Decent Quotes - Page 34

• Democracy and markets are both fundamental building blocks for a decent society. But they clash at a fundamental level. We need to balance them.

  Ha-Joon Chang

  Block, Democracy, Balance

  Ha-Joon Chang (2007). “Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism”, Bloomsbury Press

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• "Average" isn't so hot at the race track given those steep track takes. "Average" is pretty decent for stocks, something like 6 percent above the inflation rate. For a buy-and -hold investor, commissions and taxes are small.

  William Poundstone

  Race, Average, Track

  "Fortune's Formula". Part Three, Arbitrage, This Is Not the Time To Buy Stocks, p. 134. Book by William Poundstone, 2005.

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• Under present conditions, people are preoccupied with consumer goods not because they are brainwashed but because buying is the one pleasurable activity not only permitted but actively encouraged by our rulers. The pleasure of eating an ice cream cone may be minor compared to the pleasure of meaningful, autonomous work, but the former is easily available and the latter is not. A poor family would undoubtedly rather have a decent apartment than a new TV, but since they are unlikely to get the apartment, what is to be gained by not getting the TV?

  Ellen Willis

  Meaningful, Ice Cream, People

  "Women and the Myth of Consumerism". Book by Ellen Willis, Ramparts, 1969.

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• The drug war has nothing to do with making communities livable or creating a decent future for black kids. On the contrary, prohibition is directly responsible for the power of crack dealers to terrorize whole neighborhoods. And every cent spent on the cops, investigators, bureaucrats, courts, jails, weapons, and tests required to feed the drug-war machine is a cent not spent on reversing the social policies that have destroyed the cities, nourished racism, and laid the groundwork for crack culture.

  Ellen Willis

  War, Kids, Jail

  Ellen Willis (2012). “No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays”, p.250, U of Minnesota Press

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• Looking back at Batman from a distance - after all the hype has dried up and the franchise has at least temporarily been abandoned - it's easy to see the movie for what it is: a moderately diverting motion picture that should have been shorter and better paced. There are a lot of things wrong with Batman, but it still makes for decent entertainment in the fine tradition of the typical low-intelligence summer movie. The best thing that can be said about Batman is that it led to Batman Returns, which was a far superior effort.

  James Berardinelli

  Summer, Distance, Should Have

  "Batman (United States, 1989)". A movie review, www.reelviews.net.

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• Throughout our long and sorry history it has been men who supposed themselves to be exemplars of integrity who have done all the damage. Every crusade, whether for decent literary standards or to cover women's bodies or to free the holy land, had been launched, endorsed, and enthusiastically perpetrated by men of character.

  Jack McDevitt

  Sorry, Integrity, Character

  "Deepsix". Book by Jack McDevitt, 2001.

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• We have sunk so low it has become the obligation of every decent, thinking individual to re-state the obvious!

  George Orwell

  Thinking, Individual, States

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• You only have to start a job of work to realize how few decent, honest folk there are about.

  Anton Chekhov

  Inspirational, Jobs, Honest

  Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Ronald Hingley (1998). “Five Plays”, p.266, Oxford University Press, USA

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• With the fall of the empire, Art, Philosophy and decent drains all vanished from the West.

  Bryan Ward-Perkins

  Art, Philosophy, Fall

  Bryan Ward-Perkins (2006). “The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization”, p.13, OUP Oxford

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• People will say what they want to say, and it's okay. And my life will go on, and I need to focus on my life. So, do I need to defend that I'm a decent woman? I sure hope I don't. I know I am.

  Angelina Jolie

  People, Focus, Needs

  "'Do I need to defend that I'm a decent woman?'". "Today" with Ann Curry, www.today.com. June 6, 2005.

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• As long as the decent people refuse to believe that morality must manifest itself in every sphere of human activity, including the political, they will not meet the challenge of Marxism.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Wisdom, Believe, Long

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• One of the greatest disasters that happened to modern civilization was for democracy to inscribe "liberty" on its banners instead of "justice." Because "liberty" was considered the ideal it was not long until some men interpreted it as meaning "freedom from justice"; then when religion and decent government attempted to bring them back to justice, organized into "freedom groups" they protested that their constitutional and natural rights were being violated.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Wisdom, Men, Rights

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• Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven.

  Richard Dawkins

  Powerful, Believe, People

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• The church has contributed nothing to civilization. It has progressed somewhat, and it has become a little more decent, in reflection of the movements of civilization that have taken place outside of the church and usually in the face of the strong opposition of the church. But the church has always resisted the process of civilization. It has struggled to the last ditch, by fair means and foul, to preserve as long as it could the vestiges of ancient and medieval theology, with all the puerile moralities and harsh customs and medieval styles of belief.

  E. Haldeman-Julius

  Strong, Taken, Mean

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• There are a large number of people who can and do manage to lead decent upright lives with no use for a belief in God as a guide. Atheists do not care whether others believe as they do. They do ask, however, for the right to believe as they wish.

  Gordon Stein

  Atheist, Believe, Numbers

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• Dream big so even if you don't hit the top you will make it somewhere decent.

  Scott Disick

  Dream, Bigs, Ifs

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• While I wouldn't object to work at a restaurant or a different place that sells decent-or-better food, I think that I can learn much more by becoming a coder.

  Emma Watson

  Thinking, Becoming, Coders

  Source: www.shlomifish.org

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• I love the bicycle. I always have. I can think of no sincere, decent human being, male or female, young or old, saintly or sinful, who can resist the bicycle.

  William Saroyan

  Thinking, Males, Female

  William Saroyan, William E. Justice (2008). “He flies through the air with the greatest of ease: a William Saroyan reader”, Heyday Books

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• A new era will dawn in Africa, when the impoverished masses of a nation rise up to rescue their right to a decent life from the hands of the ruling oligarchies.

  Che Guevara

  Hands, Oligarchy, Eras

  Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.170, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

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• Trade unions have been an essential force for social change, without which a semblance of a decent and humane society is impossible under capitalism.

  Pope Francis

  Essentials, Unions, Impossible

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• Conor McGregor seems like a good athlete, he seems like a decent counter-puncher. But, he also seems like a scumbag.

  Dustin Poirier

  Athlete, Scumbags, Seems

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• The most fitting monuments this nation can build are schoolhouses and homes for those who do the work of the world. It is no answer to say that they are accustomed to rags and hunger. In this world of plenty every human being has a right to food, clothes, decent shelter, and the rudiments of education.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Home, Clothes, Shelter

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (2002). “Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815-1897”

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• Everything was blamed on Castro. Mudslides in California. The fact that you can't buy a decent tomato anymore. Was there an exceptionally high pollen count in Massapequa, Long Island, one day? It was Castro, exporting sneezes.

  Calvin Trillin

  Islands, California, Long

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• I'm complicated, sentimental, lovable, honest, loyal, decent, generous, likable, and lonely. My personality is not split; it's shredded.

  Jack Paar

  Lonely, Personality, Loyal

  JACK PAAR (1960). “I KID YOU NOT”

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• . . .little has changed in our New York neighborhoods except the faces, the names, and the languages spoken. The same decent values of hard work and accomplishment and service to city and nation still exist.

  David Dinkins

  New York, Hard Work, Cities

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