that Brahmanism knew under certain forms of yoga and Tantrism.

In the spiritual domain, the procedure is the same. Buddha, as we know, was tempted early in his life by a form of asceticism that was similar to that of a hermit living in the desert. This approach involved prolonged fasts and techniques aimed at breaking the body's resistance. Siddhartha, however, realized himself and achieved the Awakening only when he understood this type of asceticism to be a dead end. Turning away from the indignant protests of his early companions, he stopped mortifying his body, ~ Jean Varenne

I was definitely looking for a reason to impose rules in the story during the writing process ... a set of reasons that you could graph for why it's not chaos and anarchy - for why it has to be order, and why you need architects and an architectural brain to create the world of the dream for the subject to enter. ~ Jonathan Nolan

As a child growing up in World War II, I was very moved and stirred by what was going on, but I distanced myself from history. I regarded history as just one more subject. ~ Ann Rinaldi

There are two kinds of movement; one belonging to the inner body and the other to the outer body. The movement of the inner body is causal, but the outer movement is under compulsion. The inner movement determines the outer which is joined to it and causes outer actions to develop from these inner actions. Inner movement is the force by which all events all brought to pass. Outer movement is subject to this inner force.[17] ~ Louise Cowley

One of the top challenges is the fact that you are dealing with survivors. Every time you deal with a documentary film subject it is fraught with obvious minefields but when you are dealing with a population that is severely traumatized and trying to recover from that trauma there is an extra level of vigilance and care and attention that has to be implemented all the time at every level. ~ Amy Ziering

Photography is always a kind of stealing. A theft from the subject. Artists are assaulters in a lot of ways, and the viewer is complicit in that assault. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

It seemed like such a pointless, flaky thing to say. Even if it was his favorite line from The Lord of the Rings. CHAPTER 48 From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder To: Beth Fremont Sent: Mon, 12/06/1999 9:28 AM Subject: I'll bet you're the kind of girl who's already picked out baby names. ~ Rainbow Rowell

What are you thinking of so earnestly?" said he, as they walked back to the ballroom; "not of your partner, I hope, for, by that shake of the head, your meditations are not satisfactory."
Catherine coloured, and said, "I was not thinking of anything."
That is artful and deep, to be sure; but I had rather be told at once that you will not tell me."
Well then, I will not."
Thank you; for now we shall soon be acquainted, as I am authorized to tease you on this subject whenever we meet, and nothing in the world advances intimacy so much. ~ Jane Austen

Its subject is the slow and erratic process by which the peoples of the British Isles learnt - and then for long periods forgot - about the 'Safeguard of the Sea', as the 15th century phrase had it, meaning the use of the sea for national defence, and the defence of those who used the sea. ~ Nicholas Rodger