Modifies Quotes & Sayings

Unlike private enterprise which quickly modifies its actions to meet emergencies - unlike the shopkeeper who promptly finds the wherewith to satisfy a sudden demand - unlike the railway company which doubles its trains to carry a special influx of passengers; the law-made instrumentality lumbers on under all varieties of circumstances at its habitual rate. By its very nature it is fitted only for average requirements, and inevitably fails under unusual requirements. — Herbert Spencer

As democracy modifies our conception of life, it constantly raises the value and function of each member of the community, however humble he may be. — Jane Addams

During my sixteen years as a teacher of writing, I removed many adverbs and adverbial phrases from students' writing. I decided long ago that a writer who needlessly modifies words is either a nervous writer who does not believe in the worth of what they are writing or a vain writer who wants to be seen as discriminating and sensitive to nuances or meaning. — Gerald Murnane

Passing time adds false memories and modifies real ones. — Stephen King

Everything a person is and everything he knows resides in the tangled thicket of his intertwined neurons. These fateful, tiny bridges number in the quadrillions, but they spring from just two sources: DNA and daily life. The genetic code calls some synapses into being, while experience engenders and modifies others.(148) — Thomas Lewis

The fact is that all writers create their precursors. Their work modifies our conception of the past, just as it is bound to modify the future. — Jorge Luis Borges

Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings. — William James

But unless some great revolution in nature modifies the present relative level between land and sea, it may safely be maintained that the present outer reef is the final southern boundary of the North American continent. — Louis Agassiz

Some people who experience a religious conversion seem to undergo a personality change. They can be quite congenial and easygoing when talking about mundane things, but when they start talking about their faith, their demeanor changes. Their tone of voice modifies, their smile becomes tense and they become defensive when questioned about their evidence for belief. It becomes difficult to have a friendly conversation with them. — Darrel Ray

The mental never influences the physical. It is always the physical that modifies the mental, and when we think that the mind is diseased, it is always an illusion. — Claude Bernard

In the critic's vocabulary, the word "precursor" is indispensable, but it should be cleansed of all connotations of polemic or rivalry. The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future."
Essay: "Kafka and his Precursors — Jorge Luis Borges

If the genius of invention were to reveal to-morrow the secret of immortality, of eternal beauty and youth, for which all humanity is aching, the same inexorable agents which prevent a mass from changing suddenly its velocity would likewise resist the force of the new knowledge until time gradually modifies human thought. — Nikola Tesla

An impression which simply flows in at the pupil's eyes or ears and in no way modifies his active life, is an impression gone to waste. It is physiologically incomplete ... Its motor consequences are what clinch it ... — William James

changes the performance of the propulsion system compared to other types of thrusters and modifies the conventional way of calculating some of the thruster parameters, such as specific impulse and efficiency — Anonymous

The individual appears for an instant, joins the community of thought, modifies it and dies; but the species, that dies not, reaps the fruit of his ephemeral existence. — A.S. Byatt

We all must determine what types of anatomical castanets vest in our central core. For aught we know, we still tend to think of ourselves as a complete and fixed product. In reality, analogous to an unfinished paper, working from the inside out, we are retooling ourselves every day whether we recognize the minor or major tinkering taking place or not. In a neurological sense, the brain is constantly working to build and rebuild itself. In a psychological sense, every day the human mind is altering who we are. We constantly take in new information that modifies and enhances our understanding of the world and our place in the environment. Every day we are using the sense of self and our accumulated knowledge to adapt to our world and modify our thinking and behavior. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Nature takes the decision first, man agrees, reconciles, modifies, refutes, contradicts etc., subsequently. It means the application of reason, the discretionary power of a man, only happens afterwards! — Thiruman Archunan

Cognition modifies the knower so as to adapt him harmoniously to his acquired knowledge. — Ludwik Fleck

The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood A mother bears a beautiful daughter who is cursed by an old fairy: the daughter will grow up, prick her hand on a spindle, and die. A young fairy modifies the curse: Beauty will not die, but only sleep until a prince kisses her. They marry, but the prince's mother, an ogre, tries to kill Sleeping Beauty and her children; the ogress fails and the prince kills his mother. — Jeri Studebaker

Gossip, then, is content, a message about people; rumor is a process. It takes a bit of gossip and reshapes it, modifies it in some way, and passes it along from individual to individual in different ways. — Jack Levin

Unquestionably the discovery of the Mississippi is a datable fact which considerably mellows and modifies the shiny newness of our country, and gives her a most respectable outside-aspect of rustiness and antiquity. — Mark Twain

What we do modifies us more than what is done to us. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A novel is based on evidence, + or -x, the unknown quantity being the temperament of the novelist, and the unknown quantity always modifies the effect of the evidence, and sometimes transforms it entirely. — E. M. Forster

Since the heart and behavior are so closely linked, whatever modifies behavior inevitably trains the heart. — Tedd Tripp

The fact is that every author creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future. — Jorge Luis Borges

Isn't it true that philosophy is a barrier? For sure it screens and modifies every bit of information that the mind allows to enter. — Debasish Mridha

A good aim surveys the present state of experience of pupils, and forming a tentative plan of treatment, keeps the plan constantly in view and yet modifies it as conditions develop. The aim, in short, is experimental, and hence constantly growing as it is tested in action. — John Dewey

When a man modifies or adorns a woman's name, or dispatches an endearment into her vicinity, he is attempting at once to alter and deny her, to dilute the privacy of the category she has inherited and to require that she respond as someone quite less than herself. — Ben Marcus

Saw you walking barefoot
taking a long look
at the new moon's eyelid
later spread
sleep-fallen, naked in your dark hair
asleep but not oblivious
of the unslept unsleeping
elsewhere
Tonight I think
no poetry
will serve
Syntax of rendition:
verb pilots the plane
adverb modifies action
verb force-feeds noun
submerges the subject
noun is choking
verb disgraced goes on doing
now diagram the sentence — Adrienne Rich

It is the black poet who bridges the gap in tradition, who modifies tradition when experience demands it, who translates experience into meaning and meaning into belief. — Henry Louis Gates

Giving and taking of orders modifies actions and results, but does not of itself effect a sharing of purposes, a communication of interests. — John Dewey

Each generation exercises power over its successors: and each, in so far as it modifies the environment bequeathed to it and rebels against tradition, resists and limits the power of its predecessors. — C.S. Lewis

The deepest-lying and most pervasive part of character is disposition: it accompanies us everywhere, and shows itself in all we do. It is the attitude of the soul toward life, the way in which we accept our situation and our daily experiences. On the inner side it gives color and tone to our own conscious life: on the outer side it pervades and modifies our conduct toward others and our reactions to events. A good disposition is indispensable to good character, though of course not all of character; without it one cannot hope for perfection; even with it one may fail through lack of higher elements. It is a sort of foundation layer. — Edward O. Sisson

The canvas you are working on modifies the previous ones in an unending, baffling chain which never seems to finish. What sympathy is demanded of the viewer? He is asked to 'see' the future links. — Philip Guston