Century Quotes - Page 24

Norman Rockwell, the Brueghel of the 20th century bourgeoisie, the Holbein of Jell-O ads and magazine covers; by common assent, the most American artist of all.

Jerry Adler

Artist, Bourgeoisie, Magazines

1993 On the opening of the Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In Newsweek,12 Apr.

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There is a century-old saying, "The dollar votes more times than the man."

Michael Parenti

Men, Political, Dollars

"Democracy for the Few". Book by Michael Parenti, 1974.

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The human species does not necessarily move in stages from progress to progress ... history and civilization do not advance in tandem. From the stagnation of Medieval Europe to the decline and chaos in recent times on the mainland of Asia and to the catastrophes of two world wars in the twentieth century, the methods of killing people became increasingly sophisticated. Scientific and technological progress certainly does not imply that humankind as a result becomes more civilized.

Gao Xingjian

War, Moving, Europe

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Man tends to think that he is a creator, that he is like God. This is especially true of intellectuals, and in the last century, intellectuals tended to forget that they were like everyone else. Writing this book was a description of man going from a state of God back to a state of man, back to being a normal person.

Gao Xingjian

Book, Writing, Men

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In the century that has just passed, many of the intellectual elite went mad. It was as if, with the death of God, everyone suddenly turned into a saviour who wanted either to annihilate the obsolete world order or to establish a utopia. Naturally, there were writers among those who went mad. The fact that they had knowledge did not exempt intellectuals: there is madness everywhere. When one loses control over one's self, the result is madness.

Gao Xingjian

Self, Order, Mad

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In ancient times there was no public education, except that of the forum, the theater, and the street, and the general degree of illiteracy was very high. The early men of science were left very much to themselves and such a phrase as "the scientific culture of Alexandria in the third century B.C." does not cover any reality. In a sense, this is still true today; the real pioneers are so far ahead of the crowd (even a very literate crowd) that they remain almost alone.

George Sarton

Real, Men, Degrees

"A History of Science". Book by George Sarton. Volume 2: "Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries B.C.", Preface, 1959.

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Remember, there are only a few model preachers. We have read of only one perfect Model, and He was crucified many centuries ago.

Charles Henry Fowler

Perfect, Remember, Preacher

"Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 476), 1895.

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It has been very humbling and gratifying to have these men as our role models. Your generation enabled America to close out the twentieth century as the greatest nation in the history of mankind, the only remaining superpower, the world's leading economy and the world's most respected and feared military force in the world - respected by our friends and allies, feared by our adversaries.

Eric Shinseki

Military, Men, America

"Rising Sons: The Japanese American GIs Who Fought for the United States". Book by Bill Yenne, 2007.

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During the first quarter of the last century, seaside resorts became the fashion, even in those countries of Northern Europe within the minds of whose people the sea had hitherto held the role of the devil, the cold and voracious hereditary foe of humanity.

Isak Dinesen

Country, Fashion, Book

Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.1, Vintage

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I'm fascinated by the period that goes from the Industrial Revolution to right after World War II. There's something about that period that's epic and tragic. There's a point after the industrial period where it seems like humanity's finally going to make it right. There were advances in medicine and technology and education. People are going to be able to live longer lives; literacy is starting to spread. It seemed like finally, after centuries of toiling and misery, that humanity was going to get to a better stage. And then what happens is precisely the contrary. Humanity betrays itself.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

War, Epic, Technology

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Monolingualism is the illiteracy of the 21st century!

Greg Roberts

21st Century, Illiteracy

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Colleges have a twofold duty when it comes to dealing with censorship. First, there is the duty to not censor the free expression of ideas, especially important and newsworthy ones. Second, colleges have the duty to protect speakers from being silenced by others. Century has failed miserably on both counts.

Greg Lukianoff

College, Expression, Ideas

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From that point on, the extraordinary system of spies and informers which has played an important part in the political work of the French state into our own time took shape. (Sartine, who became lieutenant general de police in 1759, is supposed to have said to Louis XV, "Sire, when three people are chatting in the street one of them is surely my man.") Eighteenth-century police manuals like those of Colquhoun in England or Lemaire in France are no less than general treatises on the government's full repertoire of domestic regulation, coercion, and surveillance.

Charles Tilly

Men, People, Political

Charles Tilly, Gabriel Ardant, Social Science Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Comparative Politics (1975). “The Formation of national States in Western Europe”, Princeton Univ Pr

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The orthodox doctrines of economics which were dominant in the last quarter of the nineteenth century had a clear message. They supported laisser faire, free trade, the gold standard, and the universally advantageous effects of the pursuit of profit by competitive private enterprise.

Joan Robinson

Gold, Lasts, Messages

Joan Robinson (1973). “Economic heresies: some old-fashioned questions in economic theory”

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The fact that a Jewish state needs to exist at all - and it does need to exist - is an indictment of all humanity, and especially the Catholic Church, whose centuries-long programme of aggressive Jew hatred has been ingrained right into the European psyche so that it takes almost nothing to bring it out.

Pat Condell

Long, Hatred, Catholic

YouTube Channel "Pat Condell"/"Let's Blame The Jews", www.youtube.com. May 26, 2011.

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Twentieth-century developments in science support a new animism. Developments in physics have led to a world of energetic events which seem to be self-moving and to behave in unpredictable ways. And recent studies in biology seem to demonstrate that bacteria and macromolecules have elemental forms of perception, memory, choice, and self-motion.

David Ray Griffin

Memories, Moving, Self

David Ray Griffin (1989). “God and Religion in the Postmodern World: Essays in Postmodern Theology”, p.88, SUNY Press

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If the amount of money going into the war economy were invested in landscape restoration, we would be in a far more positive position. It may get a little dire before we pull together, but I think when the prosperous nations, and in particular the US, realise they're wrecking their own kids' lives, there will be a mass change in value. It will be a difficult century, and ugly, but I don't think that in the end people are so stupid as to kill themselves off.

Kim Stanley Robinson

War, Stupid, Kids

"Future tense". Interview with Sarah Crown, www.theguardian.com. September 14, 2005.

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As best as can be determined, the world is now warmer than it has been at any point in the last two millennia, and, if current trends continue, by the end of the century it will likely be hotter than at any point in the last two million years.

Elizabeth Kolbert

Years, Two, World

Elizabeth Kolbert (2012). “Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Climate Change - Is Time Running Out?”, p.10, Bloomsbury Publishing

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According to the oral tradition of Witches, we were once the priests and priestesses of a peasant Pagan religion. Members of this secret sect met at night beneath the full moon, for these were the "misfits" and "outcasts" who did not fit into mainstream society. Little has changed over the centuries and the Witchcraft community still embraces individuals frequently rejected in mainstream society. These include gays, lesbians, transgendered individuals, and other people with the courage to live their lives authentically in accord with who they are inside their hearts, minds, and spirits.

Raven Grimassi

Heart, Gay, Moon

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When the first emperor wanted to unify the country, one of the major policies was to create one system of written signs. By force, brutal force, he eliminated all the other scripts. One script became the official script. All the others were banned. And those who used other scripts were punished severely. And then the meanings of all the characters, over the centuries, had to be kept uniform as a part of the political apparatus. So from the very beginning the written word was a powerful political tool.

Ha Jin

Country, Powerful, Character

"Ha Jin, The Art of Fiction No. 202". Interview with Sarah Fay, www.theparisreview.org. 2009.

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Marriage ... has historically been a battlefield, the site of collisions within and between governments and religions over who should regulate it. But marriage has weathered centuries of skirmishes and change. It has evolved from an institution that was imposed on some people and denied to others, to the loving union of companionship, commitment, and caring between equal partners that we think of today.

Evan Wolfson

Commitment, Caring, Thinking

Evan Wolfson (2007). “Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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The genius of the corporation as a business form, and the reason for its remarkable rise over the last three centuries , was - and is - its capacity to combine the capital, and thus the economic power, of unlimited numbers of people.

Joel Bakan

Numbers, People, Three

Joel Bakan (2005). “The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power”, p.8, Simon and Schuster

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As the corporation's size and power grew, so did the need to assuage people's fears of it. The corporation suffered its first full-blown legitimacy crisis in the wake of the early-twentieth-century merger movement, when, for the first time, many Americans realized that corporations, now turned behemoths, threatened to overwhelm their social institutions and governments.

Joel Bakan

Government, People, Needs

Joel Bakan (2005). “The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

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A century and a half after its birth, the modern business corporation, an artificial person made in the image of a human psychopath, now is seeking to remake real people in its image.

Joel Bakan

Real, People, Half

Joel Bakan (2005). “The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

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The idea of sovereignty current in the English speaking world of the 1760's was scarcely more than a century old. It had first emerged during the English Civil War, in the early 1640's, and had been established as a canon of Whig political thought in the Revolution of 1688.

Bernard Bailyn

War, Ideas, Political

"The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution". Book by Bernard Bailyn, 1967.

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