Surroundings Quotes 

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms.I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fibre and liquidsand Imight even be said to possess a mind.I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me? When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imaginationindeed, everything and anything except me.

Earlier, I have cautioned you against an outright pragmatist approach. Now I am cautioning you against an outright populist approach. Sometimes a populist decision is, in the long run, not beneficial to the masses. Neither pragmatism nor populism are fundamental political and socio-economic doctrines. Nor do I say that you should play it by ear. I have made this melancholy analysis in anguish. My jail surroundings have not influenced my objectivity. I do not want to see the whole world in a death-cell merely because I am in a death cell. I do not say that the High Court has pronounced a death sentence on the world because a law court has pronounced a perverse death sentence on me. I would be the happiest man if the gloomy winter of mankind were to give way to a shaft of sunlight and to coloured flowers. The world is very beautiful. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever". There is the beauty of the landscape, of the tall mountain, the green plains, the humped deserts. There is the beauty of the flowers and the forests, of the azure oceans and the meandering rivers. There is the splendour of architecture, the magnificence of music, and the sparkle of the dance. Above all, there is the beauty of man and woman, the most perfect creations of God.

There are experiences that most of us are hesitant to speak about, because they do not conform to everyday reality and defy rational explanation. These are not particular external occurrences, but rather events of our inner lives, which are generally dismissed as figments of the imagination and barred from our memory. Suddenly, the familiar view of our surroundings is transformed in a strange, delightful, or alarming way: it appears to us in a new light, takes on a special meaning. Such an experience can be as light and fleeting as a breath of air, or it can imprint itself deeply upon our minds.One enchantment of that kind, which I experienced in childhood, has remained remarkably vivid in my memory ever since. It happened on a May morning — I have forgotten the year — but I can still point to the exact spot where it occurred, on a forest path on Martinsberg above Baden, Switzerland. As I strolled through the freshly greened woods filled with bird song and lit up by the morning sun, all at once everything appeared in an uncommonly clear light. Was this something I had simply failed to notice before? Was I suddenly discovering the spring forest as it actually looked? It shone with the most beautiful radiance, speaking to the heart, as though it wanted to encompass me in its majesty. I was filled with an indescribable sensation of joy, oneness, and blissful security.I have no idea how long I stood there spellbound. But I recall the anxious concern I felt as the radiance slowly dissolved and I hiked on: how could a vision that was so real and convincing, so directly and deeply felt — how could it end so soon? And how could I tell anyone about it, as my overflowing joy compelled me to do, since I knew there were no words to describe what I had seen? It seemed strange that I, as a child, had seen something so marvelous, something that adults obviously did not perceive — for I had never heard them mention it.While still a child, I experienced several more of these deeply euphoric moments on my rambles through forest and meadow. It was these experiences that shaped the main outlines of my world view and convinced me of the existence of a miraculous, powerful, unfathomable reality that was hidden from everyday sight.

For the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our garments, depend on where we were born. We are molded and fashioned by our surroundings.

It seems as though the goal of my work has always been to dissolve myself completely into the sensations of the surroundings in order to then integrate this into a coherent painterly form.

M?hav?ra proclaimed a profound truth for all times to come when he said: "One who neglects or disregards the existence of earth, air, fire, water and vegetation disregards his own existence which is entwined with them." Jain cosmology recognizes the fundamental natural phenomenon of symbiosis or mutual dependence, which forms the basis of the modern day science of ecology. It is relevant to recall that the term "ecology" was coined in the latter half of the nineteenth century from the Greek word oikos , meaning "home", a place to which one returns. Ecology is the branch of biology which deals with the relations of organisms to their surroundings and to other organisms. The ancient Jain scriptural aphorism Parasparopagraho J?v?n?m (All life is bound together by mutual support and interdependence) is refreshingly contemporary in its premise and perspective. It defines the scope of modern ecology while extending it further to a more spacious "home". It means that all aspects of nature belong together and are bound in a physical as well as a metaphysical relationship. Life is viewed as a gift of togetherness, accommodation and assistance in a universe teeming with interdependent constituents.

He stands alone in unapproachable grandeur. Nineteen centuries roll away, and His character so lives that He inspires, millions of men with impassioned love. Other men may seem to be children of their surroundings; He became what He was despite His surroundings, and is the only one who can say in truth and holiness, "Do as I have done." He, the ideal, the perfect one of our race, appears in an age when such an ideal could not have been developed in act — could not have been conceived in thought. In the theory of development the perfection of humanity is the final result of man's history ages hence. Christ therefore is the great miracle which more than any other establishes the fact of miracles. Christ Himself is proof of His own miracles.

To see is one thing; to picture or visualise is another. A person can see things, only when his eyes are open, and when his surroundings are illuminated; but he can have pictures in his mind’s eye, when his eyes are shut and when the world is dark.

It would be simpler to say that the more you limit yourself the more normal you are and the more you expand yourself the more special you are. Here the implication of the word expansion goes beyond one’s own body and immediate family, say, maybe, expanding till your neighbourhood, colony, city, country, world... the entire creation. Expansion is directly proportional to your level of evolution — the more evolved you are, the more expanded you are and the more you will care about your surroundings. Satya Sai Baba was one such evolved, expanded human being... A person who is in vairagya, which is called one of the finalities in Sanatan Kriya, is least concerned about critics or acclaims. He just moves on the chosen path. It’s of no consequence to him who is saying what about him... good or bad. It’s his mission which is important and of utmost concern to him. No matter who says what, no matter what the circumstance, no matter what the occasion, he finds some way to put his point across and that too very effectively.

Do the identifications with fictions, the inner, tidal motions of pathos and libido which the novel, the film, the painting, the symphony unleash within us somehow immunize us against the humbler, less formed, but actual claims of suffering and of need in our surroundings? Does the cry in the tragic play muffle, even blot out, the cry in the street?

A person influenced by circumstances can become viciously envious or affectionately kind. Our company and our surroundings have a crucial effect on our consciousness. How important it is to be an instrument to bring out the inherent good of each other rather than the worst.

If you want to go down deep you do not need to travel far; indeed, you don't have to leave your most immediate and familiar surroundings.

One might almost say that the plant is the framework, the foundation of the animal, and that to form the animal it sufficed to cover this foundation with a system of organs fitted to establish relations consists forms with the world outside. It follows of the succession substance of the animal form two quite distinct classes. One class in a continual into its own assimilation molecules that the functions and of excretion; through these functions the animal incessantly transsurrounding bodies, later to reject these molecules when they have become heterogeneous to it. Through this first class of functions the animal exists only within itself; through the other class it exists outside; it is an inhabitant of the world, and not, like the plant, of the place which saw its birth. The animal feels and perceives its surroundings, reflects its sensations, moves of its own will under their influence, and, as a rule, can communicate by its voice its desires and its fears, its pleasures or its pains. I call organic life the sum of the functions of the former class, for all organised creatures, plants or animals, possess them to a more or less marked degree, and organised structure is the sole condition necessary to their exercise. The combined functions of the second class form the ' animal' life named because it is the exclusive attribute of the animal kingdom.

Using the scanty means at my disposal I attempted to paint the room together with several objects that I had gathered together,white on white. The white room is an interior to be made devoid of any specific sensualism emanated by objects. Ultimately it is a classic white canvas expanded into three-dimensional space. It was in these surroundings that I rolled across the room,my body wrapped up in pieces of white cloth like a pile of parcels. The pieces of cloth unwound themselves from my tense body,which for a long time remained in a catatonic position,with the soles of both my feet stuck as it were to the wall.[...] I had planned to do some bodypainting for the second part of the performance.[...] At first I poured black paint over the white objects,I painted Anni with the aim of making a “living painting”. But gradually a certain uncertainty crept in. This was caused by jealous fight between two photographers,which ended by one of them leaving the room in a rage.[...] My unease increased,as I became aware of the defects in my “score”-and should this not have any,the mistakes in the way I was translating it into actions. Recognising this,I succumbed to a fit of painting which was like an instinct breaking through. I jammed myself into a step-ladder that had fallen over and on which I had previously done the most dreadful gymnastic exercises,and daubed the walls in frantic despair-until I was exhausted. The very last hour of “informel”. Mühl angrily ridiculed my relapse into a “technique” that had to be overcome.

Making models was reputed to be hugely enjoyable... But when you got the kit home and opened the box the contents turned out to be of a uniform leaden gray or olive green, consisting of perhaps sixty thousand tiny parts, some no larger than a proton, all attached in some organic, inseparable way to plastic stalks like swizzle sticks. The tubes of glue by contrast were the size of large pastry tubes. No matter how gently you depressed them they would blurp out a pint or so of a clear viscous goo whose one instinct was to attach itself to some foreign object a human finger, the living-room drapes, the fur of a passing animal and become an infinitely long string. Any attempt to break the string resulted in the creation of more strings. Within moments you would be attached to hundreds of sagging strands, all connected to something that had nothing to do with model airplanes or World War II. The only thing the glue wouldn’t stick to, interestingly, was a piece of plastic model; then it just became a slippery lubricant that allowed any two pieces of model to glide endlessly over each other, never drying. The upshot was that after about forty minutes of intensive but troubled endeavor you and your immediate surroundings were covered in a glistening spiderweb of glue at the heart of which was a gray fuselage with one wing on upside down and a pilot accidentally but irremediably attached by his flying cap to the cockpit ceiling. Happily by this point you were so high on the glue that you didn’t give a shit about the pilot, the model, or anything else.

A man of genuine literary genius, since he possesses a temperament whose susceptibilities are of wider area than those of any other, is inevitably of all people the one most variously affected by his surroundings. And it is he, in consequence, who of all people most faithfully and compactly exhibits the impress of his times and his times' tendencies, not merely in his writings where it conceivably might be just predetermined affectation but in his personality.

It is clear, then, that the idea of a fixed method, or of a fixed theory or rationality, rests on too naive a view of man and his social surroundings. To those who look at the rich material provided by history, and who are not intent on impoverishing it in order to please their lower instincts, their craving for intellectual security in the form of clarity, precision, "objectivity", "truth", it will become clear that there is only one principle that can be defended under all circumstances and in all stages of human development. It is the principle: anything goes.

Although Aristotle may have been right to claim that a desire to know is part of the fundamental constitution of human nature, ... Nietzsche is also correct to emphasize that the impulse to evaluate our surroundings, our fellows, and ourselves is at least as deeply rooted in our human nature as is any natural “desire to know.” “Der Mensch ist ein abschätzendes Tier.”

In my present insistence on high standards you will see that there is less self-indulgence than resolve and application. I do not let the Christian monopolize the ideal of perfection. I have my own virtue, which I am constantly cultivating and refining by teaching myself not to tolerate in me or my surroundings anything but the exquisite.

Prior to the rebellion the great mass of the people were satisfied to remain near the scenes of their birth. In fact an immense majority of the whole people did not feel secure against coming to want should they move among entire strangers. So much was the country divided into small communities that localized idioms had grown up, so that you could almost tell what section a person was from by hearing him speak... This is all changed now. The war begot a spirit of independence and enterprise. The feeling now is, that a youth must cut loose from his old surroundings to enable him to get up in the world. There is now such a commingling of the people that particular idioms and pronunciation are no longer localized to any great extent; the country has filled up "from the centre all around to the sea"; railroads connect the two oceans and all parts of the interior; maps, nearly perfect, of every part of the country are now furnished the student of geography. The war has made us a nation of great power and intelligence. We have but little to do to preserve peace, happiness and prosperity at home, and the respect of other nations. Our experience ought to teach us the necessity of the first; our power secures the latter. Slavery was an institution that required unusual guarantees for its security wherever it existed; and in a country like ours where the larger portion of it was free territory inhabited by an intelligent and well-to-do population, the people would naturally have but little sympathy with demands upon them for its protection. Hence the people of the South were dependent upon keeping control of the general government to secure the perpetuation of their favorite institution. They were enabled to maintain this control long after the States where slavery existed had ceased to have the controlling power, through the assistance they received from odd men here and there throughout the Northern States. They saw their power waning, and this led them to encroach upon the prerogatives and independence of the Northern States by enacting such laws as the Fugitive Slave Law. By this law every Northern man was obliged, when properly summoned, to turn out and help apprehend the runaway slave of a Southern man. Northern marshals became slave-catchers, and Northern courts had to contribute to the support and protection of the institution. I feel that we are on the eve of a new era, when there is to be great harmony between the Federal and Confederate. I cannot stay to be a living witness to the correctness of this prophecy; but I feel it within me that it is to be so. The universally kind feeling expressed for me at a time when it was supposed that each day would prove my last, seemed to me the beginning of the answer to "Let us have peace." The expression of these kindly feelings were not restricted to a section of the country, nor to a division of the people. They came from individual citizens of all nationalities; from all denominations the Protestant, the Catholic, and the Jew; and from the various societies of the land scientific, educational, religious or otherwise. Politics did not enter into the matter at all. I am not egotist enough to suppose all this significance should be given because I was the object of it. But the war between the States was a very bloody and a very costly war. One side or the other had to yield principles they deemed dearer than life before it could be brought to an end. I commanded the whole of the mighty host engaged on the victorious side. I was, no matter whether deservedly so or not, a representative of that side of the controversy. It is a significant and gratifying fact that Confederates should have joined heartily in this spontaneous move. I hope the good feeling inaugurated may continue to the end.

The power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked characteristic of mankind .

If thought exists, I who think and the world about which I think also exist; the one exists but for the other, having no possible separation between them. Therefore, the world and I are both in active correlation; I am that which sees the world, and the world is that which is seen by me. I exist for the world and the world exists for me. ... One sure and primary and fundamental fact is the joint existence of a subject and of its world. The one does not exist without the other. I acquire no understanding of myself except as I take account of objects, of the surroundings. I do not think unless I think of things and there I find myself.

Everyone who has seen the recent news reports has been shocked and moved by the suffering children in Sarajevo. At the end of last week, we told the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that we stood ready to evacuate children from Sarajevo to the United Kingdom for medical treatment, or to send medical teams to Yugoslavia to provide treatment on the spot. If it is possible to treat the children on the spot, near to their families, with people around them who speak their language and in relatively familiar surroundings, that is obviously the best way. We have told the International Red Cross that we are willing to fly out medical personnel at very short notice if needed. I hope to meet the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in London later this week to see what further action is needed.

Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive, unattached state. Yes, it can even, in the twinkling of an eye, make something like a vagabond of the pedant and Philistine. Time, we say, is Lethe ; but change of air is a similar draught, and, if it works less thoroughly, does so more quickly.

The mass-man would never have accepted authority external to himself had not his surroundings violently forced him to do so. As to-day, his surroundings do not so force him, the everlasting mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to other authority and feels himself lord of his own existence. On the contrary the select man, the excellent man is urged, by interior necessity, to appeal from himself to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, whose service he freely accepts.… Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, and not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendental. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline the noble life.

In the final analysis you find spiritual truth through your own higher nature. Your higher nature is a drop in the ocean of God - and has access to the ocean. Sometimes your higher nature is awakened through the inspiration of beautiful surroundings or beautiful music, bringing you insights of truth. Sometimes you see the truth written or hear the truth spoken, and your higher nature confirms it. Or you directly perceive the truth from the inside through an awakening of the higher nature, which is my way. All the inspired writing came from the inner source, and you too can receive from that source. Be still and know.

A leopards spots help it blend in with its surroundings. The blending is called camouflage. Animals with camouflage can not be easily spotted in tall grasses, bushes and trees.

A person influenced by circumstances can become viciously envious or affectionately kind. Our company and our surroundings have a crucial effect on our consciousness. How important it is to be an instrument to bring out the inherent good of each other rather than the worst.

Before I knew the Lord, my love for children led me to desire to write for them and those who educated them, keenly feeling my own need of sympathy in childhood, and still smarting from the loveless surroundings of a delicate organisation and uncomprehended mind. The Upper Springs and the Nether Springs; or, Life Hid With Christ In God (1882), p. 26. Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

He stands alone in unapproachable grandeur. Nineteen centuries roll away, and His character so lives that He inspires, millions of men with impassioned love. Other men may seem to be children of their surroundings; He became what He was despite His surroundings, and is the only one who can say in truth and holiness, "Do as I have done." He, the ideal, the perfect one of our race, appears in an age when such an ideal could not have been developed in act could not have been conceived in thought. In the theory of development the perfection of humanity is the final result of man's history ages hence. Christ therefore is the great miracle which more than any other establishes the fact of miracles. Christ Himself is proof of His own miracles.