Coups Quotes - Page 2

• If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain willful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?

  Alain de Botton

  Falling In Love, Lying, Believe

  Alain de Botton (2015). “On Love: A Novel”, p.15, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The opponents of perestroika had suffered a defeat, and then they organized the coup.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Opponents, Defeat, Organized

  "'They Were Truly Idiots'". Interview with Matthias Schepp and Christian Neef, www.spiegel.de. August 16, 2011.

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• Governments produced by the most banal of electoral victories, like those produced by the crudest of coups d'état, will always feel obliged to dress themselves up linguistically in some way.

  John Ralston Saul

  Government, Victory, Dresses

  John Ralston Saul (2013). “Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West”, p.536, Simon and Schuster

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• Thirty-two coups d'etat are enough.

  Jean-Bertrand Aristide

  Two, Enough, Thirty

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• The turning point for me was when the Supreme Court installed Bush in 2000, even though he got half a million votes less nationally than Gore. It was nothing more than a bloodless coup and that's when I really started paying attention.

  Marc Edwards

  Attention, Half, Vote

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• The American audience has really opened up to women being A.) funny and B.) kinda crude. 'Bridesmaids' is R-rated, and I think it was a major coup for women to have an R-rated comedy that did really well. Same as 'Bad Teacher.'

  Chris Pratt

  Teacher, Thinking, Bridesmaids

  "The Very Busy Chris Pratt on Preparing for Moneyball, Goofing in What's Your Number? and Ten Year". Interview with Christopher Rosen, movieline.com. August 29, 2011.

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• Vanity finds in self-love so powerful an ally that it storms, as it were, by a coup de main,, the citadel of our heads, where, having blinded the two watchmen, it readily descends into the heart.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Powerful, Heart, Vanity

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.144

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• If I begin my book with a review of the coup, it is only to show that my abiding interests for Australia did not end with it. They shall end only with a long and fortunate life.

  Gough Whitlam

  Book, Australia, Long

  "Abiding Interests". Book by Gough Whitlam (Foreword), 1997.

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• I was shooting a bikini promotion in Mahe in the Seychelles in 1980 when there was a military coup and I, along with a roomful of other people, ended up being kidnapped and held hostage at gunpoint in a windowless room with no ventilation for 36 hours.

  Brigitte Nielsen

  Military, People, Shooting

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• When I was thinking about what we could do in terms of what production values of Broadway might be able to add to the show, I had this thought that it would be really cool if we had a coup de théâtre. What would they want? And then I was like, an amazing, enormous tuna puppet that was like 30 by 40 feet would be pretty incredible. So I called up Basil Twist, and he got really excited immediately and started sketching out his idea, and I think it's a real highlight of the show.

  Alex Timbers

  Real, Thinking, Ideas

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Public television goes dark only in two circumstances: when a country is occupied by foreign forces or when there is a coup.

  Alexis Tsipras

  Country, Dark, Two

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• Modern Architecture died in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 15, 1972, at 3.32 p.m. (or thereabouts), when the infamous Pruitt Igoe scheme, or rather several of its slab blocks, were given the final coup de grace by dynamite.

  Charles Jencks

  Block, July, Grace

  Charles Jencks (2012). “The Story of Post-Modernism: Five Decades of the Ironic, Iconic and Critical in Architecture”, p.1, John Wiley & Sons

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• Miracles are God's coups d'etat.

  Sophie Swetchine

  Miracle

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• The greatest propaganda coup of the American right has been to convince its citizens that we are in the grip of a liberal conspiracy.

  Shane Smith

  Citizens, Conspiracy, Propaganda

  "Shane Smith: 'I want to build the next CNN with Vice - it's within my grasp'". Interview with Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. March 23, 2013.

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• Why should we care about the coup? First, because we depend on Yemen's government to support our drone war against another local menace, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). It's not clear if we can even maintain our embassy in Yemen, let alone conduct operations against AQAP. And second, because growing Iranian hegemony is a mortal threat to our allies and interests in the entire Middle East.

  Charles Krauthammer

  War, Government, Support

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• Most governments in the United States in a hundred years have not respected the peoples of Latin America. They have sponsored coup d'etats, assassinations.

  Hugo Chavez

  Latin, Government, Years

  "Chavez reveals personal side, criticizes U.S.", www.cnn.com. September 25, 2009.

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• For a hundred years or more the world, our world, has been dying. And not one man, in these last hundred years or so, has been crazy enough to put a bomb up the asshole of creation and set it off. The world is rotting away, dying piecemeal. But it needs the coup de grace, it needs to be blown to smithereens. Not one of us is intact, and yet we have in us all the continents and the seas between the continents and the birds of the air. We are going to put it down ― the evolution of this world which has died but which has not been buried.

  Henry Miller

  Crazy, Men, Our World

  Henry Miller, John Calder (1985). “A Henry Miller reader”, Riverrun Pr

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• Love is now, is always. All that is missing is the coup de grâce- which is called passion.

  Clarice Lispector

  Love, Life, Passion

  Clarice Lispector (2012). “The Passion According to G.H.”, p.193, New Directions Publishing

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• When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can't help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

  Thomas Sowell

  Country, Military, Media

  "Don’t Get Weak" by Thomas Sowell, www.nationalreview.com. May 1, 2007.

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• Condelleza Rice and Colin Powell are both dangerous people. What they did in Haiti [2004 U.S.-backed coup that ousted democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide] is a good measure of it. They destroyed a democracy. They squelched loans that had been approved by the Inter-American Development Bank. They did everything behind the scenes, including arming the thugs that came to overrun the country. They're frauds.

  Randall Robinson

  Country, Thug, People

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• In 1953, the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons, but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.

  Madeleine Albright

  America, Iran, Political

  "Secretary of State Albright Announces Easing of U.S. Trade Ban on Iran". Speech at CNN, www.cnn.com. March 17, 2000.

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• The free enterprise concept inherent in the economic model of capitalism should mean common people, or lower and middle class wage-earners, have greater potential to rise up and gain financial independence. In reality, however, free enterprise all too often leads to an almost total lack of government regulation that in turn allows the global elite to run amuck in Gordon Gecko-style financial coups.

  James Morcan

  Running, Mean, Reality

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• Don't Latin Americans have the right to ask why their elected governments are being opposed and coup leaders supported?.. Poverty and hardship in large parts of Africa are preventing this from happening. Don't they have the right to ask why their enormous wealth - including minerals - is being looted, despite the fact that they need it more than others?

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

  Latin, Government, Leader

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter to George W. Bush, www.washingtonpost.com. May 9, 2006.

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• There are leaks from the Embassy in Honduras. There was a coup in 2009. Obama broke with most of Latin America and even Europe and supported the military coup, still does. The ambassador in Honduras sent back a detailed analysis saying the coup was military, illegal, unconstitutional, and that the legitimate president was thrown out. Okay, we now know that Washington was perfectly aware of that and decided to support the military coup anyway. We should have known that at the time. The government has no right to keep that information secret.

  Noam Chomsky

  Latin, Military, Should Have

  Source: brightestyoungthings.com

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• All democracies turn into dictatorships - but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it's Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea.

  George Lucas

  Ideas, People, Giving

  "Democracy, Tyranny, and Star Wars". Time Interview, www.ign.com. April 25, 2002.

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