Thing In Itself Quotes

Playing scales is like a boxer skipping rope or punching a bag. It's not the thing in itself; it's preparatory to the activity ~ Barney Kessel

A beautiful print is a thing in itself, not just a halfway house on the way to the page. ~ Irving Penn

The child comes home and the parent puts the hooks in him. The old man, or the woman, as the case may be, hasn't got anything to say to the child. All he wants is to have that child sit in a chair for a couple of hours and then go off to bed under the same roof. It's not love. I am not saying that there is not such a thing as love. I am merely pointing to something which is different from love but which sometimes goes by the name of love. It may well be that without this thing which I am talking about there would not be any love. But this thing in itself is not love. It is just something in the blood. It is a kind of blood greed, and it is the fate of a man. It is the thing which man has which distinguishes him from the happy brute creation. When you got born your father and mother lost something out of themselves, and they are going to bust a hame trying to get it back, and you are it. They know they can't get it all back but they will get as big a chunk out of you as they can. ~ Robert Penn Warren

Get married, in any case. If you happen to get a good mate, you will be happy; if a bad one, you will become philosophical, which is a fine thing in itself. ~ Socrates

The prevention of death and disability, the relief of pain and suffering, the restoration of functioning: these are the aims of health care. Beyond its tangible benefits, health care touches on countless important and in some ways mysterious aspects of personal life and invest it with significant value as a thing in itself. ~ Martin Gulliford

"It is essential to understand this point thoroughly: that the thing-in-itself, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, is not only unknowable-it does not exist. This is important not only for sanity and peace of mind, but also for the most "practical" reasons of economics, politics, and technology.. This is not to say only that things exist in relation to one another, but that what we call "things" are no more than glimpses of a unified process. Certainly, this process has distinct features which catch our attention, but we must remember that distinction is not separation." ~ Alan Watts

Transcendence implies the surpassing of two things, and the consequent attainment of a third thing. But there are no 'things' in reality, of any kind whatever: there is only the thing-in-itself, its suchness, which is Reality, revealed when the illusory dualism of inexistent qualities is dissolved. ~ Wei Wu Wei

One cannot dispute the fact that giving poor black adolescents job skills, if it is self-evident that they do not possess the academic skills to go to college, is a good thing in itself. But the business leaders who put emphasis on filling entry-level job slots are too frequently the people who, by prior lobbying and voting patterns and their impact upon social policy, have made it all but certain that few of these urban kids would get the education in their early years that would have made them look like college prospects by their secondary years. First we circumscribe their destinies and then we look at the diminished product and we say, "Let's be pragmatic and do with them what we can. ~ Jonathan Kozol

What is then the central idea of transcendental philosophy? It is to construe each object of science as the focus of a synthesis of phenomena rather than as a thing in itself. And it is to accept accordingly that the very possibility of such objects depends on the connecting structures provided in advance by the procedures used in our research activities. Thus something is objective if it results from a universal and necessary mode of connection of phenomena. In other words, something is objective if it holds true for any (human) active subject, not if it concerns intrinsic properties of autonomous entities. (...)

From a transcendental standpoint, the structure of a scientific theory is nothing less than the frame of procedural rationalities that underpin a certain research practice (and that, conversely, were constrained by the resistances arising from the enaction of this practice). ~ Michel Bitbol

I am not involved in any 'issues' because it's too sensitive for me - or my wife - to get involved. Every time we express an opinion it becomes a whole thing in itself. And the whole purpose of living in the countryside was to get away from hundreds of people. My wife fell off a horse, and suddenly there are hundreds of people around. ~ Guy Ritchie

Being published is not a necessary validation or a path everyone wants to take with their work. Writing - and finishing - a novel is a great thing in itself, whether or not the book is published, or becomes widely-read or not. ~ Garth Nix

All self-expression is the product of the imagination, so how can we speak of an objective reflection of the real in words? Or an accurate rendering of the past - speak, memory - as if our memories are the thing in itself and can be reconstructed in words. Fiction or fact? How can you spot the difference, how can you really be sure, when the game seems to be hiding the truth by telling you 'this is the truth'? ~ Bruce Gatenby

When poets - write about food it is usually celebratory. Food as the thing-in-itself, but also the thoughtful preparation of meals, the serving of meals, meals communally shared: a sense of the sacred in the profane. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

The aim of science is to apprehend this purely intelligible world as a thing in itself, an object which is what it is independently of all thinking, and thus antithetical to the sensible world ... The world of thought is the universal, the timeless and spaceless, the absolutely necessary, whereas the world of sense is the contingent, the changing and moving appearance which somehow indicates or symbolizes it. ~ Robin G. Collingwood

The real difference between the Marxian and the romantic Outsider is that one would like to bring heaven down to earth, the other dreams of raising earth up to heaven. To the Outsider, the Marxian seems hopelessly short-sighted in his requirements for a heaven on earth; his notions seem to be based on a total failure to understand human psychology. (Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Zamyatin's We are typical expressions of Outsider criticism of social idealism.) Now George Fox combined the practical-mindedness of the Marxian with the Outsider's high standard for a 'heaven on earth', and in so far as he was practical-minded, he failed to penetrate to the bottom of the Outsider's ideal. What did he achieve? He founded the Society of Friends, a very fine thing in itself, but lacking the wearing-quality of older established sects; he conquered his Outsider's sense of exile. And there we have it! As a religious teacher, he accepted himself and the world, and no Outsider can afford to do this. He accepted an essentially optimistic philosophy. ~ Colin Wilson

We are not at all to wonder [ ... ] that we having but some few superficial ideas of things, discovered to us only by the senses from without, or by the mind, reflecting on what it experiments in itself within, have no knowledge beyond that, much less of the internal constitution, and true nature of things, being destitute of faculties to attain it. ~ John Locke

The banknote without a signature at the bottom is nothing but a worthless piece of paper. A few strokes of a pen confer on it all its value. The prayer of a poor child of Adam is a feeble thing in itself, but once endorsed by the hand of the Lord Jesus it accomplishes much. ~ J.C. Ryle

Performing is a thing in itself, a distinct skill, different from making recordings. And for those who can do it, it's a way to make a living. ~ David Byrne

Evil is unintelligible. It is just a thing in itself, like boarding a crowded commuter train wearing only a giant boa constrictor. There is no context which would make it explicable. ~ Terry Eagleton

Sexual desire, without Eros, wants it, the thing in itself; Eros wants the Beloved. ~ C.S. Lewis

Technological change can become 'fetishized' as a 'thing in itself', as an exogenous guiding force in the history of capitalism. ~ David Harvey

Everyone got bitterness in his chosen thing. It might be in the end that the chosen thing that the chosen thing in itself is bitterness because to arrive at the chosen thing needs courage, because it's intense, and intensity is what the feeble humanity of us can't take for long. And also the chosen thing can't be one that we already have, since what we already have there isn't much use or respect for. ~ Saul Bellow

Do you see the logic in this conclusion? First, God's perfect qualities are excellent in themselves. Second, God's works extend from his perfect qualities, and so they are also excellent in themselves. Third, the expression of God's perfect qualities in his works are to be seen and known by other beings who obtain knowledge of these qualities. Finally, this knowledge is excellent in itself as well. So it follows that it is an excellent thing in itself for a society of created beings to know God and his works. ~ Jonathan Edwards

Mankind occurs as male or female, as something or nothing. Woman has no share in ontological reality, no relation to the thing-in-itself, which, in the deepest interpretation, is the absolute, is God. Man in his highest form, the genius, has such a relation, and for him the absolute is either the conception of the highest worth of existence, in which case he is a philosopher; or it is the wonderful fairyland of dreams, the kingdom of absolute beauty, and then he is an artist. ~ Otto Weininger

One thing is very clear from the chatter I see on Chinese blogs, and also from just what people in China tell me, is that Google is much more popular among China's Internet users than the United States. ~ Rebecca MacKinnon

But the most sumptuous thing in the room at that moment was naturally the sumptuously laid table, though, of course, even that was comparatively speaking: the table-cloth was clean, the silver was brightly polished; three kinds of wonderfully baked bread, two bottles of wine, two bottles of excellent monastery mead, and a large glass jug of monastery kvas, famous throughout the neighbourhood. There was no vodka at all. Rakitin related afterwards that this time it was a five-course dinner: fish soup of sterlets served with fish patties; then boiled fish excellently prepared in a special way; then salmon cutlets, ice cream and stewed fruits and, finally, a fruit jelly. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Think about how rare it is for anyone to encounter a teacher who can open you up to the notion that there is an infinite amount of meaning and possibility and inspiration in the smallest thing before you. ~ Greil Marcus

Anyway, it's best not to think about them, as if you do it makes the discussions with the other lawyers, all their advice and all that they do manage to achieve, seem so unpleasant and useless, I had that experience myself, just wanted to throw everything away and lay at home in bed and hear nothing more about it. But that, of course, would be the stupidest thing you could do, and you wouldn't be left in peace in bed for very long either. ~ Franz Kafka

Psalm 34 says, 'Those who trust in the Lord will never lack any good thing.' This means if you don't have it right now, you don't need it right now.
Our attitude should be, 'I'm equipped, empowered and anointed for this moment. I am not lacking, shortchanged or inadequate. I have what I need for today.' ~ Joel Osteen

We've been brought up to pick one thing in life and become really good at just that. But that's never what I wanted to be. I was always interested in many things at the same time, and I wanted to try all of them at the same time, too. ~ Lakshmi Pratury

On the other side of the gun debate we have those who wish to eliminate all guns. "Guns kill" is the battle cry. If that argument was true, we would have to label cars as "killers" since they take more lives in a year than guns. But the claim is false. There is no question that guns are deadly and were invented for one thing – to kill. But guns don't think, they don't plan, they don't aim, and they don't pull their own trigger. Guns are just a tool used by an owner to complete a task. Good people use guns for recreation and as insurance against evil. Bad people use guns to commit crimes. How a gun is used is not determined by the gun; it is determined by the holder of the gun. Period. There is nothing else to say on this point. ~ Mark Mullen

Most private traders on a losing streak keep trying to trade their way out of a hole. A loser thinks a successful trade is just around the corner, and that his luck is about to turn. He keeps putting on more trades and increases his size, all the while digging himself a deeper hole in the ice. The sensible thing to do would be to reduce your trading size and then stop and review your system. ~ Alexander Elder

Bronwyn: Well, I'd like to try. I f you want to. Not because we're thrown together in this weird situation and I think you're hot, altough I do. But because you're smart, and funny, and you do the right thing more often than you give youerself credit for. I like your horrible taste in movies and the way you never sugarcoat anything and the fact that you have an actual lizard. I'd be proud to be your girlfriend, even in a nonoffical capacity while we're, you know, being investigated for murder. Plus, I can't go more than a few minutes without wanting to kis you, so - there's that.

Nate: You're doing better than me. I never stop thinking about kissing you. ~ Karen M. McManus

Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. ~ Homer

How we like to hold on! Sometimes we're unwilling to let things go just because we know them, and they feel "safe" to us, even if we're talking about something like behaviors that harm us, like defensiveness or addictions. We hesitate to let go because doing so will expose us to the unknown in our own lives, and we'll have to deal with life without this part of ourselves that we've grown so accustomed to. But if we're ever to move on to the next thing in life, if we're to grow and develop as people, we may have to let go of things that are holding us back - behaviors and beliefs and sometimes even people. There is no formula that can tell us what we should let go of and what we should hold on to. But if we listen to our hearts, we can know what still serves us well, and what is keeping us from moving on and becoming better people. ~ Tom Walsh

Look at all the old wars, centuries ago: the king led his men into battle. Always. That was what the ruler was: both on a practical level and on a mystical one, he was the one who stepped forwards to lead his tribe, put his life at stake for them, become the sacrifice for their safety. If he had refused to do that most crucial thing at that most crucial moment, they would have ripped him apart- and rightly so: he would have shown himself to be an impostor, with no right to the throne. The king was the country; how could he possibly expect it go into battle without him? But now... Can you see any modern president or prime minister on the front line, leading his men into the war he's started? And once that physical and mystical link is broken, once the ruler is no longer willing to be the sacrifice for his people, he becomes not a leader but a leech, forcing others to take his risks while he sits in safety and battens on their losses. War becomes a hideous abstraction, a game for bureaucrats to play on paper; soldiers and civilians become mere pawns, to be sacrificed by the thousand for reasons that have no roots in any reality. As soon as rulers mean nothing, war means nothing; human life means nothing. We're ruled by venal little usurpers, all of us, and they make meaninglessness everywhere they go. ~ Tana French

When I was around 15, I did my first movie. I was at a kids' agency, and the third time I was invited to an audition, they offered me a little part in some kiddie thing, and I earned my first money. I was very proud that I could buy my first mountain bike with my own money. ~ Daniel Bruhl

Fear was a thing I understood all too well. It was a malignancy that had spread throughout my body until my mother, in her godly wisdom, had diagnosed and cauterized it. ~ Delores Phillips

All comedians are preoccupied with one thing and with one thing only-themmm-selllves. It's a horrible lot in life. ~ David Letterman

The most important thing in coaching is communication. It's not what you say as much as what they absorb. ~ Red Auerbach

All of the great successful people in history all had one thing in common, and did that one thing very well, and consistently. What was it? Consciously or not, these people focused on becoming the the type of person other people wanted to meet. They did not go out trying to meet people. ~ Monroe Mann

That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either. ~ Marilynne Robinson

A Prayer Found in Chester Cathedral Give me good digestion, Lord, And also something to digest; Give me a healthy body, Lord, With sense to keep it at its best. Give me a healthy mind, good Lord, To keep the good and pure in sight; Which, seeing sin, is not appalled, But finds a way to set it right. Give me a mind that is not bored, That does not whimper, whine or sigh; Don't let me worry overmuch About the fussy thing called 'I'. Give me a sense of humour, Lord, Give me the grace to see a joke; To get some happiness from life, And pass it on to other folk. - Anonymous ~ John Boyes

The only thing
I tell you this straight from the heart
that disgusts me in Salzburg is that one can't have any proper social intercourse with those people
and that music does not have a better reputation ... For I assure you, without travel, at least for people from the arts and sciences, one is a miserable creature! ... A man of mediocre talents always remains mediocre, may he travel or not
but a man of superior talents, which I cannot deny myself to have without being blasphemous, becomes
bad, if he always stays in the same place. If the archbishop would trust me, I would soon make his music famous; that is surely true. ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

It's not always easy to do the right thing. But, doing the right thing makes you strong, it builds character, it forces you to make decisions based upon your beliefs and not what other people think. In life, and in business, you have to stand for what you believe in and sometimes you have to stand alone. But, what makes you a leader is having the courage of your convictions. ~ Queen Latifah

Technically, the city of Ankh-Morpork is a Tyranny, which is not always the same thing as a monarchy, and in fact even the post of Tyrant has been somewhat redefined by the incumbent, Lord Vetinari, as the only form of democracy that works. Everyone is entitled to vote, unless disqualified by reason of age or not being Lord Vetinari. ~ Terry Pratchett

Real integrity comes from knowing oneself and believing in truth, without compromise, and no matter how challenging. Integrity is a beautiful thing. ~ Sameh Elsayed

I'm not superstitious about good luck charms and all that. I don't have any ring or any tangible thing as a charm. But I like to have at least one of my parents with me during my shows. It gives me strength to find their faces ... or my brothers ... in the audience. It comforts me. ~ Shreya Ghoshal

They all think any minute I'm going to commit suicide. What a joke. The truth of course is the exact opposite: suicide is the only thing that keeps me alive. Whenever everything else fails, all I have to do is consider suicide and in two seconds I'm as cheerful as a nitwit. But if I could not kill myself
ah then, I would. I can do without nembutal or murder mysteries but not without suicide. ~ Walker Percy

When a new kind of 'race trouble' broke out in 1912, Forsyth was a place that had already witnessed the rapid expulsion of an entire people, and many residents, like Charlie Harris, had heard firsthand accounts from relatives who'd taken part in the Cherokee removals. So whenever someone first suggested that blacks in the county should not only be punished for the murder of Mae Crow but driven out of the county forever, the white people of Forsyth knew in their bones that such a thing was possible. After all, many families owed their land and their livelihoods to exactly such a racial cleansing in the 1830s. ~ Patrick Phillips

Matthew spoke in a low voice. "It would be one thing if James loved her. I would go into the quiet dark like Jem did and never speak of her again. But he doesn't love her. ~ Cassandra Clare

The thing about Buddhism is that it stresses attainment of something ineffable, that is where it differs from other religions in that it's more correct. We live in a world with promises of paradise. ~ Frederick Lenz

The Soul Toupee is that thing about ourselves we are most deeply embarrassed by and like to think we have cunningly concealed from the world, but which is, in fact, pitifully obvious to everybody who knows us. ~ Tim Kreider

I don't think we should tell them what we're going to do in advance. Let them think. Worry. Wonder. Uncertainty is the most chilling thing of all. ~ Vernon A. Walters

I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. ~ Philemon

Once I moved to L.A., there was a dark moment of trying to keep up with the girls I thought were pretty. Until I realised that's the stupidest thing you can do because people are so pretty in L.A.! ~ Amy Adams

Just leave! you wanted to shout through the screen. Why are you serving him food?? They're just going about their normal routines as if they don't realize they're now goddamn pieces of wood and metal. It makes no sense. Anyway. That's what being depressed is like. For some reason, you've transformed into this inanimate object version of yourself and everyone else seems to be functioning perfectly normally, keeping jobs and falling in love and passing tests and they expect you to do the same. "But I'm a coffee table now!" you want to shout. "There's no way that I, a coffee table, can get out of bed to study for a bio exam. That's not a thing coffee tables are capable of doing! ~ Dana Schwartz

Donald Trump has put together a coalition, whether he knows it or not, whether he intended to or not, he's put together a coalition that's exactly what the Republican Party says that it needs to win and, yet, look like what they're doing. They're trying to get Trump out of the race, because they're not in charge of it. They're not in control of it. And it's the most amazing thing to watch this happen. ~ Rush Limbaugh