Primary Source Quotes & Sayings

8. Santa Claus is concerned about the problem of Arctic ice. The ice is the spouse of the elves, and she is sick. She is the primary source of their magic, as the elves cannot be separated from the place where they live. For many years now, this is all they have asked for for Christmas: that the ice should come back — Catherynne M Valente

Because I got distracted Googling for information on the nanny murder (a good journalist always checks her facts, particularly when the primary source is Sophie, a girl who spouts gossip like she's auditioning to become the next Perez Hilton). It turns out however that Sophie was correct on all points about the murder, which isn't that comforting. — Sarah Alderson

The egotist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man - and he asks no other man to exist for him. — Ayn Rand

In the past 40 years, the United States lost more than a million farmers and ranchers. Many of our farmers are aging. Today, only nine percent of family farm income comes from farming, and more and more of our farmers are looking elsewhere for their primary source of income. — Tom Vilsack

I've been reading the books. It's the origination, it's the primary source. You should always go back to the books. — Benedict Cumberbatch

The will to originality is not the will to be peculiar and unlike anybody else; it means the desire to derive one's consciousness from its primary source. — Nikolai Berdyaev

rationalist believes in reason as the primary source of knowledge, and he may also believe that man has certain innate ideas that exist in the mind prior to all experience. And the clearer such ideas may be, the more certain it is that they correspond to reality. You — Jostein Gaarder

If we lean on a human love story as our primary source of fulfillment and happiness, well never find what we are looking for. But when we find our fulfillment in Jesus Christ, we are free to selflessly love our spouse instead of constantly thinking about our own needs and wants — Eric & Leslie Ludy

Because the New Testament provides the primary historical source for information on the resurrection, many critics during the 19th century attacked the reliability of these biblical documents. — Josh McDowell

It's not at all good when your cancer is 'palpable' from the outside. Especially when, as at this stage, they didn't even know where the primary source was. Carcinoma works cunningly from the inside out. Detection and treatment often work more slowly and gropingly, from the outside in. — Christopher Hitchens

Social Security, for example - I'm 43. I've paid into the system. You know what? That money has been stolen from me. I know that my parents who are on Social Security - they've got to continue to receive it. They're dependent on it. It is their primary source of income. — Joe Miller

The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

If anything, I've found nonfiction a little easier. You don't have to make anything up. Of course, that's the inherent difficulty as well: when you hit an information black hole, you don't get to make it up. That hasn't come up too often with this project though. I'm lucky to have tons of primary source material , reams of letters and diaries and memoirs. — Debra Dean

Novelists would do well to remember that when the works of the scholar-historians create doubt in the researcher's mind, the researcher then turns to literature as a primary source for confirmation or correction. If the truth of a time, a people, a state is not available anywhere else, let it be in the novel. - from Twayne's US Authors Series: JOHN A WILLIAMS by Gilbert Muller — John A. Williams

My biography of Jesus is probably the first popular biography that does not use the New Testament as its primary source material. — Reza Aslan

Hitler and Mussolini were only the primary spokesmen for the attitude of domination and craving for power that are in the heart of almost everyone. Until the source is cleared, there will always be confusion and hate, wars and class antagonisms. — Anonymous

What I try to do - and I think this is the former librarian in me - is to get primary source material. — Theresa Breslin

Twenty-two percent of Americans say their primary news source is Fox News. It's divided our country in a way that we haven't been divided probably since the Civil War, and its empowered large corporations to get certain kinds of politicians and ideologues who are in the United State Congress elected
the Tea Party ideologues who control the Republican Party. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

So, in contrast to what you may have been led to believe, eating fat doesn't make you fat. Insulin is the primary hormone that drives the storage of fat in the fat tissues. And insulin is released not in response to dietary fat, but in response to dietary glucose. And the primary source of glucose in the modern diet is grain. — Josh Turknett

Jazz is a music that really allows a person to express his deepest self, his most personal self - Africa being the primary source of jazz. Naturally, improvisation and swing are a part of jazz, improvisation being the key. — Harold Land

Science is proving it now and the old spiritual books said it centuries ago that negative thoughts are the primary source of all the internal and external diseases/illnesses! — Maddy Malhotra

...because television had become the primary means through which people appropriated the world, it promulgated an epistemology in which all information, whatever the source, was forced to become entertainment. — Neal Gabler

The primary source of the appeal of Christianity was Jesus - His incarnation, His life, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. — Kenneth Scott Latourette

And how can we ever again succeed in educating children to become moral men and women if, in America's public schools, we consciously deny them all religious instruction, and deny them access to that primary source of morality, God's own word. The Bible is the one book from which they are expressly not allowed to be taught. — Pat Buchanan

We are slaves of what we don't know;of what we know we are masters.Whatever vice or weakness in ourselves we discoverand understand its cause and workings,we overcome it by the very knowing.The primary purpose of meditation is to become more consciousand familiar with our inner life.The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares. — Alexander Hamilton

The mother is the early care giver and primary source of identification for all children ... A daughter continues to identify with the mother — Nancy Chodorow

Human beings are made of body, mind and spirit. Of these, spirit is primary, for it connects us to the source of everything, the eternal field of consciousness. — Deepak Chopra

In losing her he lost not merely his main source of companionship but also his primary adviser, whose observations he had found so useful in helping shape his own thinking. — Erik Larson

A particular place in the land is never, for an oral culture, just a passive or inert setting for the human events that occur there. It is an active participant in those occurrences. Indeed, by virtue of its underlying and enveloping presence, the place may even be felt to be the source, the primary power that expresses itself through the various events that unfold there. — David Abram

Ignorance is the primary source of all misery and vice. — Victor Cousin

Sadly, cinemas with film as the primary source are disappearing. We need to remain open to change. That does not require one to divorce the past but to respect and process both the present and the future. — Robert Richardson

Having learned to write news, I now distrust newspapers as a source of information, and I am often surprised by historians who take them as primary source for knowing what really happened. I think newspapers should be read for information about how contemporaries construed events, rather than for reliable knowledge of events themselves. — Robert Darnton

As millions use social media as a primary source of information, the risk of falling victim to being misinformed is high. Readers who quickly scan newsfeeds tend to only read (and share information about) a headline: focusing on "the hook." Whether due to complacency or lack of time, few explore the content. This allows bogus media outlets to descend on the unsuspecting (and unprepared) seekers of instant information, creating false stories with dazzling one-liners, secure in the knowledge that there will be little effort to pursue confirmation or research an entire story. — Carlos Wallace

I would almost describe spirituality as a concern for one's being, one's inner motivation and attitude, one's real inner Source, as opposed to any primary concern for one's "doing." Doing will always take care of itself when your being is right. It is our preoccupation with external forms and successes that makes us superficial, judgmental, split off and often just downright wrong - without knowing it. god — Richard Rohr

God is unchanging primary source of love, all the ingredients of love are oozing out of his pure heart and poured into our hearts. — Euginia Herlihy

Oil is essential for a modern, industrial society. It's unique, first of all, because it's the primary source, at 40 percent, of the world's entire supply of energy, and it's irreplaceable in the transportation field; it provides 98 percent of world transportation energy. — Michael Klare

By reversing the proper order of things, the non-presuppositional apologist sees submission to God's Word as secondary, rather than primary, sees demonstration as the basis for faith, sees independent argumentation rather than the Holy Spirit as the source of conviction, and therefore advances the destruction of his own defense of the faith. — Greg L. Bahnsen

Aren't you failing English?" I asked.
Angeline flushed. "It's not my fault."
"Even I know you can't write an article on Wikipedia and then use it as a source in your own essay." Sydney had been torn between horror and hysterics when she told me.
"I took 'primary source' to a whole new level!"
Honestly, it was a wonder we'd gotten by for so long without Angeline. Life must have been so boring before her. — Richelle Mead

The essence of the Revolution is to abolish the attainment of unqualified power of man over man either by vote-getting, money-pressure or crude terror. The Revolution repudiates profit or terror altogether as methods of human intercourse. It turns the attention of men and women back from a frantic and futile struggle for the means of power, a struggle against our primary social instincts, to an innate urgency to make and to a beneficial competition for preeminence in social service. It recalls man to a clean and creative life from the entanglements and perversion of secondary issues into which he has fallen. It replaces property and official authority by the compelling prestige of sound achievement. Eminent service remains the only source of influence left in the world . . . — H.G.Wells

Our lack of focus is our primary problem and the source of many of our difficulties, like procrastination, trouble setting priorities, trouble dealing with time, trouble finishing projects, perfectionism, and the inevitable demoralization. — Douglas A. Puryear

Those who depend on television as their primary information source are condemned to ... A form of political illiteracy. — Bill Kraus

Our habitual identification with thought - that is, our failure to recognize thoughts *as thoughts,* as appearances in consciousness - is a primary source of human suffering. It also gives rise to the illusion that a separate self is living inside one's head. — Sam Harris

whenever possible, you need to go to the primary source to make your decisions. Regardless of whether or not you're a student, it is never enough to rely on other people's ideas. You have to look at the thing itself and make up your own mind. That's what it means to study and to learn. Some secondary sources proclaim their points of view so loudly and with such passion you might be tempted just to take their word for it. You might be tempted not to do the work of checking to see for yourself. But there can be a fine line between obedience and laziness, and if you go through life dutifully taking other people's word about what's right, you are putting yourself in the position to be led down some very dark roads. After — Ann Patchett

The Christian Theology Reader brings the best primary sources to the theological inquirer. — Gabriel Fackre

When X-rays traverse matter of any kind, this matter becomes a source of a radiation similar in character to that of the primary radiation falling upon it. — Charles Glover Barkla

You might be a redneck if your primary source of income is the pawn shop. — Jeff Foxworthy

Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you are. You need not merit truth. It is your own ... Stand still, be quiet. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

A living creature develops a destructive impulse when it wants to destroy a source of danger ... The original motive is not pleasure in destruction ... I destroy in a dangerous situation because I want to live and do not want to have any anxiety. In short, the impulse to destroy serves a primary biological will to live ... — Wilhelm Reich

80 percent of our global fish stocks are fully exploited, overly exploited or have collapsed. Two billion people rely on the oceans for their primary source of protein. — Barton Seaver

Children happen to be more attached to the female narcissist due to the way our society is still structured and to the fact that women are the ones to give birth and to serve as primary caretakers. It is much easier for a woman to think of her children as her extensions because they once indeed were her physical extensions and because her on-going interaction with them is both more intensive and more extensive.
[The] male narcissist is more likely to regard his children as a nuisance than as a Source of Narcissistic Supply - especially as they grow older and become autonomous.
With less alternatives than men, the narcissistic woman fights to maintain her most reliable Source of Supply: her children. Through insidious indoctrination, guilt-formation, emotional sanctions and blackmail, deprivation and other psychological mechanisms, she tries to induce in her offspring dependence which cannot easily be unraveled. — Sam Vaknin

Christianity is the only world religion whose primary source documents are in a language other than the language of the founder of the religion. This is unheard of among world religions. Muhammad spoke Arabic, and the Qur'an is in Arabic; the Brahmin priests in India spoke Sanskrit, and the Upanishads are in Sanskrit. Jesus spoke Aramaic, and yet the primary documents that record Christ's teachings are not in Aramaic but in Koine Greek, the language of Gentile Hellenism. — Timothy Tennent

If we want to reduce poverty and misery, if we want to give to every deserving individual what is needed for a safe existence of an intelligent being, we want to provide more machinery, more power. Power is our mainstay, the primary source of our many-sided energies. — Nikola Tesla

In conclusion, here's my advice to aspiring writers, journalists, and future lawyers - or anyone planning on working in the communications field: if you want an accurate account of any story, go to the primary sources. They know what really happened. — Simeon Wright

When I'm sniffing around new territory, I often choose, rather randomly, one general book and then follow its bibliography and notes to other, more specialized works and to the primary source material. — Andrea Barrett

Dancing and building are the two primary and essential arts. The art of dancing stands at the source of all the arts that expressthemselves first in the human person. The art of building, or architecture, is the beginning of all the arts that lie outside the person; and in the end they unite. Music, acting, poetry proceed in the one mighty stream; sculpture, painting, all the arts of design, in the other. There is no primary art outside these two arts, for their origin is far earlier than man himself; and dancing came first. — Havelock Ellis

And as an artist, as someone who writes stories and tries to make words into beautiful forms, it's vitally important to me, especially in a culture that's forgotten the value of beauty. It's a primary source or inspiration, I guess, when so much of what goes on around you is only about money and big swinging dick capitalism. It's important for blokes to be able to do beautiful stuff, impractical stuff, that adds to life. That's an early life-lesson from surfing.
— Tim Winton

Liberal humanism, which is still the dominant discourse in Western societies, assumes the unitary nature of the subject and conscious subjectivity. It insists on establishing the appearance of unity from moments of subjectivity which are often contradictory. To be inconsistent in our society is to be unstable. Yet the appearance of the unitary subject, based as it is on primary structures of misrecognition of the self as authorial source of meaning, is precarious, easily disrupted and open to change. — Chris Weedon

Currying favor with special interests at the expense of the public good is a way for politicians to fund their campaigns and secure their future for when they leave government. It has been firmly enshrined as the primary source of money for politics since the Sherman Act did away with patronage. So long as politicians are able to tap special interests for these purposes, they will find ways to reward them with public policy - and they will do whatever it takes to protect the programs they have already put in place. What reformers really need to do first is attack the way the business of politics is conducted, rather than focusing on the products of that business. Then, and only then , will the cancer of cronyism be removed from the body politic. — Anonymous

For fear is a primary source of evil. And when the question "Who am I?" recurs and is unanswered, then fear and frustration project a negative attitude. The bewildered soul can answer only: "Since I do not understand 'Who I am,' I only know what I am not." The corollary of this emotional incertitude is snobbism, intolerance and racial hate. The xenophobic individual can only reject and destroy, as the xenophobic nation inevitably makes war. — Carson McCullers

It was a great challenge to reconstruct Gypsy Rose Lee life, and my interviews with her sister [June Havoc] proved invaluable. It's not often that writers have access to living primary source material; this was the only person who experienced life on the vaudeville circuit with Gypsy during the 1920s, and who saw her perform at Minsky's Burlesque in the 1930s. She knew things that no one else could ever possibly know. — Karen Abbott

Earth as the standard by which to judge all actions transacted on our planet. From such a point of view, we all are Earth Citizens before we are a part of any group, nation, or religion. The Earth is the source of life for all forms of life. It is the common ground and primary value we pursue in our lives personally and collectively! — Ilchi Lee

After all, history is a type of fantasy. For all the primary source research, in the end, the past world the historian builds is as weird and remote from our own as Middle Earth or Narnia, yet oddly familiar. — Ysabeau S. Wilce

Pessimism is a primary source of passivity, — Barbara W. Tuchman

I had turned personal validation into my primary source of meaning and value, so that without it I was miserable and depressed. — Tullian Tchividjian

The closer you can get to your setting and to primary sources, the more authentic your history is going to be ... — David B. Coe

Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art ... It is a privilege to be alive in this time when we can choose to take part in the self-healing of our world. — Joanna Macy

Population growth is the primary source of environmental damage. — Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Teaching, therefore, asks first of all the creation of a space where students and teachers can enter into a fearless communication with each other and allow their respective life experiences to be their primary and most valuable source of growth and maturation. It asks for a mutual trust in which those who teach and those who want to learn can become present to each other, not as opponents, but as those who share in the same struggle and search for the same truth. — Henri J.M. Nouwen