Shaped Quotations

My students often ask me, 'What is sociology?' And I tell them, 'It's the study of the way in which human beings are shaped by things that they don't see.'

Like their personal lives, women's history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.

Yeah, my drum programming especially is based on my knowledge of playing a drum kit. For the bass too, definitely. It was the first thing that I translated any sort of ideas through. It must have shaped it somehow.

Country music, the music of the white rural working class, has often been mocked by elitists whose understanding of power and art was shaped at expensive private schools.

Writing is a little athletic for me. I get worked up a little bit when I do it. So I guess I'm a little bit like that composer conducting. There are a lot of things that go into what I do, but I think athletics really sort of shaped my ethic.

It's important that people understand who I am and where I come from and not just have it shaped by purely political discourse.

Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath.

Not all series books are sagas. Some are shaped more like beads on a string, separate episodes held together by a set of characters, who may or may not grow and change as the series continues.

Although he moved away from the Midwest for good at the age of thirteen, Ray Bradbury is a prairie writer. The prairie is in his voice, and it is his moral compass. It is his years spent in Waukegan, Illinois - later rechristened by Ray as 'Green Town' in many books and stories - that forever shaped him.

Being a journalist, being exposed to the world, to social injustice, to intolerance, growing up here, under apartheid, benefitting from that, has all shaped who I am and what my passions are, and of course that's going to come through in my writing.

When I was old enough to know better, I ate a bar of soap in the shape of the Muppets' Fozzie Bear, because I loved him so much I wanted to consume him, even if doing so made me ill. I didn't yet know the word 'foreshadowing.' Fozzie was the only first of many pop-culture icons I feel shaped by.

Romantic fiction is the only purely feminine art form. All other art forms were shaped and are dominated by men.

I like the idea of the documentary as a portrait. There's not a chronological beginning, middle, and end structure. You build something in the editing room that's shaped by getting to know the person and digging deeper, unpeeling the layers of them as you get to know them.

Consider the bloody history of Europe: there was a great aspiration for high culture, yet this very same culture was shaped by brutality and barbarism.

Out of the past come the standards for judging the present; standards in turn to be shaped by the practice of present-day dramatists into broader standards for the next generation.

I think architecture is rarely the product of a single ideology. It's more like it can be shaped by a really big idea. It can accommodate a lot of life forms.

My mother, may her soul rest in peace, shaped my personality; thanks to her, I have acquired many values, good traits and skills.

Music has shaped men's fashion, and transposed in a playful and witty manner its riding or military heritage. It is difficult to figure out who leads, but music and fashion are connected genetically.

As authors evolve and try to trace the precedents that have shaped their work, it sometimes becomes a matter of identifying the shadowy figure in the back row of the mental photograph, or of grabbing at the tail of a memory that's just slipping out the window into thin air.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

If I had learned more about business ahead of time, I would have been shaped into believing that it was only about finances and quality management.

One of the things I regret is that too often in our society a person's whole identity is shaped by their sexuality, or by their sexual orientation. In good Catholic eyes, a person's sexual orientation does not matter.

I talk to our kids now that they are grown up, and I ask them about the experiences that had growing up that really had a powerful influence on the way they view the purpose of life. The experiences that really shaped their values - my wife and I have no memory of those experiences!

Every policy is shaped by two forces: background analysis and foreground politics. The political forces are loud, self-serving and, in the case of energy policy, well known.

I admire Kings of Leon. I think their records are amazing. Just from hanging out with them, I can say they're good guys. It's cool to see that they get to do what they love. But I think they clearly have an appreciation for where they came from, and it has shaped who they are.

When I think of my work, I'm aware that I'm American and African at all points and times. And without a doubt, my experience and understanding of America was shaped by having immigrant parents.

Natural selection shaped the human brain to be drawn toward aspects of nature that enhance our survival and reproduction, like verdant landscapes and docile creatures. There is no payoff to getting the warm fuzzies in the presence of rats, snakes, mosquitoes, cockroaches, herpes simplex and the rabies virus.

My real musical discovery started when I was 10 with Stevie Wonder and the Jackson 5, and acts that I connected with because they were young when they were doing it, like me. Then I kind of came into my own a couple of years later; I found new artists that shaped my musical landscape. For instance, Kings of Leon played a big part in that.

Your belief system tends to be a function of how you were raised. Being raised in the Midwest and in a relatively conservative household, my views were shaped by my upbringing, by my Christian faith.

Harvard Law provided an opportunity to learn from a faculty that had shaped the laws of our country and helped to change the world around us. It also offered an opportunity to study with the brightest students and to test myself against the best.

Listen - of course money changes everything, but so does sunlight, and so does food: These are powerful but neutral energy sources, neither inherently good nor evil but shaped only by the way we use them.

I love showing my scar on my tummy - it is shaped like a question mark.

Modern Americans - shaped by raucous politics and a rapacious media - like to think of themselves as experts in confronting mistakes.

I'll use men's shirts, I love men's shirts, but you have to get them altered because they're shaped differently and I like them to be fitting.

You'll see that the strong, the affirmative, the positive voice in any of the plays I've written is that of a woman. My men are, well, not quite worthless, but they are certainly weak, and that reflects the reality I grew up with and what I think has in a sense shaped me.

Harvard has played an important role in my life. I was a student, Class of 1936, and I've been on the board of overseers. My experiences there shaped who I am.

Writing is a solitary profession; you are really alone when you write. Then the emotions become well shaped and distinct. But their transition into words must be done deliberately and with rigid artistry.

Our morality is based on so many factors: of where we were born, who we were born to, what values were instilled in us, what values we chose, the way that our lives have shaped us. That dictates so much of what we assume is our morality, and also the culture, all of these things.

There's a perennial debate about whether the propagandistic tripe produced by establishment media outlets is shaped more by evil or by stupidity. Personally, I think it's both: a healthy dose of each is needed. The system design is malicious, while those who serve as its public face are generally vacant.

The 1994 elections that brought Newt Gingrich to power in the House decisively shaped the remaining years of Bill Clinton's presidency, pushing him further to the right and bringing out his latent tendency to govern every day as if an election were being held the next.

For the vast majority of world history, human life - both culture and biology - was shaped by scarcity. Food, clothing, shelter, tools, and pretty much everything else had to be farmed or fabricated, at a very high cost in time and energy.

We are dependent not so much on Earth, the third planet orbiting the sun, as on Gaea, the integrated system that includes, sustains and is shaped by life.

I think I can see more clearly now - about how the pattern of past experiences has shaped who I am and the characters I have played - and I'm grateful for that.

What shaped me the most would probably be when my dad passed away. For the rest of my life, I'll kind of feel like he's gonna come home.

One Indian-inspired favourite of mine is mashed potato mixed with lemon juice, breadcrumbs, coriander and chilli, shaped into patties, fried and served with chutney and yoghurt.

We're going to find out pretty quick if (Saturday) was a good thing for us or not. From the way the first half shaped out, we have five of our last seven (league) games on the road.

When I was 12 years old, my father was killed. I lost a loved one to violence. The pain was because I lost my father. It didn't matter that he was an officer... It shaped my life. If anything, it made me a strong advocate for the victims of violence.

She shaped American film criticism for generations to come and, more important, the national understanding of the movies,

Modernity has been largely shaped for Jews by three momentous experiences: the acquisition of citizenship by individual Jews in secular nation-states, the destruction of one-third of Jewry in the Holocaust, and the founding of the State of Israel.

Mr. Brokaw's successive accomplishments in broadcast journalism over the last 40 years, along with his more recent achievements in documentary reporting and authorship, have enlightened audiences, providing them with a unique perspective on our nation and its past, and stirring within them a passion about the historical events that have shaped our present day, ... Mr. Brokaw's work dovetails with the Foundation's mission - to educate, enrich, and inspire a deeper appreciation of our country's heritage through the collected evidence of its history. We greatly appreciate The Boeing Company's generous support of this tribute celebration.

One example of this is the unbridled attacks by some of the media on the majority ruling of Cohen's disciplinary court. The criticism included inferences that ties of friendship between one of the judges and the judge's attorney shaped the outcome of the hearing; that the judges ought to admit their error in public; and that the ruling was ridiculous, distorted and revolting. This isn't criticism. This is attacking for its own sake,

Of course, the last 10 years have shaped who I am today, and I know that how I react to the last few days will also shape who I will become, but to be perfectly honest I'm not even close to looking on the bright side. I hope I will be able to, sooner than later, but this is the hardest thing I've had to deal with and I don't expect it to pass lightly or easily.

One way to appreciate C.S. Lewis is to see how his Christian humility shaped his life and work.

My beard is staying because it covers my bum shaped chin!' - Discussing his much discussed beard

More often than not, the most effective leaders have been shaped by teaching successfully in high needs classrooms. Because of their experience, they know that it is possible for low-income children to achieve on an absolute scale and understand what we need to do to allow them to fulfill their potential.

Memory is a very amorphous thing. It is selective and shaped by emotion . . . people are constantly in pursuit of the details of their past because it is from that they determine their own identity upon which they can base their strategy of survival.

Maybe to feel like an Afghan I needed to be born and raised in the States, and maybe I needed to live in Afghanistan for nearly a decade to feel like an American. Both worlds shaped me, but neither one of them completely correspond to the picture I have of myself.

One of the reasons people like romances is that they're artificially shaped to give a pattern and meaning. It's not as messy as everyday life or as difficult or thorny.

I was shaped by the heroes in the films I saw, which you always want to emulate and be like. I wanted to be like Alan Ladd, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart.

I grew up in a household that had its roots in church and community and culture and poetry and song and in the arts. Those aspects certainly shaped what I do.

I'd love to meet Flannery O'Connor. I think I'd be content to hear her speak on any subject. What forces shaped her. What nebula of books and stories were whirling together inside her at the time of her death.

China is, indeed, in so many ways, not like the West. It is not even primarily a nation state but a civilisation state. Whereas the West has primarily been shaped by its experience of nation, China has been moulded by its sense of civilisation.

For the Stoics do not say that a god is involved with the divisions in a particular liver or particular bird calls (which would be unbefitting, and unworthy of a god, and could not possibly happen); rather, the world was shaped from the beginning in

have defined my life, shaped my abilities and my desire to serve.

He shaped nearly every rule and philosophy we have in our league today. Most of all, he was the moral conscience of the National Football League. He now joins the pantheon of incredible men who made this league what it has become.

History, although sometimes made up of the few acts of the great, is more often shaped by the many acts of the small.

I think it is incredible the way it has shaped up in the last few years. India has the courage to show the world what it has pulled off and many can learn from its achievements.

I think that, in a larger sense, there are millions of people all across America that are the children of Martin and Coretta King, whose whole lives were shaped by their passion for people, opportunity and justice, and their commitment to nonviolent change and by not being discouraged in the face of repeated disappointment.

It is important that we Mainers continue our strong support of the program that has so successfully shaped our current political environment and led to similar reforms in other places.

Just as railroads and interstate highways shaped development in the past, the migration of knowledge workers will shape prosperity in the future. Cities that disregard this basic fact do so at their peril.

Large families are going to go through financial trials, but it has really shaped my children. They learn how to share, how to communicate and how to compromise earlier.

I see a lot of my skills in this position, I'm excited about this opportunity.. After all, swimming shaped me as an individual.

Over the past few years, neuroscientists have made the quite revolutionary discovery that at all ages the brain is plastic or flexible - that's to say it's shaped by experience, what we do and how we think.

Owned technologies are easy to grasp because they're so prevalent. They're technologies that are developed and shaped by a defined group, usually someone selling it.

Over the years, I've lived in a variety of places, including America, but I was born and raised in the Lake District, in Cumbria. Growing up in that rural, sodden, mountainous county has shaped my brain, perhaps even my temperament.

Our culture is more shaped by the arts and humanities than it often is by politics.

Otherwise, I have been shaped by parents and I am proud of that as well.

Our Lord did not try to alter circumstances. He submitted to them. They shaped his life and eventually brought him to Calvary. I believe we miss opportunities and lovely secrets our Lord is waiting to teach us by not taking what comes.

Our lives are shaped by those who love us and by those who refuse to love us

Sports were a big part of my life, and it truly shaped me and the values and morals I have from that, ... It's a good tribute to what I took away from high school sports.

My writing has been shaped by the three countries - Sri Lanka, the Philippines and England - I have lived in.

My personal philosophy stems from the deep understanding of martial arts and Chinese culture, and especially in the past eight years, the Buddhism thoughts shaped my ideology.

My pen moves along the page like the snout of a strange animal shaped like a human arm and dressed in the sleeve of a loose green sweater.

Long Island is shaped the way it is largely because of Robert Moses. Long Island is a perfect example of how political power shapes people's lives every day.

I think he is one of the two greatest presidents of the 20th century, along with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ... He shaped both America and the world, and they are different places than they would have been without Ronald Reagan.

I think legacies are shaped everyday, ... Shaped in your film preparation, shaped in how you take care of everything that is your responsibility, and then of course every practice, and then of course it's magnified in the games because the majority of the people, that's what they see in your life -- what you do on Saturday and what you do on television and so forth. I hope that his focus is on day-to-day preparation and his performance play-to-play, and we'll let those legacy discussions happen long after he's gone.

Man is ultimately not molded or shaped into humanness. The environment does not give him potentialities and capacities; he has them in inchoate or embryonic form, just exactly as he has embryonic arms and legs. And creativeness, spontaneity, selfhood

My character, my mentality was shaped by the Boys and Girls club.

When it comes to negotiating leave, find out what your company's practices are and what kind of bad and good experiences your boss has had. An organization's response is going to be shaped by their prior experiences.

Wellington Mara was a dear friend and football fans everywhere mourn his passing. Throughout my tenure as an NFL owner he was an invaluable advisor in person and in our many phone calls. As a Hall of Fame owner and backbone of the League, he shaped the sport we all love so dearly. My thoughts and prayers are with his family during this sad time.

Usually they'll place an array of explosives locked to a single infrared sensor, ... What you get is an array of shaped charges, so you're not going to get hit with just one.

We know their stories on the field. We know why they're legends, why they're in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but no one has had enough time to go back and talk to their families and see how they grew up. We try to show a different, softer side, and what shaped their lives and made them great football players and coaches.

Those life experiences that helped shaped my political beliefs are with me in every position I take and every vote that I cast - whether it be in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, strengthening Social Security and Medicare, or improving our nation's education system.

We have lost a giant of comedy. Ronnie Barker will be numbered amongst a select band of greats who shaped British comedy in the twentieth century.

We don't know if attitudes were held prior to or largely shaped by it,

We collaborated over the past two years and shaped the show.

This summit of Nice will remain in European history as a summit that shaped the Union. It was important to keep our commitments to the candidate countries in central and eastern Europe.

The one thing that shaped my life was when I was 15 or 16: I knew I wanted to be a journalist. And not just a journalist, but a journalist in the Middle East, and to go back to the Arab world and try to understand what it meant to be Lebanese.

Facebook draws from the public and public-interest sphere, a simultaneously bold and modest step towards acknowledging that our new networked technologies deeply affect our lives in ways not always captured or best shaped by the typical template of consumer and seller.

We all have a Judge Danforth in our lives, that voice of condemnation that calls us to confess the egregious. Sometimes the accusation is unfounded, not shaped by our actions, but by what the world thinks of us already.