Infinite Regression Quotes

We feel that our actions are voluntary when they follow a decision and involuntary when they happen without decision. But if a decision itself were voluntary every decision would have to be preceded by a decision to decide - An infinite regression which fortunately does not occur. Oddly enough, if we had to decide to decide, we would not be free to decide ~ Alan W. Watts

Infinite regression is limitless, without it we are nothing. ~ Solange Nicole

Dance brings out the best in me and makes me feel infinite. It helps me relax and express myself, and it clears my head. Plus, dance keeps me fit! ~ Allison Holker

All at once he feels weary of ganefs and prophets, guns and sacrifices and the infinite gangster weight of God. He's tired of hearing about the promised land and the inevitable bloodshed required for its redemption. ~ Michael Chabon

You are not merely the physical body that you identify with out of habit. Your essential state is a field of infinite possibilities. ~ Deepak Chopra

When we recall the great influence which Spenser's poetry has exerted on English poets who have lived and written since his day, we can clearly see how the two kinds of Platonism - a direct Platonism, and a Platonism long ago transmuted and worked right down into the emotions of common people by the passionate Christianity of the Dark and Middle Ages - combined to beget the infinite suggestiveness which is now contained in such words as 'love' and 'beauty'. Let us remember, then, that every time we abuse these terms, or use them too lightly, we are draining them of their power; every time a society journalist or a film producer exploits this vast suggestiveness to tickle a vanity or dignify a lust, he is squandering a great pile of spiritual capital which has been laid up by centuries of weary effort. ~ Owen Barfield

This advance (at first very much against the will of the outdistanced men) will transform the love experience, which is now filled with error, will change it from the ground up, and reshape it into a relationship that is meant to be between one human being and another, no longer one that flows from man to woman. And this more human love (which will fulfill itself with infinite consideration and gentleness, and kindness and clarity in binding and releasing) will resemble what we are now preparing painfully and with great struggle: the love that consists in this: that two solitudes protect and border and greet each other. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Do you know what happened to Teacup?"
"Ran away with the spoon, what I heard. ~ Rick Yancey

It is lonely behind these boundaries. Some people-particularly those whom psychiatrists call schizoid-because of unpleasant, traumatizing experiences in childhood, perceive the world outside of themselves as unredeemably dangerous, hostile, confusing and unnurturing. Such people feel their boundaries to be protecting and comforting and find a sense of safety in their loneliness. But most of us feel our loneliness to be painful and yearn to escape from behind the walls of our individual identities to a condition in which we can be more unified with the world outside of ourselves. The experience of falling in love allows us this escapetemporarily. The essence of the phenomenon of falling in love is a sudden collapse of a section of an individual's ego boundaries, permitting one to merge his or her identity with that of another person. The sudden release of oneself from oneself, the explosive pouring out of oneself into the beloved, and the dramatic surcease of loneliness accompanying this collapse of ego boundaries is experienced by most of us as ecstatic. We and our beloved are one! Loneliness is no more!

In some respects (but certainly not in all) the act of falling in love is an act of regression. The experience of merging with the loved one has in it echoes from the time when we were merged with our mothers in infancy. Along with the merging we also reexperience the sense of omnipotence which we had to give up in our journey out of childhood. All things seem pos ~ M. Scott Peck

You got infinite channels and limitless rhymes, but the riddles of livin' stay undefined? ~ David Mutti Clark

Out of love for His Father and for us, He allowed Himself to suffer beyond the capacity of mortal man. He told us some of what that infinite sacrifice required of Him. ~ Henry B. Eyring

Happiness, in one sense, is a function of how closely our world conforms to the infinite variety of human preference. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

They were way more interested in learning the alphabet or whatever than they were in learning how to rip a moose in half with their bare hands. Then make a helmet out of its skull. Then to use that helmet to help kill more moose. Collect the skull helmets. Combine. Assemble. Super moose skull helmet. Infinite power. ~ Bratniss Everclean

Memories beget memories. Shen fever being a disease of remembering, the fevered are trapped indefinitely in their memories. But what is the difference between the fevered and us? Because I remember too, I remember perfectly. My memories replay, unprompted, on repeat. And our days, like theirs, continue in an infinite loop. ~ Ling Ma

Of all the endless variety of phenomena which nature presents to our senses, there is none that fills our minds with greater wonder than that inconceivably complex movement which, in its entirety, we designate as human life; Its mysterious origin is veiled in the forever impenetrable mist of the past, its character is rendered incomprehensible by its infinite intricacy, and its destination is hidden in the unfathomable depths of the future ... ~ Nikola Tesla

I know what you're thinking," he says.
"No. You don't."
"You're wondering if you should kiss me good-bye. ~ Rick Yancey

All bores me in the world of facts, I see an end, a limit to all things and my heart thirsts for the infinite and for eternity. ~ Marianne Von Werefkin

That anything may be found to be in infinite treasure, its place must be found in Eternity and in God's esteem. For as there is a time, so there is a place for all things. Everything in its place is admirable, deep, and glorious; out of its place like a wandering bird, is desolate and good for nothing. ~ Thomas Traherne

I realized then that even though I was a tiny speck in an infinite cosmos, a blip on the timeline of eternity, I was not without purpose. ~ R. J. Anderson

As it turns out, public defenders are less Superman and more Sisyphus, and there's no small number of lawyers who wind up crushed under the weight of the infinite caseloads and the crappy hours and the shitty pay. ~ Jodi Picoult

Then there are words like pomegranate trees in bloom,
words like the sun igniting the sea beyond mountainous horizons,
flashing like mysterious knives ...

Such words are the burning roses of an infinite imagination;
they are born and they die with the flutterings of butterflies;
we carry those words in our hearts like pregnant shotguns until the day we expire,
martyred for the words we were prepared to die for ... ~ Attilâ İlhan

I thought that once I got to this city nothing could ever catch up with me because I could remake my life daily. Once that had made me feel infinite. Now I was certain I would never learn. Being remade was the same thing as being constantly undone. ~ Stephanie Danler

Whoever touches the life of the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future. ~ Maria Montessori

How to describe hell? Disembowelled landscape busy with suffering, incessant heat, permanent scarlet twilight, a swirling snowfall of ash, the stink of pain and the din of ... if only, hell is two things: the absence of God and the presence of time. Infinite variations on that theme. Doesn't sound so bad, does it? Well, trust me. ~ Glen Duncan

What you call 'contradiction' I call 'complement'. ~ Agnostic Zetetic

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search. ~ William Shakespeare

Regression to the stage of early infancy is not a suitable method in and of itself. Such a regression can only be effective if it happens in the natural course of therapy and if the client is able to maintain adult consciousness at the same time. ~ Alice Miller

God did not create the world, He became the world. God became the world to realize himself, in material form, to realize an eternal and infinite aim. It is for the purpose of realizing His eternal and infinite aim that He became the world. Now notice this. God had to conceive the one primordial idea to become the world. Thus the idea preceded the world. This is supposed to be the relation between cause and effect. The cause is assumed to be prior to and independent of the the effect; while the effect is assumed to be posterior to and dependent upon the cause. ~ Harry Waton

For centuries before Google, MIT, and IDEO, modern hotbeds of innovation, we struggled to explain any kind of creation, from the universe itself to the multitudes of ideas around us. While we can make atomic bombs, and dry-clean silk ties, we still don't have satisfying answers for simple questions like: Where do songs come from? Are there an infinite variety of possible kinds of cheese? How did Shakespeare and Stephen King invent so much, while we're satisfied watching sitcom reruns? Our popular answers have been unconvincing, enabling misleading, fantasy-laden myths to grow strong. ~ Scott Berkun

I honestly believe students of painting in the next century will laugh at the abstract art movement. They will marvel at such a drawn-out regression in the plastic arts. ~ Richard Schmid

He has infinite happiness not through self-centeredness, but through self-giving, other-centered love. And the only way we, who have been created in his image, can have this same joy, is if we center our entire lives around him instead of ourselves. Why ~ Timothy Keller

The infinite resource of creativity has and always will solve problems. ~ Brandon Mullan

Infinite wisdom never attempts that which is unnecessary. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I dare not think that any supercelestial heaven, or whatsoever else ... was increate and eternal. And as for the place of God before the world created, the finite wisdom of mortal men hath no perception of it; neither can it limit the seat of infinite power, no more than infinite power itself can be limited; for his place is in himself, whom no magnitude else can contain. ~ Walter Raleigh

What matters is entertainment. Eternity takes forever. The infinite expanse of time just does not know when to quit. The dead fear boredom the way mortals fear death. ~ Catherynne M Valente

To think that the affairs of this life always remain in the same state is a vain presumption; indeed they all seem to be perpetually changing and moving in a circular course. Spring is followed by summer, summer by autumn, and autumn by winter, which is again followed by spring, and so time continues its everlasting round. But the life of man is ever racing to its end, swifter than time itself, without hope of renewal, unless in the next that is limitless and infinite. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

It makes far better sense to reshape ourselves to fit a finite planet than to attempt to reshape the planet to fit our infinite wants ~ David Orr

The glorious Vishnu is the sole refuge of mortals. He is Infinite Light, Love and Wisdom. He resides in the hearts of all beings. His Grace is invincible. He is in all. He is the Highest Truth. He is Infinite Bliss. He is the Protector. He is the Preserver. He is the Saviour. ~ Sivananda

Man is very capable of imagining infinite happiness, and he should be able to grasp the infinity of space - I ~ Walter Isaacson

Romanticism is beauty without bounds-the beautiful infinite. ~ Jean Paul

Nothing like being woken up after only a few hours of sleep by workmen wanting to come into your sanctuary to check water lines to put life into perspective. Wine glasses, dishes, yesterday's ghosts, and a fucking mess everywhere. It's not all about me, is it? Life moves around out there and sometimes it wants to come in and mess with me when all I want to do is turn over and hide. I am a fragile being, sometimes it takes almost nothing to knock me off my feet and make me tired of living. Sometimes I am so tired that everything is a gargantuan effort. But I'm strong, I always hang on and hold on. My emotions run from being elated and looking up to the sky and seeing all the infinite possibilities, to looking straight into the eyes of Hades. But you know me, I always come through with all my scars, all the love I carry in my heart, and my crooked tiara. Every single diamond in that tiara reflects all the light within me and within you. Indestructible ~ Riitta Klint

All of them at length succeeded in getting up the ship's side, where they clung dripping with the brine and glowing from the bath, their jet-black tresses streaming over their shoulders, and half enveloping their otherwise naked forms. There they hung, sparkling with savage vivacity, laughing gaily at one another, and chattering away with infinite glee. ~ Herman Melville

According to Shaivism, anupaya may also be reached by entering into the infinite blissfulness of the Self through the powerful experiences of sensual pleasures. This practice is designed to help the practitioner reach the highest levels by accelerating their progress through the sakta and sambhava upayas. These carefully guarded doctrines of Tantric sadhana are the basis for certain practices, like the use of the five makaras (hrdaya) mentioned earlier. The experience of a powerful sensual pleasure quickly removes a person's dullness or indifference. It awakens in them the hidden nature and source of blissfulness and starts its inner vibration. Abhinavagupta says that only those people who are awakened to their own inner vitality can truly be said to have a heart (hrdaya). They are known as sahrdaya (connoisseurs). Those uninfluenced by this type of experiences are said to be heartless. In his words:

"It is explained thus - The heart of a person, shedding of its attitude of indifference while listening to the sweet sounds of a song or while feeling the delightful touch of something like sandalpaste, immediately starts a wonderful vibratory movement. (This) is called ananda-sakti and because of its presence the person concerned is considered to have a heart (in their body) (Tantraloka, III.209-10).

People who do not become one (with such blissful experiences), and who do not feel their physical body being merged into it, are said to be heartless because t ~ Balajinnatha Pandita

In one way, what I saw in those mirrors was the self trapped inside the self, forever.

But in another way, the self in the mirror was opening out, in an infinite unfurling.

I am the one whose drive is being thwarted.

And I am the one who is thwarting it. ~ Alison Bechdel

Buddhists don't feel that enlightenment is particularly unusual. We feel that it's the natural state. Enlightenment simply means perceiving life directly as it is in all of its infinite, ever changing wonder, in all of its varied, myriad states of mind or as pari-nirvana, or whatever. ~ Frederick Lenz

Believing time is on our side is difficult because the lens of our lives is too narrowly focused. We see only what is in our direct view, whether trials or bliss. We hold so tightly to the positive experiences for fear we won't have another just as good and those that are negative we hope will disappear.
With our vision set to the crown of our nose, we miss being exposed to a world of possibility lying in the vastness of our periphery. ~ Tina Leigh

Space, and space again, is the infinite deity which surrounds us and in which we are ourselves contained. ~ Max Beckmann