Eva Hoffman Quotes
It is a sunny fall afternoon and I’m engaged in one of my favorite pastimes—picking chestnuts. I’m playing alone under the spreading, leafy, protective tree. My mother is sitting on a bench nearby, rocking the buggy in which my sister is asleep. The city, beyond the lacy wall of trees, is humming with gentle noises. The sun has just passed its highest point and is warming me with intense, oblique rays. I pick up a reddish brown chestnut, and suddenly, through its warm skin, I feel the beat as if of a heart. But the beat is also in everything around me, and everything pulsates and shimmers as if it were coursing with the blood of life. Stooping under the tree, I’m holding life in my hand, and I am in the center of a harmonious, vibrating transparency. For that moment, I know everything there is to know. I have stumbled into the very center of plenitude, and I hold myself still with fulfillment, before the knowledge of my knowledge escapes me.
Quotes to Explore
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I'm not sure if being known opened or closed doors for me.
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When your conscience says law is immoral, don't follow it.
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Food production has affected the environment more than any other activity humans have engaged in. Humanity devotes more land to food production than anything else - roughly a third of the surface area of the earth, much of which was once forest but has been converted by humans into farms or grazing lands.
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Iraq did not spontaneously opt for disarmament. They did it as part of a ceasefire, so they were forced to do it, otherwise the war might have gone on. So the motivation has been very different.
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I think you're attracted to things that are different from yourself in a character because it's more interesting, and you get to play out a fantasy version of yourself.
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The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves.
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The basic law of capitalism is you or I, not both you and I.
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It will be a difficult couple of days. It's difficult now and it will be difficult tomorrow.
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The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you, and all it contains.
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We think the Puritans always dressed in black and white, which they didn't. They loved very bright colors. And there were other differences in perceptions that gave one a very different view of them.
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I thought martial arts was going to help me with my movies and TV stuff, but I realized it would not.
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I met Ray Charles at 14, and he was 16. But he was like a hundred years older than me.
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Before going on 'X Factor' again, I felt like I'd tried everything else.
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I knew everything in the forest. I had a secret home tree, where I pretty much lived. I also liked rooftops and streetlamps. My parents would get calls saying 'He's out there again.'
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For me, it's really day to day. I don't really plan ahead and I like to be excited about what I'm wearing. Being on the road all the time, it's various articles of clothing that keep me inspired and feeling good. A fun or beautiful thing to wear can change your day. I think spontaneity and not adhering to any narrow styles keep me happy.
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Courage is poorly housed that dwells in numbers; the lion never counts the herd that are about him, nor weighs how many flocks he has to scatter.
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I may like L.A., but I want to know when the seasons are.
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When the gratitude of many to one throws away all shame, we behold fame.
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There is no intrinsic reason for the scarcity of capital.
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Exceptional people are often called crazy by the ordinary world.
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Intuition and concepts constitute... the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge.
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Aquatic invasive species are destroying the environment, damaging fisheries, and costing American taxpayers billions of dollars annually.
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It is a sunny fall afternoon and I’m engaged in one of my favorite pastimes—picking chestnuts. I’m playing alone under the spreading, leafy, protective tree. My mother is sitting on a bench nearby, rocking the buggy in which my sister is asleep. The city, beyond the lacy wall of trees, is humming with gentle noises. The sun has just passed its highest point and is warming me with intense, oblique rays. I pick up a reddish brown chestnut, and suddenly, through its warm skin, I feel the beat as if of a heart. But the beat is also in everything around me, and everything pulsates and shimmers as if it were coursing with the blood of life. Stooping under the tree, I’m holding life in my hand, and I am in the center of a harmonious, vibrating transparency. For that moment, I know everything there is to know. I have stumbled into the very center of plenitude, and I hold myself still with fulfillment, before the knowledge of my knowledge escapes me.
