A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.
Umberto Eco

A civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

A kind of synthesis, but with some elements that perhaps you wouldn't have expected in advance. I always like that when that happens, when something comes that is more than the sum of the parts.
Evan Parker

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.
John Stuart Mill

A photographer must be prepared to catch and hold on to those elements which give distinction to the subject or lend it atmosphere.
Bill Brandt

A structure becomes architectural, and not sculptural, when its elements no longer have their justification in nature.
Guillaume Apollinaire

About seven years later I was given a book about the periodic table of the elements. For the first time I saw the elegance of scientific theory and its predictive power.
Sidney Altman

Accuracy of statement is one of the first elements of truth; inaccuracy is a near kin to falsehood.
Tryon Edwards

Action, reaction, motivation, emotion, all have to come from the characters. Writing a love scene requires the same elements from the writer as any other.
Nora Roberts

After all, the universe required ten billion years of evolution before life was even possible; the evolution of the stars and the evolving of new chemical elements in the nuclear furnaces of the stars were indispensable prerequisites for the generation of life.
John Polkinghorne

After I quit my band, I definitely was so full, like I'm so full I could never eat again. I had that kind of feeling where the elements, like the touring stuff, were harder for me and I definitely felt fine not experiencing it again.
Jason Schwartzman

All four elements were happening in equal measure - the cuisine, the wine, the service, and the overall ambience. It taught me that dining could happen at a spiritual level.
Charlie Trotter

All human beings are interconnected, one with all other elements in creation.
Henry Reed

All the things that human beings suffer from are how their environment treats them, and how the elements of their planet affects their mind and body - like radiation, cancer, and all.
Ornette Coleman

Although I am basically self taught, I consider Debussy my teacher - the most important elements are colour, light and shadow.
Toru Takemitsu

An argument fatal to the communist theory, is suggested by the fact, that a desire for property is one of the elements of our nature.
Herbert Spencer

And harmony means that the relationship between all the elements used in a composition is balanced, is good.
Karlheinz Stockhausen

And it is because a series of elements in Spanish life which operate today the same way as they did in the times of Blanco White made obvious my relationship with him, based on a similarity in Spain's condition.
Juan Goytisolo

And these two elements are at odds with one another because Freud is utterly adversary to almost all the ways of structuring the human experience found in Western religions. No Western religion can countenance Freud's view of man.
Chaim Potok

And, of course, supernatural elements just make a story more interesting.
John Foster