Denial Quotes - Page 19

• The strongest person is not the one who is able to do something, but the one who is able not to do what he has the power to do. This self-denial is the unique way to usher in God's kingdom and to realize the kingdom life.

  Witness Lee

  Inspirational, Strength, God

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• An optimist is neither naive, nor blind to the facts, nor in denial of grim reality. An optimist believes in the optimal usage of all options available, no matter how limited. As such, an optimist always sees the big picture. How else to keep track of all that’s out there? An optimist is simply a proactive realist.

  Vera Nazarian

  Believe, Reality, Track

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• ...let us recognize that extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere. Let us recall that poverty is a denial of human rights. For the first time in history, in this age of unprecedented wealth and technical prowess, we have the power to save humanity from this shameful scourge. Let us summon the will to do it.

  Kofi Annan

  Time, Rights, Humanity

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• Chronically dysfunctioning families are also delusional. Delusion is sincere denial.

  John Bradshaw

  Sincere, Delusional, Delusion

  John Bradshaw (1996). “Bradshaw On: The Family: A New Way of Creating Solid Self-Esteem”, p.88, Health Communications, Inc.

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• Death makes me realize how deeply I have internalized the agnosticism I preach in all my books. I consider dogmatic belief and dogmatic denial very childish forms of conceit in a world of infinitely whirling complexity. None of us can see enough from one corner of space-time to know "all" about the rest of space-time.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Faith, Book, Space

  Robert Anton Wilson (2002). “Tsog: The Thing That Ate the Constitution”

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• I could almost see common sense and denial fighting away at each other within her. In the end, denial won, as it so often does.

  Jasper Fforde

  Fighting, Common Sense, Doe

  Jasper Fforde (2003). “Lost in a Good Book”, Viking Adult

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• I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being.

  Dan Barker

  Love, God, Christian

  Dan Barker (2009). “Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists”, p.89, Ulysses Press

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• Dreams of innocence are just that; they usually depend on a denial of reality that can be its own form of hubris.

  Michael Pollan

  Dream, Reality, Innocence

  Michael Pollan (2009). “The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Search for a Perfect Meal in a Fast-Food World”, p.183, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Back in pre-Revolutionary America cruel and unusual punishment meant the rack and burning at the stake... in more recent rulings it has been taken to mean the absence of cable television and denial of sex-change operations, or just overcrowding in the prisons.

  Tom Clancy

  Sex, Taken, Mean

  "Executive Orders". Book by Tom Clancy, p. 613, 1996.

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• Optimism is denial for chumps with no life experience". "What's pessimism?" I said. "Religion without God.

  Jonathan Kellerman

  Optimism, Life Experience, Pessimism

  Jonathan Kellerman (2007). “Obsession: An Alex Delaware Novel”, p.43, Ballantine Books

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• Only the small secrets need to be protected. The large ones are kept secret by public incredulity.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Evil, Secret, Needs

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• There is a denial of the value of the individual. Christianity affirms the value of each individual soul. Nazism denies it. The individual is sacrificed to the idol of the German Leader, German State or the German race. The ordinary citizen is allowed to hear and think only as the rulers decree.

  Clement Attlee

  Thinking, Race, Idols

  Clement Richard Attlee (1940). “War comes to Britain: speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. R. Atlee, M.P.”

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• If this thing's hushed up it'll be a simple denial to Jem of the way I've tried to raise him. Sometimes I think I'm a total failure as a parent, but I'm all they've got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I've tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.. if I connived at something like this, frankly I couldn't meet his eye, and the day I can't do that I'll know I've lost him. I don't want to lose him and Scout, because they're all I've got.

  Harper Lee

  Eye, Simple, Thinking

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• Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples.

  Vaughn Walker

  Sex, Couple, Gay

  "Opponents of same-sex marriage to file appeal in California case". www.cnn.com. August 5, 2010.

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• As the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so the denial of God is the height of foolishness.

  R. C. Sproul

  Height, Foolishness

  R. C. Sproul (2011). “Essential Truths of the Christian Faith”, p.5, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

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• Remember that you will never reach a higher standard than you yourself set. Then set your mark high, and step by step, even though it be by painful effort, by self-denial and sacrifice, ascend the whole length of the ladder of progress.

  Ellen G. White

  Ambition, Sacrifice, Self

  Ellen G. White (2013). “Christ's Object Lessons - Illustrated”, p.264, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Denial can be a pathology or a survival mechanism - and sometimes it's both.

  Jane Fonda

  Survival, Sometimes, Pathology

  Jane Fonda (2006). “My Life So Far”, Ebury Press

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• Holiness is the sum of a million little things — the avoidance of little evils and little foibles, the setting aside of little bits of worldliness and little acts of compromise, the putting to death of little inconsistencies and little indiscretions, the attention to little duties and little dealings, the hard work of little self-denials and little self-restraints, the cultivation of little benevolences and little forbearances.

  Kevin DeYoung

  Hard Work, Self, Evil

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• Since many people have been asking me to elaborate on why I think "Inglourious Basterds" is akin to Holocaust denial, I'll try to explain what I mean as succinctly as possible, by paraphrasing Roland Barthes: anything that makes Fascism unreal is wrong. For me, "Inglourious Basterds" makes the Holocaust harder, not easier to grasp -- as a historical reality, I mean, not as a movie convention. Insofar as it becomes a movie convention, it loses its historical reality.

  Jonathan Rosenbaum

  Mean, Reality, Thinking

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• The denial of any distinction between foreseen and intended consequences, as far as responsibility is concerned, was not made by Sidgwick in developing any one 'method of ethics'; he made this important move on behalf of everybody and just on its own account; and I think it plausible to suggest that this move on the part of Sidgwick explains the difference between old-fashioned Utilitarianism and the consequentialism, as I name it, which marks him and every English academic moral philosopher since him.

  G. E. M. Anscombe

  Moving, Responsibility, Thinking

  G.E.M. Anscombe (2011). “Human Life, Action and Ethics: Essays by G.E.M. Anscombe”, p.190, Andrews UK Limited

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• Its up to any government to decide how to react to the denial of basic human rights anywhere in the world, including Egypt.

  Mohamed ElBaradei

  Rights, Government, Egypt

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• We Christians forget (if we ever learned) that attempts to redress real or imagined injustice by violent means are merely another exercise in denial - denial of God and her nonviolence towards us, denial of love of neighbor, denial of laws essential to our being.

  Philip Berrigan

  Christian, Real, Mean

  "Fighting the Lamb's War: Skirmishes with the American Empire". Book by Philip Berrigan, p. 204, 1996.

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• It's rare that we actively and consciously 'forget'; most of the time we have simply forgotten, with no consciousness of having forgotten. In individuals, the phenomenon is called 'denial'; in entire cultures and nations, it's usually called 'history.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  History, Culture, Forget

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• It has always been my belief that children inherit the suppressed tendencies of their parents. A clergyman's son frequently shows abnormal tastes for the pleasures that his father denied himself.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Children, Father, Son

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1905). “The Story of a Literary Career”

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• Self-preservation and self-denial: the basis of all political economy.

  Lord Acton

  Self, Political, Economy

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