Apathy Quotes - Page 12

• So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

  Voltaire

  Religious, Fear, Sleep

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• Your public servants serve you right; indeed often they serve you better than your apathy and indifference deserve.

  Adlai Stevenson I

  Indifference, Servant, Scorn

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• It was not necessarily the best of times in America when Catholics and Protestants were suspicious of and hated one another; but at least they were taking their beliefs seriously, and the more or less satisfactory accommodations they worked out were not simply the result of apathy about the state of their souls.

  Allan Bloom

  America, Catholic, Soul

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.35, Simon and Schuster

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• Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right.

  Joseph Sobran

  Father, Government, Empathy

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• The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.

  Adam Smith

  Business, Men, Animal

  Adam Smith (1801). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”

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• Punitive measures whether administered by police, teachers, spouses or parents have well known standard effects: (1) escape-education has its own name for that: truancy, (2) counterattack-vandalism on schools and attacks on teachers, (3) apathy-a sullen do-nothing withdrawal. The more violent the punishment, the more serious the by-products.

  B. F. Skinner

  Teacher, School, Punishment

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• The peril of this century is spiritual apathy. As the body requires sunlight, good food, proper exercise and rest, so the spirit of man requires the sunlight of the Holy Spirit; proper exercise of the spiritual functions; the avoiding of evils that affect spiritual health, that are more ravaging in their effects than typhoid fever, pneumonia, or other diseases that attack the body.

  David O. McKay

  Spiritual, Exercise, Men

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• Apathy's a problem but who cares?

  Michael Parenti

  Who Cares, Care, Problem

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• No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.

  Erica Jong

  Thinking, Race, Track

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• Voting is completely important. People in America think democracy is a given. I think of it as an ecosystem, and what gets in the way of it is politicians and apathy.

  Henry Rollins

  Thinking, Ecosystems, America

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• You have to have a lot more dedication to what I'll call 'the machine,' ... I have 20 percent dedication. What's needed is 110 percent. You can't have it with the level of apathy I have.

  Janeane Garofalo

  Dedication, Machines, Levels

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• Who is the enemy? Who is holding back more rapid movement to the better society that is reasonable and possible with available resources?...Evil, stupidity, apathy, the 'system' are not the enemy...The real enemy is fuzzy thinking on the part of good, intelligent, vital people...In short, the enemy is strong natural servants who have the potential to lead but do not lead, or who choose to follow a non-servant.

  Robert K. Greenleaf

  Strong, Real, Intelligent

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• Many young Muslims see no opportunities for themselves and do not feel they have control over their lives or a stake in their nation's future. Such pessimism leads to disengagement. We risk losing a generation of young Muslims to apathy and extremism.

  Najib Razak

  Opportunity, Risk, Generations

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• Putting it in plain terms, the general public must be reduced to its traditional apathy and obedience, and driven from the arena of political debate and action, if democracy is to survive.

  Noam Chomsky

  Political, Democracy, Arena

  Noam Chomsky (1989). “Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies”, p.3, Pluto Press

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• The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sad, Men, Despair

  Walden ch. 1 (1854)

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• In this country men seem to live for action as long as they can and sink into apathy when they retire.

  Charles Francis Adams, Sr.

  Country, Retirement, Long

  Diary entry, April 15, 1836.

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• There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy... the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul... the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos.

  Paul Goodman

  Silence, Dumb, Soul

  Paul Goodman (1972). “Speaking and language: defence of poetry”, Random House, [1972

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• Democracy, finally, rests on a higher power than Parliament. It rests on an informed and cultivated and alert public opinion. The Members of Parliament are only representatives of the citizens. They cannot represent apathy and indifference. They can play the part allotted to them only if they represent intelligence and public spiritness.

  Eric Williams

  Play, Democracy, Public Opinion

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• Think'st thou there is no tyranny but that Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice-- The weakness and the wickedness of luxury-- The negligence--the apathy--the evils Of sensual sloth--produces ten thousand tyrants, Whose delegated cruelty surpasses The worst acts of one energetic master, However harsh and hard in his own bearing.

  Lord Byron

  Thinking, Tyrants, Luxury

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• The saddest symptom about many so-called Christians is the utter absence of anything like conflict and fight against spiritual apathy in their Christianity. They eat, they drink, they dress, they work, they amuse themselves, they get money, they spend money, they go through a brief round of formal religious services once or twice every week. But of the great spiritual warfare - its watchings and strugglings, its agonies and anxieties, its battles and contests - of all things they appear to know nothing at all. Let us take care that this case is not our own.

  J. C. Ryle

  Christian, Spiritual, Religious

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• We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there "is" such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and postive action.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Motivational, Today, Complacency

  "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence". Speech at Riverside Church in New York City, April 4, 1967.

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• Help and you will abolish apathy-the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil.

  Tom Hanks

  Ignorance, Evil, Void

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• I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories... We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust... We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.

  Thurgood Marshall

  Memories, Powerful, America

  Thurgood Marshall's acceptance speech for the Liberty Medal at the Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, genius.com. July 4, 1992.

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• I said I wasn't interested, and she was bright enough to say that she wasn't really interested either. As things turned out, we both overestimated our apathies, but not that much.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Enough, Said

  Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Cat's Cradle: A Novel”, p.22, Dial Press

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• The obstacles that distract thought are disease, apathy, doubt, carelessness, indolence, dissipation, false vision, failure to attain a firm basis in yoga, and restlessness.

  Patanjali

  Yoga, Vision, Doubt

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