Accepting Quotes - Page 32

• It takes extraordinary wisdom and self-control to accept that many things have a logic we do not understand that is smarter than our own.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Self, Logic, Extraordinary

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2016). “Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile”, p.1783, Random House

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• A child, not knowing what is extraordinary and what is commonplace, usually lights midway between the two, finds interest in incidents adults consider beneath notice, and calmly accepts the most improbable occurrences.

  Gene Wolfe

  Children, Light, Two

  Gene Wolfe (1972). “The fifth head of Cerberus: three novellas”, Ultramarine Pub Co

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• Strip away all the assumptions about what competition is supposed to do, all the claims in its behalf that we accept and repeat reflexively. What you have left is the essence of the concept: mutually exclusive goal attainment (MEGA). One person succeeds only if another does not. From this uncluttered perspective, it seems clear right away that something is drastically wrong with such an arrangement. How can we do our best when we are spending our energies trying to make others lose--and fearing that they will make us lose?

  Alfie Kohn

  Essence, Goal, Perspective

  Alfie Kohn (2013). “No Contest: The Case Against Competition”, p.19, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• All of the great leaders down through history have told us we become what we think about. In fact, they have been in complete and unanimous agreement on this point while they disagree on almost every other point. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people rarely think, they simply accept what they see or hear. The next time someone gives you a suggestion, rather than simply accepting and acting on the suggestion - THINK - exercise your reasoning factor. Ask yourself if the suggestion will improve the quality of your life.

  Bob Proctor

  Exercise, Thinking, Agreement

  FaceBook post by Bob Proctor from Jan 17, 2012

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• There's no use in asking what if. No one could ever give you the answers. I try, I really do, but it's hard for me to accept this way of thinking. I'm always wondering about the what-ifs, about the road not taken.

  Jenny Han

  Taken, Thinking, Giving

  Jenny Han (2014). “To All the Boys I've Loved Before”, p.18, Scholastic UK

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• It would be foolish and wrong to ignore the fact that all our universities today tread a very dangerous path. Increasingly, they are accepting government money because they are doing things that government wants done. How great a peril is this in a democracy?

  Vincent Massey

  Government, Democracy, Today

  "Speaking Of Canada" by Vincent Massey, 1959.

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• Good communication is not just data transfer. You need to show people something that addresses their anxieties, that accepts their anger, that is credible in a very gut-level sense, and that evokes faith in the vision.

  John P. Kotter

  Communication, Data, People

  John P. Kotter, Dan Cohen (2013). “The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations”, p.70, Harvard Business Press

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• When all actions are used for feedback, the consequence of making mistakes will be a corrective and appropriate response, because everything everybody does matters. ... The more selective you are in the feedback you accept, the more insane your reasoning will become as you will necessarily reject corrective feedback that would have led to better reasoning.

  Erik Naggum

  Mistake, Insane, Doe

  "Lisp's future". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. January 31, 2004.

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• Historically, labor unions arose when people had gotten a taste of a different lifestyle and were willing to pay a lot more for their basic livelihood and had gotten into a fix they couldn't get out of - because they had accepted the unacceptable to begin with. Accepting something you have to form a labor union to fight after the fact only tells me that people were acting against their own best (or even good) interests for a long time. I don't see any rational, coherent explanation for this sort of behavior in humans, but it's all over the place.

  Erik Naggum

  Fighting, Long, People

  "Source access vs dynamism". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. August 28, 1999.

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• We'll have a different set of values, and society will adapt. That doesn't mean these changes are all good, just because we will accept them. But the 'Chicken Little' view of history isn't correct. Changes take place gradually, and people and institutions adapt.

  Robert Reischauer

  Mean, Views, People

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• When occupations come to us we must accept them; when things come to us we must understand them from the ground up.

  Lu Yen-hsun

  Occupation

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• We easily fall into the habit of accepting compressed statements which save us from the trouble of thinking. Thus arises what I shall call 'Potted Thinking'.

  Susan Stebbing

  Fall, Thinking, Trouble

  "Thinking to Some Purpose". Book by Susan Stebbing, p. 63, 1939.

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• I'm developed as an artist to accept the fact there are different points of view, but I believe in what I do and I have to stay with that.

  Paul Emsley

  Believe, Artist, Views

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• Lucifer comes to give to us the final gift of wholeness. If we accept it then he is free and we are free. This is the Luciferic initiation. It is one that many people now, and in the days ahead, will be facing, for it is an initiation in the New Age.

  David Spangler

  People, Giving, Religion

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• The fundamental differences between Marxian and traditional orthodox economics are, first, that the orthodox economists accept the capitalist system as part of the eternal order of Nature, while Marx regards it as a passing phase in the transition from the feudal economy of the past to the socialist economy of the future.

  Joan Robinson

  Nature, Money, Work

  Joan Robinson (1967). “Essay on Marxian Economics”, p.1, Springer

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• If there are some who talk the same language as myself, then why should I neglect their interests for the sake of some other group of people who are alien and remote? They have their own 'gods and idols' and we have nothing in common. ... If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply want to collect their money.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Mean, Idols, People

  "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, (p. 174), 1986.

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• I accept that life is uncertain--that the goal is not to become more certain about anything but to relax more into the mystery of not knowing what will come next. And then, miracle of miracles, out there in the deep and uncertain water, I come into a peaceful knowing--a faithful wisdom that surpasses control and certainty.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Life, Knowing, Water

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• Men do communicate, often very directly, but women sometimes cannot accept how simple what we have to say is. We seldom play games--we aren't that sophisticated.

  Chris Abani

  Men, Simple, Play

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• Over the past few years, the Supreme Court was six times more likely to accept cases from an elite group of 66 lawyers than it was from more than 99 percent of those who petitioned the court. That's the finding of a recent Reuters special report called "The Echo Chamber." It illustrates how almost half the appeals accepted by the court over a nine-year period came from this cadre of elite lawyers--many of whom have personal connections to the nine justices.

  Dahlia Lithwick

  Past, Years, Echoes

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• Arrogance is inimical to prudential reasoning, to accepting that for all we know and learn we also accumulate ignorance of the questions we do not ask, the risks we do not and cannot comprehend. In short, arrogance is what causes us to ignore our fallibilities.

  Ziauddin Sardar

  Ignorance, Risk, Arrogance

  Ziauddin Sardar (2011). “Reading the Qur'an: The Contemporary Relevance of the Sacred Text of Islam”, p.103, Oxford University Press

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• I'm tired of being what everyone else has made me," I said. "I want to be myself." "Don't be a child." I looked up, startled and angry, though of course there was nothing to see. "What?" "You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe. Accept that and be done; I'm tired of your whining.

  N.K. Jemisin

  Children, Tired, Done

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• Weak leaders of churches blame people and circumstances. Breakout church leaders accept responsibility and see God's possibilities in even difficult situations.

  Thom S. Rainer

  Responsibility, Difficult Situations, People

  Thom S. Rainer (2010). “Breakout Churches: Discover How to Make the Leap”, p.62, Harper Collins

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• An ideology critique that does not clearly accept its identity as satire can, however, easily be transformed from an instrument in the search for truth into one of dogmatism. All too often, it interferes with the capacity for dialogue instead of opening up new paths for it.

  Peter Sloterdijk

  Opening Up, Identity, Doe

  "Critique of Cynical Reason". Book by Peter Sloterdijk, 1983.

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• The Democratic power elite on some level feels delegitimized by its working-class, black and female constituencies. What it wants are the "legitimate" votes of suburban, white, middle-class, affluent males. Even liberal voters and organizations tend on some tacit level to accept the idea that they are not the "real" Americans the Democrats must pursue.

  Ellen Willis

  Real, Class, Organization

  "The Democrats and Left Masochism". "New Politics", Vol. 8, No. 3, issue #31, Summer 2001.

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• The will to power is the will to ecstasy is the will to surrender is the will to submit and, in extremis, to die. Or to put it another way, the rage to attain a freedom and happiness one's psyche cannot accept creates enormous anxiety and ends in self-punishing despair.

  Ellen Willis

  Self, Anxiety, Despair

  Review of "Terror and Liberalism" by Paul Berman, "Salon", March 25, 2003.

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