Dubious Quotes

• A lot of people still think caring about clothes is a dubious, unserious, frivolous, girlie thing.

  Jerry Saltz

  Caring, Thinking, Clothes

  16 Copy quote

• The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links.

  Ben Hecht

  Honor, Hollywood, Cuffs

  57 Copy quote

• Three centuries after the appearance of Franklin's 'Courant,' it no longer requires a dystopic imagination to wonder who will have the dubious distinction of publishing America's last genuine newspaper. Few believe that newspapers in their current printed form will survive.

  Eric Alterman

  Believe, America, Imagination

  "Out of Print " by Eric Alterman, www.newyorker.com. March 31, 2008.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.

  George Eliot

  Beauty, Eggs, Hopeful

  George Eliot (1910). “Works of George Eliot”

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• An excellent job with a dubious undertaking, which is like saying it would be great if it wasn't awful.

  Ada Louise Huxtable

  Jobs, Would Be, Awful

  7 Copy quote

• That first week, I also went to Washington. That was really tough. I sympathize with those Washington figures who have to face 40 Times Washington bureau reporters. They ask hard questions and they're relentless. And they were quite suspicious and quite dubious about me.

  Daniel Okrent

  Hard Times, Faces, Firsts

  7 Copy quote

• I'm dubious about having Social Security put into the stock market. I think that we have gotten very far away from the idea that there's something sacrosanct about retirement investments.

  Ron Chernow

  Retirement, Thinking, Ideas

  "Frontline" Interview, www.pbs.org.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Never again should Ghanaians have to resort to dubious means to get to, or live in, foreign lands, simply to make a living.

  John Kufuor

  Mean, Land, Should

  John Agyekum Kufuor (2001*). “Towards a golden age of business: selected speeches of H. E. Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor, January-December, 2001”

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think Ginsberg has done more harm to the craft that I honor and live by than anybody else by reducing it to a kind of mean that enables the most dubious practitioners to claim they are poets because they think, If the kind of thing Ginsberg does is poetry, I can do that.

  James Dickey

  Mean, Thinking, Honor

  8 Copy quote

• The War on Drugs employs millions - politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, and now the military - that probably couldn't find a place for their dubious talents in a free market, unless they were to sell pencils from a tin cup on street corners.

  L. Neil Smith

  Military, War, Drug

  65 Copy quote

• I believe that religious faith schools are highly dubious.

  Bjorn Ulvaeus

  Faith, Religious, Believe

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• My response, a dubious and hesitant one, is that it has been and may continue to be, in the time that is left to me, more productive to live out the question than to try to answer it in abstract terms.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Trying, Answers, May

  Interview with David Attwell, www.dn.se. December 8, 2003.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• How far the existence of the Academy has influenced French literature, either for good or for evil, is an extremely dubious question.

  Lytton Strachey

  Hygiene, Evil, Literature

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.39, Delphi Classics

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The more dubious and uncertain an instrument violence has become in international relations, the more it has gained in reputation and appeal in domestic affairs, specifically in the matter of revolution.

  Hannah Arendt

  Matter, Violence, Revolution

  Hannah Arendt (1970). “On Violence”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.

  H. L. Mencken

  Punishment, Ideas, Poverty

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.265, Knopf

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The assumption that rigidly rejecting words and phrases that have existed for centuries will have much impact on public attitudes is rather dubious.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Attitude, Impact, Phrases

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2009). “An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness”, p.180, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Indefinite plans get dubious results.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Planning, Results, Plans

  Natalie Goldberg (2011). “Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer’s Craft”, p.78, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it's the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone's talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false 'intelligence' and selected 'leaks'.

  Brian Eno

  Government, Talking, Agendas

  "Lessons in how to lie about Iraq" by Brian Eno, www.theguardian.com. August 16, 2003.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• A blush is no language; only a dubious flag - signal which may mean either of two contradictories

  George Eliot

  Mean, Two, Flags

  George Eliot “Daniel Deronda - Volume 2 of 2”, Lulu.com

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• The way to prevent war is to bend every energy toward preventing it, not to proceed by the dubious indirection of preparing for it.

  Max Lerner

  War, Way, Energy

  7 Copy quote

• In the face of evil, detachment is a dubious virtue.

  Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

  Evil, Faces, Virtue

  Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (1992). “The Astonishing World: Essays”, Houghton Mifflin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We black women must forgive black men for not protecting us against slavery, racism, white men, our confusion, their doubts. And black men must forgive black women for our own sometimes dubious choices, divided loyalties, and lack of belief in their possibilities. Only when our sons and our daughters know that forgiveness is real, existent, and that those who love them practice it, can they form bonds as men and women that really can save and change our community.

  Marita Golden

  Loyalty, Daughter, Real

  Marita Golden (2011). “Saving Our Sons”, p.185, Anchor

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• You see, my Lord Archbishop, what is "dubious" about my theology is not that it contradicts particular doctrinal teachings, things are much worse or better: what I want, is no more and no less than a fundamental change in the whole way that theology is done today; but I want this out of faith, not out of faithlessness.

  Eugen Drewermann

  Teaching, Fundamentals, Done

  Letter to Archbishop J J Degenhardt, 1992.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• One can forget the meaninglessness of his own existence by occupying himself with scientific experiments of dubious import. Countless scientists and scholars spend their lives in the search of truths that are irrelevant to them.

  John Silber

  Life, Forget, Scientist

  7 Copy quote

• The dubious privilege of a freelance writer is he’s given the freedom to starve anywhere.

  S. J. Perelman

  Writing, Editing, Editors

  41 Copy quote