Life is fired at us point blank.

 

Life is fired at us point blank.
--
Man and People [El hombre y la gente] (1957), p. 41, translated by Willard R. Trask. ISBN 0-393-00123-7

 

Jose Ortega y Gasset

» Jose Ortega y Gasset - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

You ever see tape of the Kehoe brothers from Ohio, those two guys that get out of that white Suburban, it's been on COPS a few times? Those guys, folks, have a shootout with the police, at point...blank...range—nobody gets hurt. I would love to have been at that office the next day when that guy's being interviewed by the police. "And then what happened?" "Well, at that point, I unloaded my semi-automatic 9 millimeter weapon at point blank range." "And then what happened?" "They...left." Nice shooting, Elmer Fudd. There was a kid in Detroit a few years ago, shot 8 bullets, hit 9 people. These cops fired 22 shots, didn't even hit the f**kin' Suburban!

 

Ron White

 

What's the point of being efficient if you're only leading an efficiently blank life?

 

Douglas Coupland

 

I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm — but that's a lie, and you yourself used to call it that. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.
Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, You can't do a thing. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerises some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of 'you can't' once and for all.
Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily. He wades in and does something and stays with it, in short, he violates, “defiles” — they say. Let them talk, those cold theologians.

 

Vincent van Gogh

 

I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm — but that's a lie, and you yourself used to call it that. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.
Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, You can't do a thing. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerises some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of 'you can't' once and for all.
Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily. He wades in and does something and stays with it, in short, he violates, “defiles” — they say. Let them talk, those cold theologians.

 

Vincent Van Gogh

 

Some people might think I could play Russian Roulette safely with a blank bullet. Our armourer took us outside to demonstrate the damage a blank causes at close range. (The demonstration showed the significant damage caused by firing a blank at a plastic bottle)

 

Derren Brown