Deterrent Quotes

• Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.

  Oprah Winfrey

  Success, Dream, Xenophobia

  Twitter post from Aug 14, 2011

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• I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that's how I operate my life.

  Oprah Winfrey

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• Today, we have a powerful military that serves as a deterrent, but the enemy we have today is not like World War II, where you sign a piece of paper and the war is over. Today they're not in uniform. In my time we knew what the enemy looked like, we knew his weapons systems and such. Today, your cab driver may be the person, you have no idea. I don't know how we got into this fix, but we're there.

  Daniel Inouye

  Powerful, Military, War

  Source: www.achievement.org

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• The death penalty would be even more effective, as a deterrent, if we executed a few innocent people more often.

  Edward Abbey

  People, Would Be, Death Penalty

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.20, RosettaBooks

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• The will to disbelieve is the strongest deterrent to wider horizons.

  Hans Holzer

  Horizon, Strongest

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• And so it's no surprise that people who object to the death penalty on pure moral grounds also think it has no deterrent effect, and people who like the death penalty on grounds of retribution tend to think it has deterrent effects. They like that, and they believe that. I think with climate change we're seeing very much the same thing where those who deny climate change, they don't like that, and they don't believe it.

  Cass Sunstein

  Believe, Thinking, People

  "Cass Sunstein explains why Star Wars is like America". Interview with Alex McLevy, film.avclub.com. June 2, 2016.

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• It is said to be a deterrent. I cannot agree....I do not now believe that any one of the hundreds of executions I carried out has in any way acted as a deterrent against future murder. Capital punishment, in my view, achieved nothing except revenge.

  Albert Pierrepoint

  Revenge, Believe, Views

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• There is no policy which will ever be as effective a deterrent in the mind of the mass marauder as the advance knowledge - the re-thinking - that someone armed will likely be where he was headed.

  John Longenecker

  Thinking, Mind, Mass

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• In Islam there is a line between let's say freedom and the line which is then transgressed into immorality and irresponsibility and I think as far as this writer is concerned, unfortunately, he has been irresponsible with his freedom of speech. Salman Rushdie or indeed any writer who abuses the prophet, or indeed any prophet, under Islamic law, the sentence for that is actually death. It's got to be seen as a deterrent, so that other people should not commit the same mistake again.

  Cat Stevens

  Mistake, Islamic, Thinking

  "Yussuf Islam, Formerly Cat Stevens, Expresses Support For Rushdie Death Sentence". The Christian Science Monitor, 1989.

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• Today the greatest single deterrent to knowledge of Jesus is His familiarity. Because we think we know Him, we pass Him by.

  Winifred Kirkland

  Jesus, Thinking, Today

  Winifred Margaretta Kirkland (1929). “The Great Conjecture: Who is this Jesus?”, New York : H. Holt

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• If world is suspicious that Israel may detonate nuclear bomb and if the suspicion is a deterrent - that's good enough.

  Shimon Peres

  Israel, Nuclear, Bombs

  "Peres: Suspicion over Israeli nukes is good deterrent" by Ronny Sofer, www.ynetnews.com. September 1, 20070.

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• It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off ... since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Demand, Belief

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• The thing that makes countries want to pursue some kind of nuclear deterrent is precisely the fact that they feel threatened.

  Stephen Walt

  Country, Nuclear, Want

  "Can Sanctions End Iran's Nuclear Ambitions?". "Talk of the Nation" with Neal Conan, www.npr.org. November 21, 2011.

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• Why wouldn't an enhanced deterrent, a more stable peace, a better prospect to denying the ones who enter conflict in the first place to have a reduction of offensive systems and an introduction to defensive capability. I believe that is the route this country will eventually go.

  Dan Quayle

  Country, Believe, Politics

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• Most Americans will be horrified that President Obama is compromising our deterrent to chemical and biological attacks on this country. Our allies will also be troubled by his aspiration to eliminate U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

  Frank Gaffney

  Country, Europe, President

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• Having worked for him in the nuclear weapons policy business, I can tell you that President Reagan was committed to assuring the effectiveness of our nuclear deterrent.

  Frank Gaffney

  Effectiveness, President, Nuclear

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• When men no longer fear God, they transgress His laws without hesitation. The fear of consequences is no deterrent when the fear of God is gone.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Christian, Men, Law

  Aiden Wilson Tozer (1965). “The Knowledge of the Holy”, p.77, Fig

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• The Cold War philosophy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which prevented the former Soviet Union and the United States from using the nuclear weapons they had targeted at each other, would not apply to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran. For him (Ahmadinejad), Mutual Assured Destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement.

  Bernard Lewis

  Philosophy, War, Iran

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• I believe that the death penalty is the ultimate deterrent to violent crime...period.

  Troy King

  Believe, Death Penalty, Crime

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• one of the greatest deterrents to successful investing is the three-letter word ego.

  Venita VanCaspel

  Money, Successful, Ego

  Venita VanCaspel (1983). “The power of money dynamics”, Simon & Schuster

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• Throughout history civilian populations and political rulers have talked of peace. We have never been free of war. The soldier, whose profession is war, understands that peace must be enforced by superior military might. The certainty of defeat is the only effective deterrent we can use to maintain peace. Furthermore, we can be strong without being aggressive.

  Barry Goldwater

  Strong, Military, War

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• The idea that humans could be related to ape-like ancestors and the rest of creation was considered subversive. If man was just an animal, then he doesn't live forever, he has no soul. And if men don't have a soul, then there's no afterlife. No heaven, no fiery deterrent of hell to keep people in line in this life. And if there's no fiery deterrent to keep people in line, "well then we might as well have hell on Earth!" the critics said.

  James Moore

  Animal, Men, Ideas

  "Big Thinkers on Evolution". Interview with David Espar and Susan K. Lewis, www.pbs.org. 2001.

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• All forces are a deterrent to and would be employed in a general war. Most of our forces could be employed in a limited war, if required

  Thomas S. Gates, Jr.

  War, Would Be, Force

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• The greatest deterrent to giving is the illusion that this earth is our home.

  Randy Alcorn

  Home, Giving, Earth

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• Local defense will always be important. But there is no local defense which alone will contain the mighty land power of the Communist world. Local defense must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power.

  John Foster Dulles

  Land, Important, Defense

  John Foster Dulles (1954). “Evolution of Foreign Policy: Text of Speech by John Foster Dulles Secretary of State Before the Council on Foreign Relations, New York, N.Y., January 12, 1954”

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