Cradle Quotes - page 4
I stand at the seashore, alone, and start to think.
There are the rushing waves
mountains of molecules
each stupidly minding its own business
trillions apart
yet forming white surf in unison.Ages on ages
before any eyes could see
year after year
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
On a dead planet
with no life to entertain.Never at rest
tortured by energy
wasted prodigiously by the sun
poured into space.
A mite makes the sea roar. Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts.Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.Out of the cradle
onto dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe.
Richard Feynman
A mother-complex is not got rid of by blindly reducing the mother to human proportions. Besides that we run the risk of dissolving the experience "Mother" into atoms, thus destroying something supremely valuable and throwing away the golden key which a good fairy laid in our cradle. That is why mankind has always instinctively added the pre-existent divine pair to the personal parents-the "god"father and "god"-mother of the newborn child-so that, from sheer unconsciousness or shortsighted rationalism, he should never forget himself so far as to invest his own parents with divinity.
Carl Jung
There as elsewhere a cruel universe combined to crush a child. As though three or four vigorous brothers and sisters, with the best will, were not enough to crush any child, every one else conspired towards an education which he hated. From cradle to grave this problem of running order through chaos, direction through space, discipline through freedom, unity through multiplicity, has always been, and must always be, the task of education, as it is the moral of religion, philosophy, science, art, politics, and economy; but a boy's will is his life, and he dies when it is broken, as the colt dies in harness, taking a new nature in becoming tame. Rarely has the boy felt kindly towards his tamers. Between him and his master has always been war. Henry Adams never knew a boy of his generation to like a master, and the task of remaining on friendly terms with one's own family, in such a relation, was never easy.
Henry Adams
The tragedy of King impressed him intensely: "There you have it in the face!" he said - "the best and brightest man of his generation, with talents immeasurably beyond any of his contemporaries; with industry that has often sickened me to witness it; with everything in his favor but blind luck; hounded by disaster from his cradle, with none of the joy of life to which he was entitled, dying at last, with nameless suffering alone and uncared-for, in a California tavern.
Henry Adams
While utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the truth of all religions, there is neither in my heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the hopeful, loving and tender souls who believe that from all this discord will result a perfect harmony; that every evil will in some mysterious way become a good, and that above and over all there is a being who, in some way, will reclaim and glorify every one of the children of men; but for those who heartlessly try to prove that salvation is almost impossible; that damnation is almost certain; that the highway of the universe leads to hell; who fill life with fear and death with horror; who curse the cradle and mock the tomb, it is impossible to entertain other than feelings of pity, contempt and scorn.
Robert G. Ingersoll
This is the kind of slavery established by the most merciful God. The reason given for all this, is, that the persons whom they enslaved were heathen. You may enslave them because they are not orthodox. If you can find anybody who does not believe in me, the God of the Jews, you may steal his wife from his arms, and her babe from the cradle. If you can find a woman that does not believe in the Hebrew Jehovah, you may steal her prattling child from her breast. Can any one conceive of anything more infamous? Can any one find in the literature of this world more frightful words ascribed even to a demon?
Robert G. Ingersoll
I should be acting the part of an ungrateful servant, unworthy of the favours which unite my duty to your great kindness, if I were not to say that his Majesty [ Charles V ] forced me to go to him and pays the expenses of my journey, I start discontented because I have not fulfilled your wish and my obligation in presenting myself to my Lord [ Pope Paul III ] and yours, and working in obedience to his intentions [to paint the Pope's portrait].... But I promise as a true servant to pay interest on my return with a new picture in addition to the first.... So with your license, Padron mio unico, I shall go, whither I am called, and returning with the grace of God, I shall serve you with all the strength of the talents which I got from my cradle..
Titian
Dear Reader: The title of this book is composed of three words from my novel Cat's Cradle. A wampeter is an object around which the lives of many otherwise unrelated people may revolve. The Holy Grail would be a case in point. Foma are harmless untruths, intended to comfort simple souls. An example: "Prosperity is just around the corner." A granfalloon is a proud and meaningless association of human beings. Taken together, the words form as good an umbrella as any for this collection of some of the reviews and essays I've written, a few of the speeches I made.
Kurt Vonnegut
"Those who are pushing for a unilateral war in Iraq know full well that there is no exit strategy if we invade. The Iraqis are a multi-ethnic people filled with competing factions who in many cases would view a U. S. occupation as infidels invading the cradle of Islam...In Japan, American occupation forces quickly became 50,000 friends. In Iraq, they would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets.
Jim Webb
When I was born good fairies clustered round my cradle, showering me with wit, beauty, grace, freedom from dandruff, natural piety and other great gifts, but the Wicked Fairy Carabosse (who had not been invited to the party) crept to my side and screamed "Let him be cursed with Inability To Do Little Jobs Around The House", and so it has always been.
Robertson Davies
![Now, such an enterprise as would be the drawing and printing [by lithography ] of a series of, for instance, thirty pages of types of workmen, a sower, a digger, a woodcutter, a plowman, a wash-woman, then also a child's cradle or a man from the almshouse - well, the whole immeasurable field lies open, there are plenty of beautiful subjects - I should think the following would be the best way: as it is useful and necessary that Dutch drawings are made, printed, and spread, destined for the houses of workmen, a few persons should unite in order to use their full strength for this end. (Vincent van Gogh)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/30/vincent-van-gogh-almshouse-473330.webp)
From the cradle to the grave all our actions are guided by this principle. Open any book on sociology or jurisprudence, and you will find there the Government, its organization, its acts, filling so large a place that we ome to believe that there is nothing outside the Government and the world of statesmen.
Peter Kropotkin
Mr. Churchill you were given a mission.
- Yes
- I want to have been given your mission. I want your place in world events, the centrality of it. You were born in the cradle of a catapult!
- You are wrong. I found my mission.
- I disagree.
- If you must.
- Tell me: where is my mission? Where are my bunkers and trenches, my goddamn Gallipoli?
Dave Eggers
It is not likely that the history of psychology can be written in the next three centuries without mention of Freud's name and still claim to be a general history of psychology... Perhaps, had Freud been smothered in his cradle, the times would have produced a substitute, It is hard to say. The dynamics of history lack control experiments.
Edwin Boring
So we can all appreciate our own identities, our bloodlines, our beliefs, our backgrounds -- that tapestry is what makes us who we are. But the history of Africa -- which is both the cradle of human progress and a crucible of conflict -- shows us that when define ourselves narrowly, in opposition to somebody just because they're of a different tribe, or race, or religion -- and we ignore who is a good person or a bad person, are they working hard or not, are they honest or not, are they peaceful or violent -- when we start making distinctions solely based on status and not what people do, then we're taking the wrong path and we inevitably suffer in the end. This is why Martin Luther King called on people to be judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character. And in the same way, people should not be judged by their last name, or their religious faith, but by their content of their character and how they behave. Are they good citizens? Are they good people?
Barack Obama
