Quotes About Context

Wright correctly diagnoses the failure of the New Quest (and its current heirs, such as the Jesus Seminar, Crossan and Burton L. Mack)" to fit Jesus' overall life and ministry into sufficiently historical contexts and the broader theological narratives of his day. Wright helpfully observes that the uniquely North American work of the Jesus Seminar members is so idiosyncratic that it is often not even taken seriously in other parts of the world (JVG 35 n. 23).

It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how things are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.

The person who recognizes the strategy of Too Many Details sees the forest while simultaneously being able to see the few trees that really matter. When approached by a stranger while walking on some city street at night, no matter how engaging he might be, you must never lose sight of the context: He is a stranger who approached you. A good exercise is to occasionally remind yourself of where you are and what your relationship is to the people around you.

The defense for too many details is simple: bring the context into conscious thought.

Context is the necessary link that gives meaning to everything we observe.

Often, knowing the language of a given prediction is more important than understanding exactly what a person says.

Who is she, why is she still here and when can I see her naked? Paris asked with an eyebrow wiggle

Misunderstanding literary form can result in misunderstanding Scripture.

The word obscene can be thought of as meaning "out of the scene" or "offstage."7

In order for a field or discipline to progress and mature, it needs to reach a point where it can thoughtfully reflect on its origins, seek out a diverse set of perspectives on those reflections, and place that synthesis into a context that is useful for how the community pictures the future.

However, interrupting technology workers is easy, because the consequences are invisible to almost everyone, even though the negative impact to productivity may be far greater than in manufacturing. For instance, an engineer assigned to multiple projects must switch between tasks, incurring all the costs of having to re-establish context, as well as cognitive rules and goals.

The genius of Monte Carlo—and its search-engine descendants—lies in the ability to extract meaningful solutions, in the face of overwhelming information, by recognizing that meaning resides less in the data at the end points and more in the intervening paths.

But "it is almost universally agreed that the word justify (dikaio?) does not mean 'make righteous.'"21 Rather, it designates the status — the relationship of righteousness.

Galvanized people can do careless things. It is in the extreme and emotion-laden moments that distance and coolness are most required. I am tempted to howl in rage. It is not my place to do so. My job is to try to dissect the event, place it in context and try to understand what has happened and why. From that, after the rage cools, plans for action can be made. Rage has its place, but actions must be taken with discipline and thought.

Indeed, now I come to think of it, nearly everything in the world is relevant to my situation.

It's only now that I realize that behaviour always has a context and precedents, it's what you do rather than what you are, although we often never recognise that context or understand what these precedents are.

Where any answer is possible, all answers are meaningless.

You seek to trap me into an inconsistency. If you were an amoeba who could consider individuality only in connection with single cells and if you were to ask a sperm whale, made up of thirty quadrillion cells, whether it was one or many, how could the sperm whale answer in a way that would be comprehensible to the amoeba?

The type of thing that one person would get mad at, another person would laugh at, is a good kind of zone to be in.

Not a sentence or a word is independent of the circumstances under which it is uttered.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

The environment is everything that isn't me.

The truth of good economic doctoring is to know the general principles, and to really know the specifics. To understand the context, and also, to understand that an economy may need some tender loving care, not just the so-called hard truths, if it's going to get by.

I wanted to put my present joy in the context of all the past pain, to show that there really is light at the end of the tunnel.