#singular

One day, quite some time ago, I happened on a photograph of Napoleon’s youngest brother, Jerome, taken in 1852. And I realized then, with an amazement I have not been able to lessen since: ‘I am looking at eyes that looked at the Emperor.’ Sometimes I would mention this amazement, but since no one seemed to share it, nor even to understand it (life consists of these little touches of solitude), I forgot about it. ↗

— Roland Barthes

#life

Mormons invented themselves just as other religious and ethnic groups invented themselves. But Mormons did so in such a singularly impressive way that we will probably always remain baffled as to how exactly it happened. ↗

— Laurence Moore

#ethnic-group #how-it-happened #lds #mormon #mormonism

A blank wall of social and professional antagonism faces the woman physician that forms a situation of singular and painful loneliness, leaving her without support, respect or professional counsel. ↗

— Elizabeth Blackwell

#blank #counsel #faces #forms #her

I have a secret thought from some things I have observed, that God may perhaps design you for some singular service in the world. ↗

— David Brainerd

#god #i #may #observed #perhaps

A modern civilization is only possible when it is accepted that singular beings exist and express themselves freely. ↗

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

#beings #civilization #exist #express #freely

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. ↗

— John Keats

#appear #excess #fine #highest #his

How will the approach of the Singularity spread across the human world view? ↗

— Vernor Vinge

#approach #how #human #human world #singularity

The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature. ↗

— Alfred North Whitehead

#bible #humor #literature #most #singular

During this time I had the singular good fortune of being able to discuss the problem constantly with Einstein. Some experiments done at Einstein's suggestion yielded no decisively new result. ↗

— Walther Bothe

#being #constantly #decisively #discuss #done

Another symptom of progress toward the Singularity: ideas themselves should spread ever faster, and even the most radical will quickly become commonplace. ↗

— Vernor Vinge

#become #commonplace #even #ever #faster