We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, "What is real?" Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power, that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. ~Philip K. Dick
#quotes #philip-k-dick #society #government #media #religion
quotistI grew up in South Africa and I would look at maps and we were at the bottom of the world. There was this whole thing up there. I was always reading encyclopedias about the world. So travel was something I was always attracted to. ~Charlize Theron
#quotes #charlize-theron #travel #world #south-africa
I have total respect for anyone who discovers a band like Snow Patrol. I would be hopeless at signing a rock band, or anything alternative, cause I don't know what that audience are into and I don't particularly like that kind of music. ~Simon Cowell
#quotes #simon-cowell #snow-patrol #band #music
Extremism can flourish only in an environment where basic governmental social responsibility for the welfare of the people is neglected. Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism. ~Benazir Bhutto
#quotes #benazir-bhutto #extremism #government #society
Young people have many pleasures and many sorrows, because they only have themselves to think of, so every wish and every notion assume importance; every pleasure is tasted to the full, but also every sorrow, and many who find that their wishes cannot be fulfilled, immediately put an end to their lives. ~Hermann Hesse
#quotes #hermann-hesse #thinking #pleasure #sorrow #youth
Nothing is more certain of destroying any good feeling that may be cherished towards us than to show distrust. To be suspected as an enemy is often enough to make a man become so; the whole matter is over, there is no farther use of guarding against it. On the contrary, confidence leads us naturally to act kindly, we are affected by the good opinion which others entertain of us, and we are not easily induced to lose it. ~Marie de Rabutin Chantal
#quotes #marquise-de-sevigne #marie-de-rabutin-chantal #feelings
I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success; such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything. ~Nikola Tesla
#quotes #nikola-tesla #motivation #success
The unexpected stalks a farm in big boots like a vagrant bent on havoc. Not every farmer is an inventor, but the good ones have the seeds of invention within them. Economy and efficiency move their relentless tinkering and yet the real motive often seems to be aesthetic. The mind that first designed a cutter bar is not far different from a mind that can take the intractable steel of an outsized sickle blade and make it hum in the end. The question is how to reduce the simplicity that constitutes a problem to the greater simplicity that constitutes a solution. ~Verlyn Klinkenborg
#quotes #verlyn-klinkenborg
I was born full grown in the middle of a hurricane and an earthquake on 10 September 1954, 12.52 P.M. When I found out that I had missed lunch, I gave such a shout that the Earth stopped and spun backwards two days. That's why I celebrate my birthday on 8 September. ~Jon Scieszka
#quotes #jon-scieszka #birthday
We had been busy building up fibre infrastructure under the ground in Hong Kong and underneath the homes of people, so when we launched IPTV, it was relatively smoother sailing than in other territories. ~Richard Li
#quotes #richard-li
It is true that traditional Christianity is losing some of its appeal among Americans, but that is a religious, not political, matter. It is worth remembering that the Jeffersonian "wall of separation" between church and state has always been intended to protect the church from the state as much as the state from the church. ~Jon Meacham
#quotes #jon-meacham #religious #christianity #politics #united-states
If a man does not tell everything to his spiritual father, then his path is crooked and does not lead to the Kingdom of Heaven. But the path of one who tells everything leads directly to the Kingdom of Heaven. ~Silouan the Athonite
#quotes #silouan-the-athonite #christianity
Law represents the effort of man to organize society; governments, the efforts of selfishness to overthrow liberty. ~Henry Ward Beecher
#quotes #henry-ward-beecher #society #law #humanity #government
Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds. ~Emile Durkheim
#quotes #emile-durkheim #society #mind
A hen is heavy when carried far. ~Irish Proverb
#proverbs #irish-proverbs
proverbiosA good catchword can obscure analysis for fifty years. ~Wendell Willkie
#quotes #wendell-willkie #communication
God does not change; and neither does His love. He loved you before you were born. He loves you now; and He will love you forever. ~Billy Graham
#quotes #billy-graham #god #love
I realized that even in a world of proliferating media venues, online and in print, and on TV and on countless cable channels, the idea that I could be considered an expert on chronic knee pain was I think troubling for society, but very exciting for me. ~John Hodgman
#quotes #john-hodgman #thinking #media
I always choose to look, as much as one can, at the supernatural not being something that exists outside of nature, but a deeper, fundamental heart of nature that perhaps humans... have lost touch with. It's a more primal thing than perhaps we are attuned to in our modern, self-aware way of life. ~Alan Ball
#quotes #alan-ball #nature #life #heart
All the prayers in the Scripture you will find to be reasoning with God, not a multitude of words heaped together. ~Stephen Charnock
#quotes #stephen-charnock
Affectation is a greater enemy to the face than smallpox. ~English Proverb
#proverbs #english-proverbs #hypocrisy
Authors are far closer to the truths enfolded in mystery than ordinary people, because of that very audacity of imagination which irritates their plodding critics. As only those who dare to make mistakes succeed greatly, only those who shake free the wings of their imagination brush, once in a way, the secrets of the great pale world. If such writers go wrong, it is not for the mere brains to tell them so ~Gertrude Atherton
#quotes #gertrude-atherton #writing #reality
In whatever man does without God, he must fail miserably, or succeed more miserably. ~George MacDonald
#quotes #george-macdonald #god #failure #success
There is a theory that creativity arises when individuals are out of sync with their environment. To put it simply, people who fit in with their communities have insufficient motivation to risk their psyches in creating something truly new, while those who are out of sync are driven by the constant need to prove their worth. ~Gary Taubes
#quotes #gary-taubes #motivation #creativity #science
I don't pay a lot of attention, frankly, to what Barack Obama says. ~Dick Cheney
#quotes #dick-cheney #barack-obama #attention