Quotes4study

In countries and epochs in which communication is impeded, soon all other liberties wither; discussion dies by inanition, ignorance of the opinion of others becomes rampant, imposed opinions triumph. … Intolerance is inclined to censor, and censorship promotes ignorance of the arguments of others and thus intolerance itself: a rigid, vicious circle that is hard to break.

Primo Levi

No one can live your life for you. No one but yourself can answer your questions, meet your responsibilities, make your decisions and choices. Your relations with God no one but yourself can fulfil. No one can believe for you. A thousand friends may encircle you and pray for your soul, but until you lift up your own heart in prayer no communication is established between you and God. No one can get your sins forgiven but yourself. No one can obey God for you. No other one can do your work for Christ, or render your account at the judgment-seat.

James Russell Miller

How can the New Life deliver itself from the still-persistent past? A ready solution of the difficulty would be TO DIE. . . . If we cannot die altogether, . . . the most we can do is to die as much as we can. . . . To die to any environment is to withdraw correspondence with it, to cut ourselves off, so far as possible, from all communication with it. So that the solution of the problem will simply be this, for the spiritual life to reverse continuously the processes of the natural life. Natural Law, Mortification, p. 180.

Henry Drummond     Beautiful Thoughts

Belief has its structures, and its symbols change. Its tradition changes. All the relationships within these forms are inter-dependent. We look at the symbols, we hope to read them, we hope for sharing and communication.

Muriel Rukeyser

The fear of freedom is strong in us. We call it chaos or anarchy, and the words are threatening. We live in a true chaos of contradicting authorities, an age of conformism without community, of proximity without communication. We could only fear chaos if we imagined that it was unknown to us, but in fact we know it very well.

Germaine Greer (born 29 January 1939

The mouth is made for communication, and nothing is more articulate than a kiss.

Jarod Kintz

As all men have some access to primary truth, so all have some art or power of communication in the head, but only in the artist does it descend into the hand.

_Emerson._

There is power over and behind us, and we are the channels of its communication.

_Emerson._

There is nothing in the idea of revelation that excludes progress, for whatever definition of revelation we may adopt, it always represents a communication between the Divine on one side and the Human on the other. Let us grant that the Divine element in revelation, that is, whatever of truth there is in revelation, is immutable, yet the human element, the recipient, must always be liable to the accidents and infirmities of human nature. That human element can never be eliminated in any religion.... To ignore that human element in all religions is like ignoring the eye as the recipient and determinant of the colours of light. We know more of the sun than our forefathers, though the same sun shone on them that shines on us; and if astronomy has benefited by its telescopes, ... theology also ought not to despise whatever can strengthen the far-sightedness of human reason in its endeavour to gain a truer and purer idea of the Divine. A veil will always remain. But as in every other pursuit, so in religion also, we want less and less of darkness, more and more of light; we want, call it life, or growth, or development, or progress; we do not want mere rest, mere stagnation, mere death.

Friedrich Max Müller     Thoughts on Life and Religion

Extremists think "communication" means agreeing with them.

Leo Rosten (born 11 April 1908

These axons can shuttle information around so quickly because they’re fatter than normal axons, and because they’re sheathed in a fatty substance called myelin. Myelin acts like rubber insulation on wires and prevents the signal from petering out: in whales, giraffes, and other stretched creatures, a sheathed neuron can send a signal multiple yards with little loss of fidelity. (In contrast, diseases that fray myelin, like multiple sclerosis, destroy communication between different nodes in the brain.) In sum, you can think about the gray matter as a patchwork of chips that analyze different types of information, and about the white matter as cables that transmit information between those chips. (And before we go further, I should point out that “gray” and “white” are misnomers. Gray matter looks pinkish-tan inside a living skull, while white matter, which makes up the bulk of the brain, looks pale pink. The white and gray colors appear only after you soak the brain in preservatives. Preservatives also harden the brain, which is normally tapioca-soft. This explains why the brain you might have dissected in biology class way back when didn’t disintegrate between your fingers.)

Sam Kean

~Conversation.~--They who have the true taste of conversation enjoy themselves in a communication of each other's excellences, and not in a triumph over their imperfections.--_Addison._

Maturin M. Ballou     Pearls of Thought

A boy is taught to read his own and other languages, in order that he may have access to infinitely wider stores of knowledge than could ever be opened to him by oral intercourse with his fellow men; he learns to write, that his means of communication with the rest of mankind may be indefinitely enlarged, and that he may record and store up the knowledge he acquires. He is taught elementary mathematics, that he may understand all those relations of number and form, upon which the transactions of men, associated in complicated societies, are built, and that he may have some practice in deductive reasoning.

T. H. Huxley     Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T. H. Huxley

Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.

Bertolt Brecht

I believe that the Universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole. This whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it and to think of it as divine.

Robinson Jeffers

When We Want God to Breathe New Life into Our Marriage Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. ISAIAH 43:18-19 WE ALL HAVE TIMES when we know we need new life in our marriage. We feel the strain, the tension, the sameness, or possibly even the subtle decay in it. When there is so much water under the bridge over what seems like a river of hurt, apathy, or preoccupation, we know we cannot survive the slowly and steadily rising flood without the Lord doing a new thing in both of us. The good news is that God says He will do that. He is the God of new beginnings, after all. But it won’t happen if we don’t make a choice to let go of the past. We have been made new if we have received Jesus. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). But in a marriage, it is way too easy to hang on to the old disappointments, misunderstandings, disagreements, and abuses. It becomes a wilderness of hurtful memories we cling to because we don’t want to be hurt, disappointed, misunderstood, disregarded, fought with, or abused again. Hanging on to old patterns of thought and negative memories keeps them fresh in your mind. And you don’t let your husband forget them, either. You remain mired in them because you don’t feel the situation has been resolved—and it still hurts. Only God can give you and your husband a new beginning from all that has gone on in the past. Only He can make a road in the wilderness of miscommunication and misread intentions, and make a cleansing and restoring river to flow in the dry areas of your relationship. Everyone needs new life in their marriage at certain times. And only the God of renewal can accomplish that. My Prayer to God LORD, I ask that You would do a fresh work of Your Spirit in our marriage. Make all things new in each of us individually and also together. Dissolve the pain of the past where it is still rising up in us to stifle our communication and ultimately our hope and joy. Wherever we have felt trapped in a wilderness of our own making, carve a way out of it for us and show us the path to follow. If there are rigid and dry areas between us that don’t allow for new growth, give us a fresh flow of Your Spirit to bring new vitality into our relationship. Help us to stop rehearsing old hurtful conversations that have no place in any life committed to the God of new beginnings. Sweep away all the old rubble of selfishness, stubbornness, blindness, and the inability to see beyond the moment or a particular situation. Only You can take away our painful memories so that we don’t keep reliving the same problems, hurts, or injustices. Only You can resurrect love, excitement, and hope where they have died. Help us to forgive fully and allow each other to completely forget. Help us to focus on Your greatness in us, instead of each other’s faults. Holy Spirit, breathe new life into each of us and into our marriage today.

Stormie Omartian

The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.

Terry Pratchett

Not after this fashion speaks the Scripture, which knows better than we the things of God. It says, on the contrary, that God is a God who hides himself, and that since nature became corrupt, he has left men in a blindness from which they can only escape by Jesus Christ, and except through him we are cut off from all communication with God. _Nemo novit Patrem, nisi Filius, et cui voluerit Filius revelare._

Blaise Pascal     The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal

This term [property] in its particular application means “that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.” In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage. In the former sense, a man’s land, or merchandise, or money is called his property. In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them. He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them. He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person. He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them. In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. [March 29, 1792.]

Madison, James.

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.

Warren Beatty

There is a power over and behind us, and we are the channels of its communication.

_Emerson._

I think it's fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created. They're tools of communication, they're tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

William (Bill) H. Gates

A comment on schedules:

 Ok, how long will it take?

   For each manager involved in initial meetings add one month.

   For each manager who says "data flow analysis" add another month.

   For each unique end-user type add one month.

   For each unknown software package to be employed add two months.

   For each unknown hardware device add two months.

   For each 100 miles between developer and installation add one month.

   For each type of communication channel add one month.

   If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on a non-IBM

      system add 6 months.

   If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on an IBM

      system add 9 months.

Round up to the nearest half-year.

--Brad Sherman

By the way, ALL software projects are done by iterative prototyping.

Some companies call their prototypes "releases", that's all.

Fortune Cookie

The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory,

in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system.

    But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay:

    for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

        -- Matthew 5:37

Fortune Cookie

Rules for Good Grammar #4.

     (1) Don't use no double negatives.

     (2) Make each pronoun agree with their antecedents.

     (3) Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.

     (4) About them sentence fragments.

     (5) When dangling, watch your participles.

     (6) Verbs has got to agree with their subjects.

     (7) Just between you and i, case is important.

     (8) Don't write run-on sentences when they are hard to read.

     (9) Don't use commas, which aren't necessary.

    (10) Try to not ever split infinitives.

    (11) It is important to use your apostrophe's correctly.

    (12) Proofread your writing to see if you any words out.

    (13) Correct speling is essential.

    (14) A preposition is something you never end a sentence with.

    (15) While a transcendant vocabulary is laudable, one must be eternally

         careful so that the calculated objective of communication does not

         become ensconsed in obscurity.  In other words, eschew obfuscation.

Fortune Cookie

What's page one, a preemptive strike?

        -- Professor Freund, Communication, Ramapo State College

Fortune Cookie

I asked the engineer who designed the communication terminal's keyboards

why these were not manufactured in a central facility, in view of the

small number needed [1 per month] in his factory.  He explained that this

would be contrary to the political concept of local self-sufficiency.

Therefore, each factory needing keyboards, no matter how few, manufactures

them completely, even molding the keypads.

        -- Isaac Auerbach, IEEE "Computer", Nov. 1979

Fortune Cookie

memo, n.:

    An interoffice communication too often written more for the benefit

    of the person who sends it than the person who receives it.

Fortune Cookie

When all other means of communication fail, try words.

Fortune Cookie

The primary theme of SoupCon is communication.  The acronym "LEO"

represents the secondary theme:

    Law Enforcement Officials

The overall theme of SoupCon shall be:

    Avoiding Communication with Law Enforcement Officials

        -- M. Gallaher

Fortune Cookie

We knew from experience that the essence of communal computing, as

supplied by remote-access, time-shared machines, is not just to type

programs into a terminal instead of a keypunch, but to encourage close

>communication.

        -- Dennis Ritchie

Fortune Cookie

The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.

Fortune Cookie

            HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 4

proof by personal communication:

    'Eight-dimensional colored cycle stripping is NP-complete

    [Karp, personal communication].'

proof by reduction to the wrong problem:

    'To see that infinite-dimensional colored cycle stripping is

    decidable, we reduce it to the halting problem.'

proof by reference to inaccessible literature:

    The author cites a simple corollary of a theorem to be found

    in a privately circulated memoir of the Slovenian

    Philological Society, 1883.

proof by importance:

    A large body of useful consequences all follow from the

    proposition in question.

Fortune Cookie

Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.

        -- Frank Moore Colby

Fortune Cookie

"Excellent! Thank you. But before we proceed to listen to your communication, will you allow me to inquire as to another little fact of great interest to us? I mean the ten roubles you borrowed yesterday at about five o'clock on the security of your pistols, from your friend, Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin."

Fyodor Dostoyevsky     The Brothers Karamazov

It was necessary to fight an unexpected battle at Smolensk to save our lines of communication. The battle was fought and thousands were killed on both sides.

Leo Tolstoy     War and Peace

He advised my attending certain places in London, for the acquisition of such mere rudiments as I wanted, and my investing him with the functions of explainer and director of all my studies. He hoped that with intelligent assistance I should meet with little to discourage me, and should soon be able to dispense with any aid but his. Through his way of saying this, and much more to similar purpose, he placed himself on confidential terms with me in an admirable manner; and I may state at once that he was always so zealous and honorable in fulfilling his compact with me, that he made me zealous and honorable in fulfilling mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I have no doubt I should have returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no such excuse, and each of us did the other justice. Nor did I ever regard him as having anything ludicrous about him--or anything but what was serious, honest, and good--in his tutor communication with me.

Charles Dickens     Great Expectations

12:36. And to build up walls in Jerusalem, and raise a mount between the castle and the city, to separate it from the city, that so it might have no communication, and that they might neither buy nor sell.

THE FIRST BOOK OF MACHABEES     OLD TESTAMENT

On the other hand, it seemed to her that the mere communication of the truth to the invalid would, without doubt, deal her a terrible blow, and that this was a serious matter in Fantine's present state. Her flush did not last long; the sister raised her calm, sad eyes to Fantine, and said, "Monsieur le Maire has gone away."

Victor Hugo     Les Miserables

No precaution could have been more obvious than our refraining from communication with him that day; yet this again increased my restlessness. I started at every footstep and every sound, believing that he was discovered and taken, and this was the messenger to tell me so. I persuaded myself that I knew he was taken; that there was something more upon my mind than a fear or a presentiment; that the fact had occurred, and I had a mysterious knowledge of it. As the days wore on, and no ill news came, as the day closed in and darkness fell, my overshadowing dread of being disabled by illness before to-morrow morning altogether mastered me. My burning arm throbbed, and my burning head throbbed, and I fancied I was beginning to wander. I counted up to high numbers, to make sure of myself, and repeated passages that I knew in prose and verse. It happened sometimes that in the mere escape of a fatigued mind, I dozed for some moments or forgot; then I would say to myself with a start, "Now it has come, and I am turning delirious!"

Charles Dickens     Great Expectations

"I do not know particulars. I can only tell you that Madame de Villefort sent to request my presence, as she had a communication to make on which a part of my fortune depended. Let them take my fortune, I am already too rich; and, perhaps, when they have taken it, they will leave me in peace and quietness. You would love me as much if I were poor, would you not, Maximilian?"

Alexandre Dumas, Pere     The Count of Monte Cristo

"That it ought not to be attempted. Mr. Darcy has not authorised me to make his communication public. On the contrary, every particular relative to his sister was meant to be kept as much as possible to myself; and if I endeavour to undeceive people as to the rest of his conduct, who will believe me? The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy is so violent, that it would be the death of half the good people in Meryton to attempt to place him in an amiable light. I am not equal to it. Wickham will soon be gone; and therefore it will not signify to anyone here what he really is. Some time hence it will be all found out, and then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before. At present I will say nothing about it."

Jane Austen     Pride and Prejudice

On the 22d of November the walls of the city were placarded with a sheet headed “EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNICATION”:

John Reed     Ten Days That Shook the World

The tumult of Elizabeth's mind was allayed by this conversation. She had got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight, and was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever she might wish to talk again of either. But there was still something lurking behind, of which prudence forbade the disclosure. She dared not relate the other half of Mr. Darcy's letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been valued by her friend. Here was knowledge in which no one could partake; and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off this last encumbrance of mystery. "And then," said she, "if that very improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its value!"

Jane Austen     Pride and Prejudice

"Monsieur de Morcerf has received a letter from Franz, announcing his immediate return." Valentine turned pale, and leaned her hand against the gate. "Ah heavens, if it were that! But no, the communication would not come through Madame de Villefort."

Alexandre Dumas, Pere     The Count of Monte Cristo

"Ivan Karamazov, after receiving yesterday a communication of such importance from the real murderer, did not stir. Why didn't he report it at once? Why did he put it all off till morning? I think I have a right to conjecture why. His health had been giving way for a week past: he had admitted to a doctor and to his most intimate friends that he was suffering from hallucinations and seeing phantoms of the dead: he was on the eve of the attack of brain fever by which he has been stricken down to-day. In this condition he suddenly heard of Smerdyakov's death, and at once reflected, 'The man is dead, I can throw the blame on him and save my brother. I have money. I will take a roll of notes and say that Smerdyakov gave them me before his death.' You will say that was dishonorable: it's dishonorable to slander even the dead, and even to save a brother. True, but what if he slandered him unconsciously? What if, finally unhinged by the sudden news of the valet's death, he imagined it really was so? You saw the recent scene: you have seen the witness's condition. He was standing up and was speaking, but where was his mind?

Fyodor Dostoyevsky     The Brothers Karamazov

The prioress alone can hold communication with strangers. The others can see only their immediate family, and that very rarely. If, by chance, an outsider presents herself to see a nun, or one whom she has known and loved in the outer world, a regular series of negotiations is required. If it is a woman, the authorization may sometimes be granted; the nun comes, and they talk to her through the shutters, which are opened only for a mother or sister. It is unnecessary to say that permission is always refused to men.

Victor Hugo     Les Miserables

I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question, but, on the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. "Oh, I had forgotten Celine! Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my heart's core. Strange!" he exclaimed, suddenly starting again from the point. "Strange that I should choose you for the confidant of all this, young lady; passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if it were the most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell stories of his opera-mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you! But the last singularity explains the first, as I intimated once before: you, with your gravity, considerateness, and caution were made to be the recipient of secrets. Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm it: but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me." After this digression he proceeded--

Charlotte Bronte     Jane Eyre

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