Engaging Quotes - Page 5

• That the question of likability even exists in literary conversations is odd. It implies that we are engaging in a courtship. When characters are unlikable, they don’t meet our mutable, varying standards. Certainly we can find kinship in fiction, but literary merit shouldn’t be dictated by whether we want to be friends or lovers with those about whom we read.

  Roxane Gay

  Character, Literary Merit, Fiction

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• Very few people realise that sex is a psychic and not a physical act. The clumsy coupling of human beings is simply a biological paraphrase of this truth - a primitive method of introducing minds to each other, engaging them. But most people are stuck in the physical aspect, unaware of the poetic rapport which it so clumsily tries to teach.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Sex, Psychics, People

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.272, Faber & Faber

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• My work is play. And I play when I design. I even looked it up in the dictionary, to make sure that I actually do that, and the definition of “play,” number one, was “engaging in a childlike activity or endeavor,” and number two was “gambling.” And I realize I do both when I’m designing.

  Paula Scher

  Gambling, Play, Two

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• After a lifetime of engaging in long, passionate discussions I have come to the conclusion that it is a waste of time trying to convince anyone of anything.

  Michael Foley

  Long, Trying, Passionate

  Michael Foley (2012). “Embracing the Ordinary: Lessons From the Champions of Everyday Life”, p.186, Simon and Schuster

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• We do not deceive ourselves that we are engaging in an activity that is anything but debilitating, dangerous, euphoric, kinesthetic, expensive, frivolously essential, economically useless and totally without redeeming social significance. One should not probe for
  deeper meanings.

  Allen Steck

  Climbing, Essentials, Useless

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• There is just something about the common being. My education pretty much came from the streets, just connecting with people, different cultures. I gained the wealth just engaging at that level. I'm still like that. I continue to document everyday people versus the stars.

  Jamel Shabazz

  Stars, People, Everyday

  Source: therumpus.net

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• An excellent introduction to the rise and fall of the British Raj, accurate, succinct, and engaging.

  Stanley Wolpert

  Fall, Excellent, British

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• The underlying principle of Masonry is the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. In this war we are engaging in upholding these principles and our enemies are attacking them.

  William Howard Taft

  War, Men, Brotherhood Of Man

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• When you have competing companies that are engaging in the raising of prices in lock step with each other, you have to question whether or not this in coincidence or price fixing. With the merger of Exxon and Mobil and Chevron and Texaco, we have very little competition among the energy companies.

  Jeanine Pirro

  Competition, Energy, Locks

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• It is Patrick the Legend, of course, who is most engaging and comes to us as something of a happy Celtic party monster.

  Charles Madigan

  Party, Monsters, Legends

  "Patrick, We Hardly Knew Ye". Chicago Tribune Article, articles.chicagotribune.com. March 14, 1997.

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• I have tried to show why I believe that the biologist is the most romantic figure on earth at the present day. At first sight he seems to be just a poor little scrubby underpaid man, groping blindly amid the mazes of the ultra-microscopic, engaging in bitter and lifelong quarrels over the nephridia of flatworms, waking perhaps one morning to find that someone whose name he has never heard has demolished by a few crucial experiments the work which he had hoped would render him immortal.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Morning, Believe, Science

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• . . . why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow.

  Erik Larson

  Men, Sorrow, Impossible

  "The Devil In The White City". Book by Erik Larson, Seprember 30, 2010.

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• Majority decisions tend to be made without engaging the systematic thought and critical thinking skills of the individuals in the group. Given the force of the group's normative power to shape the opinions of the followers who conform without thinking things through, they are often taken at face value. The persistent minority forces the others to process the relevant information more mindfully. Research shows that the deciscions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent.

  Philip Zimbardo

  Taken, Thoughtful, Thinking

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• Instead of engaging in cutthroat competition, we should strive to create value. In economic terms, this means a transition from a consumer economy - the mad rush for ownership and consumption - to a constructive economy where all human beings can participate in the act of creating lasting worth.

  Daisaku Ikeda

  Mean, Creating, Mad

  Daisaku Ikeda (2001). “For the Sake of Peace: Seven Paths to Global Harmony, a Buddhist Perspective”

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• Poets are excellent students of blizzards and salt and broken statuary, but they are always elsewhere for the test. Any intention in the writing of poetry besides the aim to make a poem, of engaging the materials, SHOULD be disappointed. If the poet does not have the chutzpah to jeopardize habituated assumptions and practices, what will be produced will be sleep without dream, a copy of a copy of a copy.

  Dean Young

  Dream, Writing, Sleep

  Dean Young (2010). “The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction”, Graywolf Press

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• In his writings, Patton was shameless about his ambition to woo Lena to be his bride. He detailed the gradual progress he made, playing music for her on his violin, writing her poems, beguiling her with stories, engaging her in conversation. It was clear that he obsessed over her. He knew what he wanted and never relented until she was his.

  Brandon Mull

  Writing, Ambition, Progress

  Brandon Mull, Brandon Dorman (2009). “Grip of the Shadow Plague”, p.46, Simon and Schuster

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• After all, if you make your enemy look like a fool, you lose the justification for engaging him.

  John le Carre

  Enemy, Looks, Fool

  John le Carre (2002). “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, p.316, Simon and Schuster

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• Action is the activity of the rational soul, which abhors irrationality and must combat it or be corrupted by it. When it sees the irrationality of others, it must seek to correct it, and can do this either by teaching or engaging in public affairs itself, correcting through its practice. And the purpose of action is to enable philosophy to continue, for if men are reduced to the material alone, they become no more than beasts.

  Iain Pears

  Philosophy, Teaching, Men

  Iain Pears (2003). “Dream of Scipio”, p.237, Penguin

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• Later on Lady Maccon was to describe that particular day as the worst of her life. She had neither the soul nor the romanticism to consider childbirth magical or emotionally transporting. So far as she could gather it mostly involved pain indignity and mess. There was nothing engaging or appealing about the process. And as she told her husband firmly she intended never to go through it again.

  Gail Carriger

  Pain, Husband, Soul

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• It's the reason why I am always interested in engaging in people who are pushing us and pushing against the status quo. But having been an activist, the only thing that I'm always encouraging activists to do is, once you have raised the issue, and even through controversial means, you have to come behind it with an agenda and the possibility of reconciliation if power meets your demands.

  Barack Obama

  Mean, Issues, People

  Source: www.theatlantic.com

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• You might tell me that you have been engaging in some deep questioning and theological rethinking.1 You can no longer live with the faith you inherited from your parents or constructed earlier in your life. As you sort through your dogma and doctrine, you’ve found yourself praying less, less thrilled about worship, scripture, or church attendance. You’ve been so focused on sorting and purging your theological theories that you’ve lost track of the spiritual practices that sustain an actual relationship with God. You may even wonder if such a thing is possible for someone like you.

  Brian D. McLaren

  Spiritual, Practice, Track

  Brian D. McLaren (2011). “Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words”, p.2, Harper Collins

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• Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow. In the end it is a story of the ineluctable conflict between good and evil, daylight and darkness, the White City and the Black.

  Erik Larson

  Book, Men, Cities

  "The Devil in the White City". Book by Erik Larson, February 11, 2003.

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• Yes to trade, but trade that ensures that these other countries that trade with us aren't engaging in child labor.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Children, Child Labor

  "President Barack Obama Holds a News Conference". ye.usembassy.gov. November 14, 2016.

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• Atheism has become a major threat to the church. New Atheists tend to be articulate and belligerent. They are aggressively engaging in "atheist evangelism," determined to stamp out every vestige of belief in God, which they insist is not only "stupid" but "wicked."

  Dave Hunt

  Atheist, Stupid, Wicked

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• The desire of businessmen for profits is what drives prices down unless forcibly prevented from engaging in price competition, usually by governmental activity.

  Thomas Sowell

  Competition, Desire, Liberty

  Thomas Sowell (1996). “Knowledge And Decisions”, p.225, Basic Books

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