Admirable Quotes - Page 11

• There has been a constant struggle on the part of the military element to keep the end- fighting, or readiness to fight-superior to mere administrative considerations. The military man, having to do the fighting, considers that the chief necessity; the administrator equally naturally tends to think the smooth running of the machine the most admirable quality.

  Alfred Thayer Mahan

  Running, Military, Struggle

  Alfred Thayer Mahan (1918). “Mahan on Naval Warfare: Selections from the Writing of Rear Admiral Alfred T. Mahan”

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• Oh how swiftly the glory of the world passes away! If only the lives of these men had been as admirable as their learning, their study and reading would have been to good purpose! But how many in this world care little for the service of God, and perish in their vain learning. Because they choose to be great rather than humble, they perish in their own conceit.

  Thomas a Kempis

  Reading, Humble, Men

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• Of all the human qualities, the one I admire the most is competence. A tailor who is really able to cut and fit a coat seems to me an admirable man, and by the same token a university professor who knows little or nothing of the thing he presumes to teach seems to me to be a fraud and a rascal.

  H. L. Mencken

  Cutting, Men, University Professors

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.167, Knopf

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• There are good intentions behind many peoples conversion to veganism, including an admirable devotion to the well-being of animals and a justified skepticism about the crap the USDA allows manufacturers to put in our food. But its hard to ignore the often sanctimonious nature of what some nutritionists view as an extremist way of eating.

  Julie Klausner

  Animal, Views, Way

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• Education is an admirable thing.

  Oscar Wilde

  Epigrams: Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young Sebastian Melmoth

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• The question we should be asking is not why people are sometimes cruel, or even why a few people are usually cruel (all evidence suggests true sadists are an extremely small proportion of the population overall), but how we have come to create institutions that encourage such behavior and that suggest cruel people are in some ways admirable-or at least as deserving of sympathy as those they push around.

  David Graeber

  People, Population, Asking

  "The Bully’s Pulpit". thebaffler.com. July 2015.

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• There are so many things admirable people do not understand.

  William Stafford

  People

  William Stafford (1977). “Stories that could be true: new and collected poems”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.

  Henry David Thoreau

  War, Heart, Order

  Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.202, North Point Press

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• There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But he still says so. There was no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida. But he still says so. And thus, gripping firmly these figments of his own imagination, Mr. Cheney lives on, in defiance, and spreads - around him and before him - darkness, like some contagion of fear. They are never wrong, and they never regret - admirable in a French torch singer, cataclysmic in an American leader.

  Keith Olbermann

  Regret, Iraq, Mass Destruction

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• To gain the acceptance of your peers is an admirable task, but to truly accept yourself requires a much higher standard.

  Wes Fesler

  Acceptance, Tasks, Peers

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• So many shows out there dumb-down the country. It's so admirable to be part of a show that wants people to think.

  David Krumholtz

  Country, Stupid, Thinking

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said.

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  Communication, Dialect, Care

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1907). “Ponkapog papers: A sea turn, and other papers”

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• One of the oddest features of western Christianized culture is its ready acceptance of the myth of the stable family and the happy marriage. We have been taught to accept the myth not as an heroic ideal, something good, brave, and nearly impossible to fulfil, but as the very fiber of normal life. Given most families and most marriages, the belief seems admirable but foolhardily.

  Jonathan Raban

  Family, Acceptance, Brave

  Jonathan Raban (1992). “For Love and Money: A Writing Life”, Perennial

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• For the liberal state to accommodate a diversity of beliefs while having few positive convictions is one of the more admirable achievements of civilization.

  Terry Eagleton

  Civilization, Diversity, Achievement

  "The liberal supremacists" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. April 24, 2009.

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• On Being John Malkovich and the cinema of the absurd, I do enjoy it. I wish there were more like it. The very fact that there can't be more like it is one of the reasons it's admirable.

  Carter Burwell

  Wish, Cinema, Facts

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• Hatred of domestic work is a natural and admirable result of civilization. ... The first thing a woman does when she gets a little money into her hands is to hire some other poor wretch to do her housework.

  Rebecca West

  Hands, Civilization, Hatred

  Rebecca West (1982). “The young Rebecca: writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17”, Not Avail

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• I think it's very admirable, in a superhero movie, to be able to take a few risks.

  Shane Black

  Thinking, Superhero, Risk

  "Comic-Con: Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Shane Black and Kevin Feige Talk IRON MAN 3, How THE AVENGERS Impacts the Film, Iron Patriot and More". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. July 15, 2012.

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• Women have been brought up to be passive, accepting, not come forward and play a major role in life. And with age, there's a tendency to revert to that - to pull back, recede. I don't think it's advisable or admirable.

  Katherine Helmond

  Thinking, Play, Age

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• When I was 12, all I wanted was to be good at school, and to do something admirable, something you can't take away from me because I'm not popular or beautiful enough.

  Diane Lane

  Beautiful, School, Enough

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• LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the female system - an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Nature, Support, Important

  Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.68, Courier Corporation

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• No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Philosophy, Discipline, Forever

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “HENRY DAVID THOREAU - Ultimate Collection: 6 Books, 26 Essays & 60+ Poems, Including Translations. Biographies & Letters (Illustrated): Walden, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada, Canoeing in the Wilderness, Civil Disobedience, Slavery in Massachusetts, Life Without Principle, Excursions, Poems of Nature, Familiar Letters…”, p.53, e-artnow

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• Having contemplated this admirable grove, I proceeded towards the shrubberies on the banks of the river, and though it was now late in December, the aromatic groves appeared in full bloom.

  William Bartram

  Nature, Rivers, December

  William Bartram (1958). “The Travels of William Bartram”, p.58, University of Georgia Press

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• The desire for love is universal but that has never meant it’s worthy of respect. It’s not admirable to want love, it just is.

  Rachel Kushner

  Love Is, Desire, Want

  Rachel Kushner (2014). “The Flamethrowers: A Novel”, p.55, Simon and Schuster

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• Praying can make a difference, and it is up to all of us to try that, with faith, and see if it will not support these admirable troops, their spouses, and their families.

  Michael Enzi

  Differences, Support, Making A Difference

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• That sculpture is more admirable than painting for the reason that it contains relief and painting does not is completely false. ... Rather, how much more admirable the painting must be considered, if having no relief at all, it appears to have as much as sculpture!

  Galileo Galilei

  Doe, Relief, Sculpture

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