The expression QUOTES

145 " Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.

The human beauty we're talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic beauty. Its power and appeal are universal. It has nothing to do with sex or cultural norms. What it seems to have to do with, really, is human beings' reconciliation with the fact of having a body. "

― David Foster Wallace , Both Flesh and Not: Essays

147 " Torch strode over and stared at the fiver" What's this?" " Some change for you. Buy your flunkies some decent clothes." I dipped my fingers into the jar and smeared think fragrant paste on my face. Torch frowned, mirroring the expression on my aunt's face." Change?" Oh, for crying out loud. " It's money. We don't use coins as currency now, we use paper money." He stared at me. " I'm insulting you! I'm saying your poor, like a beggar, because your undead are in rags. I'm offering to clothe your servants for you, because you can't provide for them. Come on, how thick do you have to be?" He jerked his hand up. A jet of flame erupted from his fingers, sliding against the ward. I jerked back from the windows on instinct. The fire died. I leaned forward. " Do you understand now?" More fire. " What's the matter? Was that not enough money? "

149 " The *second task* consists in distinguishing the mode of knowing operative in ontology as science of Being, and this requires us to *work out the methodological structure of ontological-transcendental differentiation*. In early antiquity it was already seen that Being and its attributes in a certain way underlie beings and precede them and so are *a proteron*, an earlier. The term denoting this character by which Being precedes beings is the expression *a priori*, *apriority*, being earlier or prior. As *a priori*, Being is earlier than beings. The meaning of this *a priori*, the sense of the earlier and its possibility, has never been cleared up. The question has not even once been raised as to why the determinations of Being and Being itself must have this character of priority and how such priority is possible. To be earlier is a determination of time, but it does not pertain to the temporal order of the time that we measure by the clock; rather, it is an earlier that belongs to the " inverted world." Therefore, this earlier which characterises Being is taken by the popular understanding to be the later. Only the interpretation of Being by way of temporality can make clear why and how this feature of being earlier, apriority, goes together with Being. The *a priori* character of Being and of all the structures of Being accordingly calls for a specific kind of approach and way of apprehending Being―*a priori cognition*.The basic components of *a priori* cognition constitute what we call *phenomenology*. Phenomenology is the name for the method of ontology, that is, of scientific philosophy. Rightly conceived, phenomenology is the concept of a method. It is therefore precluded from the start that phenomenology should pronounce any theses about Being which have specific content, thus adopting a so-called standpoint." ―Martin Heidegger, from_The Basic Problems of Phenomenology_ "

151 " Issib wasn't thrilled to see him. I'm busy and don't need interruptions." " This is the household library," said Nafai. " This is where we always come to do research." " See? You're interrupting already." " Look, I didn't say anything, I just came in here, and you started picking at me the second I walked in the door." " I was hoping you'd walk back out." " I can't. Mother sent me here." Nafai walked over behind Issib, who was floating comfortably in the air in front of his computer display. It was layered thirty pages deep, but each page had only a few words on it, so he could see almost everything at once. Like a game of solitaire, in which Issib was simply moving fragments from place to place. The fragments were all words in weird languages. The ones Nafai recognized were very old. " What language is that?" Nafai asked pointing, to one. Issib signed. " I'm so glad you're not interrupting me." " What is it, some ancient form of Vijati?" " Very good. It's Slucajan, which came from Obilazati, the original form of Vijati. It's dead now." " I read Vijati, you know." " I don't." " Oh, so you're specializing in ancient, obscure languages that nobody speaks anymore, including you?" " I'm not learning these languages, I'm researching lost words." " If the whole language is dead, then all the words are lost." " Words that used to have meanings, but that died out or survived only in idiomatic expressions. Like 'dancing bear.' What's a bear, do you know?" " I don't know. I always thought it was some kind of graceful bird." " Wrong. It's an ancient mammal. Known only on Earth, I think, and not brought here. Or it died out soon. It was bigger than a man, very powerful. A predator." " And it danced?" " The expression used to mean something absurdly clumsy. Like a dog walking on its hind legs." " And now it means the opposite. That's weird. How could it change?" " Because there aren't any bears. THe meaning used to be obvious, because everybody knew a bear and how clumsy it would look, dancing. But when the bears were gone, the meaning could go anywhere. Now we use it for a person who's extremely deft in getting out of an embarrassing social situation. It's the only case that we use the word bear anymore. And you see a lot of people misspelling it, too." " Great stuff. You doing a linguistics project?" " No." " What's this for, then?" " Me." " Just collection old idioms?" " Lost words." " Like bear? The word isn't lost, Issya. It's the bears that are gone." " Very good, Nyef. You get full credit for the assignment. Go away now. "

153 " What then is the relation of law to morality? Law cannot prescribe morality, it can prescribe only external actions and therefore it should prescribe only those actions whose mere fulfillment, from whatever motive, the state adjudges to be conducive to welfare. What actions are these? Obviously such actions as promote the physical and social conditions requisite for the expression and development of free—or moral—personality.... Law does not and cannot cover all the ground of morality. To turn all moral obligations into legal obligations would be to destroy morality. Happily it is impossible. No code of law can envisage the myriad changing situations that determine moral obligations. Moreover, there must be one legal code for all, but moral codes vary as much as the individual characters of which they are the expression. To legislate against the moral codes of one’s fellows is a very grave act, requiring for its justification the most indubitable and universally admitted of social gains, for it is to steal their moral codes, to suppress their characters. "

155 " Incidentally, am I alone in finding the expression “it turns out” to be incredibly useful? It allows you to make swift, succinct, and authoritative connections between otherwise randomly unconnected statements without the trouble of explaining what your source or authority actually is. It’s great. It’s hugely better than its predecessors “I read somewhere that...” or the craven “they say that...” because it suggests not only that whatever flimsy bit of urban mythology you are passing on is actually based on brand new, ground breaking research, but that it is research in which you yourself were intimately involved. But again, with no actual authority anywhere in sight. Anyway, where was I? "

― Douglas Adams , The Salmon of Doubt (Dirk Gently, #3)

157 " To sublime: to pass directly from the solid to the vapor state.
To sublimate: to divert the expression of an instinctual desire or impulse from its primitive form to one that is considered more socially or culturally acceptable.
Sublime: of outstanding spiritual, intellectual, or moral worth. "

― Rachel Klein , The Moth Diaries

159 " Art is the expression of an enormous preference. "

― Wyndham Lewis