Discussion Quotes - Page 40

• Unnamed entertainment industry moguls are now telling the New York Times that they intend never to work with Mel Gibson again. After all, how dare Mel Gibson challenge the public by producing a film that spurs public discussion, that pushes the envelope, that takes an old story to a new level. How dare Mel Gibson follow his own passion as a filmmaker. How dare he make $20 million on the opening day box office!

  Laura Ingraham

  New York, Passion, Office

  17 Copy quote

• I do not enter discussions with neighbors who think they can forbid me to think. I do not place my moral sanction upon a murderer's wish to kill me. When a man attempts to deal with me by force, I answer him-by force.

  John Galt

  Men, Thinking, Wish

  11 Copy quote

• Tabloid discussion of bad children always blames baby-boomer liberals, careerist mothers and fashion-crazed Nathan Barley types who think it's all enormously funny. But the centre-leftish psycho-thinker Oliver James says it's all down to the Thatcher-and-after culture of turbo-capitalism, making people acquisitive and unsatisfied.

  Peter York

  Mother, Fashion, Baby

  52 Copy quote

• Community, then, is an indispensable term in any discussion of the connection between people and land. A healthy community is a form that includes all the local things that are connected by the larger, ultimately mysterious form of the Creation. In speaking of community, then, we are speaking of a complex connection not only among human beings or between humans and their homeland but also between human economy and nature, between forest or prairie and field or orchard, and between troublesome creatures and pleasant ones. All neighbors are included.

  Wendell Berry

  Land, People, Community

  Wendell Berry (1993). “Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays”, Pantheon

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the creature of pressure groups, and most of them, it must be manifest, are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle...

  H. L. Mencken

  Honesty, Men, Law

  27 Copy quote

• At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper-no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of the point.

  Winston Churchill

  Men, Voting, Democracy

  Winston Churchill (2012). “Churchill: The Power of Words”, p.457, Da Capo Press

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

• A writer who wishes to be read by posterity must not be averse to putting hints which might give rise to whole books, or ideas for learned discussions, in some corner of a chapter so that one should think he can afford to throw them away by the thousand.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Book, Thinking, Ideas

  4 Copy quote

• I am incrementally a pessimist, but I see the international debate that Edward Snowden has engendered, and I think this is exactly where the discussion should be. So, I would say I'm more optimistic than pessimistic.

  Adam Savage

  Optimistic, Thinking, Pessimistic

  4 Copy quote

• The purpose of apologetics is not just to win an argument or a discussion, but that people with whom we are in contact may become Christians and then live under the Lordship of Christ in the whole spectrum of life.

  Francis Schaeffer

  Christian, Winning, People

  10 Copy quote

• Lobbyists are in many cases expert technicians and capable of explaining complex and difficult subjects in a clear, understandable fashion. They engage in personal discussions with Members of Congress in which they can explain in detail the reasons for positions they advocate. Because our congressional representation is based on geographical boundaries, the lobbyists who speak for the various economic, commercial, and other functional interests of this country serve a very useful purpose and have assumed an important role in the legislative process.

  John F. Kennedy

  Country, Fashion, Important

  "To Keep the Lobbyist Within Bounds". The New York Times Magazine, February 19, 1956.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• In a discussion, the difficulty lies, not in being able to defend your opinion, but to know it.

  Andre Maurois

  Lying, Able, Opinion

  4 Copy quote

• Open discussion of many major public questions has for some time now been taboo. We can't open our mouths without being denounced as racists, misogynists, supremacists, imperialists or fascists. As for the media, they stand ready to trash anyone so designated.

  Saul Bellow

  Media, Political, Racist

  "Bellow in his own words". www.theguardian.com. April 6, 2005.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The best discussion of trouble in boardroom and business office is found in newspapers' own financial pages and speeches by journalists in management jobs.

  Russell Baker

  Jobs, Office, Speech

  4 Copy quote

• I am explicitly not opening the giant can of worms that is the ongoing current discussion of patent, copyright, and trademark reform.

  James Fallows

  Patents, Reform, Giants

  16 Copy quote

• The discussion in Washington has changed dramatically. I mean, it's no longer a question of should we address entitlements - it's no longer a question of do we need to reduce spending in the future.

  Mark Zandi

  Mean, Needs, Addresses

  4 Copy quote

• Shakespeare and Rembrandt have in common the faculty of quickening speculation and compelling the minds of men to combat and discussion.

  William Ernest Henley

  Men, Mind, Common

  William Ernest Henley (1921). “The Works of William Ernest Henley: Views and reviews”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sovereignty and the right to rule cannot be conferred on anyone no matter who ... as a result of an academic discussion. Sovereignty is acquired by force and power and violence.

  Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

  Patriotism, Matter, Violence

  36 Copy quote

• Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the field of battle.

  James A. Baldwin

  America, Society, Battle

  "Notes of a Native Son". Book by James Baldwin, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 21, 1955.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Remember all of the 'me too' social networks built just to have a social feature Facebook and MySpace didn't have? I built one for political discussion called Essembly. It enabled unique and potentially transformative social interactions, but only 20,000 people ever used it.

  Joe Greene

  Unique, People, Political

  4 Copy quote

• I don't think any of us can do much about the rapid growth of new technology. A new technology helps to fuel the economy, and any discussion of slowing its growth has to take account of economic consequences. However, it is possible for us to learn how to control our own uses of technology.

  Neil Postman

  Technology, Thinking, Growth

  "Neil Postman Ponders High Tech". Online Newshour: Online Forum, www.faculty.rsu.edu. January 17, 1996.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Modern discussions of the possibility of tragedy are not exercises in literary analysis; they are exercises in cultural diagnostics, more or less disguised.

  Susan Sontag

  Exercise, Tragedy, Analysis

  4 Copy quote

• As soon as one point alone is removed from the sphere of dogmatic certainty, the discussion will not simply result in a new and better formulation which will have greater consistency but may easily lead to endless debates and general confusion.

  Adolf Hitler

  Media, Confusion, May

  7 Copy quote

• India seeks to be a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council... things like this don't happen automatically, you need constant dialogue and discussion with the world.

  Pratibha Patil

  India, Needs, World

  5 Copy quote

• It is important that the decorum and dignity of the House is upheld at all times. The image of Parliament in the public mind should be one where proceedings, debates and discussions take place with a view to resolve issues through a constructive and co-operative approach.

  Pratibha Patil

  Views, Issues, House

  6 Copy quote

• Music in Africa often contains messages. Music in Senegal, and Africa, is never music for music's sake or solely for entertainment. It's always a vehicle for social connections, discussions and ideas.

  Youssou N'Dour

  Ideas, Connections, Sake

  11 Copy quote