Desirable Quotes - Page 20

• I like myself as I am, more desiring than desirable.

  Virginie Despentes

  Virginie Despentes (2010). “King Kong Theory”, p.3, Profile Books

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• Unity of opinion is indeed a glorious and desirable thing, and its circle cannot be too strong and extended, if the centre be truth; but if the centre be error, the greater the circumference, the greater the evil.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Strong, Errors, Circles

  Charles Caleb Colton (1828). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think”, p.110

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• Americans are quite skeptical about the goal of promoting democracy. People feel it's a desirable goal, but, from a commonsense point of view, both Republicans and Democrats have come to the conclusion that democracy is something that countries can only come to on their own.

  Daniel Yankelovich

  Country, Views, People

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• The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable.'

  George Orwell

  Fascism

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “The Complete Works of George Orwell: I belong to the Left: 1945”

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• I remember thinking that walking on the beach as a free man is pretty desirable.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Beach, Men, Thinking

  Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1995). “Memoirs”, McClelland & Stewart Limited

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• I believe that prayer in public schools should be voluntary. It is difficult for me to see how religious exercises can be a requirement in public schools, given our Constitutional requirement of separation of church and state. I feel that the highly desirable goal of religious education must be principally the responsibility of church and home. I do not believe that public education should show any hostility toward religion, and neither should it inhibit voluntary participation, if it does not interfere with the educational process.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Religious, Prayer, Educational

  Jimmy Carter, Gerald R. Ford (1979). “The Presidential Campaign 1976: President Gerald R. Ford. 2. v”

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• There can hardly, I believe, be imagined a more desirable pleasure than that of praise unmixed with any possibility of flattery.

  Richard Steele

  Believe, Flattery, Praise

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1826). “The Spectator: With Notes, and a General Index”, p.310

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• There is no artifice as good and desirable as simplicity.

  Saint Francis de Sales

  Writing, Editing, Simplicity

  Saint Francis de Sales, Aeterna Press (2015). “The Spiritual Maxims of Saint Francis de Sales”, Aeterna Press

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• No, life has not disappointed me. On the contrary, I find it truer, more desirable and mysterious every year -- ever since the day when the great liberator came to me: the idea that life could be an experiment of the seeker for knowledge -- and not a duty, not a calamity, not trickery.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Years, Ideas, Mysterious

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2010). “The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs”, p.255, Vintage

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• Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being.

  Plotinus

  Identical

  Plotinus (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Plotinus - Complete Enneads (Illustrated)”, p.541, Delphi Classics

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• ...it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best regulated administration of slavery.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Beautiful, Slavery, Administration

  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Beecher STOWE (2015). “Uncle Tom's Cabin”, p.16, Harriet Beecher Stowe

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• In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit.

  Nikola Tesla

  Past, Men, Law

  "A Machine to End War" by Nikola Tesla, 1937.

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• Yet, every now and then, there would pass a young girl, slender, fair and desirable, arousing in young men a not ignoble desire to possess her, and stirring in old men regrets for ecstasy not seized and now forever past.

  Anatole France

  Girl, Regret, Past

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• Sick is a relative concept. We're all sick. The question is, what degree of functionality do we have with respect to the rules society sets for desirable behavior? No actions are in themselves symptoms of sickness. You have to look at the context within which these actions are performed.

  Jo Nesbo

  Sick, Degrees, Looks

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• Coincidentally, a good age for a Japanese girl is younger than twenty five, because that's when she turns into a 'Christmas Cake'. Christmas cakes, as everyone knows, are desirable before the twenty fifth but afterward quickly become stale and are put on the shelf.

  Andrew Davidson

  Girl, Cake, Age

  Andrew Davidson (2008). “The Gargoyle”, p.96, Canongate Books

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• Translators can be considered as busy matchmakers who praise as extremely desirable a half-veiled beauty. They arouse an irresistible yearning for the original.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Half, Busy, Praise

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• Woman is a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill.

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Evil, Scary, Temptation

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• Unemployment is rarely considered desirable except by those who have not experienced it.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Work, Unemployment

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• Wherever desirable superfluities are imported, industry is excited, and thereby plenty is produced. Were only necessaries permitted to be purchased, men would work no more than was necessary for that purpose.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Men, Purpose, Wealth

  Benjamin Franklin (1824). “The Works with His Life /Franklin, Benjamin”, p.238

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• Let it be signified to me through any channelthat the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, andin sixty days it will be accomplished.
  ...penned in the language of truth, and divested of those expressions of servility which would persuade his majesty that we are asking favors and not rights.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Florida, Rights, Expression

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• No power on earth, however, can abolish the merciless class distinction between those who are physically desirable and the lonely, pallid, spotted, silent, unfancied majority.

  John Mortimer

  Beauty, Lonely, Class

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• Government is the art of the momentary feasible, of the least bad attainable, and not of the rationally most desirable.

  Bernard Berenson

  Art, Government, Momentary

  Bernard Berenson (1952). “Rumour and Reflection: 1941:1944”

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• The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct. [...] The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny.

  Nikola Tesla

  Race, Civilization, Parent

  "Machine to End War by Nikola Tesla as told to George Sylvester Viereck". "Liberty", www.pbs.org. February 1937.

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• If a program of physical activity isn't designed to get you stronger or faster or better conditioned by producing a specific stress to which a specific desirable adaptation can occur, you don't get to call it training. It's just exercise.

  Mark Rippetoe

  Stress, Exercise, Training

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• All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage. The poetic imagination is not at all a desirable quality in a statesman.

  W. H. Auden

  Leadership, Imagination, Quality

  "The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays". Book by W. H. Auden. Chapter: "The Poet and The City", p. 84, 1962.

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