Conventions Quotes - Page 29

• Sundry manifestations of nature in men and women, are greatly perverted by existing social conventions upheld by both. There are feelings which, under our predatory régime, with its adapted standard of propriety, it is not considered manly to show; but which, contrariwise, are considered admirable in women. Hence repressed manifestations in the one case, and exaggerated manifestations in the other; leading to mistaken estimates.

  Herbert Spencer

  Men, Feelings, Social

  HERBERT SPENCER (1874). “THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY”, p.421

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• In every art we are always obliged to return to the accepted means of expression, the conventional language of the art. What is a black-and-white drawing but a convention to which the beholder has become so accustomed that with his mind's eye he sees a complete equivalent in the translation from nature?

  Eugene Delacroix

  Art, Mean, Eye

  "Journal of Delacroix". Book by Hubert Wellington, translated by Lucy Norton, p.334, 1980.

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• What is called "objectivity," scientific for instance (in which I firmly believe, in a given situation) imposes itself only within a context which is extremely vast, old, firmly established, or rooted in a network of conventions ... and yet which still remains a context.

  Jacques Derrida

  Believe, Objectivity, Given

  "Limited Inc". Book by Jacques Derrida, 1977.

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• The United States of course wants to follow the highest standards of conduct with regard to enemy combatants who follow the rules of war. It should and does follow the Geneva Conventions scrupulously when fighting the armed forces of other nations that have signed the Geneva Conventions or follow their principles.

  John Yoo

  War, Fighting, Enemy

  "John Yoo: National security, executive power and the war on terrorism". Live Q&A, www.washingtonpost.com. March 3, 2010.

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• We should pass the U.N.'s Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. At least it will clearly establish whom you view as a terrorist and whom you don't. We need to delink terrorism from religion - to isolate terrorists who use this interchange of arguments between terrorism and religion.

  Narendra Modi

  Views, Needs, Use

  "Exclusive Interview With Narendra Modi: 'We Are Natural Allies'". Interview with Nancy Gibbs, Zoher Abdoolcarim, Nikhil Kumar, time.com. May 7, 2015.

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• We have no government and no laws, if by law is meant a stereotyped convention supported by force, and not to be altered without the aid of cumbersome machinery.

  Olaf Stapledon

  Government, Law, Aids

  Olaf Stapledon (1931). “Last and First Men, & Star Maker: Two Science-fiction Novels”, Courier Corporation

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• One does not succeed by sticking to convention.

  Garry Kasparov

  Doe, Chess, Succeed

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• Do one of three things. One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing - but this will only swing people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.

  Saul Alinsky

  Wall, Sorry, Home

  "Gingrich attacks on Obama resurrect Saul Alinsky" by James Rosen, www.foxnews.com. January 25, 2012.

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• Jesus Christ, is this an NPR convention?

  Jack White

  Jesus, Npr, Christ

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• We are involved in a constitution-building process of historic importance. The Convention should mark a new stage in European integration.

  Romano Prodi

  Constitution, Historic, Building

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• Our democracy, our culture, our whole way of life is a spectacular triumph of the blah. Why not have a political convention without politics to nominate a leader who's out in front of nobody? Maybe our national mindlessness is the very thing that keeps us from turning into one of those smelly European countries full of pseudo-reds and crypto-fascists and greens who dress like forest elves.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Country, America, Leader

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• It is only the most elite of elite musicians whose unconventional approach becomes convention.

  Steve Vai

  Musician, Unconventional, Approach

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• Have you noticed how the Republicans and Democrats try to copy each other at their conventions. Like at the Democratic convention John Kerry's daughter told a story about how he once gave CPR to her hamster. At the Republican convention the Bush girls are going to tell a story about how when their hamster was bad, their dad built them a little electric chair.

  Jay Leno

  Girl, Daughter, Dad

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• ADMIRABLY BOLD. There's something grand about the film's sincerity and the intensity of its emotions and something fresh and bold about the way director Gray uses the conventions of romantic melodrama.

  A. O. Scott

  Directors, Use, Way

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• If one had to worry about one's actions in respect of other people's ideas, one might as well be buried alive in an antheap or married to an ambitious violinist. Whether that man is the prime minister, modifying his opinions to catch votes, or a bourgeois in terror lest some harmless act should be misunderstood and outrage some petty convention, that man is an inferior man and I do not want to have anything to do with him any more than I want to eat canned salmon.

  Aleister Crowley

  Men, Ideas, Worry

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• It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Eye, Deception, Independence

  The Moon and Sixpence ch. 14 (1919)

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• Having a Republican candidate speak at the NAACP convention is like trying to build a house starting at the roof. If you don't have a foundation, the roof isn't going to stand.

  J. C. Watts

  House, Trying, Foundation

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• I find nothing healthful or exalting in the smooth conventions of society. I do not like the close air of saloons. I begin to suspect myself to be a prisoner, though treated with all this courtesy and luxury. I pay a destructive tax in my conformity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Air, Luxury, Pay

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.280, Harvard University Press

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• I think that the heroism which at this day would make on us the impression of Epaminondas and Phocion must be that of a domestic conqueror. He who shall bravely and gracefully subdue this Gorgon of Convention and Fashion, and show men how to lead a clean, handsome and heroic life amid the beggarly elements of our cities and villages; whoso shall teach me how to eat my meat and take my repose and deal with men, without any shame following, will restore the life of man to splendor, and make his own name dear to all history.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fashion, Men, Thinking

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• The lore of our fathers is a fabric of sentences. A pale gray lore, black with fact and white with convention.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Father, White, Black

  Willard Van Orman Quine (1976). “The Ways of Paradox, and Other Essays”, p.132, Harvard University Press

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• To put it another way: a conference is an elite meeting on equal terms; a congress is a group of elites meeting on opposite terms; a convention is a mob meeting on equal terms; a course is an elite instructing a mob; and a colloquium is a group capable of considering all these phenomena.

  Malcolm Bradbury

  Opposites, Way, Groups

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• London goes beyond any boundary or convention.It contains every wish or word ever spoken, every action or gesture ever made, every harsh or noble statement ever expressed. It is illimitable. It is Infinite London.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Wish, Noble, Gestures

  "London: The Biography". Book by Peter Ackroyd, 2000.

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• Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, color by convention; but in reality atoms and the void alone exist

  Democritus

  Sweet, Reality, Color

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• You don't want to move toward some utopian literary situation where everybody's free of all conventions. That's ridiculous! Conventions are what you need. You have nothing to break down if you don't have conventions.

  Lev Grossman

  Moving, Want, Needs

  Interview with Todd VanDerWerff, www.avclub.com. August 8, 2011.

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• A political convention is just not a place where you come away with any trace of faith in human nature.

  Murray Kempton

  Political, Politics, Where You Come

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