#constrain

pour que tu sois libre de la liberté du chanteur qui improvise sur l'instrument à cordes, ne faut-il pas que je t'exerce d'abord les doigts et t'enseigne l'art du chanteur? Ce qui est guerre, contrainte et endurance. Et pour que tu sois libre de la liberté du montagnard, ne faut-il pas que tu aies exercé tes muscles, ce qui est guerre, contrainte et endurance? Et pour que tu sois libre de la liberté du poête, ne faut-il pas que tu aies exercé ton cerveau et forgé ton style, ce qui est guerre, contrainte et endurance? (chapitre CLII) ↗

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

#freedom #art

She understood the genre constraints, the decencies we were supposed to be observing. The morally cosy vision allows the embrace of monstrosity only as a reaction to suffering or as an act of rage against the Almighty. Vampire interviewee Louis is in despair at his brother’s death when he accepts Lestat’s offer. Frankenstein’s creature is driven to violence by the violence done to him. Even Lucifer’s rebellion emerges from the agony of injured pride. The message is clear: By all means become an abomination—but only while unhinged by grief or wrath. By rights, Talulla knew, she should have been orphaned or raped or paedophilically abused or terminally ill or suicidally depressed or furious at God for her mother’s death or at any rate in some way deranged if she was to be excused for not having killed herself, once it became apparent that she’d have to murder and devour people in order to stay alive. The mere desire to stay alive, in whatever form you’re lumbered with—werewolf, vampire, Father of Lies—really couldn’t be considered a morally sufficient rationale. And yet here she was, staying alive. You love life because life’s all there is. ↗

— Glen Duncan

#death

I write the way you might arrange flowers. Not every try works, but each one launches another. Every constraint, even dullness, frees up a new design. ↗

— Richard Powers

#arrange #constraint #design #dullness #each

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. ↗

— Ronald Reagan

#barriers #constraints #erect #except #human

True liberty consists only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will. ↗

— Jonathan Edwards

#consists #constrained #doing #liberty #only

There is no greater evil for men than the constraint of fortune. ↗

— Sophocles

#evil #fortune #greater #greater evil #men

Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints. ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#constraints #controlled #ideals #material #much

Instead of freaking out about these constraints, embrace them. Let them guide you. Constraints drive innovation and force focus. Instead of trying to remove them, use them to your advantage. ↗

— 37 Signals

#constraints #management #business

...the imagination is unleashed by constraints. You break out of the box by stepping into shackles. ↗

— Jonah Lehrer

#creativity #imagination #limitations #imagination

Entire generations of Americans have come of age since the ancient time when the president's power was constrained by a duty of candor to the American people. ↗

— James Bovard

#american #american people #ancient #candor #come