Knechts Rapid Quotes

In a world of rapid change, we each need to garner as much useful information as possible, sort through it in a way that meets our unique circumstances, calibrate it with what we already know, and re-circulate it with others who share our goals. ~ Marcia Conner

With the industrial proliferation of visual and audiovisual prostheses and unrestrained use of instantaneous-transmission equipment from earliest childhood onwards, we now routinely see the encoding of increasingly elaborate mental images together with a steady decline in retention rates and recall. In other words we are looking at the rapid collapse of mnemonic consolidation. This collapse seems only natural, if one remembers a contrario that seeing, and its spatio-temporal organization, precede gesture and speech and their coordination in knowing, recognizing, making known (as images of our thoughts), our thoughts themselves and cognitive functions, which are never ever passive. ~ Paul Virilio

Rapid City," he said with a flourish at the lights below.
"We always stopped there on the way home from camping," Baldwin said. "There's this great ice-cream stand just off the highway. But I guess we aren't going for ice cream, are we?"
"Probably not," Ray said. "Unless it's being served by monsters."
"That could be cool," Baldwin said. "An ice-cream fight. Like a snowball fight, with fifty flavors of snow. Good, safe fun. No one ever died from ice cream."
"Unless they drowned you in a giant vat of it," Reyna said. "Or forced you to eat it until you choked. Or -"
"You're no fun at all, you know that?" Baldwin said.
"Depends on your definition of fun. ~ K.L. Armstrong

It now appears that the negro race is, more than any other, susceptible of rapid civilization. The emancipation is observed, in the islands, to have wrought for the negro a benefit as sudden as when a thermometer is brought out of the shade into the sun. It has given him eyes and ears. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We have had a great depression in agriculture, caused mainly by several seasons of bad harvests, and some of our traders have suffered much from a too rapid extension in prosperous years. ~ John Bright

So, preferring death to capture, I accomplished the most astonishing deeds, and which, more then once, showed me that the too great care we take of our bodies is the only obstacle to the sucess of those projects which require rapid decision, and vigorous and determined execution.
In reality, when you have once devoted your life to your enterprises, you are no longer the equal of other men, or, rather, other men are no longer your equals, and whosoever has taken this resolution, feels his strength and resources doubled. ~ Alexandre Dumas

You may cure yourself of a depression by forcing yourself to perform, in rapid order and with excruciating concentration, half a dozen or so unpleasant chores, especially if they have long been postponed. This is a kind of homeopathic purgative, a treatment of like with like. ~ Robert Grudin

In our need for more and more rapid replacement of the worldly things around us, we can no longer afford to use them, to respect and preserve their inherent durability; we must consume, devour, as it were, our houses and furniture and cars as though they were the "good things" of nature which spoil uselessly if they are not drawn swiftly into the never-ending cycle of man's metabolism with nature. It is as though we had forced open the distinguishing boundaries which protected the world, the human artifice, from nature, the biological process which goes on in its very midst as well as the natural cyclical processes which surround it, delivering and abandoning to them the always threatened stability of a human world. ~ Hannah Arendt

I am very pleased with the progress of the new CBS Corporation. The Company's rapid pace of change and innovative approach to emerging business opportunities can be seen in the many strategic announcements we have made over these past few months. The more focused and more nimble organization we sought to create has become a reality and that aggressive spirit of excellence and innovation will continue to benefit shareholders for many years to come. ~ Sumner Redstone

Newly infected people continued swarming the streets at a rapid pace and infecting anyone in their path. ~ Jason Medina

Every attempt to employ mathematical methods in the study of chemical questions must be considered profoundly irrational and contrary to the spirit of chemistry ... if mathematical analysis should ever hold a prominent place in chemistry
an aberration which is happily almost impossible
it would occasion a rapid and widespread degeneration of that science. ~ Auguste Comte

In the months that followed he brought a rapid succession of cases to court - as he recalled, smelling somewhat of midnight oil. ~ Anthony Everitt

Things in this world are very roughly averaged; and although averaging is a useful, rapid way of dispatching business, it does undoubtedly waste a great deal which is too good for wasting. ~ Vernon Lee

The existence of the corporation, as we have it with us today, was never dreamed of by the fathers . . .The corporation of today has invaded every department of business, and it's powerful but invisible hand is felt in almost all activities of life . . . The effect of this change upon the American people is radical and rapid.

The individual is fast disappearing as a business factor and in his stead is this new device, the modern corporation . . . The influence of this change upon character cannot be overestimated. The businessman at one time gave his individuality, stamped his mental and moral characteristics upon the business he conducted . . .

Today the business once transacted by individuals in every community is in the control of corporations, and many of the men who once conducted an independent business are gathered into the organization, and all personal identity, and all individualities lost. ~ Robert Marion La Follette

China uses about half of the world's cement for its new roads and buildings.
According to the World Bank in 2007, China had 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities.
One day in January 2013, the air pollution index in Beijing was 755 - measured on a scale of 0 to 500!
In late 2012, 16,000 dead pigs were found floating in the river that supplies water to
Shanghai, the PRC's largest city.
For 2010, a ministry of the Chinese government estimated the monetary cost of the environmental damage caused by rapid industrialization at $230 billion, which is 3.5 percent of China's gross domestic product.
Air pollution from Chinese factories wafts over to the Koreas and Japan. Sometimes, upper atmospheric winds carry the sulphur dioxide from China's coal-burning clear over to North America's west coast. ~ James Peoples

Suddenly, she employed those very English weapons: devious good manners and a rapid change of subject. ~ Patricia Duncker

To the average man, life presents itself, not as material malleable to his hand, but as a series of problems ... which he has to solve ... And he is distressed to find that the more means he can dispose of - such as machine-power, rapid transport, and general civilized amenities, the more his problems grow in hardness and complexity ... .Perhaps the first thing he can learn form the artists is that the only way of 'mastering' one's material is to abandon the whole conception of mastery and to co-operate with it in love: whosoever will be a lord of life, let him be its servant. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

What happened to your arm?" she asked me one night in the Gentleman Loser, the three of us drinking at a small table in a corner.

Hang-gliding," I said, "accident."

Hang-gliding over a wheatfield," said Bobby, "place called Kiev. Our Jack's just hanging there in the dark, under a Nightwing parafoil, with fifty kilos of radar jammed between his legs, and some Russian asshole accidentally burns his arm off with a laser."

I don't remember how I changed the subject, but I did.

I was still telling myself that it wasn't Rikki who getting to me, but what Bobby was doing with her. I'd known him for a long time, since the end of the war, and I knew he used women as counters in a game, Bobby Quine versus fortune, versus time and the night of cities. And Rikki had turned up just when he needed something to get him going, something to aim for. So he'd set her up as a symbol for everything he wanted and couldn't have, everything he'd had and couldn't keep.

I didn't like having to listen to him tell me how much he loved her, and knowing he believed it only made it worse. He was a past master at the hard fall and the rapid recovery, and I'd seen it happen a dozen times before. He might as well have had next printed across his sunglasses in green Day-Glo capitals, ready to flash out at the first interesting face that flowed past the tables in the Gentleman Loser.

I knew what he did to them. He turned them into emblems, sigils ~ William Gibson

...there is a danger of churning out students who are rapid processors of information but may not necessarily be more reflective, thoughtful, and able to give sustained consideration to the information that matters most. ~ Karen Bohlin

The Bush administration works closely with a network of rapid response digital brownshirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for 'undermining support for our troops.' ~ Al Gore

Women's eyes are rapid in detecting a heart which is ill at ease with itself, and, knowing the value of sympathy, and finding their own greatest happiness not in receiving it, but in giving it, with them to be unhappy is at once to be interesting. ~ James Anthony Froude

Tie the strings to my life, my Lord, Then I am ready to go! Just a look at the horses - Rapid! That will do! Put me in on the firmest side, So I shall never fall; For we must ride to the Judgment, And it's partly down hill. ~ Emily Dickinson

I really need to break him of the bad language habit he's developing at a rapid pace, but who am I to talk? I curse all the fucking time. ~ Monica Murphy

Television moves so fast. A series moves at such a rapid pace and things are changing, episode to episode, where you're going, "Wait, why am I doing this? This last episode, you told me I was doing this." You're shooting at a moving target. ~ Mike Vogel

The rate of progress is so rapid that what one learns at school or university is always a bit out of date. Only a few people can keep up with the rapidly advancing frontier of knowledge, and they have to devote their whole time to it and specialize in a small area. The rest of the population has little idea of the advances that are being made
or the excitement they are generating. ~ Stephen Hawking

Ladies first." I couldn't wait for this game to be over so I could teach her how to break properly. Images of her body pressed against mine, bending over the table, caused my jeans to get tighter.
"Your funeral," she sang and my lips turned up at her flash of confidence. Echo twirled her pool cue like a warrior going into battle, never once taking her eyes off the cue ball. She leaned over the table. I focused on her tight ass. My siren ate me alive with every movement. As she took aim, she no longer resembled the fragile girl at school, but a sniper.
The quick and thunderous cracking of balls caught me off guard. The balls fell into the pockets in such rapid succession, I lost count. Echo rounded the table, once again twirling the cue, studying the remaining balls like a four-star general would a map.
Damn - the girl knew how to play. ~ Katie McGarry

The environmental crisis is somber evidence of an insidious fraud hidden in the vaunted productivity and wealth of modern, technology-based society. This wealth has been gained by rapid short-term exploitation of the environmental system, but it has blindly accumulated a debt to nature-a debt so large and so pervasive that in the next generation it may, if unpaid, wipe out most of the wealth it has gained us. ~ Barry Commoner

Despite what many nutritionists have preached for years, rapid weight-loss diets can be healthy if done correctly and can work wonders on reducing pounds and inches in just days. ~ Mike Moreno

Choose your battles. If rapid development is truly top priority, don't shackle your developers by insisting on too many priorities at once. ~ Steve McConnell

In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerable swarm of Suevi appeared on the banks of the Main, and in the neighbourhood of the Roman provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or of glory. The hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced into a great and permanent nation, and, as it was composed from so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni, or Allmen, to denote at once their various lineage and their common bravery.31 The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of light infantry selected from the bravest and most active of the youth, whom frequent exercise had enured to accompany the horsemen in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most precipitate retreat.32 ~ Edward Gibbon

No central banker would disagree with the proposition that inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. Not one of them will disagree that every inflation has been accompanied by a rapid increase in the quantity of money and every deflation by a decline in the quantity of money. ~ Milton Friedman

I'm an investor in MakerBot, which is a good example of the 'thingiverse'. The idea of applying collaboration and rapid iteration to things that we interact with and hold in our hands every day is super revolutionary. ~ Matt Mullenweg

The religion of this 'I', the poetry of this 'I', and the philosophy of the same 'I' that from Poggio and Felelfo to Byron and Goethe produced a number of works astonishing for their profundity and brilliance have finally exhausted its content; and in the poetry of Decadence we see the rapid falling away of the empty shell of this 'I'. We remarked previously about the exaggeration without the exaggerated object, and about the precious style without the subject of this preciosity, which characterize this poetry - this is so in regard to its form; in regard to its content Decadence is above all hopeless egoism. The world, as an object of love, of interest, even as the object of indignation or contempt, has disappeared from this "poetry"; the world has disappeared, not only as an object exciting some reaction in this vapid 'I', but also as a spectator and possible judge of this 'I'; it is not even present.

("On Symbolists And Decadence") ~ Vasily Rozanov

I'm extremely optimistic about rapid transformation and change of things in Africa in general. ~ Binyavanga Wainaina

We desire some pleasure, and the material means of obtaining it are lacking. "It is a mistake," Labruyère tells us, "to be in love without an ample fortune." There is nothing for it but to attempt a gradual elimination of our desire for that pleasure. [...] But the pleasure can never be realised. If we succeed in overcoming the force of circumstances, nature at once shifts the battle-ground, placing it within ourselves, and effects a gradual change in our heart until it desires something other than what it is going to obtain. And if this transposition has been so rapid that our heart has not had time to change, nature does not, on that account, despair of conquering us, in a manner more gradual, it is true, more subtle, but no less efficacious. It is then, at the last moment, that the possession of our happiness is wrested from us, or rather it is that very possession which nature, with diabolical cleverness, uses to destroy our happiness. After failure in every quarter of the domain of life and action, it is a final incapacity, the mental incapacity for happiness, that nature creates in us. The phenomenon, of happiness either fails to appear, or at once gives way to the bitterest of reactions. ~ Marcel Proust

The great masses, who have never been, in the history of mankind, more subject to hypnotic suggestion than they are right now, have become the puppets of the "public opinion" that is engineered by the newspapers in the service, it need hardly be emphasized, of the reigning powers of finance. What is printed in the morning editions of the big city newspapers is the opinion of nine out of ten readers by nightfall. The United States of America, whose more rapid "progress" enables us to predict the future on a daily basis, has pulled far ahead of the pack when it comes to standardizing thought, work, entertainment, etc.

Thus, the United States in 1917 went to war against Germany in sincere indignation because the newspapers had told them that Prussian "militarism" was rioting in devilish atrocities as it attempted to conquer the world. Of course, these transparent lies were published in the daily rags because the ruling lords of Mammon knew that American intervention in Europe would fatten their coffers. Thus, whereas the Americans thought that they were fighting for such high-minded
slogans as "liberty" and "justice," they were actually fighting to stuff the money bags of the big bankers. These "free citizens" are, in fact, mere marionettes; their freedom is imaginary, and a brief glance at American work-methods and leisure-time entertainments is enough to prove conclusively that l'homme machine is not merely imminent: it is already the American reality. ~ Ludwig Klages

Intellectual force is qualitatively the first and foremost productive force, and concern for its rapid growth should be the ardent concern of all classes. ~ Maxim Gorky

The approaching exhaustion of domestic reserves of petroleum and the rapid depletion of world reserves will have a profound effect on Americans in the cities and on the farms. ~ Richard Lamm

With their survival as an institution and as individual human beings at stake, the Marines have had to ruthlessly and endlessly examine, discard, define, refine, and redefine their approaches to achieve the ultimate in rapid, effective response to dynamic challenges. ~ David A. Freedman

Her heart was beating appreciably faster, and she took more rapid breaths, but she was enjoying herself. Adventuresses are born, not made. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Perhaps one of the chief distinctions between a Drama for Marionnettes and a Proper Drama is this ... that whereas a Proper Drama has to be vague and roundabout in its movements, a Marionnette Drama had always better be direct and rapid and even obvious ... A Marionnette is not at all clever -- not subtle. He must fit the characte rlike a hand fits a glove, or all is undone. Therefore when we make a character in one of our Dramas we make the Marionnette to fit it. And so it comes about that a Marionnette does not play a number of parts, he plays only one... that is himself. ~ Edward Gordon Craig

The enterprise that does not innovate ages and declines. And in a period of rapid change such as the present, the decline will be fast. ~ Peter Drucker

Her fingers dug into the flesh of his hips as his own passion peaked. His face was buried in her neck and her skin felt his rapid, moist breath as he chanted her name.
He didn't leave her. He couldn't forsake the paradise just yet. Nestled within her body, he raised himself on his elbows and looked down at her. Tenderly he kissed each feature of her face.
"Is this possible?" she breathed, referring to the enormity of her rapture.
"Yes, yes," he murmured against her lips.
He raised his head and his eyes searched her face once again. His expression was difficult to define, but it closely resembled love. ~ Sandra Brown

No one sets out to be the bad guy, you set out to change the world and heal the wounds of society. Until the day you realize just out deep those wounds go and that the only way to save the world is to put it down like a rapid dog. ~ Samuel Grace

For me the information has to remain incredibly neutral. It's what I would call 'ice-like' information. I receive very rapid impressions. I don't have to sit there and concentrate. Because, if I start to really focus, my conscious mind begins to apply data, which is not accurate. ~ Caroline Myss

He took her lips with a wicked kiss, a growl rolling deep as he moved carefully, slowly pulling out until he was nearly gone from her, then rocking back into her gently, over and over, his thumb working against her, ensuring her pleasure even as he wondered if he would be able to hold his at bay.
"Michael," she whispered, and he met her gaze, worried that he might be hurting her. He stilled.
She arched her back. "Don't stop. Don't stop moving. You were right..." Her eyes drifted closed, and she gave a moan of pleasure as he sank into her with one long stroke. He thought he might lose control at the sound of that moan, low and beautiful, at the back of her throat, but he did not stop.
She shook her head, her hands running over his shoulders and down his back, finally coming to rest on his buttocks, clasping in time to his movements, to the stroke of his thumb. "Michael!"
It was happening to him, too.
He'd never given much thought to timing his release to his partner's. He'd never cared to share the experience. But, suddenly, he could think of nothing but meeting Penelope there, on the edge of her pleasure, and letting it crash over both of them. "Wait for me," he whispered at her ear, thrusting against her. "Don't go without me."
"I can't wait. I can't stop it!" She convulsed around him, milking him in a rapid, stunning rhythm, his name on her lips sending him into oblivion, tumbling over the edge in a terrifying, extravagant climax that rivaled a ~ Sarah MacLean

[Francis of Assisi was one of the] signal figures who are catalysts for rapid change ~ Jon M. Sweeney

The hemorrhages in vitamin K deficiency develop in this way that minute vascular lesions caused by minor mechanical trauma are not closed by rapid clotting, as is the case in normal animals. ~ Henrik Dam

There have been vast changes in the composition and role of the news media over the decades, and that is a cause for concern as well. When I first entered government nearly forty-eight years ago, three television networks and a handful of newspapers dominated coverage and, to a considerable degree, filtered the most extreme or vitriolic points of view. Today, with hundreds of cable channels, blogs, and other electronic media, too often the professional integrity and long-established standards and practices of journalists are diluted or ignored. Every point of view - including the most extreme - has a ready vehicle for rapid dissemination. And it seems the more vitriolic the opinion, the more attention it gets. This system is clearly more democratic and open, but I believe it has also fueled the coarsening and dumbing down of our national political dialogue. ~ Robert M. Gates