Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

What the human being sees, what is poured into his environment, becomes a force in him. In accordance with it, he forms himself.

The hardest thing is the idea. Ideas come from somewhere but as far as we know they come from nowhere.

My thought has been shaped by books; my desires by pictures.

I often spend the majority of my time thinking and writing down notes.

Some writers such as John Cheever and Raymond Carver seem to draw artistic energy from analyzing the realm of their own experiences - their social circles and memories and mores. I'm one of those who draw creative energy from the opposite.

Silence is the necessary soil for any thought to flourish.

Reading feeds writing: it presents you with new ideas to engage with.

A man's every action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own body.

Your environment influences your mindset.

I can't say any artist inspired me, because I'm inspired by the things that go on around me.

To supply a thought is mental massage; but to evolve a thought of your own is an achievement. Thinking is a brain exercise and no faculty grows save as it is exercised.

I find, surprisingly, that actors are liberated in their work if there's stuff going on around them, because they can't think too much about who they're supposed to be.

The brain is full of lonely ideas, begging you to make some sense of them, to recognize them as interesting. The lazy brain just files them away in old pigeonholes, like a bureaucrat who wants an easy life. The lively brain picks and chooses and creates new works of art out of ideas.

This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army of the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensuing to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge, the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition, the shafts of with start up like sharpshooters. Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder.

A game is a problem-solving activity, approached with a playful attitude

It is Jazz's very nature to change, to develop & adapt to the circumstances of its environment.

Knowledge of ideal beauty is not to be acquired. It is born with us. Innate ideas are in every man, born with him; theyare truly himself.

So let's not get frightened when the children read fantasy. It's the compost for a healthy mind. It stimulate s the inquisitive nodes, and there is some evidence that a rich internal fantasy life is as good and necessary for a child as healthy soil is for a plant, for much the same reasons.

The only way to stave off boredom, in a complex domesticated primate like humankind, is to increase one's intelligence. This is not appealing to the average primate, who instead invents emotional games (soap opera and grand opera dramatics).

The point of a notebook is to jumpstart the mind.

Weak minds may be injured by novel-reading; but sensible people find both amusement and instruction therein.

The whole body of the arts and sciences composes one vast machinery for the irritation and development of the human intellect.

Where we are is vital to who we are.

Many people think that when we practice agriculture, nature is helping us in our efforts to grow food. This is an exclusively human-centered viewpoint... we should instead, realize that we are receiving that which nature decides to give us. A farmer does not grow something in the sense that he or she creates it. That human is only a small part of the whole process by which nature expresses its being. The farmer has very little influence over that process... other than being there and doing his or her small part.

There are so many other people involved in the making of a play or a television series or whatever... even if you're a novelist there's so much in just the marketing of a book, or even the time... the zeitgeist, the moment at which it comes out. There's a lot you can't control.