Alan Macfarlane Quotes

We live in a glass-soaked civilization, but as for the bird in the Chinese proverb who finds it so difficult to discover air, the substance is almost invisible to us. To use a metaphor drawn from glass, it may be revealing for us to re-focus, to stop looking through glass, and let our eyes dwell on it for a moment to contemplate its wonder.

Alan Macfarlane

• Wonder
• Civilization
• Glass

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Quotes to Explore

• I hadn't learned to read by third grade, which wasn't unusual for some kids. I knew something was wrong because I couldn't see or understand the words the way the other kids did. I wasn't the least bit bothered - until I was sent back to the second-grade classroom for reading help after school.

  

  Barbara Corcoran
  • School
  • Kids
  • Help

• The return we reap from generous actions is not always evident.

  

  Francesco Guicciardini
  • Always
  • Actions
  • Brainy

• I try to travel as much as I can... I'm always looking for a reason to.

  

  Imtiaz Ali
  • Travel
  • Try
  • Looking

• Of course I believe imaginative architecture can make a difference to people's lives, but I wish it was possible to divert some of the effort we put into ambitious museums and galleries into the basic architectural building blocks of society.

  

  Zaha Hadid
  • People
  • Believe
  • Society

• When I was younger, I used to pray that I would die before my mom. That's just how much my mom meant to me. I couldn't imagine being in this world without her. But then seeing cancer - seeing what it can do to somebody - as strong and as tough as she was, there was nothing she could do. Cancer is a dirty, dirty deal.

  

  Dak Prescott
  • Strong
  • Mom
  • Cancer

• Basically, my mother couldn't hold a tune and when I was a baby, a rather tactless baby, I would ask her not to sing... you can't get to sleep if someone is singing off key nearby.

  

  Vikram Seth
  • Mother
  • Sleep
  • Singing

• In order to defend the Chinese race, one must first defend the Confucian culture; and in order to defend the Confucian culture, one must first defend the State. This is because what preserves the race relies upon intelligence, which is in turn nurtured by Confucian education.

  

  Zhang Zhidong
  • Culture
  • Education
  • Chinese

• Many good sayings are to be found in holy books, but merely reading them will not make one religious.

  

  Ramakrishna
  • Good
  • Reading
  • Religious

• I was in Asia and people asked me about being considered sex symbol. I don't know if that's good or not, because where I come from, sex isn't something you're allowed to talk about.

  

  Bai Ling
  • People
  • Good
  • Me

• Virtue is not a mushroom, that springeth up of itself in one night when we are asleep, or regard it not; but a delicate plant, that groweth slowly and tenderly, needing much pains to cultivate it, much care to guard it, much time to mature it, in our untoward soil, in this world's unkindly weather.

  

  Isaac Barrow
  • Up
  • Time
  • World

• The greatest part of the job was... that was for nine years it was a pleasure to go to work.

  

  Jason Alexander
  • Work
  • Job

• We will discover through our own experience that this precious mind of love is the real wish-granting jewel, because it fulfills the pure wishes of both ourself and all living beings.

  

  Kelsang Gyatso
  • Mind
  • Real
  • Experience

• A just laicism allows religious freedom. The state does not impose religion but rather gives space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society, and therefore it allows these religions to be factors in building up society.

  

  Pope Benedict XVI
  • Up
  • Society
  • Freedom

• In the studio, I do try to have a thought in my head, so that it's not like a blank stare.

  

  Cindy Crawford

• If we want our regulators to do better, we have to embrace a simple idea: regulation isn't an obstacle to thriving free markets; it's a vital part of them.

  

  James Surowiecki
  • Free
  • Simple

• I think you have to challenge yourself constantly. Otherwise, it's boring.

  

  Janet McTeer
  • Challenge

• '8 Mile' is so revered, it's like, everywhere I go, somebody's talking about it.

  

  Omar Benson Miller

• Being a good host offsets the deprivation and loneliness of my youth.

  

  Alan Ladd
  • Good

• The role of a retired person is no longer to possess one.

  

  Simone de Beauvoir
  • Person
  • Role
  • Possess

• Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.

  

  Neil Armstrong
  • Desire
  • Wonder

• Christian spirituality was not a children's story. It wasn't cute or neat. It was mystical and odd and clean, and it was reaching into dirty. There was wonder in it and enchantment.

  

  Donald Miller
  • Children
  • Christian
  • Wonder

• In a language known to us, we have substituted the opacity of the sounds with the transparence of the ideas. But a language we donot know is a closed place in which the one we love can deceive us, making us, locked outside and convulsed in our impotence, incapable of seeing or preventing anything.

  

  Marcel Proust
  • Ideas
  • Language
  • Place

• We live in a glass-soaked civilization, but as for the bird in the Chinese proverb who finds it so difficult to discover air, the substance is almost invisible to us. To use a metaphor drawn from glass, it may be revealing for us to re-focus, to stop looking through glass, and let our eyes dwell on it for a moment to contemplate its wonder.

  

  Alan Macfarlane
  • Wonder
  • Civilization
  • Glass