„I seem to you to have written everything, or at least a great deal, while to myself I appear to have produced almost nothing.“

„I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.“

—  Isaac Newton British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics 1643 - 1727

Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27). Compare: "As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore", John Milton, Paradise Regained, Book iv. Line 330

„In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments.“

—  Rutherford B. Hayes American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881) 1822 - 1893

As quoted in Rutherford B. Hayes, and His America (1954) by Harry Barnard. p. 481

„I believe that political power also exercises itself through the mediation of a certain number of institutions that seem to have nothing in common with political power, that have the appearance of being independent, but are not.“

—  Michel Foucault French philosopher 1926 - 1984

Je crois que le pouvoir politique s’exerce encore, s’exerce en outre, de plus, par l’intermédiaire d’un certain nombre d’institutions qui ont l’air comme ça de n’avoir rien de commun avec le pouvoir politique, qui ont l’air d’en être indépendantes et qui ne le sont pas.
Debate with Noam Chomsky, École Supérieure de Technologie à Eindhoven, November 1971

„I daresay it seems foolish; perhaps all our earthly trials will appear foolish to us after a while; perhaps they seem so now to angels. But we are ourselves, you know, and this is now, not some time to come, a long, long way off. And we are not angels, to be comforted by seeing the ends for which everything is sent.“

—  Elizabeth Gaskell, libro Esposas e hijas

Wives and Daughters, ch. 11
Wives and Daughters

„For every album I’ve ever made, I’ve written many times more music than has actually been released, and the way I choose which music appears is almost totally random, but one thing I have never done is to make music for the sake of commercialism“

—  Vangelis Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock, and orchestral music 1943

1984
Contexto: On albums and commercialism: "For every album I’ve ever made, I’ve written many times more music than has actually been released, and the way I choose which music appears is almost totally random, but one thing I have never done is to make music for the sake of commercialism... I don’t think it’s possible to guarantee commercial success for an album anyway, because nobody really knows what is commercial and what isn’t. Even if I went out of my way to make an album that was more accessible to the public, that would not guarantee its commercial success".

„If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.“

—  William Shakespeare English playwright and poet 1564 - 1616

„Having soon discovered to be great, I must appear so, and therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped myself in mystery, devoting my time to fasting and prayer.“

—  Nat Turner American slave rebellion leader 1800 - 1831

„Insofar as the gap between essence and appearance is inherent to appearance, in other words, infsofar as essence is nothing but appearance reflected into itself, appearance is appearance against the background of nothing - everything appears ultimately out of nothing.“

—  Slavoj Žižek Slovene philosopher 1949

Fuente: Less Than Nothing (2012), Chapter One (The Drink Before), Vacillating The Semblances
Contexto: The implicit lesson of Plato is not that everything is appearance, that it is not possible to draw a clear line of separation between appearance and reality (that would have meant the victory of Sophism), but that essence is "appearance as appearance,"that essence appears in contrast to appearance within appearance; that the distinction between appearance and essence has to be inscribed into appearance itself. Insofar as the gap between essence and appearance is inherent to appearance, in other words, infsofar as essence is nothing but appearance reflected into itself, appearance is appearance against the background of nothing - everything appears ultimately out of nothing.

„Whether I have too little sense to see, or too much to be imposed upon; whether I have too much or too little pride, or of anything else, I leave out of the question; but certain it is, that what is called monarchy, always appears to me a silly, contemptible thing. I compare it to something kept behind a curtain, about which there is a great deal of bustle and fuss, and a wonderful air of seeming solemnity; but when, by any accident, the curtain happens to be open — and the company see what it is, they burst into laughter.“

—  Thomas Paine, libro Los derechos del hombre

Chapter III http://www.constitution.org/tp/rightsman2.htm
1790s, Rights of Man, Part 2 (1792)

„The unsightly appearance of automobiles has been commented upon this country a great deal.“

—  Clinton Edgar Woods American engineer 1863

Fuente: The Electric Automobile (1900), p. 31; Cited in: Imes Chui (2006, p. 57)

„There has been considerable comment over the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a soldier. I am afraid this does not seem as remarkable to me as it quite evidently appears to others. I know a great deal of the horrors and tragedies of war. … The cost of war in human lives is constantly spread before me, written neatly in many ledgers whose columns are gravestones. I am deeply moved to find some means or method of avoiding another calamity of war.“

—  George Marshall US military leader, Army Chief of Staff 1880 - 1959

Essentials to Peace (1953)
Contexto: There has been considerable comment over the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a soldier. I am afraid this does not seem as remarkable to me as it quite evidently appears to others. I know a great deal of the horrors and tragedies of war.... The cost of war in human lives is constantly spread before me, written neatly in many ledgers whose columns are gravestones. I am deeply moved to find some means or method of avoiding another calamity of war. Almost daily I hear from the wives, or mothers, or families of the fallen. The tragedy of the aftermath is almost constantly before me.

„I have not seen you since, but you have often appeared to me in my dreams.“

—  Joseph Joubert French moralist and essayist 1754 - 1824

„I remind myself that not everything is a sign, that some things simply are what they appear to be and should not be analyzed, deconstructed, or forced to bear the burden of metaphor, symbol, omen, or portent.“

—  Diane Schoemperlen Canadian writer 1954

Fuente: Our Lady of the Lost and Found: A Novel of Mary, Faith, and Friendship

„Matthew's response: To me the conception of this law of Nature came intuitively as a self-evident fact, almost without an effort of concentrated thought. Mr Darwin here seems to have more merit in the discovery than I have had; to me it did not appear a discovery. He seems to have worked it out by inductive reason, slowly and with due caution to have made his way synthetically from fact to fact onwards; while with me it was by a general glance at the scheme of Nature that I estimated this select production of species as an a priori recognisable fact – an axiom requiring only to be pointed out to be admitted by unprejudiced minds of sufficient grasp.“

—  Patrick Matthew British scientist 1790 - 1874

Gardeners' Chronicle

„I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story — I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it — but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen story-books have appeared, on identically the same pattern.“

—  Lewis Carroll, libro Sylvie and Bruno

Preface
Sylvie and Bruno (1889)
Contexto: I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story — I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it — but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen story-books have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea' — is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.

„I have only one certainty: there exists a parallel spiritual universe that impinges on the world in which we live. Apart from that, everything else seems absurd to me—sacred books, revelations, guides, manuals, ceremonies … and, what is worse, they appear to have no lasting effects.“

—  Paulo Coelho, libro Aleph

Aleph (2011)

„When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself: I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.“

—  Socrates classical Greek Athenian philosopher -470 - -399 a.C.

21d
Plato, Apology
Original: (el) πρὸς ἐμαυτὸν δ᾽ οὖν ἀπιὼν ἐλογιζόμην ὅτι τούτου μὲν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐγὼ σοφώτερός εἰμι· κινδυνεύει μὲν γὰρ ἡμῶν οὐδέτερος οὐδὲν καλὸν κἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι, ἀλλ᾽ οὗτος μὲν οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι οὐκ εἰδώς, ἐγὼ δέ, ὥσπερ οὖν οὐκ οἶδα, οὐδὲ οἴομαι· ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι.

„Forgive me, that I manage badly,
Manage badly but live gloriously,
That I leave traces of myself in my songs,
That I appeared to you in waking dreams.“

—  Anna Akhmatova Russian modernist poet 1889 - 1966

Fuente: The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

„On the other hand as I have told you, your past continually changes. It does not appear to change for you, for you change with it.“

—  Jane Roberts American Writer 1929 - 1984

Session 234, Page 291
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 5