Critical Quotes - Page 7

• I think a moment of critical energy has suddenly emerged. But moments like this come and go unless we seize them at their height.

  Jonathan Kozol

  Thinking, Height, Energy

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• We only feel dehumanized when we get trapped in the derogatory images of other people or thoughts of wrongness about ourselves. As author and mythologist Joseph Campbell suggested, "'What will they think of me?' must be put aside for bliss." We begin to feel this bliss when messages previously experienced as critical or blaming begin to be seen for the gifts they are: opportunities to give to people who are in pain.

  Marshall B. Rosenberg

  Pain, Opportunity, Thinking

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• Global warming, along with the cutting and burning of forests and other critical habitats, is causing the loss of living species at a level comparable to the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. That event was believed to have been caused by a giant asteroid. This time it is not an asteroid colliding with the Earth and wreaking havoc: it is us.

  Al Gore

  Inspirational, Cutting, Loss

  Al Gore (2006). “An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It”, p.10, Rodale

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• The critical question for our generation—and for every generation— is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?

  John Piper

  Our Generation, Leisure Activities, Heaven

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• I grew up in the midst of poverty but every black kid that I knew could read and write. We have to talk about the fact that we cannot educate for critical consciousness if we have a group of people who cannot access Fanon, Cabral, or Audre Lorde because they can’t read or write. How did Malcolm X radicalize his consciousness? He did it through books. If you deprive working-class and poor black people of access to reading and writing, you are making them that much farther removed from being a class that can engage in revolutionary resistance.

  Bell Hooks

  Book, Reading, Writing

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• When you find out there is no ultimate good and evil in which you can place your faith, the world does not fall apart at the seams. It simply means that every decision is more difficult, more critical, because you are creating the good and evil yourself and they are very real.

  Anne Rice

  Real, Fall, Mean

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• In a dating and courtship relationship, I would not have you spend five minutes with someone who belittles you, one who is constantly critical of you, one who is cruel at your expense and may even call it humor. Life is tough enough without the person who is supposed to love you leading the assault on your self-esteem, your sense of dignity, your confidence, and your joy. In this person's care, you deserve to feel physically safe and emotionally secure.

  Jeffrey R. Holland

  Self Esteem, Love You, Dating

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• We were not born critical of existing society. There was a moment in our lives (or a month, or a year) when certain facts appeared before us, startled us, and then caused us to question beliefs that were strongly fixed in our consciousness-embedded there by years of family prejudices, orthodox schooling, imbibing of newspapers, radio, and television. This would seem to lead to a simple conclusion: that we all have an enormous responsibility to bring to the attention of others information they do not have, which has the potential of causing them to rethink long-held ideas.

  Howard Zinn

  Responsibility, Simple, Years

  "Changing Minds, One at a Time" by Howard Zinn, progressive.org. May 10, 2005.

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• I take criticism so seriously as to believe that, even in the midst of a battle in which one is unmistakably on one side against another, there should be criticism, because there must be critical consciousness if there are to be issues, problems, values, even lives to be fought for... Criticism must think of itself as life-enhancing and constitutively opposed to every form of tyranny, domination, and abuse; its social goals are noncoercive knowledge produced in the interests of human freedom.

  Edward Said

  Believe, Thinking, Issues

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• The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

  Noam Chomsky

  Smart, Thinking, Views

  Noam Chomsky (2013). “How the World Works”, p.234, Soft Skull Press

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• I worry that there are people who are put in positions of authority because they're good talkers, but they don't have good ideas. It's so easy to confuse schmoozing ability with talent. Someone seems like a good presenter, easy to get along with, and those traits are rewarded. Well, why is that? They're valuable traits, but we put too much of a premium on presenting and not enough on substance and critical thinking.

  Susan Cain

  Thinking, Ideas, Worry

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• One thing you who had secure or happy childhoods should understand about those of us who did not. We who control our feelings, who avoid conflicts at all costs, or seem to seek them. Who are hypersensitive, self-critical, compulsive, workaholic, and above all survivors. We are not that way from perversity, and we cannot just relax and let it go. We’ve learned to cope in ways you never had to.

  Piers Anthony

  Inspirational, Happy, Letting Go

  "Fractal Mode". Book by Piers Anthony, January, 1992.

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• Creative work and critical thought, which produces new knowledge, can't be conditioned; indeed, conditioning prevents these things from ever happening.

  John Taylor Gatto

  Learning, Creative, Conditioning

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• What we need are critical lovers of America - patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it.

  Hubert H. Humphrey

  Country, Patriotic, Usa

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• Publicity is absolutely critical. A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front page ad.

  Richard Branson

  Communication, Stories, Pages

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• What is both surprising and delightful is that the spectators are allowed, and even expected, to join in the vocal part of the game...There is no reason why the field should not try to put the batsman off his stroke at the critical moment by neatly timed disparagements of his wife's fidelity and his mother's respectability.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Baseball, Mother, Games

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• Water is the most critical resource issue of our lifetime and our children's lifetime. The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land.

  Luna Leopold

  Nature, Children, Rivers

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• Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.

  Carl Sagan

  Fate, Rivers, Air

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• Education is critical for people to become compassionate. If you don't know the problem and you don't know the reality, how can you help?

  Marla Ruzicka

  Education, Reality, People

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• May we ever watch over one another, assisting in times of need. Let us not be critical and judgmental, but let us be tolerant, ever emulating the Savior's example of loving-kindness. In that vein, may we willingly serve one another. May we pray for the inspiration to know of the needs of those around us, and then may we go forward and provide assistance.

  Thomas S. Monson

  Kindness, Inspiration, Veins

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• The phenomenon of emergence takes place at critical points of instability that arise from fluctuations in the environment, amplified by feedback loops. Emergence results in the creation of novelty, and this novelty is often qualitatively different from the phenomenon out of which it emerged.

  Fritjof Capra

  Science, Differences, Environmental

  Fritjof Capra, Pier Luigi Luisi (2014). “The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision”, p.319, Cambridge University Press

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• It is not his possession of knowledge, of irrefutable truth, that makes the man of science, but his persistent and recklessly critical quest for truth.

  Karl Popper

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  The Logic of Scientific Discovery Ch. 10

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• During critical periods, a leader is not allowed to feel sorry for himself, to be down, to be angry, or to be weak. Leaders must beat back these emotions

  Mike Krzyzewski

  Volleyball, Sorry, Leader

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• Many people are afraid to fail, so they don't try. They may dream, talk, and even plan, but they don't take that critical step of putting their money and their effort on the line. To succeed in business, you must take risks. Even if you fail, that's how you learn. There has never been, and will never be, an Olympic skater who didn't fall on the ice.

  Donald Trump

  Success, Dream, Money

  Donald J. Trump (2007). “Trump 101: The Way to Success”, p.39, John Wiley & Sons

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• One can see from space how the human race has changed the Earth. Nearly all of the available land has been cleared of forest and is now used for agriculture or urban development. The polar icecaps are shrinking and the desert areas are increasing. At night, the Earth is no longer dark, but large areas are lit up. All of this is evidence that human exploitation of the planet is reaching a critical limit. But human demands and expectations are ever-increasing. We cannot continue to pollute the atmosphere, poison the ocean and exhaust the land. There isn't any more available.

  Stephen Hawking

  Ocean, Dark, Night

  "The 11th Hour". Documentary, www.imdb.com. 2007.

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