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21 " Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war. If it is held that the instinct for preserving the species should always be obeyed at the expense of other instincts, whence do we derive this rule of precedence? To listen to that instinct speaking in its own case and deciding in its own favour would be rather simple minded. Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of all the rest. By the very act of listening to one rather than to others we have already prejudged the case. If we did not bring to the examination of our instincts a knowledge of their comparative dignity we could never learn it from them. And that knowledge cannot itself be instinctive: the judge cannot be one of the parties judged: or, if he is, the decision is worthless and there is no ground for placing preservation of the species above self-preservation or sexual appetite. "
― C.S. Lewis , The Abolition of Man
22 " To be a hero is to become a paradox. The very act of wanting to be a hero implies that you wish danger upon others in order to save them, for one cannot be a hero without needing someone to save. "
23 " To be a hero is to become a paradox. The very act of wanting to be a hero implies that you wish danger upon others in order to save them, for one cannot be a hero with needing someone to save. "
24 " To be a hero is to become a paradox. The very act of wanting to be a hero implies that you wish danger upon others, for one cannot be a hero with needing someone to save. "
25 " To be a hero is to become a paradox. The very act of wanting to be a hero implies that you wish danger upon others, for one cannot be a hero without needing someone to save. "
26 " Corporate irony not only ridicules the thing it is selling but the very act of selling it. In the process it disarms critics by making anyone who goes against the flow of commerce seem clueless. "
― David Denby
27 " In life there are perfect moments. You cannot plan them - the very act interferes with the laws of the universe - but you must be ready to recognise them when they come. "
― Chloe Thurlow
28 " When tragedy comes like this, at first it is complete. You do not need to think it over, or decide what it means. For it is far ahead of you, and the very act of acknowledging it means letting it go. But then it comes round again - and it goes through you and is worse than before. "
29 " On evenings, I spent the entire study period reading....From that time on, the world began to broaden around me, beyond any tangible limits. The world, as portrayed in those works destined for young people, was divided in two: an ordinary, everyday world, brutal and unresponding to desires, and a spacious, logical world, about all kind, interesting and desirable. Wasn't the very act of reading a pleasure more substantial than that of playing or eating, for instance, even when one was starved? "
30 " In its encounter with Nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos. And the cumulative worldwide build-up of knowledge over time converts science into something only a little short of a trans-national, trans-generational meta-mind. "
― Carl Sagan , The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
31 " Inspiration can be a wonderful thing, but it can also be quite fickle ... If you want to be able to call on inspiration reliably then you need to work on it with regularity. Someone once said that if you only go out with a bucket to collect water when it's raining, sometimes you'll get water. But if you go out with your bucket every day, even when it's not raining, sometimes you'll catch unexpected rain. And also, a strange thing may happen: that the very act of going out with your bucket may actually provoke such rain. "
― Etienne de L'Amour , Time and Time Again (Shadowlands, #6)
32 " A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket. Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to the imagination than the memory. "
33 " For some, the very act of intelligence gathering seems illegitimate when applied to the crime of terrorism. "
