Circumcision Quotes

• I believe the time has come to acknowledge that the practice of routine circumcision rests on the absurd premise that the only mammal in creation born in the condition that requires immediate surgical correction is the human male.

  Thomas Szasz

  Believe, Practice, Mammals

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• A remedy [for masturbation] which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision, especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anaesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed.

  John Harvey Kellogg

  Pain, Successful, Boys

  "Plain Facts for Old and Young". Book by John Harvey Kellogg, 1877.

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• It is hard for a woman with whom an uncircumcised man has had sexual intercourse to separate from him. In my opinion this is the strongest of the reasons for circumcision.

  Maimonides

  Men, Opinion, Reason

  Moses Maimonides (1963). “The Guide of the Perplexed”

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• Circumcision is where sex and violence meet for the first time.

  Jeannine Parvati Baker

  Sex, Violence, Firsts

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• The Ten Commandments have lost their validity...Conscience is a Jewish invention. It is a blemish like circumcision.

  Adolf Hitler

  Invention, Lost, Judaism

  "Hitler Speaks". Book by Hermann Rauschning, p. 220, 1939.

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• Circumcision stands for a religion of human achievement, of what man can do by his own good works; Christ stands for a religion of divine achievement, of what God has done through the finished work of Christ.

  John Stott

  Men, Done, Christ

  John Stott (2014). “The Message of Galatians”, p.49, InterVarsity Press

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• I also survived circumcision, a barbaric practice designed to remind you as early as possible that your genitals are not your own.

  George Carlin

  Atheist, Practice, Barbaric

  George Carlin (2009). “Last Words”, p.21, Simon and Schuster

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• Every luxury was lavished on you - atheism, breastfeeding, circumcision.

  Joe Orton

  Children, Luxury, Atheism

  'Loot' (1967) act 1

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• When we commit violence against an infant girl, we call it child abuse; when we commit violence against an infant boy, we call it circumcision.

  Warren Farrell

  Girl, Children, Boys

  Warren Farrell (1994). “The myth of male power: why men are the disposable sex”

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• The struggle for world domination is between me and the Jews. All else is meaningless. The Jews have inflicted two wounds on the world: Circumcision for the body and conscience for the soul. I come to free mankind from their shackles.

  Adolf Hitler

  Struggle, Two, Soul

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• Were we to still be circumcising the hood of the female clitoris, we would not have difficulty considering this a continuation of our tradition to keep girls sexually repressed. America's reflexive continuation of [male] circumcision-without-research reflects the continuation of our tradition to desensitize boys to feelings of pain, to prepare them to question the disposability of their bodies no more than they would question the disposability of their foreskins.

  Warren Farrell

  Girl, Pain, Boys

  Warren Farrell (1994). “The myth of male power: why men are the disposable sex”

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• Without this heart attitude it is exceedingly difficult for us to accept the circumcision of the flesh. Every affection, desire, thought, knowledge, intent, worship, and work of the flesh must go to the cross.

  Watchman Nee

  Attitude, Heart, Desire

  Watchman Nee (2009). “Journeying Towards the Spiritual: A Digest of the Spiritual Man in 42 Lessons”, p.79, Christian Fellowship Publishers

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• They're talking about partial nuclear disarmament, which is also like talking about partial circumcision - you either go all the way or forget it.

  Robin Williams

  Talking, Nuclear Disarmament, Way

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

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• If circumcision has any justification AT ALL, it should be medical only. Parents' religion is the worst of all reasons - pure child abuse.

  Richard Dawkins

  Atheist, Children, Parent

  Twitter post from Nov 19, 2013

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• The aim of spiritual formation is not behavior modification but the transformation of all those aspects of you and me where behavior comes from...Circumcision of the heart.

  Dallas Willard

  Spiritual, Heart, Transformation

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• As to what pertains to the case of infants: You [Fidus] said that they ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, that the old law of circumcision must be taken into consideration, and that you did not think that one should be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day after his birth. In our council it seemed to us far otherwise. No one agreed to the course which you thought should be taken. Rather, we all judge that the mercy and grace of God ought to be denied to no man born

  Cyprian

  Taken, Men, Thinking

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• What if it is for life's sake that we must die? In truth we are not individuals; and it is because we think ourselves such that death seems unforgivable. We are temporary organs of the race, cells in the body of life; we die and drop away that life may remain young and strong. If we were to live forever, growth would be stifled, and youth would find no room on earth. Death, like style, is the removal of rubbish, the circumcision of the superfluous. In the midst of death life renews itself immortally.

  Will Durant

  Strong, Struggle, Thinking

  "Fallen Leaves: Last Words on Life, Love, War, and God".

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• The piety of the Hebrew prophets purges their grossness. The circumcision is an example of the power of poetry to raise the low and offensive.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Symbolism, Example, Hebrew

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.209, Harvard University Press

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• You know what circumcision is, Private?

  Bernard Cornwell

  Knows

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• Circumcision , that's all I've ever talked about.

  Jacques Derrida

  Jacques Derrida, Elisabeth Weber (2004). “Questioning Judaism”, p.39, Stanford University Press

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• As a Jew and a psychologist, I understand the stress that religious communities feel in connection with questioning of circumcision... I raise these questions out of deep caring and compassion, for our community generally, and our male infants in particular. We are inflicting, generally, unrecognized harm with circumcision, and the perpetuation of this harm is far greater a concern than the discomfort that comes from confronting the advisability of this practice. Many Jews who do not circumcise in North America, South America, Europe, and Israel support this view.

  Ronald Goldman

  Religious, Stress, Caring

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• Take it from me because I learned the hard way: circumcisions are best left to professionals.

  Mark Hoppus

  Way, Left, Hard

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• How strange that excision – female circumcision, with several languages using the same term for both kinds of mutilation – of little girls should revolt the westerner but excite no disapproval when it is performed on little boys. Consensus on the point seems absolute. But ask your interlocutor to think about the validity of this surgical procedure, which consists of removing a healthy part of a nonconsenting child’s body on nonmedical grounds – the legal definition of… mutilation.

  Michel Onfray

  Girl, Children, Boys

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• Here the oppression of women is very subtle. If we take female circumcision, the excision of the clitoris, it is done physically in Egypt. But here it is done psychologically and by education. So even if women have the clitoris, the clitoris was banned; it was removed by Freudian theory and by the mainstream culture.

  Nawal El Saadawi

  Egypt, Mainstream Culture, Female

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• I had to educate myself about female circumcision, about the clitoris, about sexology. We studied gynecology only. Pregnancy, maternal care, etc.

  Nawal El Saadawi

  Pregnancy, Gynecology, Female

  Source: muse.jhu.edu

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