Former Quotes - Page 9

• We can profit only by our own misfortunes and those of others. The former, though they may be the more beneficial, are also the more painful; let us turn, then, to the latter.

  Polybius

  May, Painful, Profit

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• I'm not serving in office because I desperately needed 99 new friends in the U.S. Senate. Given the choice between being reviled in Washington, DC, and appreciated in Texas, or reviled in Texas and appreciated in Washington, I would take the former 100 out of 100 times.

  Ted Cruz

  Leadership, Wisdom, Work

  "Cruz slams fellow GOP senators" by Kevin Robillard, www.politico.com. October 20, 2013.

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• As has been emphasized vigorously by foreign allies and by responsible leaders of former administrations and incumbent officeholders, there is no current danger to the United States from Baghdad.

  Jimmy Carter

  Leader, Administration, Allies

  "The Troubling New Face of America: An Op-Ed by President Carter" by Jimmy Carter, www.cartercenter.org. September 04, 2002.

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• There is yet another kind of matrimonial dialect (which naturally succeeds this of talking at each other), which may very properlybe styled The Language Contradictory.... In the former, however plain the object of satire may be exhibited to the whole company, yet there always remains some little covering.... But in this last method, the defiance becomes more open and the impetuosity with which these contradictions are uttered (although the subjects of them are often of the most indifferent nature) evidently prove that they arise from passion.

  Sarah Fielding

  Marriage, Passion, Talking

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• There is a difference between dramatizing your sensibility and your personality. The literary works which we think of as classicsdid the former. Much modern writing does the latter, and so has an affinity with, say, night-club acts in all their shoddy immediacy.

  Paul Horgan

  Writing, Night, Thinking

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• I have lived long enough in the world, Sir, . . . to know that the safety of a minister lies in his having the approbation of this House. Former ministers, Sir, neglected this, and therefore they fell; I have always made it my first study to obtain it.

  Robert Walpole

  Lying, Long, Safety

  1739 Speech, House of Commons, 21 Nov.

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• I am not afraid of the priests in the long-run. Scientific method is the white ant which will slowly but surely destroy their fortifications. And the importance of scientific method in modern practical life--always growing and increasing--is the guarantee for the gradual emancipation of the ignorant upper and lower classes, the former of whom especially are the strength of the priests.

  Thomas Huxley

  Running, Class, White

  Thomas Henry Huxley, Henrietta A. Huxley (1908). “Aphorisms and reflections”

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• I am so far from thinking the maxims of Confucius and Jesus Christ to differ, that I think the plain and simple maxims of the former, will help to illustrate the more obscure ones of the latter, accommodated to the then way of speaking.

  Matthew Tindal

  Jesus, Simple, Thinking

  Matthew Tindal (1730). “Christianity as Old as the Creation: Or, The Gospel, a Republication of the Religion of Nature. |. ...”, p.342

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• Mitt Romney is a businessman, a turnaround artist, a CEO. That is who he is. The former governor has experience in the public and private sector.

  Mark McKinnon

  Artist, Ceo, Businessman

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• We have entered the era of the 'imperial' former presidency with lavish libraries, special staffs and benefits, around-the-clock Secret Service protection for life and other badges of privilege.

  Lawton Chiles

  Life, Evil, Secret

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• The Russians are going to be expansionist whether we [USA] provoke them to it or not. Russians keep saying that we're trying to encircle them. In what sense does the independence of Kosovo, a land-locked province, former Yugoslavia, with no common border with Russia, threaten Russia with encirclement? This is insulting. In what sense does the independence of Georgia constitute an encirclement? What we are facing, and we may as well give it its right name, is what I called it earlier, a chauvinistic, theocratic in part, xenophobic Russian imperialism.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Land, Yugoslavia, Names

  Source: www.npr.org

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• I think if the White House or the President want to say anything about our conversations or anything I tried to do to help our country with their support or at their request, then I think they should be the ones to do that. But I think that former presidents should do that.

  William J. Clinton

  Country, Thinking, White

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• Jesse Jackson also said he thought Barack Obama was talking down to black people by lecturing them on things like fatherhood and being a responsible husband. Jesse thought it was insulting, not only to him, but to his former mistress and their love child.

  Jay Leno

  Children, Husband, Talking

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• Earlier today former Vermont Governor Howard Dean became the new head of the Democratic National Committee -- no word on who will be the neck.

  Amy Poehler

  Vermont, Today, Necks

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• Howard Dean was endorsed by former Vice President Al Gore and now he is getting advice from Al Gore. And I'm thinking, who better to give advice than the guy who couldn't even get elected with the most votes?

  David Letterman

  Thinking, Giving, Guy

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• Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean was all smiles, well smirks, after picking up the endorsement of former Vice President Al Gore at a rally in Harlem ... Gore went on to praise Dean for taking a tough anti-war stance before the invasion of Iraq and he praised Dean supporters in hopes that will ease his concerns over lack of foreign policy experience, and his lack of support among blacks and Latinos, and his hot temperament, and perceived arrogance, and policy flip-flops, and campaign glitches. Well, there's a lot going on here.

  Jon Stewart

  War, Iraq, Support

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• It was reported today that former Governor Howard Dean raised $14 million dollars in campaign funds mostly over the Internet. Of course, Dean's success could be contributed to his Web site: www.wetboobies.

  Conan O'Brien

  Dollars, Campaigns, Today

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• As you may have heard, former President Bill Clinton says he's coming here to California to help Governor Gray Davis in his recall election campaign. Which is ironic, isn't it? When Clinton was president, he couldn't recall anything.

  Jay Leno

  California, Ironic, President

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• Every relationship of domination, of exploitation, of oppression is by definition violent, whether or not the violence is expressed by drastic means. In such a relationship, dominator and dominated alike are reduced to things- the former dehumanized by an excess of power, the latter by a lack of it. And things cannot love.

  Paulo Freire

  Mean, Violence, Excess

  Paulo Freire (2013). “Education for Critical Consciousness”, p.17, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Trent Lott has regained a position of leadership. He was the former majority leader who lost his post for racially insensitive commentary. I believe he mentioned that Strom Thurmond in 1948, who ran as a segregationist candidate, should have won. ... But now, sound the irony alarm. He has recaptured a position and his position -- I kid you not -- in the Senate will be minority whip. So, my guess is he takes to that job like, let's say, white on rice.

  Jon Stewart

  Jobs, Believe, Kids

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• (I)f France's righteous bloviating against war makes them your Dashboard Saint of International Integrity, it's either because you are sand-poundingly ignorant of how the world works or it's because you think France's self-interest is more important than America's. If the former applies to you, read a book. If it's the latter, maybe you should move there along with Alec Baldwin, Robert Altman, and the rest of the crowd who promised to leave a long time ago. But whatever you do, don't call France's position principled, because that just insults us both.

  Jonah Goldberg

  War, Integrity, Moving

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• Art can never match the luxury and superfluity of Nature. In the former all is seen; it cannot afford concealed wealth, and is niggardly in comparison; but Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Art, Nature, Roots

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.124, Penguin

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• Good deeds shun the light as anxiously as evil deeds: the latter fear that disclosure will bring on pain (as punishment), while the former fear that disclosure will take away pleasure (that pure pleasure, that pleasure per se, which immediately ceases once the vanity's satisfaction is added).

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Pain, Vanity, Light

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• I entered an omnibus to go to some place or other. At that moment when I put my foot on the step the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it, that the transformations I had used to define the Fuchsian functions were identical with non-Euclidean geometry.

  Henri Poincare

  Ideas, Feet, Steps

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• Former President Bush, to celebrate his 80th birthday, jumped out of an airplane. And if you've seen the polls, you know he's not the only Bush in freefall.

  David Letterman

  Airplane, President, Celebrate

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