Critical Quotes - Page 9

• Young men! it 's a critical thing to go Exactly right with a lady in tow; But when you are in the proper track, Just go ahead, and never look back!

  John Godfrey Saxe

  Men, Track, Looks

  John Godfrey Saxe (1872). “The Poems: Complete in One Volume”, p.431

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• The notion that a story has a message assumes that it can be reduced to a few abstract words, neatly summarized in a school or college examination paper or a brisk critical review.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  School, College, Paper

  "A Message About Messages". Personal Website, www.ursulakleguin.com.

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• The light of common sense is fundamentally the same light as that of science, that is to say, the natural light of the intellect. But in common sense this light does not return upon itself by critical reflection, and is not perfected by what we shall learn to know as a scientific habit.

  Jacques Maritain

  Reflection, Light, Common Sense

  Jacques Maritain (2005). “An EPZ Introduction to Philosophy”, p.80, A&C Black

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• It seems important that the social value factor be more generally recognized as a powerful causal agent in its own right and something to be dealt with directly as such. No more critical task can be projected for the 1970s than that of seeking for civilized society a new, elevated set of value guidelines more suited to man's expanded numbers and new powers over nature, a frame of reference for value priorities that will act to secure and conserve our world instead of destroying it.

  Roger Wolcott Sperry

  Powerful, Men, Numbers

  "Science and the Problem of Values". Book by Roger Wolcott Sperry, p. 119, 1972.

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• The main trouble with avant-garde art and literature, from the point of view of fascists and Stalinists, is not that they are too critical, but that they are too "innocent," that it is too difficult to inject effective propaganda, that kitsch is more pliable to this end.

  Clement Greenberg

  Art, Views, Avant Garde

  Clement Greenberg (1971). “Art and Culture: Critical Essays”, p.19, Beacon Press

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• Questioning our own motives, and our own process, is critical to a skeptical and scientific outlook. We must realize that the default mode of human psychology is to grab onto comforting beliefs for purely emotional reasons, and then justify those beliefs to ourselves with post-hoc rationalizations.

  Steven Novella

  Emotional, Comforting, Psychology

  "Skeptics' Guide to the Universe" Podcast #285, www.sgutranscripts.org. December 29, 2010.

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• [T]he crucial question is not, as so many believe, whether property rights should be private or governmental, but rather whether the necessarily 'private' owners are legitimate owners or criminals. For ultimately, there is no entity called 'government'; there are only people forming themselves into groups called 'governments' and acting in a 'governmental' manner. All property is therefore always 'private'; the only and critical question is whether it should reside in the hands of criminals or of the proper and legitimate owners.

  Murray Rothbard

  Believe, Rights, Government

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• When you look around at the six people that you spend the most time with, that's who you are. I think that in making those decisions in who you are going to be married to, who your friends are going to be, those are really huge, critical, life decisions. Who gets to talk to you everyday, is almost like the food that you eat. It is a very huge critical situation to choose who the people are that you are spending your life with, spending your time with and who you are choosing to give your love and everything to.

  Will Smith

  Love, Life, Friends

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• Creationists argue that natural selection is only a negative process, and therefore cannot create anything. Chopra argues that skepticism is only a negative process, and therefore does not lead to knowledge. Both are wrong for the same reasons. They ignore the generation of diversity and new ideas upon which natural selection and skepticism acts. Weeding out the unfit is critical to both - natural selection allows evolution to proceed, and skepticism allows science to advance.

  Steven Novella

  Weed, Ideas, Diversity

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• We know that pumping oil out of the ground does not create many jobs. It does not foster an entrepreneurial spirit, nor does it sharpen critical faculties.

  Ali al-Naimi

  Jobs, Business, Oil

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• Rituals, anthropologists will tell us, are about transformation. The rituals we use for marriage, baptism or inaugurating a president are as elaborate as they are because we associate the ritual with a major life passage, the crossing of a critical threshold, or in other words, with transformation.

  Abraham Verghese

  Baptism, President, Use

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• The truth of the matter is that the people who succeed in the arts most often are the people who get up again after getting knocked down. Persistence is critical.

  Scott Turow

  Art, Persistence, People

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• Women have always been more critical of marriage than men. The great mysterious irony of it is - at least it's the stereotype - that women want to get married and men are trying to avoid it. Marriage doesn't benefit women as much as men, and it never has. And women, once they are married, become very critical of marriages in a way that men don't.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Men, Trying, Benefits

  Goodreads Interview, www.goodreads.com. January, 2010.

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• I don't think you can say that feminism has made women critical of marriage because women have been critical of marriage for centuries.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Thinking, Feminism, Made

  Goodreads Interview, www.goodreads.com. January, 2010.

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• We often think more highly of ourselves than we ought to, and it's easy to judge others and be critical of their weaknesses and shortcomings. But this self-righteous attitude is a sin that we can be blinded to because we're so focused on what the other person did wrong. The reality is this attitude is worse than the wrong behavior we're judging.

  Joyce Meyer

  Attitude, Thinking, Reality

  Source: www.cbn.com

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• I make films but I am trained as a designer. I come from this series of designers called critical designers, speculative designers.

  Nelly Ben Hayoun

  Film, Designer, Series

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• Critical design aims to really push the boundaries of design and to reconsider the element of fiction.

  Nelly Ben Hayoun

  Design, Fiction, Elements

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• Those of us who think about what we eat, how it's grown, those of us who care about the environmental impact of food - we've been educated by fabulous books, like Fast Food Nation and documentaries like Food Inc. But despite these and other great projects that shine a critical light on the topic, every year the food industry spends literally tens of millions of dollars to shape the public conversation about our food system.

  Anna Lappe

  Book, Thinking, Impact

  "Anna Lappé Is Ready to Bust the Food Industry’s Biggest Myths". Interview with Tom Philpott, www.motherjones.com. October 2, 2013.

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• The Germans should be the first to sympathize with us [Egyptians]. They know how difficult it is to build a democracy following a dictatorship, and they were the first to be critical of Morsi's anti-democratic policies.

  Mohamed ElBaradei

  Democracy, Firsts, Should

  "Interview with Egyptian Politician ElBaradei 'This Was Not a Coup'". Interview with Dieter Bednarz and Erich Follath, www.spiegel.de. July 8, 2013.

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• It's people wanting to do something about global climate change. People fed up with the high price of gas. People tired of breathing dirty air. In Houston, Los Angeles, Bakersfield, and other cities. It's going to be a critical mass of people experiencing something.

  Ed Begley, Jr.

  Dirty, Tired, Air

  "Power Q&A: Ed Begley Jr". Interview with Jennifer Vogel, www.motherjones.com. April 21, 2008.

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• You're talking to a modern, nice, affable German person and they're saying to you something like 'You know, vell, it's a critical time now for Germany within Europe, also globally, economically ve are pretty good, ve have been better. But ve are very vibrant in the theater and arts...' and all the time you'll be listening to this, you're thinking Mmm, yeah, mmm... Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler.

  Dylan Moran

  Funny, Art, Nice

  "Dylan Moran: Like, Totally". Video, December 2006.

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• I am not a politician. I have often been approached in this regard, but I have always declined these sorts of offers. I view myself as an independent, critical intellectual, as someone who tries to stimulate thought on the left and the right, to encourage intellectual evolution.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Independent, Views, Intellectual

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• If you have to fight an enemy at a critical point in time, and you have an ally who happens to be a dictator, you don't say: Let's stop fighting right now, because you're not a democrat. That would be ridiculous.

  Natan Sharansky

  Fighting, Enemy, Allies

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• When you're making a critical decision, you have to understand how it's going to be interpreted from all points of view. Not just your point of view, not just the person you're talking to, but the people that aren't in the room. Everybody else.

  Ben Horowitz

  Views, Talking, Critical Decisions

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• My work is heavily influenced by critiques that many critical intellectual traditions, especially Critical Race Theory, have made of reform projects focused on legal equality.

  Dean Spade

  Race, Intellectual, Reform

  "On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

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