It is only in some corner of the brain which we leave empty that Vice can obtain a lodging. When she knocks at your door be able to say: "No room for your ladyship: pass on."--_Bulwer-Lytton._
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.
She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.
If ladies be but young and fair, They have the gift to know it; and in his brain, Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd With observation, the which he vents In mangled forms.
So, from your own point of view, suppose a mind-stuff--[--Greek--]--a noumenal cosmic light such as is shadowed in the fourth gospel. The brain of a dog will convert it into one set of phenomenal pictures, and the brain of a man into another. But in both cases the result is the consequence of the way in which the respective brains perform their "function."
A man in all the world's new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain.
My brain? That's my second favorite organ.
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
The thinkers of ancient times concluded that the part of man which constitutes his intellect is caused by an instrument to which the other five {28} senses refer everything by means of the perception, and this instrument they have named the "common sense" or brain, and they say that this sense is situated in the centre of the head. And they have given it this name "common sense" solely because it is the common judge of the five other senses, that is to say, sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. The "common sense" is stirred by means of the perception which is placed between it and the senses. The perception is stirred by means of the images of things conveyed to it by the external instruments to the senses, and these are placed in the centre between the external things and the perception, and the senses likewise are stirred by objects. Surrounding objects transmit their images to the senses, and the senses transfer them to the perception, and the perception transfers them to the "common sense" (brain), and by it they are stamped upon the memory, and are there retained in a greater or lesser degree according to the importance and intensity of the impression. The sense which is most closely connected with the perception is the most rapid in action, and this sense is the eye, the highest and chief of the others; of this sense alone we will treat, and we will leave the others in order not to unduly lengthen our matter.
Painting is mute poetry, and poetry is blind painting. Therefore these two forms of poetry, or rather these two forms of painting, have exchanged the senses through which they should reach the intellect. Because if they are both of them painting, they must reach the brain by the noblest sense, namely, the eye; if they are both of them poetry, they must reach the brain by the less noble sense, that is, the hearing. Therefore we will appoint the man born deaf to be judge of painting, and the man born blind to be judge of poetry; and if in the painting the movements are appropriate {70} to the mental attributes of the figures which is are engaged in any kind of action, there is no doubt that the deaf man will understand the action and intentions of the figures, but the blind man will never understand what the poet shows, and what constitutes the glory of the poetry; since one of the noblest functions of its art is to describe the deeds and the subjects of stories, and adorned and delectable places with transparent waters in which the green recesses of their course can be seen as the waves disport themselves over meadows and fine pebbles, and the plants which are mingled with them, and the gliding fishes, and similar descriptions, which might just as well be made to a stone as to a man born blind, since he has never seen that which composes the beauty of the world, that is, light, darkness, colour, body, shape, place, distance, propinquity, motion and rest, which are the ten ornaments of nature.
True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.
The person who reads too much and uses his brain too little will fall into lazy habits of thinking.
One can search the brain with a microscope and not find the
Eloquence, to produce her full effect, should start from the head of the orator, as Pallas from the brain of Jove, completely armed and equipped.
Nature has ordained for man the ministering {29} muscles which exercise the sinews, and by means of which the limbs can be moved according to the will and desire of the brain, like to officers distributed by a ruler over many provinces and towns, who represent their ruler in these places, and obey his will. And this officer, who will in a single instance have most faithfully obeyed the orders he received from his master by word of mouth, will afterwards, in a similar way, of his own accord fulfil the wishes of his master.
I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.
Mathematics, such as appertain to painting, are necessary to the painter, also the absence of companions who are alien to his studies: his brain must be versatile and susceptible to the variety of objects which it encounters, and free from distracting cares. And if in the contemplation and definition of one subject a second subject intervenes,--as happens when the mind is filled with an object,--in such cases he must decide which of the two objects is the more difficult of definition, and pursue that one until he arrives at perfect clearness of definition, and then turn to the definition of the other. And above all things his mind should be like the surface of the mirror, which shows as many colours as there are objects it reflects; and his companions should study in the same manner, and if such cannot be found he should meditate in solitude with himself, and he will not find more profitable company.
The brain is waking and with it the mind is returning. It is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the head mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of subpatterns. Now as the waking body rouses, subpatterns of this great harmony of activity stretch down into the unlit tracks of the stalk-piece of the scheme. Strings of flashing and travelling sparks engage the lengths of it. This means that the body is up and rises to meet its waking day.
Experiment, the great instrument for the ascertainment of truth in physical science, answers this question for us. In the head of the lobster there lies a small mass of that peculiar tissue which is known as nervous substance. Cords of similar matter connect this brain of the lobster, directly or indirectly, with the muscles. Now, if these communicating cords are cut, the brain remaining entire, the power of exerting what we call voluntary motion m the parts below the section is destroyed; and, on the other hand, if, the cords remaining entire, the brain mass be destroyed, the same voluntary mobility is equally lost, whence the inevitable conclusion is, that the power of originating these motions resides in the brain and is propagated along the nervous cords.
The complete poet must have a heart in his brain or a brain in his heart.
The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree.
The spirit returns to the brain whence it had departed, with a loud voice and uttering these words:
These axons can shuttle information around so quickly because they’re fatter than normal axons, and because they’re sheathed in a fatty substance called myelin. Myelin acts like rubber insulation on wires and prevents the signal from petering out: in whales, giraffes, and other stretched creatures, a sheathed neuron can send a signal multiple yards with little loss of fidelity. (In contrast, diseases that fray myelin, like multiple sclerosis, destroy communication between different nodes in the brain.) In sum, you can think about the gray matter as a patchwork of chips that analyze different types of information, and about the white matter as cables that transmit information between those chips. (And before we go further, I should point out that “gray” and “white” are misnomers. Gray matter looks pinkish-tan inside a living skull, while white matter, which makes up the bulk of the brain, looks pale pink. The white and gray colors appear only after you soak the brain in preservatives. Preservatives also harden the brain, which is normally tapioca-soft. This explains why the brain you might have dissected in biology class way back when didn’t disintegrate between your fingers.)
The husband said, “Though your brain can give you good advice, your heart is the only organ you should listen to about love.” And the wife finished, “But always remember to go with your gut on when you should heed that advice.
The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree.
Accio Brain!
He could not be captured, He could not be bought, His running was rhythm, His standing was thought; With one eye on sorrow And one eye on mirth, He galloped in heaven And gambolled on earth. And only the poet With wings to his brain Can mount him and ride him Without any rein, The stallion of heaven, The steed of the skies, The horse of the singer Who sings as he flies.
Oh, rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain; Who from the dark and doubtful love to run, And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun.
Teach self-denial, and make its practice pleasurable, and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.
Supercomputers will achieve one human brain capacity by 2010, and personal computers will do so by about 2020. ― Ray Kurzweil
Work, work, work, / Till the brain begins to swim; / Work, work, work, / Till the eyes are heavy and dim; / Seam, and gusset, and band, / Band, and gusset, and seam, / Till over the buttons I fall asleep, / And sew them on in a dream.
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought, Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.
If a man cannot do brain work without stimulants of any kind, he had better turn to hand work--it is an indication on Nature's part that she did not mean him to be a head worker.
Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.
The wealth of the land / Comes from the forge and the smithy and mine, / From hammer and chisel, and wheel and band, / And the thinking brain and the skilful hand.
Memory, the warder of the brain.
This is the very coinage of your brain; / This bodiless creation ecstasy / Is very cunning in.
Money spent on the brain is never spent in vain.
I think everybody who has a brain should get involved in politics. Working within. Not criticizing it from the outside. Become an active participant, no matter how feeble you think the effort is.
Philosophy and theology are become theorem, brain-web and shadow, wherein no earnest soul can find solidity for itself. Shadow, I say; yet shadow projected from an everlasting reality within ourselves. Quit the shadow, seek the reality.
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.--_Montaigne._
When a gentleman is cudgelling his brain to find any rhyme for sorrow besides "borrow" or "to-morrow," his woes are nearer at an end than he thinks.
The imagination is to the effect as the shadow to the opaque body which causes the shadow, and the proportion is the same between poetry and painting. Because poetry produces its results in the {66} imagination of the reader, and painting produces them in a concrete reality outside the eye, so that the eye receives its images just as if they were the works of nature; and poetry produces its results without images, and they do not pass to the brain through the channel of the visual faculty, as in painting.
To be wroth with one we love, / Doth work like madness in the brain.
Talking to a drunk person was like talking to an extremely happy, severely brain-damaged three-year-old.
The greatest book is not the one whose message engraves itself on the brain, as a telegraphic message engraves itself on the ticker-tape, but the one whose vital impact opens up other viewpoints, and from writer to reader spreads the fire that is fed by the various essences, until it becomes a vast conflagration leaping from forest to forest.
When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
Books, the children of the brain.
Lull'd in the countless chambers of the brain, / Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; / Awake but one, and lo! what myriads rise! / Each stamps its image as the other flies.
"God gave men both a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time."
Then one day I guess my mind decided I was ready, because that was the day I remembered everything and then I stopped answering the questions altogether. I think maybe my brain made a mistake about how strong I was, but it didn’t let me send the memories back.
Every man of sound brain whom you meet knows something worth knowing better than yourself.
Cleverness is a sort of genius for instrumentality. It is the brain of the hand. In literature, cleverness is more frequently accompanied by wit, genius, and sense, than by humor.--_Coleridge._
The brain is that which perceives what is transmitted to it by the other senses. The brain moves by means of that which is transmitted to it by the five senses. Motion is transmitted to the senses by objects, and these objects, transmitting their images to the five senses, are transferred by them to the perception, and by the perception to the brain; and there they are comprehended and committed to the memory, in which, according to their intensity, they are more or less firmly retained.
Grit is the grain of character. It may generally be described as heroism materialized,--spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man.--_Whipple._
What are men better than sheep or goats, that nourish a blind life within the brain, if, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer both for themselves and those who call them friends!--_Tennyson._
Scientists will study your brain to learn more about your distant cousin, Man.
In a conflict between the heart and the brain, follow your heart.
"This isn't brain surgery; it's just television."
I do not suppose that I am exceptionally endowed because I have all my life enjoyed a keen perception of the beauty offered us by nature and by art Now physical science may and probably will, some day, enable our posterity to set forth the exact physical concomitants and conditions of the strange rapture of beauty. But if ever that day arrives, the rapture will remain, just as it is now, outside and beyond the physical world; and, even in the mental world, something superadded to mere sensation. I do not wish to crow unduly over my humble cousin the orang, but in the aesthetic province, as in that of tine intellect, I am afraid he is nowhere. I doubt not he would detect a fruit amidst a wilderness of leaves where I could see nothing; but I am tolerably confident that he has never been awestruck, as I have been, by the dim religious gloom, as of a temple devoted to the earthgods, of the tropical forests which he inhabits. Yet I doubt not that our poor long-armed and short-legged friend, as he sits meditatively munching his durian fruit, has something behind that sad Socratic face of his which is utterly "beyond the bounds of physical science." Physical science may know all about his clutching the fruit and munching it and digesting it, and how the physical titillation of his palate is transmitted to some microscopic cells of the gray matter of his brain. But the feelings of sweetness and of satisfaction which, for a moment, hang out their signal lights in his melancholy eyes, are as utterly outside the bounds of physics as is the "fine frenzy" of a human rhapsodist.
L'aimable siecle ou l'homme dit a l'homme, / Soyons freres, ou je t'assomme=--That loving time when one man said to another, "Let us be brothers, or I will brain you."
The imagination does not perceive such excellent things as the eye, because the eye receives the images or semblances from objects, and transmits them to the perception, and from thence to the brain; and there they are comprehended. But the imagination does not issue forth from the brain, with the exception of that part of it which is transmitted to the memory, and in the brain it remains and dies, if the thing imagined is not of high quality. And in this case poetry is formed in the mind or in the imagination of the poet, who depicts the same objects as the painter, and by reason of the work of his fancy he wishes to rival the painter, but in reality he is greatly inferior to him, as we have shown above. Therefore with regard to the work of fancy we will say that there is the same proportion between the art of painting and that of poetry as exists between the body and the shadow proceeding from it, and the proportion is still greater, inasmuch as the shadow of such a body at least penetrates to {122} the brain through the eye, but the imaginative embodiment of such a body does not enter into the eye, but is born in the dark brain. Ah! What difference there is between imagining such a light in the darkness of the brain and seeing it in concrete shape set free from all darkness.
A science is more useful in proportion as its fruits are more widely understood, and thus, on the other hand, it is less useful in proportion as it is less widely understood. The fruits of painting can be apprehended by all the populations of the universe because its results are subject to the power of sight, and it does not pass by the ear to the brain, but by the same channel by which {62} sight passes. Therefore it needs no interpreters of diverse tongues, as letters do, and it has instantly satisfied the human race in the same manner as the works of nature have done. And not only the human race, but other animals; as was shown in a picture representing the father of a family to whom little children still in the cradle gave caresses, as did the dog and the cat in the same house; and it was a wonderful thing to see such a sight.
All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.
Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD: Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence.
Wisdom is not found with those who dwell at their ease; rather Nature, when she adds brain, adds difficulty.
There is a foolish corner even in the brain of the sage.
The great school for learning is the brain itself of the learner.
I bet the human brain is a kludge.
If superstition enters, the brain is gone.
The heart has eyes that the brain knows nothing of.
The one thing that can never be told is the last notion of the President, for his notions grow like a tropical forest. So in case you don't know, I'd better tell you that he is carrying out his notion of concealing ourselves by not concealing ourselves to the most extraordinary lengths just now. … He said that if you didn't seem to be hiding nobody hunted you out. Well, he is the only man on earth, I know; but sometimes I really think that his huge brain is going a little mad in its old age. For now we flaunt ourselves before the public. … They say we are a lot of jolly gentlemen who pretend they are anarchists.
We assume that a large brain, the use of tools, superior learning abilities and complex social structures are huge advantages. It seems self-evident that these have made humankind the most powerful animal on earth. But humans enjoyed all of these advantages for a full 2 million years during which they remained weak and marginal creatures. Thus humans who lived a million years ago, despite their big brains and sharp stone tools, dwelt in constant fear of predators, rarely hunted large game, and subsisted mainly by gathering plants, scooping up insects, stalking small animals, and eating the carrion left behind by other more powerful carnivores.
I suppose that nineteen hundred years ago, when Julius Cæsar was good enough to deal with Britain as we have dealt with New Zealand, the primæval Briton, blue with cold and woad, may have known that the strange black stone, of which he found lumps here and there in his wanderings, would burn, and so help to warm his body and cook his food. Saxon, Dane, and Norman swarmed into the land. The English people grew into a powerful nation, and Nature still waited for a full return of the capital she had invested in the ancient club-mosses. The eighteenth century arrived, and with it James Watt. The brain of that man was the spore out of which was developed the modern steam-engine, and all the prodigious trees and branches of modern industry which have grown out of this. But coal is as much an essential condition of this growth and development as carbonic acid is for that of a club-moss. Wanting coal, we could not have smelted the iron needed to make our engines, nor have worked our engines when we had got them. But take away the engines, and the great towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire vanish like a dream. Manufactures give place to agriculture and pasture, and not ten men can live where now ten thousand are amply supported.
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
Steve Jobs said two years ago that X is brain-damaged and it will be
If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty, you have no brain.
For that fine madness still he did retain / Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.
Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
L'imagination est la folle du logis=--Imagination is the madcap of the brain (_lit._ the merryandrew of the dwelling).
But even in my life I saw the leaching of spirit. A surfeit of honey cloys the tongue; a surfeit of wine addles the brain; so a surfeit of ease guts a man of strength. Light, warmth, food, water, were free to all men, and gained by a minimum of effort. So the people of Ampridatvir, released from toil, gave increasing attention to faddishness, perversity, and the occult.
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.
A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.
_Doct._ Not so sick, my lord, As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies, That keep her from her rest. _Macb._ Cure her of that. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart? _Doct._ Therein the patient Must minister to himself. _Macb._ Throw physic to the dogs: I 'll none of it.
We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.