impressions

The impression she left on others and her self-perception had been sewn into a whole so consummate that she could no longer tell how much of each day was defined by what was wished upon her and how much of it was what she really wanted.--Three Daughters of Eve.

It has always been a mystery to me how Adam, Eve, and the serpent were taught the same language. Where did they get it? We know now, that it requires a great number of years to form a language; that it is of exceedingly slow growth. We also know that by language, man conveys to his fellows the impressions made upon him by what he sees, hears, smells and touches. We know that the language of the savage consists of a few sounds, capable of expressing only a few ideas or states of the mind, such as love, desire, fear, hatred, aversion and contempt. Many centuries are required to produce a language capable of expressing complex ideas. It does not seem to me that ideas can be manufactured by a deity and put in the brain of man. These ideas must be the result of observation and experience.

Rich men use most of their money to get richer. Poor men use most of their money to look richer.

People say I have created things. I have never created anything. I get impressions from the Universe at large and work them out, but I am only a plate on a record or a receiving apparatus _ what you will. Thoughts are really impressions that we get from outside.

There is a difference between perspective and perception. Perspective is a personal idea about certain events, based on the impressions, experiences or information available to the mind, while the perception is a momentary thought about the situation, event or people, purely based on the past experience or impressions.

Impression, not oppression determines the real life of a real person.

This susceptibility to impressions had been his undoing, no doubt. Still at his age he had, like a boy or a girl even, these alternations of mood; good days, bad days, for no reason whatever, happiness from a pretty face, downright misery at the sight of a frump.

Imagination is a holy impressions.

What stays with you longest and deepest? Of curious panics, of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?

A person who doesn__ understand both sides of an issue can__ relate to the side he is trying to sway, so his words will bounce off of them without leaving any impression.

I kept returning to this new and bizarre question: is there anything that actually is as it seems? Is anything perceptually straightforward? Maybe that__ inherently impossible, because impressions are, by their very nature, cumulative _ the sum of all your interactions with and perceptions of things.

I asked my dad what people would remember sooner, the things I said or the things I did. His response was: Forgive me, but what people?

Young bodies are like tender plants, which grow and become hardened to whatever shape you've trained them.

It is a very strange thing to see so many images in the world around us... we don't realise it, but we are all impressionable beings, able to pick up off of the images that bombard us on a daily basis. We are created and moulded by images and impressions. One of the most difficult tasks in life, is to keep a steady impression of something in your sight, and to believe in it until it becomes you. Because there is just so much temptation/opportunity, to become something else.

Be positive in your thoughts, passionate in your words and purposeful in your actions. Clean thoughts, Cool words and Clear actions are the impressions that appeal to success.

When he placed a candle on the shelf across the room from him and lit its wick, he came to realize that in fact everything he saw was a flat surface, like a screen _ that in fact dimension was an illusion. Everything was a flat surface and the pinpoints of light, whether from a candle on the shelf or a gaslamp above the street, were punctures in that surface _ gashes made by somebody behind the screen. He realized then that beyond everything he saw there was an entire realm of blazing sunfire, and that colors were only the silhouettes of people in that realm _ walking, eating, dancing, doing whatever they were doing behind the screen. __t astonished Adolphe that everyone failed to realize they were just figures on a tapestry, the shadows of something else. He was therefore amused by the conceit of women, for instance, who who admired the creamy color of their skin when in fact it was only the haze of some other woman behind the vast screen staring into a mirror. Adolphe could explain all of this to himself but he could not explain Janine: Janine wasn't the same as the others. Janine was like their mother; and Adolphe decided Lulu was from this place beyond the surface, and she had, perhaps when she was a little girl, slipped through. __dolphe wondered why Lulu hadn't told them about this, and then realized she probably would when she thought they were old enough to understand it. He could see it wasn't something one would want to tell a child too soon.

We had been assured by our elders that intelligence was a family trait. All my kin and forebears were people of substantial or remarkable intellect, thought somehow none of them had prospered in the world. Too bookish, my grandmother said with tart pride, and Lucille and I read constantly to forestall criticism, anticipating failure. If my family were not as intelligent as we were pleased to pretend, this was an innocent deception, for it was a matter of indifference to everybody whether we were intelligent or not. People always interpreted our slightly formal manner and our quiet tastes as a sign that we wished to stay a little apart. This was a matter of indifference, also, and we had our wish.

I remembered Grandmere Catherine used to tell me your first impressions about people usually prove to be the truest because your heart is the first to react.