#origin

...we have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything which has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone and we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay. ↗

— Bruce Lee

#faith

The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. ↗

— Calvin Trillin

#about #been #family #found #leftovers

No bird has ever uttered note That was not in some first bird's throat; Since Eden's freshness and man's fall No rose has been original. ↗

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

#bird #eden #ever #fall #first

The doctrine of original sin is the doctrine according to which divine forgiveness makes known the accidental nature of human mortality, thus permitting an entirely new anthropological understanding. ↗

— James Alison

#mortality #original-sin #forgiveness

Literature for me… tries to heal the harm done by stories. (How much harm? Most of the atrocities of history have been created by stories, e.g., the Jews killed Jesus.) I follow Sartre that the freedom the author claims for herself must be shared with the reader. So that would mean that literature is stories that put themselves at the disposal of readers who want to heal themselves. Their healing power lies in their honesty, the freshness of their vision, the new and unexpected things they show, the increase in power and responsibility they give the reader. ↗

— Geoff Ryman

#freedom #freshness #healing #honesty #literature

When we reject our origins, we become the product of whatever soil that we find ourselves planted; the colors of our leaves change as we consume borrowed nutrients with borrowed roots and, like a tree, we grow. ↗

— Mike Norton

#heritage #originality #reject #rejection #tree

Many investigators feel uneasy stating in public that the origin of life is a mystery, even though behind closed doors they admit they are baffled. ↗

— Paul Davies

#biology #chemical-evolution #darwinism #evolution #id

How could those who wrote the Constitution possibly understand its meaning better than those who had the experience of observing and participating in its operation? It is one thing to rail against the evils of politically unaccountable judges enlarging constitutional rights beyond the ideas and purposes of their adopters; another to explain why morally sustainable claims of equality be held captive to the extraordinary obstacles of Article V or subject to the partial and incomplete understandings of 1789 or 1868. ↗

— Jack N. Rakove

#originalism #u-s-constitution #equality

Man's first expression, like his first dream, was an aesthetic one. Speech was a poetic outcry rather than a demand for communication. Original man, shouting his consonants, did so in yells of awe and anger at his tragic state, at his own self-awareness and at his own helplessness before the void. ↗

— Barnett Newman

#communication #existentialism #expression #origins #the-void

There is much modern music that is better adapted to a wind combination than to a string, although for obvious reasons originally scored for an orchestra. If in such cases the interpretation is equal to the composition the balance of a wind combination is more satisfying. ↗

— John Philip Sousa

#although #balance #better #cases #combination