Circles
Never, never rest contented with any circle of ideas, but always be certain that a wider one is still possible. ~ Richard Jefferies
Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. ~ Albert Einstein
He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in. ~ Edwin Markham
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in. ~ Edwin Markham
Circles are simple shapes of Euclidean geometry consisting of those points in a plane which are equidistant from a given point, the centre. They can be described as closed curves which divide the plane into two regions: an interior and an exterior. In everyday use, the term "circle" may be used interchangeably to refer to either the boundary of the figure, or to the whole figure including its interior; in strict technical usage, the circle is the former and the latter is called a disk.
Quotes
- Do not disturb my circles!
- Archimedes, in last words before being killed by a soldier, as quoted in World Literature : An Anthology of Human Experience (1947) by Arthur Christy, p. 655.
- All my life's a circle;
But I can't tell you why;
Season's spinning round again;
The years keep rollin' by.- Harry Chapin in "Circle" on Sniper and Other Love Songs (1972).
- Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
- Albert Einstein, in a letter of 1950, as quoted in The New York Times (29 March 1972).
- Never, never rest contented with any circle of ideas, but always be certain that a wider one is still possible.
- Richard Jefferies, Story of My Heart : My Autobiography (1901).
- There must be a positive and negative in everything in the universe in order to complete a circuit or circle, without which there would be no activity, no motion.
- John McDonald, in The Message of a Master : A Classic Tale of Wealth, Wisdom and the Secret of Success (1929), Chapter 11.
- The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are: that good fortune I have enjoyed for nearly twenty years.
- C. S. Lewis, in They Asked for a Paper: Papers and Addresses (1962), p. 63.
- He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.- Edwin Markham, "Outwitted", from The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems (1913).
- And the seasons they go round and round,
And the painted ponies go up and down,
We're all captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go 'round and 'round and 'round
In the circle game.- Joni Mitchell, "The Circle Game," from Ladies of the Canyon (1970).
- Mathematics would certainly have not come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no exactly straight line, no actual circle, no absolute magnitude.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, as quoted in The Puzzle Instinct : The Meaning of Puzzles in Human Life (2004) by Marcel Danesi, p. 71.
- Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.
- Albert Schweitzer, in Kulturphilosophie (1923), translated as Philosophy of Civilisation (1949).
- A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.
- Mark Twain, quoting a schoolchild in "English as She Is Taught", Century Magazine, May 1887, as reprinted in Essays and Sketches of Mark Twain (1995), ed. Stuart Miller, ISBN 1566198798
- Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop.
- Black Elk in Black Elk Speaks (1961), Chapter 17 : The First Cure.
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
- Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 119.
- Circles and right lines limit and close all bodies, and the mortal right-lined circle must conclude and shut up all.
- Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia, Chapter V.
- A circle may be small, yet it may be as mathematically beautiful and perfect as a large one.
- Isaac D'Israeli, Miscellanies.
- The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays. Circles.
- As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
The centre mov'd, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads.- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle IV, line 364.
- As on the smooth expanse of crystal lakes
The sinking stone at first a circle makes;
The trembling surface by the motion stirr'd,
Spreads in a second circle, then a third;
Wide, and more wide, the floating rings advance,
Fill all the watery plain, and to the margin dance.- Alexander Pope, Temple of Fame, line 436.
- I'm up and down and round about,
Yet all the world can't find me out;
Though hundreds have employed their leisure,
They never yet could find my measure.- Jonathan Swift, On a Circle.
- I watch'd the little circles die;
They past into the level flood.- Alfred Tennyson, The Miller's Daughter, stanza 10.
- On the lecture slate
The circle rounded under female hands
With flawless demonstration.- Alfred Tennyson, The Princess (1847), II, line 349.
- Circles are praised, not that abound
In largeness, but the exactly round.- Edmund Waller, Long and Short Life.