Quotes on Initials

Prayer is not getting things from God. That is a most initial stage; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God: I tell Him what I know He knows in order that I may get to know it as He does.

Chaos theory, a more recent invention, is equally fertile ground for those with a bent for abusing sense. It is unfortunately named, for 'chaos' implies randomness. Chaos in the technical sense is not random at all. It is completely determined, but it depends hugely, in strangely hard-to-predict ways, on tiny differences in initial conditions.

It may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena.

Every paint-stroke takes you farther and farther away from your initial concept. And you have to be thankful for that.

Chess teaches you to control the initial excitement you feel when you see something that looks good and it trains you to think objectively when you're in trouble

Bad habits are easy to develop but difficult to live with. Good habits are difficult to develop, but easy to live with. If you are willing to be uncomfortable for little while, so you can press past the initial pain of change, in the long run, your life will be much better.

One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have to act through the laws of physics.

The initial configuration of the universe may have been chosen by God, or it may itself have been determined by the laws of science. In either case, it would seem that everything in the universe would then be determined by evolution according to the laws of science, so it is difficult to see how we can be masters of our fate.

Every intimacy carries secreted somewhere below its initial lovely surfaces, the ever-coiled makings of complete catastrophe.

As far as I can recall, the initial shiver of inspiration [for Lolita] was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes, who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.

What I want is to live of that initial and primordial something that was what made some things reach the point of aspiring to be human.

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.