Naturalistic Quotes & Sayings

Cool it," cried Olga. "Working hard is what I do! Can't be perfect. Going to school not cheap and what are you doing here, a beauty nobody want. My first year was ok, only five or ten times knocked down, then later more and more. He says I'm no lady and gotta work harder for his dollar. — J.M.K. Walkow

I began as a naturalistic painter. Very quickly I felt the urgent need for a more concise form of expression and an economy of means. I never stopped progressing toward abstraction. — Piet Mondrian

It is the distinction between transpersonal and interpersonal relationships with deities which sets naturalistic polytheism apart from neopolytheism. Interpersonal relationships are between two or more persons and are focused upon individual perspectives. A transpersonal relationship extends beyond the individual perspective, transcending the distinctions of ego and personality. For example:
A neopolytheist has a close personal relationship with a modernized personification of Thor, to whom she prays to daily.
A naturalistic polytheist practices breathing as a sacrament which allows her to focus on life's connection to the atmosphere, altering her perception of separateness, resulting in viewing the at-mosphere as a deity." - Glen Gordon, "Naturalism and the Gods — John Halstead

All red and blue engines turned on. Yellow Car became a rocket and lifted off into space. — J.M.K. Walkow

Fred prepared a board game he had created for the entire family to play. And they did. — J.M.K. Walkow

Darwinism is not merely a support for naturalistic philosophy: it is a product of naturalistic philosophy. — Phillip E. Johnson

A vicious monster came from nowhere and kicked the car sideways — J.M.K. Walkow

I'm dying to do a tiny indie and play something totally naturalistic without any sort of constraints on me. Something where I can shock everyone. — Lily James

There is a slovenly disrespect for truth and reality that has infected and cross-infected the arts; the values of entertainment are relentlessly in the ascendant, to the extent that it becomes virtually impossible to write a naturalistic fictional sentence without feeling that the fabric of that sentence is already compromised. — Rachel Cusk

I find that 'Ghostbusters' and 'Alien' actually have a lot in common in that they're both so naturalistic in the performances. It feels like people you could be hanging out with right now in this room, yet they're on a spaceship or killing ghosts. But the way they talk is never heightened or otherwordly. — Akiva Schaffer

Since procrastination is a message from our natural willpower via low motivation, the cure is changing the environment, or one's profession, by selecting one in which one does not have to fight one's impulses. Few can grasp the logical consequence that, instead, one should lead a life in which procrastination is good, as a naturalistic-risk-based form of decision making. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Bealer has a number of reasons for thinking that a naturalistic epistemology is self-undermining. Let me focus on one of these. (I've tried to take on all of them in the first chapter of Knowledge and Its Place in Nature.) — Hilary Kornblith

From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots. — Mikhail Bakunin

Blazing Night decided to travel to Europe to collect the information that was not on the net, some of it was hidden in old archives and cemeteries. — J.M.K. Walkow

The women were quiet. Blazing Knight checked her computing jobs on the net. A plastic surgeon was found. She could go any time and offer him a chance to repair her rotten parts, to reconstruct her again to a beautiful young female. — J.M.K. Walkow

Her only weak part, they figured, was a fear of the desert, perhaps a fear of drying in the scorching sun, perhaps a lack of water to drink. — J.M.K. Walkow

Sunday was a day when players could not dispatch their doubles. Instead, clones went to the garage, where they studied educational ... — J.M.K. Walkow

It makes no difference whether a work is naturalistic or abstract; every visual expression follows the same fundamental laws. — Hans Hofmann

I know that some filmmakers strive for a kind of naturalistic approach, but you're never going to capture something that's really natural - just the simple fact that you choose to put a frame around something means that you've already chosen one particular thing to put more attention on. — Jarvis Cocker

Marketing is bad manners - and I rely on my naturalistic and ecological instincts. Say you run into a person during a boat cruise. What would you do if he started boasting of his accomplishments, telling you how great, rich, tall, impressive, skilled, famous, muscular, well educated, efficient, and good in bed he is, plus other attributes? You would certainly run away (or put him in contact with another talkative bore to get rid of both of them). It is clearly much better if others (preferably someone other than his mother) are the ones saying good things about him, and it would be nice if he acted with some personal humility. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I'm a fan of the European style, naturalistic thriller. — George Ratliff

All the essentials of Hinduism would, I think, remain unimpaired if you subtracted the miraculous, and the same is almost true of Mohammedanism. But you cannot do that with Christianity. It is precisely the story of a great Miracle. A naturalistic Christianity leaves out all that is specifically Christian. The — C.S. Lewis

Is it Abstract, Fauvism, Expressionism, Mannerism, Impressionism? Close but no, this is Naturalistic Fantasy. A movement where science, fantasy, philosophy and art come together. Is it possible to mirror our fantasy, which often is based on nature, then turn it to an art work, which once is complete become nature again? Should we call it Fantaisie Naturaliste? — J.M.K. Walkow

I've known gay people - men and women - since I was a young person. To me it's just naturalistic and realistic to portray gay characters in a humanistic light. As a young man, I knew enough gay people as people not to fear them. On the other side of the coin, I like to irritate conservatives and homophobes. — Gilberto Hernandez Guerrero

The essential task ahead requires formulating an adequate doctrine, upholding principles that have been thoroughly studied, and, beginning from these, giving birth to an Order. This elite, differentiating itself on a plane that is defined in terms of spiritual virility, decisiveness, and impersonality, and where every naturalistic bond loses its power and value, will be the bearer of a new principle of a higher authority and sovereignty; it will be able to denounce subversion and demagogy in whatever form they appear and reverse the downward spiral of the top-level cadres and the irresistible rise to power of the masses. From this elite, as if from a seed, a political organism and an integrated nation will emerge, enjoying the same dignity as the nations created by the great European political tradition. Anything short of this amounts only to a quagmire, dilettantism, irrealism, and obliquity. — Julius Evola

I saw how you could get away with such a free-spirited, naturalistic sensibility in a mainstream Hollywood movie, and you could apply a lot of the skills of the '70s icons that I really admire to a contemporary, commercial movie. — David Gordon Green

Happy Holidays

Is it not this day to smile?
Is it yet a time to give?
Is this friend as old as good?
Is my family so well?

Santa is just on his way,
Bringing gifts and love tonight,
Have a prosperous New Year!
And a happy day to last! — J.M.K. Walkow

No problem is more crucial for a naturalistic view of the world than the mind-body problem. — Roy Wood Sellars

She was an elf
She turned the lake to swamp
A dark and warm marsh
Her body sunk down
There unshaken lay — J.M.K. Walkow

The hall door, beside which Rob worked that dreary noon, looked very old; its weathered brown paint was carved by long black lines left by leaks in the porch. — J.M.K. Walkow

Jumping Rabbits played against Stinky Frogs and the winner took on Purple Rats immediately after. Blazing Night had constructed ... — J.M.K. Walkow

All parts of his body, the circuit and flesh, required rest. Not that anything had gone wrong. — J.M.K. Walkow

If life can emerge just from naturalistic circumstances, then God is out of a job. — Lee Strobel

Few understand that procrastination is our natural defense, letting things take care of themselves and exercise their antifragility; it results from some ecological or naturalistic wisdom, and is not always bad
at an existential level, it is my body rebelling against its entrapment. It is my soul fighting the Procrustean bed of modernity. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

[Evolution] doesn't mean God-guided, gradual creation. It means unguided, purposeless change. The Darwinian theory doesn't say that God created slowly. It says that naturalistic evolution is the creator, and so God had nothing to do with it. — Philip Johnson

Jupiter was a chilly, dark and unfriendly tract of land in which no hope lingered, only despair. There she woke up in an oval dungeon. — J.M.K. Walkow

Evolution is amoral. Just because something is natural doesn't make it morally good ("the naturalistic fallacy"). Conversely, just because something is morally desirable doesn't make it true ("the moralistic fallacy"). — John Durant

A naturalistic Christianity leaves out all that is specifically Christian. — C.S. Lewis

I do think that it is legitimate to talk of goals and functions in nature, and that these things can be made sense of in naturalistic terms. There is nothing at all contrary to naturalism in the idea of goal-directed systems. — Hilary Kornblith

Secular humanism does not have the essential attributes of a religion: belief in a deity, the wish for some sort of afterlife, sacred dogma or texts, or an absolutist moral creed. Instead, it expresses a philosophical and ethical point of view, and it draws upon the scientific method in formulationg its naturalistic view of the nature. — Paul Kurtz

The heron must be used to people, and yet it never lets you get too close. Draw parallel to it with the width of one of the marsh's holding ponds between you, and it will duck its head, eyeing you with suspicion, then fly. I cannot approach the heron, certainly could never touch it; I can only look for it, entranced.
This is how I understand the divine, and why I continue to seek it in the resolutely non-human world, with which we nonetheless recognize a numinous kinship. Sometimes, it will turn and lock eyes with you, lifting you out of yourself, changing everything. Other times, it will give you the side-eye and swoop away, leaving you longing for retreating beauty. You might not see it every single time you go looking, or where you expect to find it. No matter how common the experience, every time you stumble across mystery, or independent wild being, it is a surprise and a miracle. And every day, you can look." - Sara Amis, "A Daily Heron — John Halstead

I like stories that exist both in the naturalistic world and in our imaginative lives, films are so immersive in that sense, we can explore how our characters think and dream, as well as how they exist in the real world. — Dave McKean

The evolutionary explanation for origins, although impossible either to prove or to test scientifically, is nevertheless defended by its proponents on the basis that it is the only explanation which is naturalistic, not involving the 'supernatural' element of a divine Creator. — Henry M. Morris

I've consciously tried not to romanticize anything, especially not intelligence work. I've always said that I've been writing a series of episodic, naturalistic novels. The people just happen to be spies, politicians, civil servants. — Charles McCarry

Was it two or one dead face? Would you notice that at last? We are together and alone, until the firm and angry blast. — J.M.K. Walkow

Plainly, such an approach does not exclude other ways of trying to comprehend the world. Someone committed to it (as I am) can consistently believe (as I do) that we learn much more of human interest about how people think and feel and act by reading novels or studying history than from all of naturalistic psychology, and perhaps always will; similarly, the arts may offer appreciation of the heavens to which astrophysics cannot aspire. — Noam Chomsky

However, he either could growl without meaning, like a monster, or stay silent and keep his ideas to himself. — J.M.K. Walkow

Understanding the eternal formula," Anna replied, "is the clue to win any game, and if you desire power you'll get it. — J.M.K. Walkow

I only like naturalistic stories. I love short, fantastic stories that cast a spell over the reader, that transport you instantly to another place with another set of rules, somewhere imagined by someone else. — Nicholas Royle

Kant, as we all know, compared moral law to the starry heavens, and found them both sublime. On the naturalistic hypothesis we should rather compare it to the protective blotches on a beetle's back, and find them both ingenious. — Arthur Balfour

Among the things most characteristic of organisms--most distinctive of living as opposed to inorganic systems--is a sort of directedness. Their structures and activities have an adaptedness, an evident and vital usefulness to the organism. Darwin's answer and ours is to accept the common sense view...[that] the end ("telos") [is] that the individual and the species may survive. But this end is (usually) unconscious and impersonal. Naive teleology is controverted not by ignoring the obvious existence of such ends but by providing a naturalistic, materialistic explanation of the adaptive characteristics serving them. [Book review in "Science," 1959, p. 673.] — George Gaylord Simpson

My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species ... [In fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms. — Antony Flew

Once a photographer is convinced that the camera can lie and that, strictly speaking, the vast majority of photographs are camera lies, inasmuch as they tell only part of a story or tell it in distorted form, half the battle is won. Once he has conceded that photography is not a naturalistic medium of rendition and that striving for naturalism in a photograph is futile, he can turn his attention to using a camera to make more effective pictures. — Andreas Feininger

A Nonstandard Graph, Elements and Operations, a Card Game Dialect A combination of the Mold dialects and Sandwich graphs, backed by axiomatic math, creates a unique space of science and fantasy. — J.M.K. Walkow

Here the contention is not just that the new Darwinian paradigm can help us realize whichever moral values we happen to choose. The claim is that the new paradigm can actually influence - legitimately - our choice of basic values in the first place. Some Darwinians insist that such influence can never be legitimate. What they have in mind is the naturalistic fallacy, whose past violation has so tainted their line of work. But what we're doing here doesn't violate the naturalistic fallacy. Quite the opposite. By studying nature - by seeing the origins of the retributive impulse - we see how we have been conned into committing the naturalistic fallacy without knowing it; we discover that the aura of divine truth surrounding retribution is nothing more than a tool with which nature - natural selection - gets us to uncritically accept its "values." Once this revelation hits norm, we are less likely to obey this aura, and thus less likely to commit the fallacy. — Robert Wright

When you think of the 'Exorcist,' you think of Linda Blair and pea soup and all this madness, but really if you look at the first half of that film, the stuff between her and Ellen Burstyn is so naturalistic and so real. — Matt Reeves

What Christopher Nolan and I have done with 'Superman' is try to bring the same naturalistic approach that we adopted for the 'Batman' trilogy. We always had a naturalistic approach; we want our stories to be rooted in reality, like they could happen in the same world we live in. — David S.Goyer

The argument from design is ultimately an appeal to miraculous causes, i.e., causes that do not, and cannot, occur in the natural course of events. This is why an explanation via design is not a legitimate alternative to scientific and other naturalistic modes of explanation. To refer to a miraculous cause is to refer to something that is inherently unknowable, and this sanctuary of ignorance explains nothing at all. However much it may soothe the imagination of the ignorant, it does nothing to satisfy the understanding of a rational person. — George H. Smith

Akhenaten's allegedly monotheistic worship of Aten and the more naturalistic art produced during his reign, a revolutionary break from the more formal art of earlier periods, have made him a sympathetic figure to many. — Pamela Sargent

The Flower of My Secret is definitely more based in true emotions. I also wanted to make something more realistic, but not naturalistic or simple. — Pedro Almodovar

There is a worry that many have expressed that, on the naturalistic way of approaching philosophical questions, philosophy will somehow be co-opted by science. I'm not much worried about this. — Hilary Kornblith

I liked being in a smaller theater. I love doing shows of all sizes, but sometimes it's nice to be in a smaller space and to strip away some of the music so that you can be a little less than larger-than-life; you can be a little more naturalistic. — Max Von Essen

I've been pretty well treated by the critics, but the critics who didn't like my comedies hated them with an unbridled passion, and then I would see these same people writing very respectfully about ordinary naturalistic plays. — David Lindsay-Abaire

Paul Davies takes us on a logically and rhetorically compelling modern search for human agency. This outstanding analysis, well informed by naturalistic views of our evolved affective nature, is the kind of philosophical work that is essential for a field to move forward when ever-increasing findings from modern science are inconsistent with traditional philosophical arguments. This book is for all who wish to immerse themselves in the modern search for free will. It is steeped in the rich liqueur of current scientific and philosophical perspectives and delusions. — Jaak Panksepp

Heat and dryness frightens me,
like skeletal shapes of war,
two of them look doomed
and challenge the peace blazing. — J.M.K. Walkow

I can think of no series of words that could appear in a piece of naturalistic fiction that could not also appear in the same order in a piece of speculative fiction. I can, however, think of many series of words that, while fine for speculative fiction, would be meaningless as naturalism. Which then is the major and which the subcategory? — Samuel R. Delany

Bruce worked very hard on an obscure document about prophecy and how some people could experience events that were later realized. Scientists did not find any rational explanation for this but often called it a process of intuitive repetition. Bruce also read about second thoughts, often quite unlike the original. They came to some people like a flash, in the middle of the night. Finally, he read a combination of intuitive repetitions and that blazing nights could, as the result of revelation, find of great importance. He read that it was one of those big inventors' ways of approaching a new unknown. These were difficult concepts to understand, and Bruce fell asleep while reading. — J.M.K. Walkow

The Rats had a fine goalie, Big Ann, a lady dragon who fearlessly stretched herself to the limit anytime she blocked the ball. — J.M.K. Walkow

For me, as a writer who comes from quite a naturalistic tradition, British screenwriting is quite delicate, quite small, and rarified in a way. — Simon Beaufoy

It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism, — Antony Flew

I agree," said Blazing Night. "I'm working on the formula to get the money from the rich folk and do it fast. It's not easy, do you know how? — J.M.K. Walkow

In a few years the firm effort of Blazing Night combined with her tedious works on the net was changing the world. She had designed and established the biggest ever, the multi-trillion charitable company: Panhandlers Inc. — J.M.K. Walkow

Unlike film, live theater is an anti-naturalistic medium in which character is mainly illuminated through speech and movement. — Terry Teachout

When you break into song, it's not about dialogue, it's not about how you would speak in a naturalistic sense-it's about expressing your inner torment or your inner joy. — Julie Taymor

A refreshing west coast breeze carried a few clouds toward the main door of the car shop by the ocean's rocky beach on the island. — J.M.K. Walkow

Far more serious still is the division between the Church of Rome and evangelical Protestantism in all its forms. Yet how great is the common heritage which unites the Roman Catholic Church, with its maintenance of the authority of Holy Scripture and with its acceptance of the great early creeds, to devout Protestants today!
We would not indeed obscure the difference which divides us from Rome. The gulf is indeed profound. But profound as it is, it seems almost trifling compared to the abyss which stands between us and many ministers of our own Church. The Church of Rome may represent a perversion of the Christian religion; but naturalistic liberalism is not Christianity at all. — J. Gresham Machen

To no surprise, the theories and structures of naturalistic science affirm naturalistic assumptions. — Albert Mohler

The naturalistic literature of this country has reached such a state that no family of characters is considered true to life whichdoes not include at least two hypochondriacs, one sadist, and one old man who spills food down the front of his vest. — Robert Benchley

Self-consciousness is, from a naturalistic point of view (in this case neurobiological), not more than a degree of sophistication of neural processes. The emergence of self-conscious states is not a drastic, extravagant, earth-shaking phenomenon. — Istvan Aranyosi

Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; Modernism used art to call attention to art. — Clement Greenberg

if you are suffering without a belief in God, then there is not a lot of hope that your pain has any greater purpose in the grand scheme of the universe. Suffering is just a part of naturalistic evolution weeding you out of existence for something stronger and younger to take your place on the food chain. — Jon Morrison

"science" as defined in our culture has a philosophical bias that needs to be exposed. On the one hand, science is empirical. This means that scientists rely on experiments, observations and calculations to develop theories and test them. On the other hand, contemporary science is naturalistic and materialistic in philosophy. What this means is that materialist explanations for all phenomena are assumed to exist. And what that means is that the NABT's definition of evolution as an unsupervised process is simply true by definition
regardless of the evidence! It is a waste of time to argue about the evidence if one side has already won the argument by defining the terms. — Phillip E. Johnson

All the most prominent Darwinists proclaim naturalistic philosophy when they think it safe to do so. — Phillip E. Johnson

In Shakespeare, keep it simple. Don't over-inflect. The speech needs to be naturalistic and simple and accessible as much as possible. — Ralph Fiennes

I don't understand why people don't use improvisation, especially in comedy films, but also, for me, you get more naturalism, and that's why I like the naturalistic performances and strange rhythms and the way that people genuinely interact captured rather than sort of very mannered performances. — Alice Lowe

Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud's terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things. Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The great thing I like about the sci-fi genre is there's a lot of different latitude for a lot of different kinds of behavior. You can be a very larger-than-life villain, or a very naturalistic villain, and all of it seems to fit. — Mark Pellegrino

Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true. The whole defence of religious faith hinges upon action. If the action required or inspired by the religious hypothesis is in no way different from that dictated by the naturalistic hypothesis, then religious faith is a pure superfluity, better pruned away, and controversy about its legitimacy is a piece of idle trifling, unworthy of serious minds. I myself believe, of course, that the religious hypothesis gives to the world an expression which specifically determines our reactions, and makes them in a large part unlike what they might be on a purely naturalistic scheme of belief. — William James

The eternal formula," Anna said. "A rule you can't fully understand, only its reflections can be documented and used. — J.M.K. Walkow

The reason Buddhism can be so naturalised is because, stripped of its supernatural elements, its core teachings can be giving a sound, secular philosophical interpretation. In other words, it becomes a religion acceptable to the contemporary, naturalistic mind only when it ceases to be a religion. — Julian Baggini

Bealer argues that the kind of naturalistic view which Quine holds will rob him of the ability to make the normative claims which (many) naturalists wish to make in epistemology. I don't think this is right about Quine, but I'm certain it's not right about my own view. To the extent that I can show that talk of knowledge is firmly rooted within empirical theories where it plays an important explanatory role, I thereby demonstrate its naturalistic credentials. — Hilary Kornblith

If you're drawing humans, it can be detrimental to be too naturalistic, which is like animating little corpses. — Henry Selick

Her knees were weak and if not for that marble pillar beside her shoulder she would faint and fall not far from the maze at the end of the main aisle of the church. — J.M.K. Walkow

Rob left a note in the Manuscript, stating that once the formula was perceived and defined, it could be used in many ways, including winning millions of dollars from a bunch of billionaires. — J.M.K. Walkow

In the course of this story, and very soon now, it will be necessary to make some disclosures about Mr. Krupper of a nature too coarse to be dealt with very directly in a work of such brevity. The grossly naturalistic details of a life, contained in the enormously wide context of that life, are softened and qualified by it, but when you attempt to set those details down in a tale, some measure of obscurity or indirection is called for to provide the same, or even approximate, softening effect that existence in time gives to those gross elements in the life itself. When I say that there was a certain mystery in the life of Mr. Krupper, I am beginning to approach those things in the only way possible without a head-on violence that would disgust and destroy and which would actually falsify the story.
("Hard Candy") — Tennessee Williams

As an actor, doing it for 30 years, with every movie, you're trying to figure out a way to make it more naturalistic and more organic to humanity. When you have lines like, "Never let the monster out," it's hard. — Josh Brolin

I believe in poetic discourse, in the value of speech in a non-naturalistic way; it's speculative. — Howard Barker

The New Atheists are not open or willing to go where the evidence leads, unless that evidence sustains their own naturalistic assumptions. They have covertly reduced all philosophical thought and deduction to
ironically-fait h! — Ravi Zacharias

As students grow more and more accustomed to assuming materialism and naturalism in their academic work, the concept of creation by God gradually tends to become less real to them. It is not so much that any single finding undermines their faith; rather, the day-to-day practice of thinking in naturalistic terms about academic subjects makes it awkward to think differently when it comes to religion. — Phillip E. Johnson

From my point of view, why shouldn't I work in every possible mode, to see if it's viable? "Los Gigantes" would not have worked as a straightforward, naturalistic tale. Part of the fun of it is that it's so preposterous and yet at the same time, it could have happened. Think of eugenics. Hitler certainly would have been doing it if he could have. — T.C. Boyle