Walter Abish quotes

“In the past the French came to Germany less with the desire to understand it than with a zealous desire to interpret, to analyze it dispassionately something for which their training at the Ecole Normale Superieure or the Ecole des Hautes Etudes and the French language superbly equipped them to do.”
-- Walter Abish

Source : Walter Abish (1980). “How German Is It”, p.7, New Directions Publishing

#Past Quotes #Training Quotes #Desire Quotes

“Is it possible for anyone in Germany, nowadays, to raise his right hand, for whatever the reason, and not be flooded by the memory of a dream to end all dreams?”
-- Walter Abish

Source : "How German Is It". Book by Walter Abish, 1980.

#Dream Quotes #Memories Quotes #Hands Quotes

“Once in a while there are things the brain simply refuses to accept as being true because they appear too improbable, too unlikely, too preposterous.”
-- Walter Abish

Source : Walter Abish (1980). “How German Is It”, p.44, New Directions Publishing

#Truth Quotes #Brain Quotes #Accepting Quotes

“Far better to think historically, to remember the lessons of the past. Thus, far better to conceive of power as consisting in part of the knowledge of when not to use all the power you have. Far better to be one who knows that if you reserve the power not to use all your power, you will lead others far more successfully and well.”

“Any city may have one period of magnificence, like Boston or New Orleans or San Francisco, but it takes a real one to keep renewing itself until the past is perennially forgotten.”

“What we have done in the past is not sufficient now to prepare our youth.”

“I didn't think about anything past tomorrow because anything past tomorrow was just like cloud busting - it depended soley on the person looking at the clouds and it could rain any minute”

“The experience you’ve had may be unwanted, may amount to nothing but damage and waste, but experience has substance, is factual, authoritative, lives on in your past and affects your present, whatever you attempt to do about it.”

“I fear -as far as I can tell- that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training. I've heard complaints from even mighty Stanford University with its illustrious faculty that basically the undergraduate computer science program is little more than Java certification.”

“More than half of all great remedies known to medical history have come from empiricists...'irregulars'...of no or little scientific training. There is no reason to believe that conditions have essentially changed.”

Source : Ichabod Smith Spencer (1851). “A Pastor's Sketches”, p.117

“Identification makes general sanity and complete adjustment impossible. Training in non-identity plays a therapeutic role with adults.”

Source : Alfred Korzybski (1958). “Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics”, p.91, Institute of GS

“Whoever desires this world must seek its knowledge, and whoever desires the next must seek its knowledge.”

“Often devotion to virtue arises from sated desire.”