Lowest Common Denominator Quotes

• If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.

  Jimmy Carter

  Inspirational, Funny, Graduation

  1978 Address to the Future Farmers of America, Kansas City, 9 Nov.

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• Simply put, I believe we should not seek the lowest common denominator when it comes to wilderness and saddle a wilderness designation with exceptions, exclusions, and exemptions.

  Nick Rahall

  Believe, Exclusion, Common

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• Radio football is football reduced to its lowest common denominator.

  Nick Hornby

  Football, Radio, Common

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• Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Adversity, Common, Conflict

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• Gangsta rap often reaches higher than its ugliest, lowest common denominator, misogyny, violence, materialism and sexual transgression are not its exclusive domain. At its best, this music draws attention to complex dimensions of ghetto life ignored by most Americans. Indeed, gangsta rap's in-your-face style may do more to force America to confront crucial social problems than a million sermons or political speeches.

  Michael Eric Dyson

  Rap, Ghetto, Gangsta

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• I'm an anarchist. I'm implacably opposed to heirarchical systems of power and control. I also mistrust crowds, as they often operate according to their lowest common denominator. In terms of evolutionary psychology, the crowd is very close to a herd of stampeding wildebeest.

  Will Self

  Psychology, Crowds, Common

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• The British media is sinking down, as the American news media has lowered the bar for all of humanity. British news media is definitely trying to stoop down to that level. Everyone is stooping to the lowest common denominator.

  John Oliver

  Media, Humanity, Trying

  Interview with Jason Zabel, www.avclub.com. September 22, 2011.

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• The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

  Carl Sagan

  Ignorance, Media, Sound

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.49, Ballantine Books

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• The thing is to be brave and move the audience with you, instead of cater to the lowest common denominator, you know, slipping on a banana peel and falling on your ass. You got to move the audience a little further ahead in terms of their appreciation of what is comedy. It's complicated.

  Mel Brooks

  Appreciation, Moving, Fall

  "Mel Brooks on how to play Hitler, and how he almost died making Spaceballs". Interview with Steve Heisler, www.avclub.com. December 13, 2012.

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• More than ambition, more than ability, it is rules that limit contribution; rules are the lowest common denominator of human behavior. They are a substitute for rational thought.

  Hyman Rickover

  Ambition, Limits, Common

  Hyman Rickover's address to US Naval Postgraduate School, March 16, 1954.

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• In organizations where nothing much happens regardless of whether you do something exceptional or just show up in the morning, the best people lose heart and motivation is reduced near the lowest common denominator.

  Judith M Bardwick

  Morning, Motivation, Heart

  Judith M. Bardwick (1995). “Danger in the Comfort Zone: From Boardroom to Mailroom--how to Break the Entitlement Habit That's Killing American Business”, p.5, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn

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• Is an institution always a man's shadow shortened in the sun, the lowest common denominator of everybody in it?

  Randall Jarrell

  Men, Shadow, Sun

  1954 Pictures from an Institution, pt.5, ch.9.

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• Obama is playing to the lowest common denominator of everybody, and he is telling them that if anybody's got more money than you do, it's not fair and it's unjustified and somehow you have been ripped off or screwed, and that is his message.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Messages, Common, More Money

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• It must not be true when the left tell us what they really want is to help and assist and elevate the little guy, 'cause they don't elevate anybody. The people I'm talking about try to make things fair by punishing and penalizing people at the top. They seek equality and fairness by reaching for the lowest common denominator they can find. Equally shared misery seems to be what their utopia is.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Talking, People, Guy

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• I respect the audience's intelligence a lot, and that's why I don't try to go for the lowest common denominator.

  Spike Lee

  Trying, Common, Audience

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I think that, regardless of our culture, age, or even personal handicaps, we can still strive for something exceptional. Why not expand our sights instead of restricting our lives and accepting the lowest common denominator of a dormant existence? Faith. . . will permit us to take a chance on a new path, perhaps different from the one we now follow. It may be surprising where it leads.

  Jimmy Carter

  Faith, Thinking, Sight

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• To me, elitism means a love of excellence and superiority, but America has declared war on both and developed a sick love of the lowest common denominator to make sure no-one becomes too fine for our touted democracy. We are almost at the point of regarding every virtue as elitist.

  Florence King

  War, Mean, America

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• The lowest common denominator of the universe is both low and common.

  R. A. Lafferty

  Common, Lows, Lowest

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• There are, by the most conservative counting, two grave and deeply regrettable collateral victims of the peer-review gruesome stratagem: one is the daring of thought (wished-washed to the lowest common denominator), and the other is the individuality, as well as the responsibility, of editors (those seeking shelter behind the anonymity of "peers", but in fact dissolved in it, in many cases without a trace).

  Zygmunt Bauman

  Responsibility, Editors, Two

  Source: www.theoryculturesociety.org

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• I always go to the lowest common denominator for that ingredient. So if I think squash, I try to think what it means to me -- and if it doesn't mean anything to me, I'm not gonna do well when I cook it. So [squash] means to me: fall, maple syrup, cinnamon, and things just come into your head so you can narrow the vortex and make it a bit smaller and you go with something because there's no time.

  Geoffrey Zakarian

  Fall, Mean, Thinking

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• The best places to live, work, and visit are those places that are willing to uphold their standards in the face of pressure to allow lowest common denominator development... Successful communities understand that when they say no to development that is contrary to the long-term health of their community, they will almost always get better development in its place.

  Ed McMahon

  Nature, Smart, Successful

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• So much of the humor on new sitcoms plays to the lowest common denominator. Wit isn't nearly given as much attention as slipping on a banana peel. So much of the writing is so coarse, so obvious that it doesn't provide a shock, never mind a laugh. What makes something funny is alluding to it without laying it out explicitly. You let the audiences fill in the gaps and that's where the laughs come.

  Betty White

  Writing, Play, Laughing

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• Children are prepared for democracy by being led to discuss current events without first learning the systematic subjects (politics, economics, history) which are necessary in order to discuss them. The Mole effect is to substitute slogans and superficial opinion for considered individual thought. And the opinion is that of the lowest common denominator of the group.

  Murray Rothbard

  Children, Educational, Order

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• Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.

  W. H. Auden

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Dyer's Hand (1963) "Notes on the Comic"

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• What happens in the Senate is the Republicans sink to the lowest common denominator.

  Jim DeMint

  Common, Republican, Lowest

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