Quotes About Figures

Mythical figures live many lives, die many deaths, and in this they differ from the characters we find in novels, who can never go beyond the single gesture. But in each of these lives and deaths all the others are present, and we can hear their echo. Only when we become aware of a sudden consistency between incompatibles can we say we have crossed the threshold of myth.

Think not less of me in my omniscience, said Brahma, stifling a yawn with his scepter, if I admit to having, for the moment, forgotten these figures.

It is by studium that I am interested in so many photographs, whether I receive them as political testimony or enjoy them as good historical scenes: for it is culturally (this connotation is present in studium) that I participate in the figures, the faces, the gestures, the settings, the actions.

Had Napoleon been thoroughly unselfish, Grant suggested, he would have been the greatest man in history, such was his military genius. When a young woman on board asked Grant to name the two figures he detested most in history, he shot back, "Napoleon and Robespierre."114

The draperies that clothe figures must show that they are inhabited by these figures, enveloping them neatly to show the posture and motion of such figures, and avoiding the confusion of many folds, especially over the prominent parts, so that these may be evident

They made figures of brass, and tried to induce souls to indwell them. In some accounts we read that they succeeded; Friar Bacon was credited with one such Homunculus; so was Albertus Magnus, and, I think, Paracelsus. He had, at least, a devil in his long sword 'which taught him all the cunning pranks of past and future mountebanks

My life is a crystal teardrop. There are snowflakes falling in the teardrop and little figures trudging in slow motion.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

Before I met Ayn Rand, I was a logical positivist, and accordingly, I didn't believe in absolutes, moral or otherwise. If I couldn't prove a proposition with facts and figures, it was without merit.

his thoughts, I knew, were far away, in those distant ages where he moved at ease, where time passed in centuries and all the figures were defaced and the names of his companions were corrupt readings of words of quite other meaning.

Joel did not quite believe in picture actresses' grief. They have other preoccupations—they are beautiful rose-gold figures blown full of life by writers and directors, and after hours they sit around and talk in whispers and giggle innuendoes, and the ends of many adventures flow through them.

When one of my Japanese teacups is broken, I imagine that the real cause was not the careless hand of a maid but the anxieties of the figures inhabiting the curves of that porcelain. Their grim decision to commit suicide doesn't shock me: they used the maid as one of us might use a gun.

It seems that civilizations exist only to produce art and literature; words are what speak for them and remain. How do we know that these extra-human figures aren't truly real? It tortures my mind to think this might be the case…

Perhaps the novel is a more perfect life and reality, which God creates through us. Perhaps we live only to create it. It seems that civilization exists only to produce art and literature; words are what speak for it and remain. How do we know that these extra-human figures aren't truly real? It tortures my mind to think this might be the case

As actors, you are social figures, and you are setting an example for people to follow, so I feel very blessed that my work has allowed me to influence people in some way.

I went to government for making these changes. I remember a number of guys among these important figures.

It is very difficult to know what may be in the back of the mind of public figures.

So right off, I'm going to have to say that a lot of people have been comparing Life Is Killing Me to World Coming Down, and I think a lot of those people equate art and sales figures, and I don't do that.

I keep trying to imagine a universe in which too many public figures declaring themselves feminists would be a bad thing.

I wish I had a million in the bank. I like round figures. I am a round figure.

I had a lot of trouble with my coaches. Your coaches are father figures - you look to what they say. Well, the reality of it is, they are just shmucks.

I literally view wrestling as the time when I was playing with action figures. You can make anything out of it. You can make it be fun.

I do remember watching the cartoon, 'Rambo,' and I had some of the action figures.

In my generation, history was taught in terms of grand figures, men on whom the destiny of the nation hinged, quintessential heroes.