Conor Cruise O'Brien Quotes

• In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: 'Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.' Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Taken, Sick, Atheism

  16 Copy quote

• A good man giving bad advice is more dangerous than a nasty man giving bad advice.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Men, Giving, Advice

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• The United Nations cannot do anything, and never could; it is not an animate entity or agent. It is a place, a stage, a forum and a shrine... a place to which powerful people can repair when they are fearful about the course on which their own rhetoric seems to be propelling them.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Powerful, People, Agents

  16 Copy quote

• You are not an agnostic.....You are just a fat slob who is too lazy to go to Mass.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Lazy, Sloth, Agnostic

  15 Copy quote

• Irishness is not primarily a question of birth or blood or language; it is the condition of being involved in the Irish situation, and usually of being mauled by it.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Blood, Ireland And The Irish, Language

  "Irishness". New Statesman, January 17, 1959.

  13 Copy quote

• Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Men, History, Apathy

  "The Columbia Book of Quotations" edited by Robert Andrews, Columbia University Press, (p. 900), 1993.

  10 Copy quote

• Nothing does more to activate Christian divisions than talk about Christian unity.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Christian, Unity, Doe

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• British diplomats, constantly exposed to American political-ethical rhetoric, find their professional skills tested to the limits by the need to keep a straight face. For illustrations of what I mean, study the photographs of the expressions worn by Mr Douglas Hurd at any international conference involving all the Western allies.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Mean, Illustration, Expression

  Conor Cruise O'Brien (1994). “On the Eve of the Millennium: The Future of Democracy Through an Age of Unreason”, p.150, Simon and Schuster

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• Human nature doesn't include all human beings. There are human beings who are indifferent to politics, religion, virtually anything.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Being There, Human Nature, Indifferent

  11 Copy quote

• The main thing that endears the United Nations to member governments, and so enables it to survive, is its proven capacity to fail... You can safely appeal to the UN in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Government, America, Failing

  New Republic, November 4, 1985.

  8 Copy quote

• The sea which we think of separating the two island actually joins them.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Thinking, Islands, Sea

  4 Copy quote

• You can safely appeal to the UN in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down.

  Conor Cruise O'Brien

  Appeals, Certainty, United Nations

  New Republic, November 4, 1985.

  10 Copy quote

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