Devolving Quotes & Sayings

Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness. As dusk approaches in the hinterlands, a traveler ponders shelter for the night. He notices tall rushes growing everywhere, so he bundles an armful together as they stand in the field, and knots them at the top. Presto, a living grass hut. The next morning, before embarking on another day's journey, he unknots the rushes and presto, the hut de-constructs, disappears, and becomes a virtually indistinguishable part of the larger field of rushes once again. The original wilderness seems to be restored, but minute traces of the shelter remain. A slight twist or bend in a reed here and there. There is also the memory of the hut in the mind of the traveler - and in the mind of the reader reading this description. Wabi-sabi, in its purest, most idealized form, is precisely about these delicate traces, this faint evidence, at the borders of nothingness. — Leonard Koren

I always believed that photography was subjective, interpretive and certainly did not represent the truth, but I did think that its status as a societal and historical referent needed to be both safeguarded and illuminated ... now photojournalism is devolving into yet another medium perceived as intending to shock, titillate, sell, distort. — Fred Ritchin

I'd rather be fried alive and eaten by Mexicans. — Roald Dahl

In adverse circumstances, every creature becomes something else, evolving or devolving. What makes us human is that we know what we once were, and, let us hope, we remember how to change back. — Brian Herbert

Changes to parliamentary procedure won't transform the lives of the people whom I represent. Decentralising, devolving decision-making and renewing civil society will. — David Blunkett

The air was thick with betrayal. No one could trust anyone else, and in that dismal atmosphere the men seemed to grow even duller, devolving into mechanical extensions of the machines they serviced. — Hans Fallada

The role of democracy is not to banish disagreement but rather to prevent political disagreements from devolving into armed conflict. — Michael C. Munger

Alexander Fuller said in Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness about being English: "In this way, the English part of our identity registers as a void, something lacking that manifests in inherited, stereotypical characteristics: an allergy to sentimentality, a casual ease with profanity, a horror of bad manners, a deep mistrust of humorlessness. — Alexander Fuller

I think the damned souls in hell must spend half their time wondering what it was that they really meant to do. — Elizabeth Marie Pope

Just thinking about spending an uninterrupted hour with him makes the color rise in my cheeks, and Emma inquires, "Are you okay? You seem kind of ... distracted."
Distracted. Well, that's one way to put it.
Deciding to throw caution to the wind, I fess up, "Kyle's here. It's our first night together."
"The cop who arrested you?" Emma suddenly looks much more cheerful as she quips, "Kinky, Jessalyn. Did he bring his handcuffs? — Katie Lynn Johnson

People feeling the need to live inside of Faraday cages is a sad reflection on modern society that humans are devolving into living inside of safe spaces. — Steven Magee

Conscience is a creator of meaning. As a sense of constraint rooted in our emotional ties to one another, it prevents life from devolving into nothing but a long and essentially boring game of attempted dominance over our fellow human beings, and for every limitation conscience imposes on us, it gives us a moment of connectedness with an other, a bridge to someone or something outside of our often meaningless schemes. — Martha Stout

God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm. — William Cowper

Before turning 32 is an amazing time to do radical things. You figure out who you are while you figure out who you are not. — Kelly Cutrone

Did he really want this warm room of his, so comfortably fitted with old family furniture, to be transformed into a cave, in which, no doubt, he would be free to crawl about unimpeded in all directions, but only at the price of rapidly and completely forgetting his human past at the same time? — Franz Kafka

This balance between the National and State governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by a certain rivalship, which will ever subsist between them. — Alexander Hamilton

If man was devolving into a psychotic pit of rotted plasma, [Karl] Rove would be the Alpha of such grime. — Larisa Alexandrovna

The genius craves inspiration: she craves altered states and fresh perceptions. She will have them either through evolving closer to the divine or through devolving lower into the world. This is how some people with great genius come to die of drug and alcohol addiction: they seek inspiration by intoxication and are thereby ruined. — Carolyn Elliott

All the companies I've worked for have this deep problem of devolving to something like the hunting and gathering cultures of 100,000 years ago. If businesses could find a way to invent 'agriculture,' we could put the world back together and all would prosper. — Alan Kay

As she grew older, she was aware of her changing position on mortality. In her youth, the topic of death was philosophical; in her thirties it was unbearable and in her forties unavoidable. In her fifties, she had dealt with it in more rational terms, arranging her last testament, itemizing assets and heirlooms, spelling out the organ donation, detailing the exact words for her living will. Now, in her sixties, she was back to being philosophical. Death was not a loss of life, but the culmination of a series of releases. It was devolving into less and less. You had to release yourself from vanity, desire, ambition, suffering, and frustration - all the accoutrements of the I, the ego. And if you die, you would disappear, leave no trace, evaporate into nothingness ... — Amy Tan

A system devolving power to the regions is the route to a viable Iraq. — Mowaffak Al-Rubaie

If something depressing is happening, that's gold. That's the best possible situation you could be in. But if that doesn't happen, you just have to make up stuff - it's more fun because you have more freedom with what you can write about. You can invent characters and situations. It's actually easier. — Eliot Paulina Sumner

It is difficult to decide what you mean when you say any of these words and easy to claim that anyone else's meaning is (or is not) the right one. There is a built-in indeterminacy in our use of language that allows us to shift responsibility for actions in Paris away from a religion to a minor strand in a religion, or to the actions of only those who pulled the trigger. This is the universal problem of secularism, which eschews stereotyping. It leaves unclear who is to be held responsible for what. By devolving all responsibility on the individual, secularism tends to absolve nations and religions from responsibility. — George Friedman

It's clear by now that the problem of language evolution is completely intractable when you approach it from the perspective of a single discipline. For all the salient questions to be answered, the multidisciplinary nature of the field will have to become even more so. So far, it has taken years for individuals in different departments to start talking, to develop research questions that make sense for more than one narrow line of inquiry, and to start to understand one another's points of view. The field of language evolution needs students who can synthesize information from neuroscience, psychology, computer modeling, genetics, and linguistics. The more this happens, the richer and wider the field will become, instead of devolving around one or two theoretical issues. — Christine Kenneally

Devolving APD to Scotland is merely tinkering with it. We have to get shot of this hated tax right across the country to ensure all of our airports are competing on level terms. — Brian Donohoe

To enable consensus politics to develop we need to empower people where they live. This means devolving financial resources and political power down to the community level. One of the greatest blocks to movement is fear. This fear can only be removed when people feel their voices are being heard by government and when they have a say in their own lives and communities. — Mairead Corrigan

Obstacles will look large or small to you according to whether you are large or small. — Orison Swett Marden

I have a word to say to my sisters. When I reflect upon the duties and responsibilities devolving upon our mothers and sisters, and the influence they wield, I look upon them as the mainspring and soul of our being here. It is true that man is first. Father Adam was placed here as king of the earth, to bring it into subjection. But when Mother Eve came she had a splendid influence over him. A great many have thought it was not very good; I think it was excellent (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 199).). — Brigham Young

The checks and balances is a way to prevent government from either devolving into an autocratic tyranny or an autocratic mob mentality. — Beau Willimon

There is always something for which there is no accounting. Take, for example, the whole world. — Leonard Michaels

Even a moderniser like Alexander II - who emancipated the serfs in 1861 - had no intention of devolving real power. — Saul David