Quotes About Objects

With the passage of time, the psychology of people stays the same, but the tools and objects in the world change.

Human intelligence is highly flexible and adaptive, superb at inventing procedures and objects that overcome its own limits. The real powers come from devising external aids that enhance cognitive abilities.

Best mapping: Controls are mounted directly on the item to be controlled.        Ã¢â'¬Â¢  Second-best mapping: Controls are as close as possible to the object to be controlled.        Ã¢â'¬Â¢  Third-best mapping: Controls are arranged in the same spatial configuration as the objects to be controlled.

POET, The Psychology of Everyday Things

In the 1980s, in writing The Design of Everyday Things, I didn't take emotions into account. I addressed utility and usability, function and form, all in a logical, dispassionate way—even though I am infuriated by poorly designed objects. But now I've changed. Why? In part because of new scientific advances in our understanding of the brain and of how emotion and cognition are thoroughly intertwined.

Affordances, signifiers, mappings, and constraints can simplify our encounters with everyday objects. Failure to properly deploy these cues leads to problems.

overly sensitive to the souls of rooms and objects, the emanations

Where's the nobility in patching up a bunch of old tables and chairs? Corrosive to the soul, quite possibly. I've seen too many estates not to know that. Idolatry! Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn't it? And isn't the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?

Objects in the apartment wobbled with my fatigue: halos shimmered around the table lamp; the stripe of the wallpaper seemed to vibrate.

La gente muere, eso está claro. Pero la pérdida de ciertos objetos es tan trágica e innecesaria... Por puro descuido. En incendios y en guerras. Como el Partenón, que utilizaron como almacén de pólvora. Supongo que todo lo que logramos rescatar de la Historia es un milagro.

When we are sad—at least I am like this—it can be comforting to cling to familiar objects, to the things that don't change.

Scientific Naturalism Just what is scientific naturalism (hereafter, naturalism)? Succinctly put, it is the view that the spatio-temporal universe of physical objects, properties, events, and processes that are well established by scientific forms of investigation is all there is, was, or ever will be.

We treat ourselves both as objects of language and as speakers of language, both as objects of the symbolism and as symbols in it. And all the difficult paradoxes which go right back to Greek times and reappear in modern mathematics depend essentially on this.

La première question politique est de savoir quels objets et quels sujets sont concernés par ces institutions et ces lois, quelles formes de relations définissent proprement une communauté politique, quels objets ces relations concernent, quels sujets sont aptes à désigner ces objets et à en discuter. La politique est l'activité qui reconfigure les cadres sensibles au sein desquels se définissent des objets communs

While we have more scientific knowledge of the universe than any people ever had, it is not the type of knowledge that leads to an intimate presence within a meaningful universe.… The difficulty is that with the rise of the modern sciences we began to think of the universe as a collection of objects rather than as a communion of subjects.

Again,—we are gifted with a desire of knowledge, which is stimulated, rather than satisfied, by acquisition. We are here placed in the midst of objects of inquiry, which meet that desire; and there is still an unexplored physical, mental and moral creation around us. Here then are supplied the means of our further intellectual growth.

Our words have no inherent meaning to a corvid; they are arbitrary, but the natural communication system of these birds also involves arbitrary symbols (calls) that refer to specific objects and actions in their world.

Oil painting did to appearances what capital did to social relations. It reduced everything to the equality of objects. Everything became exchangeable because everything became a commodity.

horses were afraid of only two things: things that moved and things that didn't.

51. You might as well act as if objects had the colors, The Encyclopedia says. –Well, it is as you please. But what would it look like to act otherwise?

Daily I think about moving the most vulnerable objects to a "cool, dark place," but the truth is that I have little to no instinct for protection. Out of laziness, curiosity, or cruelty—if one can be cruel to objects—I have given them up to their diminishment.

All the objects which he contemplated with as much curiosity and admiration as gratitude, for if, in absorbing his dreams, they had delivered him from an obsession, they themselves were, in turn, enriched by the absorption; they shewed him the palpable realisation of his fancies, and they interested his mind; they took shape and grew solid before his eyes, and at the same time they soothed his troubled heart.

They must glaze, adorn, and dress the objects of the flesh, and bring them home to give satisfaction; and this they are able to do, in the service of a defiled imagination, beyond all expression.

The crowd was pushed back despite their best efforts. Some of them flung bottles and other objects toward the funnels and were surprised when they shifted course right back at them. Apparently you don't have to understand physics to protest.