The Church teaches and God inspires, both infallibly. The operation of the Church serves only to prepare for grace or for condemnation. What it does suffices for condemnation, not for inspiration.
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.--_Shelley._
Invita Minerva=--Without genius or the requisite inspiration; against the will of Minerva.
One Bible I know, of whose plenary inspiration doubt is not so much as possible; nay, with my own eyes I saw the God's hand writing it; whereof all other Bibles are but leaves, say, in picture-writing, to assist the weaker faculty.
Every culture, if its natural development is not too much affected by political restrictions, experiences a perpetual renewal of the formative urge, and out of that comes an ever growing diversity of creative activity. Every successful piece of work stirs the desire for greater perfection and deeper inspiration; each new form becomes the herald of new possibilities of development.
It is strange that men will talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.--_Thoreau._
Zur Tugend der Ahnen / Ermannt sich der Held=--The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors.
The perfection of conversation is not to play a regular sonata, but, like the ?olian harp, to await the inspiration of the passing breeze.
No man can force the harp of his own individuality into the people's heart; but every man may play upon the chords of the people's heart, who draws his inspiration from the people's instinct.
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
I believe in the supreme excellence of righteousness; I believe that the law of righteousness will triumph in the universe over all evil; I believe that in the attempt to fulfil the law of righteousness, however imperfect it must remain, are to be found the inspiration, the consolation, and the sanctification of human existence.
Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.
It is not enough that a poet possess inspiration; his inspiration must be that of a cultured spirit.
Demoniac possession is mythical; but the faculty of being possessed, more or less completely, by an idea is probably the fundamental condition of what is called genius, whether it show itself in the saint, the artist, or the man of science. One calls it faith, another calls it inspiration, a third calls it insight; but the "intending of the mind," to borrow Newton's well-known phrase, the concentration of all the rays of intellectual energy on some one point, until it glows and colours the whole cast of thought with its peculiar light, is common to all.
The bearers of the thyrsus= (the symbol of the Bacchus inspiration) =are many, but the Bacchants= (the truly inspired) =are few.
Love is not altogether a delirium, yet has it many points in common therewith ... I call it rather a discerning of the Infinite in the Finite, of the Idea made Real; which discerning again may be either true or false, either seraphic or demonic, Inspiration or Insanity.
There are three means of believing--by inspiration, by reason, and by custom. Christianity, which is the only rational institution, does yet admit none for its sons who do not believe by inspiration.
I am present with thee by my word in the Scriptures, by my Spirit in the Church and by inspiration, by my power in the priest, by my prayer in the faithful.
Having ideas is not the same thing as being creative. Creation is execution, not inspiration. Many people have ideas; few take the steps to make the thing they imagine.
The wisest, most melodious voice cannot in these days pass for a divine one; the word "inspiration" still lingers, but only in the shape of a poetic figure, from which the once earnest, awful, and soul-subduing sense has vanished without return.
In nearly all religions God remains far from man. I say in nearly all religions: for in Brahmanism the unity, not the union, of the human soul with Brahma is recognised as the highest aim. This unity with Deity, together with phenomenal difference, Jesus expressed in part through the _Logos_, in part through the Son. There is nothing so closely allied as thought and word, Father and Son. They can be distinguished but never separated, for they exist only through each other. In this matter the Greek philosophers considered all creation as the thought or the word of God, and the thought 'man' became naturally the highest _Logos_, realised in millions of men, and raised to the highest perfection in Jesus. As the thought exists only through the word, and the word only through the thought, so also the Father exists only through the Son, and the Son through the Father, and in this sense Jesus feels and declares himself the Son of God, and all men who believe in Him His brethren. This revelation or inspiration came to mankind through Jesus. No one knew the Father except the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and those to whom the Son willeth to reveal Him. This is the Christian Revelation in the true sense of the word.
It was the sense of an overpowering truth which led to the admission of a revelation. But while in the beginning truth made revelation, it soon came to pass that revelation was supposed to make truth. When we see this happening in every part of the world, when we can watch the psychological progress which leads in the most natural way to a belief in supernatural inspiration, it will hardly be said that an historical study of religion may be useful to the antiquarian, but cannot help us to solve the burning questions of the day.
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.
~Confidence.~--Confidence imparts a wondrous inspiration to its possessor. It bears him on in security, either to meet no danger, or to find matter of glorious trial.--_Milton._
There never was a great man unless through Divine inspiration.
Great designs are not accomplished without enthusiasm of some sort. It is the inspiration of everything great. Without it, no man is to be feared, and with it none despised.--_Bovée._
The belief in Science as an aid to faith is not yet ripe enough to warrant men in searching there for witnesses to the highest Christian truths. The inspiration of Nature, it is thought, extends to the humbler doctrines alone. And yet the reverent inquirer who guides his steps in the right direction may find even now, in the still dim twilight of the scientific world, much that will illuminate and intensify his sublimest faith. Natural Law, Eternal Life, p. 204.
I think we should be very clear on this... this country was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment... It was the idea that people could talk, reason, have dialogue, discuss the issues. It wasn't founded on the idea that someone would get struck by a divine inspiration and know everything right from wrong. I mean, people who founded this country had religion, they had strong beliefs, but they believed in reason, in dialogue, in civil discourse. We can’t lose that in this country. We've got to get it back.
There are moments when our passions speak and decide for us, and we seem to stand by and wonder. They carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in one instant does the work of long premeditation.--_George Eliot._
"There's a limit to how many times you can read how great you are and what an inspiration you are, but I'm not there yet."
The Christian religion is an inspiration and life--God's life breathed into a man and breathed through a man.
Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.
You may be keeping accounts, and presently you shall walk out of the door that for so long has seemed to you the barrier of your ideals, and shall find yourself before an audience—the pen still behind your ear, the ink stains on your fingers and then and there shall pour out the torrent of your inspiration.
In the dullest existence there is a sheen of inspiration or of madness (thou partly hast it in thy choice which of the two) that gleams in from the circumambient eternity, and colours with its own hues our little islet of time.
Although human ingenuity may devise various inventions which, by the help of various instruments, answer to one and the same purpose, yet {17} will it never discover any inventions more beautiful, more simple or more practical than those of nature, because in her inventions there is nothing lacking and nothing superfluous; and she makes use of no counterpoise when she constructs the limbs of animals in such a way as to correspond to the motion of their bodies, but she puts into them the soul of the body. This is not the proper place for this discourse, which belongs rather to the subject of the composition of animated bodies; and the rest of the definition of the soul I leave to the minds of the friars, the fathers of the people, who know all secrets by inspiration. I leave the sacred books alone, because they are the supreme truth.
Art is the work of man under the guidance and inspiration of a mightier power.
In principle, the work-stuff stored in the muscles of the new-born child is comparable to that stored in the gun-barrel. The infant is launched into altogether new surroundings; and these operate through the mechanism of the nervous machinery, with the result that the potential energy of some of the work-stuff in the muscles which bring about inspiration is suddenly converted into actual energy; and this, operating through the mechanism of the respiratory apparatus, gives rise to an act of inspiration. As the bullet is propelled by the "going off" of the powder, as it might be said that the ribs are raised and the midriff depressed by the "going off" of certain portions of muscular work-stuff. This work-stuff is part of a stock or capital of that commodity stored up in the child s organism before birth, at the expense of the mother; and the mother has made good her expenditure by drawing upon the capital of food-stuffs which furnished her daily maintenance.
There are three means of belief; reason, habit, inspiration. The Christian religion, which only has reason, does not admit as her true children those who believe without inspiration; not that she excludes reason or habit, rather the contrary, but it is necessary to open the mind to proofs, to confirm ourselves by habit, and then to offer ourselves humbly to inspiration, which alone can produce a true and salutary effect. _Ne evacuetur crux Christi._
The most important thing for the world today in my opinion is a spiritual regeneration which would reestablish a feeling of good faith among men generally. Discouraged people are in sore need of the inspiration of great principles. Such leadership can be the rallying point against intolerance, against distrust, against that fatal insecurity that leads to war. It is to be hoped that the democratic nations can provide the necessary leadership.
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
The inspiration of the Almighty giveth man understanding.
Genius is ten percent inspiration and fifty percent capital gains.
Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo afflatu divino unquam fuit=--There never was a great man who had not some divine inspiration. _Cic._ [Greek: Nepioi, oud' isasin hoso pleon hemisy pantos]--Fools, they don't even know how much half is more than the whole.
Ohne Begeisterung schlafen die besten Krafte des Gemuths. Es ist ein Zunder in uns, der Funken will=--Without inspiration the best powers of the mind are dormant. There is a tinder in us which needs to be quickened with sparks.
Confidence imparts a wondrous inspiration to its possessor. It bears him on in security, either to meet no danger or to find matter of glorious trial.
Time gives prudence; the lord of time, inspiration; the one is a reward, the other a gift.
~Inspiration.~--Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to us.--_George Eliot._
Facit indignatio versum=--Indignation gives inspiration to verse.
There is always the possibility of beauty where there is an unsealed human eye; of music where there is an unstopped human ear; and of inspiration where there is a receptive human spirit, a spirit standing before.
It is the inspiration of the Almighty that giveth man understanding.
The first act of a new-born child is to draw a deep breath. In fact, it will never draw a deeper, inasmuch as the passages and chambers of the lungs, once distended with air, do not empty themselves again; it is only a fraction of their contents which passes in and out with the flow and the ebb of the respiratory tide. Mechanically, this act of drawing breath, or inspiration, is of the same nature as that by which the handles of a bellows are separated, in order to fill the bellows with air; and, in like manner, it involves that expenditure of energy which we call exertion, or work, or labour. It is, therefore, no mere metaphor to say that man is destined to a life of toil: the work of respiration which began with his first breath ends only with his last; nor does one born in the purple get off with a lighter task than the child who first sees light under a hedge.
The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.
It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration.
Wherever we are, God's in that moment, God's speaking to us, and if we've just got our ears open and our antennas up, there's no lack of inspiration. He's not silent. We just have to be listening.
When I think of talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness, and where will you find this but in woman?--_Holmes._
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration, the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.
We are awkward for want of thought. The inspiration is scanty, and does not arrive at the extremities.
Religion is not a strange or added thing; but the inspiration of the secular life, the breathing of an eternal spirit through this temporal world. The Greatest Thing in the World.
What I mean by the Muse is that unimpeded clearness of the intuitive powers, which a perfectly truthful adherence to every admonition of the higher instincts would bring to a finely organized human being. It may appear as prophecy or as poesy. … should these faculties have free play, I believe they will open new, deeper and purer sources of joyous inspiration than have as yet refreshed the earth.
The world still wants its poet-priest, who shall not trifle with Shakespeare, the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg, the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act with equal inspiration.
Tu nihil invita dices faciesve Minerva=--You must say and do nothing against the bent of your genius, _i.e._, in default of the necessary inspiration.
True inspiration is, and always has been, the spirit of truth within, and this is but another name for the spirit of God. It is truth that makes inspiration, not inspiration that makes truth. Whoever knows what truth is knows also what inspiration is: not only _theopneustos_, blown into the soul by God, but the very voice of God, the real presence of God, the only presence in which we, as human beings, can ever perceive Him.
Music can be all things to all persons. It is like a great dynamic sun in the center of a solar system which sends out its rays and inspiration in every direction.... Music makes us feel that the heavens open and a divine voice calls. Something in our souls responds and understands.
Poetry is inspiration; has in it a certain spirituality and divinity which no dissecting knife will discover; arises in the most secret and most sacred region of man's soul, as it were in our Holy of Holies; and as for external things, depends only on such as can operate in that region; among which it will be found that Acts of Parliament and the state of Smithfield Markets nowise play the chief parts.
What a possibility, what an inspiration, that we can enhance the glory of "our Father"! Our hearts leap at the thought.
Poets should be lawgivers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil code, the day's work.
FORTUNE EXPLAINS WHAT JOB REVIEW CATCH PHRASES MEAN: #9 has management potential: Because of his intimate relationship with inanimate objects, the reviewee has been appointed to the critical position of department pencil monitor. inspirational: A true inspiration to others. ("There, but for the grace of God, go I.") adapts to stress: Passes wind, water, or out depending upon the severity of the situation. goal oriented: Continually sets low goals for himself, and usually fails to meet them.
Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who watches over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide people to follow His precepts -- there is just too much misery and cruelty for that. On the other hand, I respect and envy the people who get inspiration from their religions. -- Benjamin Spock
Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who watches over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide people to follow His precepts -- there is just too much misery and cruelty for that. On the other hand, I respect and envy the people who get inspiration from their religions. -- Benjamin Spock
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. -- Thomas Alva Edison
Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an enormous amount of hard work. But, a certain amount of unpredictable and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference between adequacy and excellence.
Genius is ten percent inspiration and fifty percent capital gains.
Norbert Weiner was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Weiner was, in fact, very absent minded. The following story is told about him: when they moved from Cambridge to Newton his wife, knowing that he would be absolutely useless on the move, packed him off to MIT while she directed the move. Since she was certain that he would forget that they had moved and where they had moved to, she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper, and gave it to him. Naturally, in the course of the day, an insight occurred to him. He reached in his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea, and threw the piece of paper away. At the end of the day he went home (to the old address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there he realized that they had moved, that he had no idea where they had moved to, and that the piece of paper with the address was long gone. Fortunately inspiration struck. There was a young girl on the street and he conceived the idea of asking her where he had moved to, saying, "Excuse me, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Weiner and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?" To which the young girl replied, "Yes, Daddy, Mommy thought you would forget." The capper to the story is that I asked his daughter (the girl in the story) about the truth of the story, many years later. She said that it wasn't quite true -- that he never forgot who his children were! The rest of it, however, was pretty close to what actually happened... -- Richard Harter
At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is quite untrue in practice. Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather than blinkers it. -- G. L. Glegg, "The Design of Design"
The achievement of one goal should be the starting point of another. ― Alexander Graham Bell
He dared not call to them; a cry might be heard and ruin everything. An idea occurred to him, a last idea, a flash of inspiration; he drew from his pocket the end of Brujon's rope, which he had detached from the chimney of the New Building, and flung it into the space enclosed by the fence.
Depressingly hilarious and inspirationally cynical, Cat’s Cradle was a joy to behold, and the icy finale caused my jaw to drop to the floor, much to the apparent laughter of some nearby pre-teens, bless their little hearts.
"Did that take place not here, but at the beginning of your acquaintance?" Fetyukovitch suggested cautiously, feeling his way, instantly scenting something favorable. I must mention in parenthesis that, though Fetyukovitch had been brought from Petersburg partly at the instance of Katerina Ivanovna herself, he knew nothing about the episode of the four thousand roubles given her by Mitya, and of her "bowing to the ground to him." She concealed this from him and said nothing about it, and that was strange. It may be pretty certainly assumed that she herself did not know till the very last minute whether she would speak of that episode in the court, and waited for the inspiration of the moment.
32:8. But, as I see, there is a spirit in men, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding.
To be a champion, you have to believe in yourself when nobody else will. ― Sugar Ray Robinson
I believe that music can be an inspirational force in all our lives — that its eloquence and the depth of its meaning are all-important, and that all personal considerations concerning musicians and the public are relatively unimportant — that music come from the heart and returns to the heart — that music is spontaneous, impulsive expression — that its range is without limit — that music is forever growing — that music can be one element to help us build a new conception of life in which the madness and cruelty of wars will be replaced by a simple understanding of the brotherhood of man.
Do not settle for less than an extraordinary life. ― Anon.