Quotes on Objects

I must have something to engross my thoughts, some object in life which will fill this vacuum, and prevent this sad wearing away of the heart.

Some find Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran’s poetry preachy and moralizing, but I find it plenty enlightening—it’s hard to object to the melodic, cosmic of mysticism of a line like ‘That which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.’

It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great.

We have no knowledge, that is, no general principles drawn from the contemplation of particular facts, but what has been built up by pleasure, and exists in us by pleasure alone. The Man of Science, the Chemist and Mathematician, whatever difficulties and disgusts they may have had to struggle with, know and feel this. However painful may be the objects with which the Anatomist's knowledge is connected, he feels that his knowledge is pleasure; and where he has no pleasure he has no knowledge.

[T]hat I could find company and consolation and hope in an object pulled almost at random from a bookshelf--felt akin to an instance of religious grace.

The objects you decide to keep, the ones that gave you the spark of joy? Treasure them from now on. When you put things away, you can actually audibly say, 'Hey, thank you for the good work today...' By doing so, it becomes easier for you to put the objects away and treasure them, which prolongs the spark of joy environment.

The object of universities is not to make skillful lawyers, physicians or engineers. It is to make capable and cultivated human beings

…everything has a past. Everything – a person, an object, a word, everything. If you don’t know the past, you can’t understand the present and plan properly for the future.

We must therefore rediscover, after the natural world, the social world, not as an object or sum of objects, but as a permanent field or dimension of existence.

I don't mind a dirty girl. But what I find tragic is when we, as women, become not the subject of our own story but someone else's object.

Looting has an immense impact on our ability to understand our global cultural heritage; once these objects are gone, so too is our chance of piecing together humanity's shared story.

Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth.

The librarian's mission should be, not like up to now, a mere handling of the book as an object, but rather a know how (mise au point) of the book as a vital function.

Gourmandise is an impassioned, rational, and habitual preference for all objects which flatter the sense of taste.

Though the eye is small, the soul which sees through it is greater and vaster than all the things which it perceives. In fact, it is so great that it includes all objects, however large or numerous, within itself. For it is not so much that you are within the cosmos as that the cosmos is within you.

In the consciousness of the infinite, the conscious subject has for his object the infinity of his own nature.

The object of the Bible is not to tell how good men are, but how bad men can become good.

I have made a great discovery. I no longer believe in anything. Objects don't exist for me except in so far as a rapport exists between them and myself. When one attains this harmony, one reaches a sort of intellectual non-existence, what I can only describe as a sense of peace, which makes everything possible and right. Life then becomes a perpetual revelation. That is true poetry.

She learned the intricacy of loneliness: the horror of color, the roar of soundlessness and the menace of familiar objects lying still.

All art should have a certain mystery and should make demands on the spectator. Giving a sculpture or a drawing too explicit a title takes away part of that mystery so that the spectator moves on to the next object, making no effort to ponder the meaning of what he has just seen. Everyone thinks that he or she looks but they don't really, you know.

Design, by definition, is an eco-friendly activity, as its aim is to create objects which are meaningful and durable. Trends always cost resources, but a true designer creates wares which will remain relevant forever.