Swiss Travel Quotes

and I still have to quell an impulse to go up to strangers in pubs and restaurants and say, “Excuse me, can I give you a tip that’ll help stop those peas bouncing all over the table?” Germans are flummoxed by humor, the Swiss have no concept of fun,

She would only make me take my seat if I didn't act calm and Swiss about it all.

I am left with the magic, the name, the heart miraculously touched.

England reminds me of a quote I saw on a packet of Swiss Miss instant cocoa mix: 'Like a basket of drinkable kittens, wrapped in a blanket, next to a fireplace.

Do not cling to the shore, but set sail for exotic lands and places no longer found on maps. Walk on hallowed grounds. Blaze new trails. The term synchronicity was coined in the 1950s by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, to describe uncanny coincidences that seem to be meaningful. The Greek roots are syn-, "together," and khronos, "time." Synchronicity is the effector of Gnosis. Explore the Bogomils and the Cathars not just through books but, if at all possible, by visiting their lands, cemeteries and descendants. Finally, explore the most contemporary manifestations of Gnosticism: the writings of C.G. Jung, Jorge Luis Borges, Aleister Crowley, René Guénon, Hermann Hesse, Philip K. Dick, and Albert Camus. Gradually, you will begin to understand the various thought currents and systems existing in Gnosticism, and you will have begun to understand what does and does not appeal to you in Gnostic thought.

There is an old Arabic story about a man who hears Death is coming for him, so he sneaks away to Samarra. And when he gets there, he finds Death in the market, and Death says, "You know, I just felt like going on vacation to Samarra. I was going to skip you today, but how lucky you showed up to find me!" And the man is taken after all. Arthur Less has traveled halfway around the world in a cat's cradle of junkets, changing flights and fleeing from a sandstorm into into the Atlas Mountains like someone erasing his trail or outfoxing a hunter—and yet Time has been waiting here all along. In a snowy alpine resort. With cuckoos. Of course Time would turn out to be Swiss. He tosses back the champagne. He thinks: Hard to feel bad for a middle-aged white man.

Of all the names that linger in my memory after a long journey, this one is the dearest to me (Therapia). Perhaps because it sounds so Greek, blithe as a swelling paean to carefree days spent on lovely shores? Perhaps because it came at the beginning and now belongs to a long ago, glorified time-for the journey had just begun.

Nothing sets a person up more than having something turn out just the way it’s supposed to be, like falling into a Swiss snowdrift and seeing a big dog come up with a little cask of brandy round its neck. The first time I traveled on the Orient Express I was accosted by a woman who was later arrested and turned out to be a quite well-known international spy. When I talked with Al Capone there was a submachine gun poking through the transom of the door behind him. Ernest Hemingway spoke out of the corner of his mouth. In an Irish castle a sow ran right across the baronial hall. The first Minister of Government I met told me a most horrible lie almost immediately. These things were delightful, and so was my first view of the Times office in London. In the Foreign Editorial Room a subeditor was translating a passage of Plato’s Phaedo into Chinese, for a bet. Another subeditor had declared it could not be done without losing a certain nuance of the original. He was dictating the Greek passage aloud from memory.

I would rather be bored alone than with someone else. I'm drawn to strange people. At a museum I look at people with the eyes of an artist, in the streets with my own. I can't remember the name of a person I have just met. In India, I travelled in a train compartment with a Swiss man I didn't know, we were crossing the plains of Kerala, I told him more about myself in several hours than I had told my best friends in several years, I knew I would never see him again, he was an ear without repercussions. Maybe I'm writing this book so I won't have to talk to anymore.

There are actually two separate approaches to digitizing the human brain. The first is the Human Brain Project, in which the Swiss are trying to create a computer program that can simulate all of the brain’s basic features using transistors instead of neurons. So far, they have been able to simulate the “thinking process” of a mouse and rabbit for several minutes. The goal of the project is to create a computer that can talk rationally like a normal human being. Its director, Henry Markram, says, “If we build it correctly, it should speak and have an intelligence and behave very much as a human does.

There is an old Arabic story about a man who hears Death is coming for him, so he sneaks away to Samarra. And when he gets there, he finds Death in the market, and Death says, “You know, I just felt like going on vacation to Samarra. I was going to skip you today, but how lucky you showed up to find me!” And the man is taken after all. Arthur Less has traveled halfway around the world in a cat’s cradle of junkets, changing flights and fleeing from a sandstorm into the Atlas Mountains like someone erasing his trail or outfoxing a hunter—and yet Time has been waiting here all along. In a snowy alpine resort. With cuckoos. Of course Time would turn out to be Swiss. He tosses back the champagne. He thinks: Hard to feel bad for a middle-aged white man.

Peter Galison provides a thought-provoking study of the technological ethos in his book Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps. Clock coordination was in the air at the time. Bern had inaugurated an urban time network of electrically synchronized clocks in 1890, and a decade later, by the time Einstein had arrived, finding ways to make them more accurate and coordinate them with clocks in other cities became a Swiss passion. In addition, Einstein’s chief duty at the patent office, in partnership with Besso, was evaluating electromechanical devices. This included a flood of applications for ways to synchronize clocks by using electric signals. From 1901 to 1904, Galison notes, there were twenty-eight such patents issued in Bern. One of them, for example, was called “Installation with Central Clock for Indicating the Time Simultaneously in Several Places Separated from One Another.” A similar application arrived on April 25, just three weeks before Einstein had his breakthrough conversation with Besso; it involved a clock with an electromagnetically controlled pendulum that could be coordinated with another such clock through an electric signal. What these applications had in common was that they used signals that traveled at the speed of light.

the man who has spread the knowledge of English from Cape St. Vincent to the Ural Mountains is the Englishman who, unable or unwilling to learn a single word of any language but his own, travels purse in hand into every corner of the Continent. One may be shocked at his ignorance, annoyed at his stupidity, angry at his presumption. But the practical fact remains; he it is that is anglicising Europe. For him the Swiss peasant tramps through the snow on winter evenings to attend the English class open in every village. For him the coachman and the guard, the chambermaid and the laundress, pore over their English grammars and colloquial phrase books. For him the foreign shopkeeper and merchant send their sons and daughters in their thousands to study in every English town. For him it is that every foreign hotel- and restaurant-keeper adds to his advertisement: "Only those with fair knowledge of English need apply." Did the English-speaking races make it their rule to speak anything else than English, the marvellous progress of the English tongue throughout the world would stop. The English-speaking man stands amid the strangers and jingles his gold. "Here," cries, "is payment for all such as can speak English." He it is who is the great educator. Theoretically we may scold him; practically we should take our hats off to him. He is the missionary of the English tongue.

Without knowing this, without having been to the future, there would be no way to situate this vision among the other items in my memory. And since most of our thoughts are as evanescent and hard to remember as dreams, I will be unlikely to remember this vision or notice how it corresponded to an actual event in my life some time afterward. It has often been suggested that déjà vu experiences may reflect this kind of “memory of a premonition,” although neural signals of familiarity may misfire for more mundane reasons, so it would be hard to substantiate such a claim in many, or most, cases. It is the same difficulty that J. B. Priestley identified in the context of his future-influencing-present effect: How often will it occur to people to (a) record their passing thoughts and moods in detail and (b) compare those recorded thoughts and moods to later events? Almost never. Yet as we will see later, when people’s lives, thoughts, and feelings are recorded for some other purpose, such as in psychotherapy, it sometimes does—quite by accident—reveal suggestive evidence for something like the existence of a perturbing influence of future events on prior behavior. “The brain is an illusion factory,” as neurobiologist Dean Buonomano puts it.52 Humans’ ability to vividly and realistically imagine things that haven’t happened (or haven’t happened yet) poses a huge challenge to studying anomalous experiences and ESP phenomena. One of the million functions of the Swiss Army Knife in our skulls is to serve as a powerful all-purpose imaging device, a special effects studio that would put Industrial Light and Magic to shame. It is able to create from scratch, instantly, vivid images to dramatize any piece of information or idea, real or fictitious, as well as translate complex thoughts instantly into pictures. It does this not only in dreams but also in the hypnagogic and hypnopompic states on the edge of sleep, and even in waking reality when we “mentally time travel” or daydream or imagine possible scenarios.

Rorschach test, created by the Swiss psychologist who gave them his name. Hermann Rorschach never intended his blots to be used to assess personalities, but as a way to diagnose schizophrenia, and first published them under the unassuming title Psychodiagnostik in 1921. He never lived to see his namesake travel across the globe as he died the following year.

On Monday 9 October 1734 some 240 to 270 people left Zurich on three boats in order to reach Basel and then Rotterdam by traveling down the Rhine. Later

I stammered, “There’s a cheque and a proposal letter.” The men waited for me to continue. I reached into my shoulder bag, pulled out an envelope and handed to my lover.               Andy read the contents out loud:               Young, You are a handsome boy. I’m enamoured by your youthful intelligence and masterful lovemaking skills. You possess an innocent naturalness I find difficult to resist. I’m beguiled by you. The short time we spent together was an analeptic sexual rejuvenation for me. I had not felt such virility for years. I’m not the type of person who makes ex tempore decisions, but your sensual sexuality had smitten me to inscribe this proposal for your consideration. I hope you will consider this proposition seriously. ●       I will purchase a London flat in your name if you agree to be my beau. This will be my gift for your loyalty. ●       In order for you to travel around the country with ease, a city car together with regular maintenance will also be gifted to you. ●       To ensure financial security on your part and in the event of my untimely demise, a monthly stipend will be deposited into a Swiss bank account in your name. In return, I ask for your confidentiality - never to reveal the nature of our relationship to anyone. Our dalliance must be kept a secret. Please be mindful that I will not hesitate to take legal action against any slanderous aspersions inflicted upon me or my family.               Please consider my offer. You can reach me at my private number… I look forward to your speedy response.   Yours sincerely, Ernest O.M.

Frances was not only grieving her sister's loss, but also striving to reconcile in her mind the tragedy with the idea of a loving God. Restless and aching, Frances climbed mountains in the Swiss Alps, where their hotel had a view of beautiful Mount Rigi.

I saw it dissolve into a strangely clear horizon-there, a striated pyramid, stood the extinct volcano, a pain filled, deeply moving sight: permanence.

What were the present and future to him, he who did not fear the sandstorm? Did he know what fortune and misfortune mean, and what our tortured hearts called hope?

What was I waiting for? For signs and miracles, stars on the firmament..?

In the first hour of the new day, in the cold, strong wind that already reaches our native shores, yes, in this one moment of eternally returning regret I realise: what staggers us, over and over again, is the morning splendour of departure!

When we traveled to Davos, Trump marveled about the country of Switzerland, which was clean, orderly, and full of rich people—very much his kind of scene. President Germophobe gushed to Swiss president Ueli Maurer, “Everything here is so clean. My hotel room is spotless.

By influencing the private and public pronouncements of economists, Beijing shapes global perceptions of China’s economic outlook. When financial risks to the Chinese economy became serious in 2015, the CCP began exerting subtle influence on international banks not to rock the boat with bad news. UBS, the largest Swiss bank, has a long history in China and has been actively pursuing a deeper role in its financial system.103 It too has been pressured to rein in its public commentary, and in 2018 one of its employees was detained in China, for no apparent reason, causing UBS management to bar travel by its staff to China.