Denial Quotes - Page 16

• You can't have a tin can tied to your tail and go through life pretending it isn't there.

  Josephine Tey

  Tin Cans, Tails, Pretending

  Josephine Tey (1998). “The Franchise Affair”, p.171, Simon and Schuster

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• Many spiritual people are involved in a radical denial of what is happening. They want to transcend it, get rid of it, get out of it, get away from it. There's nothing wrong with that feeling, but the approach doesn't work because it's escapism in spiritual clothing. It's wearing spiritual clothing and spiritual concepts, but it is really no different than a drunk in the gutter who doesn't want to feel the pain anymore. When you abide and accept everything completely and fully, you automatically go beyond.

  Adyashanti

  Spiritual, Pain, People

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• What you try to bury just ends up burying you.

  Jane Wagner

  Trying, Ends, Burying

  Jane Wagner (1995). “My Life, So Far: By Edith Ann”, Hyperion

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• Jesus rejected hatred because he saw that hatred meant death to the mind, death to the spirit, and death to communion with his Father. He affirmed life; and hatred was the great denial.

  Howard Thurman

  Jesus, Father, Hatred

  Howard Thurman (2012). “Jesus and the Disinherited”, p.88, Beacon Press

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• Our hope is we move beyond denial and into debate... If we cleaned up the air, would it really be bad for us?

  Bob Inglis

  Moving, Air, Debate

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• Ixion exists as an antidote to the rules and conventions of other places. We believe that indulging in pleasure will make better people. Self-denial and discipline and virtue are all myths invented to control you.

  Marianne de Pierres

  Believe, Self, Discipline

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• David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial. Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence - it is a crime against humanity after all.

  Margo Kingston

  Holocaust, Humanity, Climate

  "The Seeds of the Global Warming Police State" by Robert Tracinski, www.realclearpolitics.com. June 29, 2007.

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• Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial.

  George Monbiot

  Stupid, Holocaust, Climate

  "The threat is from those who accept climate change, not those who deny it". www.theguardian.com. September 21, 2006.

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• I didn't want to be the monster! I didn't want to kill this room full of harmless children! I didn't want to lose everything I'd gained in a lifetime of sacrifice and denial!

  Stephenie Meyer

  Children, Sacrifice, Monsters

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• There is no boon in nature. All the blessings we enjoy are the fruits of labor, toil, self-denial, and study.

  William Graham Sumner

  Nature, Blessing, Self

  William Graham Sumner (1924). “Selected Essays of William Graham Sumner”

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• Abortion is a denial of one of those powers which make women women.

  Janet E. Smith

  Abortion, Catholic, Men Women

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• A self-made man, if he is made at all, has already won the battle of life. . . . he has learned to resist. He has learned the value of money, and how to refuse to spend it. He has learned the value of time, and how the conversion of it into useful things will make of his life something worthwhile. He has learned to say no, to say no at the right time and then to stand by it. Without resistance, and the self-denial which it often imposes, there is no real happiness. In the quest for happiness man must learn that temptation resisted strengthens the mind and the soul.

  Alvin R. Dyer

  Life, Real, Men

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• No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Freedom, Liberty, Individualism

  Mahatma Gandhi (1959). “India of My Dreams”, p.27, Rajpal & Sons

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• I must say that the Katrina response does help me better understand the situation in Iraq. The best bet is that the president doesn't actually know what's happening there, is cocooned from reality, has no one in his high-level staff able to tell him what's actually happening, and has created a culture of denial and loyalty that makes fixing mistakes or holding people accountable all but impossible.

  Andrew Sullivan

  Loyalty, Mistake, Reality

  "A Failed CEO". washingtonmonthly.com. September 7, 2005.

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• The first duty of a Christian, of a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ, is to deny himself. To deny oneself means to give up one's bad habits, to root out of the heart all that ties us to the world; not to cherish bad desires and thoughts; to quench and suppress bad thoughts; to avoid occasions of sin; not to do or desire anything from self-love but to do everything out of love for God. To deny oneself means, according to the Apostle Paul, to be dead to sin and the world, but alive to God.

  Innocent of Alaska

  Christian, Jesus, Giving Up

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• Do not the angels differs from us in this respect, that they do not want so many things as we do? Therefore the less we need, the more we are on our way to them; the more we need, the more we sink down to this perishable life.

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Angel, Needs, Want

  Saint John Chrysostom, Charles Marriott (1852). “The Homilies of S. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the Gospel of St. John: Hom. xlii-lxxxviii”, p.711

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• The spirit of philosophy is one of free inquiry. It suspects all authority. Its function is to trace the uncritical assumptions of human thought to their hiding places, and in this pursuit it may finally end in denial or a frank admission of the incapacity of pure reason to reach the ultimate reality.

  Muhammad Iqbal

  Philosophy, Reality, Inquiry

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• Evil is nothing but a word, an objectification where no objectification is necessary. Cast aside this notion of some external agency as the source of inconceivable inhumanity - the sad truth is our possession of an innate proclivity towards indifference, towards deliberate denial of mercy, towards disengaging all that is moral within us. But if that is too dire , let's call it evil. And paint it with fire and venom.

  Steven Erikson

  Fire, Agency, Evil

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• Everything was perfectly healthy and normal here in Denial Land.

  Jim Butcher

  Land, Healthy, Normal

  Jim Butcher (2012). “Cold Days: A Novel of the Dresden Files”, p.24, Penguin

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• Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God's saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God's mercy and grace.

  Timothy Keller

  Moving, Commitment, Love Is

  Timothy Keller (2013). “The Obedient Master”, p.34, Penguin

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• Dani," Decker said firmly. "Trust me, this is not a dream." "Why is it you men always say trust me before spitting out something completely unpalatable?" she asked, irritation flickering through her. "Vampires aren't supposed to be real. And how come you had to be a cute vampire? You should be a dog. All evil, vile people should look as ugly as they are inside." "We aren't ev--" Decker halted his denial, and then did something she hadn't yet seen him do and lifted his lips in a very rare-and in her opinion, totally inappropriate-grin as he asked, "You think I'm cute?

  Lynsay Sands

  Cute, Dream, Dog

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• The measure of our mindfulness, the touchstone for sanity in this society, is our level of productivity, our attention to responsibility, our ability to plain and simple hold down a job. If you're still at the point when you're even just barely going through the motions--showing up at work, paying the bills--you are still okay or okay enough. A desire not to acknowledge sadness in ourselves or those close to us--better known these days as denial, is such a strong urge that plenty of people prefer to think that until you are actually flying out of a window, you don't have a problem.

  Elizabeth Wurtzel

  Strong, Jobs, Responsibility

  Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.59, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it.

  Emma Goldman

  Beautiful, Believe, Joy

  Living My Life ch. 5 (1931).

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• The highest praise of God consists in the denial of him by the atheist who finds creation so perfect that it can dispense with a creator.

  Marcel Proust

  Atheist, Perfect, Praise

  Le Cote de Guermantes (The GuermantesWay) pt. 2 (1921) (translation by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin)

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• A lot of them complain because they say the word denial puts them in the same bin as holocaust deniers. That's too bad. But the thing is, they do have something in common: a denial of evidence and of scientific consensus.

  Phil Plait

  Holocaust, Complaining, Common

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