When the words come, they are merely empty shells without the music. They live as they are sung, for the words are the body and the music the spirit.
Altruism itself depends on a recognition of the reality of other persons, and on the equivalent capacity to regard oneself as merely one individual among many.
It has taken me a long time to realize where I most disagree with Marx. His assessment of capitalism is far too favorable. He took its instability, inhumanity and irrationality to be signs that it was a merely transitional form, which had delivered into humanity's hands the means to a much better way of life than any that have ever existed on earth. Marx could not bring himself to believe that our species is so benighted, irrational and slavish that it would put up with such a monstrous way of life.
Historical and public memory is not merely on the side of domination.
Science is the study of what Is, Engineering builds what Will Be. The scientist merely explores that which exists, while the engineer creates what has never existed before.
When we debunk a fanatical faith or prejudice, we do not strike at the root of fanaticism. We merely prevent its leaking out at a certain point, with the likely result that it will leak out at some other point.
Illness is merely the bitter, which a wise Providence mingles in the cup of life.
This thing we call luck is merely professionalism and attention to detail, it's your awareness of everything that is going on around you, it's how well you know and understand your airplane and your own limitations. Luck is the sum total of your of abilities as an aviator. If you think your luck is running low, you'd better get busy and make some more. Work harder. Pay more attention. Do better preflights.
I know that nothing is destructible; things merely change forms.
A real leader is not the top dog who merely shouts down orders. a leader is one who holds the space for the brilliance of others.
Italians do not regard food as merely fuel. They regard it as medicine for the soul, one of life's abiding pleasures.
To me this question whether liberty is a good or a bad thing appears as irrational as the question whether fire is a good or a bad thing. It is both good and bad according to time, place, and circumstance, and a complete answer to the question, In what cases is liberty good and in what cases is it bad? would involve not merely a universal history of mankind, but a complete solution of the problems which such a history would offer.
Among the multitudes will be found many who cannot discriminate between what is merely wanted and what is needed, what is necessary for bare subsistence and what is indispensable for the sake of the freedom and clarity of one's higher powers.
As a child I was not interested in science. I was merely interested in things human, the human side of nature, if you like, and I continue to be interested in that. That's what motivates me.
Some, merely to contradict what I had said, did not scruple to cast doubt upon things they had seen with their own eyes again and again.
I no longer merely confess that I am the righteousness of Christ. I realize that with His DNA in me through His blood, I could be nothing else. I realize the attributes of His DNA reside in me - whether dormant or active.
Fashion is not a real element of beauty in external objects; and to persons who possess a good endowment of Form, Constructiveness and Ideality, intrinsic elegance is much more pleasing and permanently agreeable, than forms of less merit, recommended merely by being new. Hence there is a beauty which never palls, and there are objects over which fashion exercises no control.
One ought not to encourage beggars, and yes, you are right, it is far better to donate to charities that address the causes of poverty rather than to him, a creature who is merely its symptom.
Reading it now for the seventh or eighth time, I am more convinced than ever not merely that The Great Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s masterwork but that it is the American masterwork, the finest work of fiction by any of this country’s writers.
So often we look at a calendar of days as merely a symbol of the passage of time. We forget why we are on this earth. We forget that there is a reason for all the pain and the struggle.