It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact, as it must be, if gravitation in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in it. And this is one reason why I desired you would not ascribe innate gravity to me. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether this agent be material or immaterial, I have left open to the consideration of my readers.
Isaac NewtonRelated topics
act action agent anything believe body certain distance faculty fall force gravitation great inanimate left man matter mediation open reason sense should something thinking Laws EpicurusRelated quotes
We should take counsel of both nature and art in the consideration of this question. When the architect intends a grand structure, he makes the foundation broad and strong. We should imitate this prudence in laying the foundations of the future Republic. There is a law of harmony in all departments of nature. The oak is in the acorn. The career and destiny of individual men are enfolded in the elements of which they are composed. The same is true of a nation. It will be something or it will be nothing. It will be great, or it will be small, according to its own essential qualities. As these are rich and varied, or pure and simple, slender and feeble, broad and strong, so will be the life and destiny of the nation itself. The stream cannot rise higher than its source. The ship cannot sail faster than the wind. The flight of the arrow depends upon the strength and elasticity of the bow, and as with these, so with a nation.
Frederick Douglass
How you deal with it I must and will leave to you, not out of despair or resignation but in deference to my conscience, that broken clock which I believe is now chiming one of its occasional right hours. I will not question your reasons. It is enough for you to tell me that you wish to keep this distance between us, and it will always be enough. Know that a single word will bring me running, but unless and until it pleases you to give it, I will expect nothing, force nothing, and contrive nothing contrary to your wishes.
I desire you as deeply as I ever have, but I understand that the fervor of a desire is irrelevant to its justice. I want your heart on merit, in mutual trust, or not at all, because I cannot bear to see you made uneasy by me. Not for all the world would I do so again, and I leave it to you to tell me how to proceed, if and when you can, if and when you will.
Scott Lynch
Magnets have an inherent quality that they can adhere to each other, so there are certain things you can do with magnets that you can't do with non-magnetic material. There are certain characteristic things you can do with very heavy things you can't do with very light things. By that, I mean it seems to me that very light things and very small things have a different characteristic way that they should be arranged, and big heavy things have a different characteristic way they should be arranged. That's subjective. I can't prove that to you. So my work is essentially combining particles – but again, combining particles according to the properties of individual particles, not imposing properties on the particles. These particles, of course, always work in a gravitational space and meet the plane of resistance that you always meet, as long as you aren't the center of the earth.
Carl Andre
The personality market, the most decisive effect and symptom of the great salesroom, underlies the all pervasive distrust and self-alienation so characteristic of metropolitan people. Without common values and mutual trust, the cash nexus that links one man to another in transient contact has been made subtle in a dozen ways, and made to bite deeper into all areas of life and relations. People are required by the salesman ethic and convention to pretend interest in others in order to manipulate them. In the course of time, and as this ethic spreads, it is got on to. Still, it is conformed to as part of one;s job and one's style of life, but now with a winking eye, for one knows that manipulation is inherent in every human contact. Men are estranged from one another as each secretly tries to make an instrument of the other, and in time a full circle is made: one makes an instrument of himself and is estranged from it also.
C. Wright Mills
Human dignity has long been understood in this country to be innate. When the framers proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that 'all men are created equal' and 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights', they referred to a vision of mankind in which all humans are created in the image of God and therefore of inherent worth. That vision is the foundation upon which this nation was built. The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity, any more than they lost their humanity, because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.
Clarence Thomas