Paul de Man Quotes

Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at least a point that could be called a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure.

Paul de Man

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• Modernity

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Quotes to Explore

• Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity.

  

  L. Frank Baum
  • America
  • Present
  • Dark

• This is the conundrum of the present regimes in the Arab world. They still want to control youth; they want to be in control as they did in the 1950s and '60s. But that doesn't work anymore. Now with just a Wi-Fi link, you can understand what's happening in the world.

  

  Bassem Youssef
  • World
  • Work
  • Control

• The entertainment medium of film is particularly tuned to the present imaginations of people at large. A lot of fiction is intensely nostalgic.

  

  J. G. Ballard
  • People
  • Present
  • Film

• The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

  

  Abraham Lincoln
  • History
  • High
  • Think

• We all present versions of ourselves. The person you are at work is not the same person you are at home. The face we present in our most intimate relationships is not the face we present to the world.

  

  Val McDermid
  • World
  • Work
  • Home

• Our present moment is a mystery that we are part of. Here and now is where all the wonder of life lies hidden. And make no mistake about it, to strive to live completely in the present is to strive for what already is the case.

  

  Wayne Dyer
  • Life
  • Live
  • Present

• You sit at your computer for hours, then slave away at your job that you may or may not like. You don't know how to explain to them that the time when you feel alive or present is when you are writing.

  

  Karen Bender
  • Time
  • Writing
  • May

• The future is no more uncertain than the present.

  

  Walt Whitman
  • Future
  • Present
  • More

• The usefulness of a meeting rises with the square of the number of people present.

  

  Lane Kirkland
  • People
  • Present
  • Meeting

• Narrativity presumes a special taste for plot. And this taste for plot was always very present in the Anglo-Saxon countries and that explains their high quality of detective novels.

  

  Umberto Eco
  • High
  • Quality
  • Present

• Every human being, of whatever origin, of whatever station, deserves respect. We must each respect others even as we respect ourselves.

  

  U Thant
  • Respect
  • Human
  • Origin

• All our own present experiences are primordial. What could be more primordial than experience itself?

  

  Edith Stein
  • Experience
  • Present
  • More

• The future is keeping you out of the present time.

  

  Van Morrison
  • Time
  • Future
  • Present

• When you come across someone colorful and vibrant maybe in the present it isn't so interesting, but, in the past, it sheds a wonderful light onto living life.

  

  Garrett Hedlund
  • Life
  • Past
  • Interesting

• We are a people trying not only to solve the problems of the present: unemployment, inflation... but we are attempting on a larger scale to fulfill the promise of America.

  

  Barbara Jordan
  • People
  • Trying
  • America

• You lose your habitual behavior, which allowed you to sort of zone out. You have to be here, you have to be now, you have to be present.

  

  Sally Field
  • Present
  • Lose
  • Behavior

• One thing that did get me into a lot of different types of music was when I was very young, the local record store went out of business and they were selling off all the vinyl. I remember going in – I was probably 16 or 17 and I'd just gotten a record player as a present. It was like hitting the jackpot: all these records for $3 apiece.

  

  Imelda May
  • Music
  • Business
  • Remember

• I don't want to look back and be like, 'You had it all, and you weren't even present for it. You weren't able to enjoy it.' I want to be here, be now and be grateful.

  

  Benjamin Hammond "Ben" Haggerty
  • Want
  • Present
  • Enjoy

• When I was a kid, we all knew who Niki Lauda was. He was a hero, a living legend in Germany. Everybody knows him. And he's still very present on TV because he's commenting for Formula One.

  

  Daniel Bruhl
  • Present
  • Hero
  • Living

• Throughout your life, you've been influenced by what you have done in the past, what you have been told you can and cannot do, and what your present circumstances seem to dictate.

  

  Debbie Ford
  • Life
  • Done
  • Past

• I think I'm developing a kind of subconscious loathing of the word 'franchise.' I just think of something that's packaged, something you can buy on a shelf and is immediately disposable. I don't know. It's a really weird word for me.

  

  Kate Winslet
  • Think
  • Know
  • Me

• Dictators are ludicrous characters, and, you know, in my career and in my life, I've always enjoyed sort of inhabiting these ludicrous, larger-than-life characters that somehow exist in the real world.

  

  Sacha Baron Cohen
  • Life
  • World
  • Real

• Patriotic societies seem to think that the way to educate school children in a democracy is to stage bigger and better flag-saluting.

  

  S. I. Hayakawa
  • Children
  • School
  • Democracy

• Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at least a point that could be called a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure.

  

  Paul de Man
  • Present
  • Origin
  • Modernity