#circles

The Democratic Party, all the candidates from Washington, they all know each other, they all move in the same circles, and what I'm doing is breaking into the country club. ↗

— Howard Dean

#candidates #circles #club #country #country club

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. There is not a piece of science, but its flank may be turned to-morrow; there is not any literary reputation, not the so-called eternal names of fame, that may not be revised and condemned. The very hopes of man, the thoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manner and morals of mankind, are all at the mercy of a new generalization. Generalization is always a new influx of the divinity into the mind. Hence the thrill that attends it. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#thinkers #religion

Genius is a word too often tossed around in musical circles. ↗

— Stanley Jordan

#circles #genius #musical #often #too

The whole universe is based on rhythms. Everything happens in circles, in spirals. ↗

— John Hartford

#circles #everything #happens #rhythms #spirals

The earliest phase of social formations found in historical as well as in contemporary social structures is this: a relatively small circle firmly closed against neighboring, strange, or in some way antagonistic circles. ↗

— Georg Simmel

#antagonistic #circle #circles #closed #contemporary

That second man has his own way of looking at things; asks himself which debt must I pay first, the debt to the rich, or the debt to the poor? the debt of money, or the debt of thought to mankind, of genius to nature? For you, O broker! there is no other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. Let me live onward; you shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this be injustice? Does he owe no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be postponed to a landlord's or a banker's? ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#debts #priorities #faith

For several centuries what has passed for song in literary circles was any text that looked like the lyrics for a commonplace melodic setting. ↗

— David Antin

#centuries #circles #commonplace #like #literary

I know people that could serve me canned tuna and saltine crackers and have me feel more at home at their table than some people who can cook circles around me. The more you try to impress people, generally the less you do. ↗

— Alton Brown

#canned #circles #cook #could #crackers

Could it be that my circle is largely black and that it is why I am influential in black circles but not in white circles? ↗

— Louis Farrakhan

#black #circle #circles #could #i

There are some circles in America where it seems to be more socially acceptable to carry a hand-gun than a packet of cigarettes. ↗

— Katharine Whitehorn

#america #carry #cigarettes #circles #more