Impotence Quotes - Page 4

• The aim of jazz is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. 'Give up your masculinity, let yourself be castrated,' the eunuchlike sound of the jazz band both mocks and proclaims, 'and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at the moment of the initiation rite.

  Theodor Adorno

  Giving Up, Symbolism, Sound

  Theodor Adorno, Richard Leppert, Susan H. Gillespie (2002). “Essays on Music”, p.352, Univ of California Press

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• Do not first announce action, and then, when you are unable to take action, withdraw, because you will only find yourself in the same position as now, plus a public and humiliating confession of impotence.

  Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

  Finding Yourself, Politics, Firsts

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• The hood-winked husband shows his anger, and the word jealous is flung in his face. Jealous husband equals betrayed husband. And there are women who look upon jealousy as synonymous with impotence, so that the betrayed husband can only shut his eyes, powerless in the face of such accusations.

  August Strindberg

  Husband, Eye, Jealous

  August Strindberg (1967). “A Madman's Defense”, Peter Smith Pub Incorporated

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• Impotence therefore faces both those who believe in what amounts to a pure, stateless, market capitalism, a sort of international bourgeois anarchism, and those who believe in a planned socialism uncontaminated by private profit-seeking. Both are bankrupt. The future, like the present and the past, belongs to mixed economies in which public and private are braided together in one way or another. But how? That is the problem for everybody today, but especially for people on the left.

  Eric Hobsbawm

  Believe, Past, People

  "Socialism has failed. Now capitalism is bankrupt. So what comes next?" by Eric Hobsbawm, www.theguardian.com. April 9, 2009.

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• One of the main purposes of laws in a democratic society is to put burdens upon intelligence and reduce it to impotence. Ostensibly, their aim is to penalize anti-social acts; actually their aim is to penalize heretical opinions. At least ninety-five Americans out of every 100 believe that this process is honest and even laudable; it is practically impossible to convince them that there is anything evil in it. In other words, they cannot grasp the concept of liberty.

  H. L. Mencken

  Business, Believe, Law

  "Liberty and Democracy". Baltimore Evening Sun (April 13, 1925) as quoted in "A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit" edited by Terry Teachout (p. 35), 1994.

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• All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices. Not a one will wish you luck or hope that you will keep on writing unless you have political affiliations in which case these will rally around and speak of you and Homer, Balzac, Zola and Link Steffens.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Political, Luck

  "Old Newsman Writes: A Letter from Cuba". Esquire, December 1934.

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• In the secret of my heart I am in perpetual quarrel with God that He should allow such things [as the war] to go on. My non-violence seems almost impotent. But the answer comes at the end of the daily quarrel that neither God nor non-violence is impotent. Impotence is in men. I must try on without losing faith even though I may break in the attempt.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  War, Heart, Men

  Mahatma Gandhi (2007). “Gandhi on Non-Violence”, p.89, New Directions Publishing

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• Those who today still feel a sense of impotence can do something: they can support Amnesty International. They can help it to stand up for freedom and justice.

  Peter Benenson

  Rights, Justice, Support

  The Amnesty International Report, p. 22, 2002.

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• Today self-consciousness no longer means anything but reflection on the ego as embarrassment, as realization of impotence: knowing that one is nothing.

  Theodor Adorno

  Mean, Reflection, Self

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.50, Verso

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• Airs of importance are the credentials of impotence.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Pride, Air, Credentials

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• Violence is a symptom of impotence.

  Anais Nin

  Violence, Symptoms

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• People think responsibility is hard to bear. It's not. I think that sometimes it is the absence of responsibility that is harder to bear. You have a great feeling of impotence.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Responsibility, Thinking, People

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• In science, as in love, a concentration on technique is likely to lead to impotence.

  Peter L. Berger

  Love, Science, Technique

  Peter L. Berger (1973). “Invitation to sociology: a humanistic perspective”, Overlook Pr

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• Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love, prevents the Christians of today - burning us.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Christian, Humanity, Burning

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL - Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future: The Critique of the Traditional Morality and the Philosophy of the Past”, p.50, e-artnow

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• Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will get a version of it through a desiccated question, and then will submerge it in a Niagara of similar opinions, and convert them into--what else?--another piece of news. Thus we have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing.

  Neil Postman

  Giving, Voting, News

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.69, Penguin

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• Great things are accomplished by men who are not conscious of the impotence of man. Such insensitiveness is precious. But we must admit that criminals are not unlike our heroes in this respect.

  Paul Valery

  Hero, Men, Criminals

  "Reflections on the World Today" by Paul Valery, (p. 58), 1931.

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• The facts are in, the science is beyond question. Sugar in all its forms is the root cause of our obesity epidemic and most of the chronic disease sucking the life out of our citizens and our economy - and, increasingly, the rest of the world. You name it, it’s caused by sugar: heart disease, cancer, dementia, type 2 diabetes, depression, and even acne, infertility and impotence.

  Mark Hyman, M.D.

  Cancer, Heart, Epidemics

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• Somehow the fact of enormous privilege and freedom carries with it a sense of impotence, which is a strange, but striking, phenomenon. The fact is, we can do just about anything. There is no difficulty, wherever you are, in finding groups that are working hard on things that concern you.

  Noam Chomsky

  Groups, Facts, Privilege

  Interview with David Barsamian, May 1, 2004.

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• The truth is, the older you get, the less variety of parts you are offered. If you're a star and you've spent most of your career being able to take your pick of the litter, you notice when the offers start to diminish. You're too old to play leads, so you're offered the supporting role - but many stars don't want to make that transition. They see it as a sign of symbolic impotence. And that the audience will no longer regard them as a star. I love acting, and I'm not going to determine what I do based on what I fear other people might think. I do what I want to do.

  Dustin Hoffman

  Stars, Thinking, Careers

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Religious tolerance has developed more as a consequence of the impotence of religions to impose their dogmas on each other than as a consequence of spiritual humility in the quest for understanding first and last things.

  Sidney Hook

  Spiritual, Religious, Humility

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• When I first went into freelancing, I think there was a period of about eight months when nothing happened. Everything that I wrote crumbled up, and then it became a self-destructive thing - when you begin to doubt yourself, when doubt turns into - it's sort of like impotence. Once impotent, you're forever impotent. Because you're always worried about being impotent.

  Rod Serling

  Thinking, Eight, Self

  Source: www.rodserling.com

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• They had rejected the soul-body dichotomy, with its two corollaries: the impotence of man's mind and the damnation of this earth; they had rejected the doctrine of suffering as man's metaphysical fate, they proclaimed man's right to the pursuit of happiness and were determined to establish on earth the conditions required for man's proper existence, by the "unaided" power of their intellect.

  Ayn Rand

  Fate, Pursuit Of Happiness, Men

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• The peace of the man who has forsworn the use of the bullet seems to me not quite peace, but a canting impotence.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Use, Bullets

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte (1982). “Emerson in His Journals”, p.224, Harvard University Press

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• Religion is the love of life in the consciousness of impotence.

  George Santayana

  Love Life, Religion, Consciousness

  George Santayana (2014). “Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion”, p.37, The Floating Press

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• A verbal threat is the most authentic certificate of impotence.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Certificates, Threat

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms”, p.95, Random House

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