#ought

I suddenly knew that religion, God - something beyond everyday life - was there to be found, provided one is really willing. And I saw that though what I felt in the church was only imagination, it was a step on the way; because imagination itself can be a kind of willingness - a pretence that things are real, due to one's longing for them. ↗

— Dodie Smith

#faith #god #imagination #longing #religion

Even those novelists most commonly deemed “philosophical” have sometimes answered with an emphatic no. Iris Murdoch, the longtime Oxford philosopher and author of some two dozen novels treating highbrow themes like consciousness and morality, argued that philosophy and literature were contrary pursuits. Philosophy calls on the analytical mind to solve conceptual problems in an “austere, unselfish, candid” prose, she said in a BBC interview broadcast in 1978, while literature looks to the imagination to show us something “mysterious, ambiguous, particular” about the world. Any appearance of philosophical ideas in her own novels was an inconsequential reflection of what she happened to know. “If I knew about sailing ships I would put in sailing ships,” she said. “And in a way, as a novelist, I would rather know about sailing ships than about philosophy. ↗

— Iris Murdoch

#imagination

When the Internet publicity began, I remember being struck by how much the world was not the way we thought it was, that there was infinite variation in how people viewed the world. ↗

— Eric Schmidt

#being #how #i #i remember #infinite

The only thing faster than the speed of thought is the speed of forgetfulness. Good thing we have other people to help us remember. ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#forgetful #forgetfullness #forgetfulness #forgetting #memory

I told the President, I told Rahm Emanuel and others in the administration that I thought the policy they took to try to bring about negotiations is counter-productive, because when you give the Palestinians hope that the United States will do its negotiating for them, they are not going to sit down and talk. ↗

— Charles Schumer

#administration #because #bring #down #give

It was my kingdom. And when enemies attack your kingdom, you don’t flee. You show them why it’s your kingdom. ↗

— Olan Rogers

#personality #thoughtful #inspirational

My mum is Brazilian and very proud. I'd love to do a Brazilian film. I've been brought up in the Brazilian culture. My mum brought me up on my own, I cook Brazilian food, I've never spoken a word of English to my mother. ↗

— Kaya Scodelario

#brazilian #brought #cook #culture #english

He always applied all his means, all his faculties, all his attention to the action or discussion of the moment, into everything he put passion. Hence the enormous advantage he had over his adversaries, for few people are entirely absorbed by one thought, or one action at one moment. ↗

— Caulaincourt on Napoleon

#inspiration #napoleon-boneparte #passion #thought #inspirational

But let no one imagine that we were mere ascetics. There is no more complex pleasure than thought, and it was to thought that we delivered ourselves over. ↗

— Jorge Luis Borges

#pleasure #thought #imagination

We're all entitled to our different likes and dislikes. Imagine the world if we all liked the same things. ↗

— Malia Ann Haberman

#chase-tinker #ideas #imagination #magic #thoughts