Unmediated Quotes & Sayings

In contemporary parlance, the term Salafi has come to acquire many different connotations. It has been used to refer to some groups who consider it obligatory to take up arms against all those - non-Muslims and Muslims - who are deemed to challenge or contravene the dictates of the Islamic foundational texts, the Qur'an and the normative example of the Prophet Muhammad (the sunna). At the other end of spectrum, it refers to a politically quietist trend, typified by the Saudi religious establishment, that rejects all beliefs and practices seen as compromising the oneness of God (tawhid) while leaving politics largely to the rulling elite. But the term Salafi is also used for, and by, those who reject the authority of the medieval schools of law and insist on an unmediated access to the foundational texts as the source of all norms. — Muhammad Qasim Zaman

The almost Oriental politeness of the West Coast is one of its distinctive regional features, in marked contrast to the contentiousness of the East Coast ... So few human contacts in Los Angeles go unmediated by glass (either a TV screen or an automobile windshield), that the direct confrontation renders the participants docile, stunned, sweet. — Edmund White

Man alone, during his brief existence on this earth, is free to examine, to know, to criticize, and to create. In this freedom lies his superiority over the forces that pervade his outward life. He is that unique organism in terms of matter and energy, space and time, which is urged to conscious purpose. Reason is his characteristic and indistinguishing principle. But man is only man
and free
when he considers himself as a total being in whom the unmediated whole of feeling and thought is not severed and who impugns any form of atomization as artificial, mischievous, and predatory. — Ruth Nanda Anshen

Okay, okay. Ms. Muffin stays. But keep in mind; first impressions are everything, and the only people Ms. Muffin will impress are six-year-olds." "Precisely, madre. I don't want to be friends with people who aren't six. At heart. Only at heart. Because it's also fun to legally drive. — Sara Wolf

Oprah's stock in trade has always been her powerful unmediated connection. She could feel your pain and empower you to talk about it. — Tina Brown

Pure love is an unmediated, unmitigated, and unrevealing, but everlasting source of joy for the giver and for the receiver. — Debasish Mridha

Punk is an attitude. Hardcore is a lifestyle. the first seeks to subvert society. The second aims to live outside of it. — Everett True

What is striking about such unmediated juxtapositions, and relevant to the way in which at the end of war opened bodies and verbal issues are placed side by side, is that in most instances the verbal assertion has no source of substantiation other than the body. — Elaine Scarry

I like to think of myself as an unmediated novelist - or perhaps a national novelist. — E.L. Doctorow

Blogging is different from both journal-writing and writing for print. It's more fun than either of those. The freedom to write whatever I want and the unmediated connection with readers are the payoff. — Kate Christensen

I stared at the doors and rewound the evening wondering how I got myself in this latest predicament. Without lemon drops to blame (I had diet with my spicy beef burrito), I could only blame the power tools. Now what normal girl got turned on by power tools? I was so weird! — Kristen Ashley

It's time to create an Economic Growth Code whose purpose is to fix and grow the economy, not redistribute massive amounts of wealth. — Ari Fleischer

The republican form of government rests on representation: The people do not decide issues, they decide who will decide. Who, that is, will conduct the deliberations that "refine and enlarge" public opinion (Madison, Federalist No. 10). This system of filtration is vitiated by a plebiscitary presidency, the occupant of which claims a direct, unmediated, almost mystical connection with "the people. — George F. Will

A poem exists only in the relation between poet and reader. And I'm in need of my readers, except that they never cease to write me as they would wish, turning their reading into another writing that almost rubs out my features. I don't know why my poetry has to be killed on the altar of misunderstanding or the fallacy of ready-made intent. I am not solely a citizen of Palestine, though I am proud of this affiliation and ready to sacrifice my life in defending the radiance of the Palestinian fact, but I also want to take up the history of my people and their struggle from an aesthetic angle that differs from the prevalent and repeatable meanings readily available from an unmediated political reading. — Mahmoud Darwish

I've always been a bit insecure about my smile, but its days like these where all I wanna do is smile. — Nick Jonas

It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our being rightfully. We seek other conditions because we do not understand the use of our own, and go outside of ourselves because we do not know what it is like inside. Yet there is no use our mounting on stilts, for on stilts we must still walk on our own legs. And on the loftiest throne in the world we are still sitting only on our own rump. — Michel De Montaigne

In that moment, he chose Greek. He threw in his lot with Camp Half-Blood-and the horses changed. The storm clouds inside burned away, leaving nothing but red dust and shimmering heat, like mirages on the Sahara. — Rick Riordan

[The canonization of the Koran involved the] attribution of several, partially overlapping, collections of logia [sayings] (exhibiting a distinctly Mosaic imprint) to the image of a Biblical prophet (modified by the material of the Muhammadan evangelium into an Arabian man of God) with a traditional message of salvation (modified by the influence of Rabbinic Judaism into the unmediated and finally immutable word of God). — John Wansbrough

Sometimes, people end up thankful for what they mourned. You cannot achieve this state by seeking tragedy, but you can keep yourself open more to sorrow's richness than to unmediated despair. Tragedies with happy endings may be sentimental tripe, or they may be the true meaning of love. — Andrew Solomon

I am curious to see what books will emerge from all this writing online that's the result of those who grew up pouring their feelings out on Livejournal or Tumblr - excessive, sometimes automatic, sometimes enraged, emotional, while also quite intellectual - or if formal books will emerge at all, if that's not the point of these unmediated raw spaces. I'm excited by the possibility. — Kate Zambreno

Other animals, in a constant and mostly unmediated relation with their sensory surroundings, think with the whole of their bodies. — David Abram

The times on the open road with all the unknown ahead were the times I was happiest and most secure, with people who knew our core and lived solely for the purpose of unmediated experiences and love, from which purpose itself is born. Not the distant idea of life, love and purpose dirtied by constructs. — Jackie Haze

As I've mentioned, a large part of my father's legacy is the lesson he taught his sons. He brought us together and said, 'The measure of a man is how well he provides for his children. — Sidney Poitier

The exception is I'm not going away. Don't ask me to do that ever again. — Tammara Webber

Unmediated joy was nowadays unfashionable. — Gail Jones

I used to have a very unmediated experience of food but, because of the recipe testing, I've lost that now. I can't switch it off even when I'm on holiday. — Yotam Ottolenghi

That's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and WORTH the doing. — Ray Bradbury

Wild foods, microbial cultures included, possess a great, unmediated life force, which can help us adapt to shifting conditions and lower our susceptibility to disease. These microorganisms are everywhere, and the techniques for fermenting with them are simple and flexible. — Sandor Katz

Computer images, like camera images today, will be seen as representations of a simulated, second-degree reality with little or no connection to the unmediated world. This is one lesson we can learn from photographs, and especially from those of the last 25 years: images exist not to be believed, but to be interrogated. — Andy Grundberg

We are story animals. And we need to tell our stories in as direct, as unmediated, and as emotionally resonant a way as possible. — Stephen Apkon

Why does anything left-wing have to be trendy before it's read, and by the time it's trendy it's already a force for conservatism? — Julian Barnes

I can't imagine living and not running. — Paula Radcliffe

The use of violence as an instrument of persuasion is therefore inviting and seems to the discontented to be the only effective protest. — William O. Douglas

Just as there are O.K.-words in conversationship so there are O.K.-people to mention in Newstatesmanship. — Stephen Potter

Singing with others is an unmediated, shared experience as each person feels the same music reverberating in their individual bodies. Singing is part of our humanity; it is embodied empathy. — Jay Griffiths

If I always stuck up for what I had, I would have missed the most amazing things I have today. What are you fighting for that you need to let go? Release the magic within. The magic of what could be. — Tony Curl