Yquotes.com

 

For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.
--
Tremendous Trifles (1909)

 

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

» Gilbert Keith Chesterton - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead they wouldn’t do well. They’d get bad openings. You cannot compare the playing strength, you can only talk about natural ability. Memorization is enormously powerful. Some kid of fourteen today, or even younger, could get an opening advantage against Capablanca, and especially against the players of the previous century, like Morphy and Steinitz. Maybe they would still be able to outplay the young kid of today. Or maybe not, because nowadays when you get the opening advantage not only do you get the opening advantage, you know how to play, they have so many examples of what to do from this position. It is really deadly, and that is why I don’t like chess any more.

 

Bobby Fischer

 

In every interview I've done since the beginning, [I'm asked] 'How do you feel about opening doors?' And I always say, 'There are two men who opened the doors for all of us, and they were Feliciano and Santana.

 

Gloria Estefan

 

We must consider the words, "the heavens were opened" (Ezek. i. 1); they give the key to the understanding of the whole. The figure of opening, also that of opening the gates, occurs frequently in the books of the prophets... When he commences to describe the firmament in detail, he says, "the firmament," without adding the words "the likeness of," for he says, "And I looked, and behold, in the firmament that was above the head of the cherubims there appeared over them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne" (Ezek x. 1). Here the prophet speaks of "the firmament" and not of "the likeness of the firmament,"...

 

Maimonides

 

Then he would be penniless, with the world before him as a closed oyster to be again opened, and he knew, — no one better, — that this oyster becomes harder and harder in the opening as the man who has to open it becomes older.

 

Anthony Trollope

 

People ask, How did you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well. I can't answer the real question. All I can tell them is, It's easy. Most people pass over incrementally, making a series of perforations in the membrane between here and there until an opening exists. And who can resist an opening?

 

Susanna Kaysen