Unseen Influences Quotes

It’s what’s invisible that creates what’s visible.

Private grudges give rise to public measures. [Such matters] lie beneath the reach of ordinary historians.

I look to historians for their power to illuminate not just the invisible lineaments of the present, but also that which is not present. What are the roads that were not taken that most shape our own time?

Our beliefs are the invisible ingredients in all our activities.

Behind innocence there gathers a clotted mass of superstition, of twisted and misdirected impulse; clandestine flirtation, fads, and ragtime fill the unventilated mind.

Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys.

Men honor what lies within the sphere of their knowledge, but do not realize how dependent they are on what lies beyond it.

Fate is a misplaced retreat. Many people rationalize an unexplained event as fate and shrug their shoulders when it occurs. But that is not what fate is. The world operates as a series of circles that are invisible, for they extend to the upper air. Fate is where these circles cut to earth. Since we cannot see them, do not know their content, and have no sense of their width, it is impossible to predict when these cuts will slice into our reality. When this happens, we call it fate. Fate is not a chance event but one that is inevitable, we are simply blind to its nature and time.

Astrologers are influenced by theosophy, so they say, "That is very simple, it is just vibration!" ... But what is vibration? They say it is light energy, perhaps electricity, they are not quite informed. At all events the vibrations that could influence us have never been seen, so it remains just a word.

If God resides anywhere ... surely he shelters behind barricades of pure chance.

There are forces at work you do not perceive. I weave a delicate strategy which rash actions could rend. Patience , please.

It would be so weird if we knew just as much as we needed to know to answer all the questions of the universe. Wouldn't that be freaky? Whereas the probability is high that there is a vast reality that we have no way to perceive, that's actually bearing down on us now and influencing everything.

All invisible from where we stand the connections come to pass, and though too strong to comprehend they affect us not the less.

O who knows what slumbers in the background of the times?

History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, ... The generator of historical events is different from the events themselves, much as the minds of the gods cannot be read just by witnessing their deeds.

Just because something is invisible doesn't mean it isn't there. At any given time, there are a host of invisibles floating among us. There are clairvoyants to see ghosts; but who sees the invisible emotions, the unrecorded events? Who is that sees love, more evanescent than any ghost, let alone can catch it? Who are you tell me that I don't know what love is?

Fate steals along with silent tread, Found oftenest in what least we dread; Frowns in the storm with angry brow, But in the sunshine strikes the blow.

Expectation works in mysterious ways---and totally unconsciously.

The eye is continually influenced by what it cannot detect; nay, it is not going too far, to say that it is most influenced by what it detects least. Let the painter define, if he can, the variations of lines on which depend the change of expression in the human countenance.

Many of the things that shape the way the world looks are, quite frankly, invisible.

The secrets of nature are concealed; her agency is perpetual, but we do not always discover its effects; time reveals them from age to age; and although she is always the same in herself, she is not always equally well known.

Figuring out why people who choose not to do something don't in fact do it is like attempting to interview the elves who live inside your refrigerator but come out only when the light is off.

Man finds his pathways: at first they were foot-tracks, as those of the beast in the wilderness; now they are swift and invisible: his thought dives through the ocean, and his wishes thread the air: has he found all the pathways yet? What reaches him, stays with him, rules him: he must accept it, not knowing its pathway.