Irreversible Quotes

• I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change.

  Dan Quayle

  Funny, Witty, Freedom

  Quoted in Wall Street Journal, 26 May 1989

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way.

  Nelson Mandela

  Way, March, Dictator

  Rally Address Following Release From Pollsmoor Prison, delivered 11 February 1990, Cape Town, South Africa

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing we do is inevitable, but everything we do is irreversible.

  Joy Williams

  Inevitable

  11 Copy quote

• Irreversible is not glamorous at all. I try to do different things because I want to grow as an actress and I like to take risks

  Monica Bellucci

  Risk, Trying, Different

  14 Copy quote
• 

  A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Inspirational, Wise, Travel

  159 Copy quote

• Sometimes the former forces are in the ascendance, and "democratic governance" is eroded, though anyone familiar with intellectual history would expect that the slogans will be passionately proclaimed as they are drained of substantive content. We happen to be living in such an era, but as often before, there is no reason to suppose that the process is irreversible.

  Noam Chomsky

  Intellectual, Eras, Sometimes

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way. Universal suffrage on a common voters' roll in a united, democratic and non-racial South Africa is the only way to peace and racial harmony.

  Nelson Mandela

  Voters, Way, Common

  Rally Address Following Release From Pollsmoor Prison, delivered 11 February 1990, Cape Town, South Africa

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• We should face reality and our past mistakes in an honest, adult way. Boasting of glory does not make glory, and singing in the dark does not dispel fear. King Hussein Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. - Thomas Jefferson We have made mistakes. In our haste to do all things for all people, we did not foresee the full consequences of our actions. And when the people raised their voices, we didn't hear. But our deafness was only a temporary condition, and not an irreversible condition.

  Barbara Jordan

  Kings, Mistake, Dark

  9 Copy quote

• Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history.

  Hannah Arendt

  Way, Flow, Reverse

  29 Copy quote

• If left unchecked, global change will create violent conflict, torrential storms, shrinking coastlines, and irreversible catastrophe.

  Valerie Jarrett

  Storm, Shrinking, Conflict

  25 Copy quote

• I feel in the depths of my soul that it is the highest, most sacred, and most irreversible part of my obligation to preserve the union of these states, although it may cost me my life.

  Andrew Jackson

  Presidential, Soul, Depth

  Andrew Jackson, David Maydole Matteson (1931). “Correspondence of Andrew Jackson: to April 30, 1814”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are of the opinion that an important and irreversible process is taking place among the white population. Just as with the blacks, the whites, too, are currently overcoming a psychological barrier.

  Joe Slovo

  White, Important, Overcoming

  12 Copy quote

• What politicians want to create is irreversible change because when you leave office someone changes it back again.

  Estelle Morris, Baroness Morris of Yardley

  Office, Politics, Want

  "Minister's second chance for stardom". Interview with Dan Milmo, www.theguardian.com. May 6, 2004.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• One thing is obvious: Our policy, which is directed at making the country ungovernable, has started to bear fruit. The process that has been initiated is irreversible.

  Joe Slovo

  Country, Fruit, Bears

  9 Copy quote

• From that moment on, there will be an irreversible process to separate Quebec from Canada.

  Jean Charest

  Canada, Separation, Moments

  8 Copy quote

• Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Errors, Enquiry, Inquiry

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is hard to have patience with people who say 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter.

  C. S. Lewis

  Death, Wisdom, People

  "A Grief Observed". Book by C. S. Lewis, 1961.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials.

  Rachel Carson

  Men, Rivers, Air

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.6, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  14 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world-the very nature of its life.

  Rachel Carson

  Nature, Men, Sea

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.6, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  186 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we define risk as 'the likelihood of an irreversible negative outcome,' inaction is the greatest risk of all.

  Tim Ferriss

  Risk, Negative, Outcomes

  14 Copy quote

• There is something irreversible about acquiring knowledge; and the simulation of the search for it differs in a most profound way from the reality.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Knowledge, Science, Reality

  J. Robert Oppenheimer (1947). “Physics in the Contemporary World”

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• No victory is irreversible, no defeat is definitive. That is what makes life worth living.

  Leszek Kolakowski

  Victory, Defeat, Life Worth Living

  23 Copy quote

• Life is an irreversible process and for that reason its future can never be a repetition of the past.

  Walter Lippmann

  Past, Opinion, Life Is

  Walter Lippmann (1914). “A Preface to Politics”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades.

  James Hansen

  Energy, Climate, Would Be

  "Coal-fired power stations are death factories. Close them" by James Hansen, www.theguardian.com. February 14, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing is irreversible except dying.

  Danielle Steel

  Dying

  4 Copy quote