Quotes from Samuel Alexander

The thing of which the act of perception is the perception is experienced as something not mental.

The interval between a cold expectation and a warm desire may be filled by expectations of varying degrees of warmth or by desires of varying degrees of coldness.

We cannot therefore say that mental acts contain a cognitive as well as a conative element.

Hence, in desiring, the more the enjoyment is delayed, the more fancy begins to weave about the object images of future fruition, and to clothe the desired object with properties calculated to inflame the impulse.

It is more difficult to designate this form of conation on its practical side by a satisfactory name.

Psychology is the science of the act of experiencing, and deals with the whole system of such acts as they make up mental life.

It may be added, to prevent misunderstanding, that when I speak of contemplated objects in this last phrase as objects of contemplation, the act of contemplation itself is of course an enjoyment.

Both expectations and memories are more than mere images founded on previous experience.

Curiosity begins as an act of tearing to pieces or analysis.

But though cognition is not an element of mental action, nor even in any real sense of the word an aspect of it, the distinction of cognition and conation has if properly defined a definite value.

When we come to images or memories or thoughts, speculation, while always closely related to practice, is more explicit, and it is in fact not immediately obvious that such processes can be described in any sense as practical.

Mental life is indeed practical through and through. It begins in practice and it ends in practice.

The perceptive act is a reaction of the mind upon the object of which it is the perception.

It is convenient to distinguish the two kinds of experience which have thus been described, the experienc-ing and the experienc-ed, by technical words.

Thus the same object may supply a practical perception to one person and a speculative one to another, or the same person may perceive it partly practically and partly speculatively.

You can mark in desire the rising of the tide, as the appetite more and more invades the personality, appealing, as it does, not merely to the sensory side of the self, but to its ideal components as well.

An expectation is a future object, recognised as belonging to me.

Both expectations and memories are more than mere images founded on previous experience.

Psychology is the science of the act of experiencing, and deals with the whole system of such acts as they make up mental life.

Time is the Mind of Space.

Money is not energy. Wars would also arise as competing political forces saw opportunities to advance, but military expenditure would simply draw more energy and funds away from maintaining social systems and infrastructure, generally leading to the fragmentation or breakdown of centralised systems of administration, governance, and rule.

While not everyone can be expected to be an 'expert' in all matters of governance, we know that any of us might one day be called upon to serve on the People's Council,

The mental act of sensation which issues in reflex movement is so simple as to defy analysis.

In the perception of a tree we can distinguish the act of experiencing, or perceiving, from the thing experienced, or perceived.