Quotes for All
The succession of individuals, connected by reproduction and belonging to a species, makes it possible for the specific form itself to last for ages. In the end, however, the species is temporary; it has no eternal life. After existing for a certain period, it either dies or is converted by modification into other forms. Ernst … Read more
Last year I gave several lectures on Intelligence and Musicality among Animals … Today I am going to speak to you about Intelligence and Musicality among Critics … The subject is much the same, with some modifications, of course. Erik Satie
We alter and customize the thing every century, every generation, every day – both in the courts and in our own homes. And marriage accepts our modifications gracefully. Marriage adapts, evolves and (in a manner that I find miraculous and kind of inspiring) somehow keeps chugging along. Elizabeth Gilbert
To deal with the true causes of war one must begin by recognizing as of prime relevancy to the solution of the problem the familiar fact that civilization is a partial, incomplete, and, to a great extent, superficial modification of barbarism. Elihu Root
If you want to build a recursively self-improving AI, have it go through a billion sequential self-modifications, become vastly smarter than you, and not die, you’ve got to work to a pretty precise standard. Eliezer Yudkowsky
Common sense is only a modification of talent. Genius is an exaltation of it. The difference is, therefore, in degree, not nature. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power. Edmund Burke
Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the … Read more
…for the question is of will, and not, as the insanity of logic has assumed of power. It is not that the Deity cannot modify his laws, but that we insult him in imagining a possible necessity for modification. In their origin these laws were fashioned to embrace all contingencies which could lie in the … Read more
The smallest modification of tonality affects structure. Some things have to be rather large, but elegance is the presentation of things in their minimum dimensions. Frederick Sommer