Assertion Quotes - Page 9

• At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being

  Frederick Hertz

  Religious, Hate, Mistake

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• As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best - what we call goodness or virtue - involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless selfassertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect , but shall help his fellows. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence. Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process.

  Thomas Huxley

  Struggle, Science, Self

  "Evolution And Ethics".

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• I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Truth, Lying, Believe

  Abraham Lincoln (1989). “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 1: 1832-1858: Library of America #45”, p.141, Library of America

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• In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations . . . If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa . . . the independence movement in India . . .) the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world.

  Walter Wink

  Country, Peace, Real

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• Patriotism has become a mere national self assertion, a sentimentality of flag-cheering with no constructive duties.

  H. G. Wells

  Cheer, Self, Patriotism

  "The Future in America: A Search After Realities". Book by H. G. Wells, 1906.

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• In love at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the other the impersonal. At one you have the positive assertion — Here I am; at the other the equally strong denial — I am not. Without this ego what is love? And again, with only this ego how can love be possible?
  Bondage and liberation are not antagonistic in love. For love is most free and at the same time most bound. If God were absolutely free there would be no creation. The infinite being has assumed unto himself the mystery of finitude. And in him who is love the finite and the infinite are made one.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Life, Strong, Love Is

  "The Complete Works of Rabindranath Tagore".

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• I quite agree with Dr. Nordau's assertion that all men of genius are insane, but Dr. Nordau forgets that all sane people are idiots.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Men, People

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• The widely accepted assertion that, only if you let markets be will everyone be paid correctly and thus fairly, according to his worth, is a myth. Only when we part with this myth and grasp the political nature of the market and the collective nature of individual productivity will we be able to build a more just society in which historical legacies and collective actions, and not just individual talents and efforts, are properly taken into account in deciding how to reward people.

  Ha-Joon Chang

  Taken, People, Effort

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• …there would be no powerful will binding hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature…And yet she had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being.

  Kate Chopin

  Powerful, Believe, Persistence

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• I'm not a proper anything. Majoring in philosophy kind of turns positive assertions into maybes.

  Kevin Hearne

  Philosophy, Kind, Turns

  Kevin Hearne (2014). “The Iron Druid Chronicles 6-Book Bundle: Hounded, Hexed, Hammered, Tricked, Trapped, Hunted”, p.413, Del Rey

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• No. I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as a lie--or a prophecy. Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Consider I have been speculating upon the destinies of our race until I have hatched this fiction. Treat my assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of art to enhance its interest. And taking it as a story, what do you think of it?

  H. G. Wells

  Art, Lying, Believe

  H. G. Wells (2016). “The Time Machine”, p.90, H. G. Wells

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• Self-assertion may deceive the ignorant for a time; but when the noise dies away, we cut open the drum, and find it was emptiness that made the music.

  Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  Cutting, Self, Ignorant

  Mary Elizabeth Braddon (2014). “Aurora Floyd”, p.298, Jazzybee Verlag

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• So many things which once had distressed or revolted him — the speeches and pronouncements of the learned, their assertions and their prohibitions, their refusal to allow the universe to move — all seemed to him now merely ridiculous, non-existent, compared with the majestic reality, the flood of energy, which now revealed itself to him: omnipresent, unalterable in its truth, relentless in its development, untouchable in its serenity, maternal and unfailing in its protectiveness.

  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

  Moving, Reality, Serenity

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• An interesting fiction... however paradoxical the assertion may appear... addresses our love of truth- not the mere love of facts expressed by true names and dates, but the love of that higher truth, the truth of nature and principals, which is a primitive law of the human mind.

  James F. Cooper

  Law, Names, Interesting

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• The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.

  Winston Churchill

  Fear, Sometimes, Modern

  Winston Churchill (1990). “A History of the English-speaking Peoples: The birth of Britain”

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• What is the explanation of the seemingly insane drive of man to be painter and poet if it is not an act of defiance against mans fall and an assertion that he return to the Garden of Eden? For the artists are the first men.

  Barnett Newman

  Fall, Men, Garden

  Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Barnett Newman, Lawrence Alloway (1966). “Barnett Newman, the stations of the cross, lema sabachthani”

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• Incidentally, when we're faced with a "prove or disprove," we're usually better off trying first to disprove with a counterexample, for two reasons: A disproof is potentially easier (we need just one counterexample); and nitpicking arouses our creative juices. Even if the given assertion is true, our search for a counterexample often leads to a proof, as soon as we see why a counterexample is impossible. Besides, it's healthy to be skeptical.

  Ronald Graham

  Learning, Creative Juices, Two

  Ronald L. Graham, Donald Ervin Knuth, Oren Patashnik (1989). “Concrete mathematics: a foundation for computer science”, Addison Wesley Publishing Company

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• As presidential authority expands, and the role of Congress diminishes, the American people continue to lose control over their government. Today's assertions of executive power are indeed a nightmare and Peter Shane's extremely readable and well-informed book describes this disturbing transformation in frightening detail. For anybody who cares about our constitutional system of protected liberties, this book is indispensable. I couldn't put it down and grew angrier, and more concerned, with every page.

  Mickey Edwards

  Book, Government, People

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• However novel it may appear, I shall venture the assertion, that, until women assume the place in society which good sense and good feeling alike assign to them, human improvement must advance but feebly.

  Frances Wright

  Women, House, Feelings

  Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789”, p.24

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• True universalists are not those who preach global tolerance of differences and all-encompassing unity, but those who engage in a passionate struggle for the assertion of the Truth which compels them.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Struggle, Differences, Tolerance

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• Dad somewhat enjoyed being called gay. He said it made women want to prove the assertion wrong.

  Jennifer Grant

  Dad, Gay, Want

  Jennifer Grant (2011). “Good Stuff: A Reminiscence of My Father, Cary Grant”, p.87, Knopf

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• There is perhaps no field aspiring to be scientific where flagrant personal bias, logic martyred in the cause of supporting a prejudice, unfounded assertions, and even sentimental rot and drivel, have run riot to such an extent as here.

  Helen Thompson Woolley

  Running, Prejudice, Fields

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• I think a lot of people of my generation are discomfited by the assertion of neutrality in the mainstream media, this idea that they're the voice of God. I think it's just honest to say, yes, you know where I'm coming from but you can fact-check anything I say.

  Rachel Maddow

  Thinking, Media, Ideas

  "Rachel Maddow: 'I'm definitely not an autocutie'". Interview With Hadley Freeman, www.theguardian.com. April 25, 2011.

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• The language of the younger generation has the brutality of the city and an assertion of threatening power at hand, not to come. It is military, theatrical, and at its most coherent probably a lasting repudiation of empty courtesy and bureaucratic euphemism.

  Elizabeth Hardwick

  Military, Hands, Cities

  Elizabeth Hardwick (1984). “Bartleby in Manhattan, and Other Essays”, Vintage

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• Nonsense is an assertion of man's spiritual freedom in spite of all the oppressions of circumstance.

  Aldous Huxley

  Spiritual, Freedom, Men

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2000). “Complete Essays: 1920-1925”, Ivan R Dee

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