Mere Quotes - Page 14

• Culture is being threatened when all worldly objects and things, produced by the present or the past, are treated as mere functions for the life process of society, as though they are there only to fulfill some need, and for this functionalization it is almost irrelevant whether the needs in question are of a high or a low order.

  Hannah Arendt

  Past, Order, Needs

  Hannah Arendt (1968). “Between past and future: eight exercises in political thought”, Viking Adult

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• Happiness, to some, elation; Is, to others, mere stagnation.

  Amy Lowell

  Happiness, Elation, Stagnation

  Amy Lowell (2009). “Sword Blades and Poppy Seed”, p.43, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• The Dance of the Future will have to become again a high religious art as it was with the Greeks. For art which is not religious is not art, it is mere merchandise

  Isadora Duncan

  Religious, Art, Greek

  Isadora Duncan (1909). “The Dance”

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• I reject her [Ayn Rand's] philosophy. It's an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person's view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas. Don't give me Ayn Rand.

  Paul Ryan

  Atheist, Philosophy, Views

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• Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.

  F. H. Bradley

  Writing, Heart, Blood

  "Aphorisms". Book by F. H. Bradley No. 25, 1930.

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• There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough), for finding in the Constitution a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence brought forward after conviction. My concern is that in making life easier for ourselves we not appear to make it harder for the lower federal courts, imposing upon them the burden of regularly analyzing newly-discovered-evidence-of-innocence claims in capital cases (in which event such federal claims, it can confidently be predicted, will become routine and even repetitive).

  Antonin Scalia

  Practice, Justice, Demand

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• From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored - indeed, I have struggled - along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue to coddle the Court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.

  Harry A. Blackmun

  Years, Majority, Needs

  "Bruce Edwin Callins v. James A. Collins 510 U.S. 1141". The U.S. Supreme Court case No. 93-7054, www.law.cornell.edu. February 22, 1994.

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• There will have to be rigid and iron discipline before we achieve anything great and enduring, and that discipline will not come by mere academic argument and appeal to reason and logic. Discipline is learnt in the school of adversity.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  School, Adversity, Iron

  Mahatma Gandhi (1965). “Glorious Thoughts of Gandhi: Being a Treasury of about Ten Thousand Valuable and Inspiring Thougths of Mahatma Gandhi, Classified Under Four Hundred Subjects”

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• A developed India by 2020, or even earlier, is not a dream. It need not be a mere vision in the minds of many Indians. It is a mission we can all take up - and succeed.

  Abdul Kalam

  Dream, Mind, Vision

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• The very design of the gospel doth tend to self-abasing; and the work of grace is begun and carried on in humiliation. Humility is not a mere ornament of a Christian, but an essential part of the new creature: it is a contradiction to be a sanctified man, or a true Christian, and not humble.

  Richard Baxter

  Christian, Humble, Humility

  Richard Baxter (1838). “The Practical Works of Richard Baxter: With a Preface, Giving Some Account of the Author, and of this Edition of His Practical Works; an Essay on His Genius, Works and Times; and a Portrait : in Four Volumes”, p.405

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• Perhaps the mere idea of receiving a nasty missive will allow animal researchers to empathize with their victims for the first time in their lousy careers. I find it small wonder that the laboratories aren't all burning to the ground. If I had more guts, I'd light a match.

  Ingrid Newkirk

  Animal, Light, Careers

  "The Chronicle of Higher Education" Newspaper, November 12. 1999.

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• To be 'for animals' is not to be 'against humanity.' To require others to treat animals justly, as their rights require, is not to ask for anything more nor less in their case than in the case of any human to whom just treatment is due. The animal rights movement is a part of, not opposed to, the human rights movement. Attempts to dismiss it as anti human are mere rhetoric.

  Tom Regan

  Animal, Rights, Humanity

  Tom Regan (2004). “The Case for Animal Rights”, p.53, Univ of California Press

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• Studying goes deeper than mere reading. There are surface nuggets to be gathered but the best of the gold is underneath, and it takes time and labor to secure it.

  Mary McLeod Bethune

  Reading, Gold, Nuggets

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• If by the people you understand the multitude, the hoi polloi, 'tis no matter what they think; they are sometimes in the right, sometimes in the wrong; their judgment is a mere lottery.

  John Dryden

  Thinking, People, Understanding

  'An Essay of Dramatic Poesy' (1668)

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• Aside from higher considerations, charity often operates as a vastly wise and prudent principle-a great safeguard to its possessor. Men have committed murder for jealousy's sake, and anger's sake, and hatred's sake, and selfishness' sake, and spiritual pride's sake; but no man that ever I heard of, ever committed a diabolical murder for sweet charity's sake. Mere self-interest, then, if no better motive can be enlisted, should, especially with high-tempered men, prompt all beings to charity and philanthropy.

  Herman Melville

  Wise, Spiritual, Sweet

  Herman Melville (1995). “Bartleby, the Scrivener: a Story of Wall-Street”, p.29, Lulu.com

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• Let us be today's Christians. Let us not take fright at the boldness of today's church. With Christ's light let us illuminate even the most hideous caverns of the human person: torture, jail, plunder, want, chronic illness. The oppressed must be saved, not with a revolutionary salvation, in mere human fashion, but with the holy revolution of the Son of Man, who dies on the cross to cleanse God's image, which is soiled in today's humanity, a humanity so enslaved, so selfish, so sinful.

  Oscar Romero

  Christian, Fashion, Selfish

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• Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As mans ingratitude Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho sing, heigh-ho unto the green holly Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. Then heigh-ho the holly This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend rememberd not.

  William Shakespeare

  Life, Art, Winter

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 7, l. 174

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• There must appear a spiritual and moral leadership rising above economic and political situations. Governments in both their domestic and foreign policies appeal for popular support by promises of material gain. We cannot make peace by mere appeal to greed. We must give the peoples of the world something to live for as well as something to live on.

  John Haynes Holmes

  Leadership, Spiritual, Government

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• Beauty itself soon fades, and when a woman has beauty and nothing else, well, it's like putting all the goods in the shop window, isn't it? And the moment she loses her good looks-poor creature! what is she? Just a mere bit of faded finery to be thrown aside.

  Henry Arthur Jones

  Beautiful, Looks, Window

  Henry Arthur Jones (1915). “The Theatre of Ideas, a Burlesque Allegory, and Three One-act Plays: The Goal, Her Tongue, Grace Mary”

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• Creativity is more than mere imagination. It is imagination inseparably coupled with both intent and effort.

  Alex Faickney Osborn

  Creativity, Imagination, Effort

  Alex Faickney Osborn (1953). “Applied imagination: principles and procedures of creative thinking”

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• Doubts and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.

  Helen Keller

  Motivational, Heart, Imagination

  Helen Keller (2012). “The World I Live In and Optimism: A Collection of Essays”, p.89, Courier Corporation

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• We may note in passing that He (Jesus) was never regarded as a mere moral teacher. He did not produce that effect on any of the people who actually met Him. He produced mainly three effects - Hatred - Terror - Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild admiration.

  C. S. Lewis

  Christian, Teacher, Jesus

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• Those dreams that on the silent night intrude, and with false flitting shapes our minds delude ... are mere productions of the brain. And fools consult interpreters in vain.

  Jonathan Swift

  Dream, Night, Mind

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• Recently, I wrote that feminism was 'finding a way of being a girl that doesn't hurt' a way for girls and women to re-negotiate our understanding of the world so that we can become a full and equal part of it rather than just a means of decorating it; to move towards a place where the mere act of being a girl isn't used against us as both a threat and an obligation. Through feminism, I have found a peace of sorts from the sense that my femaleness required a constant apology so that I might be given permission to pass through these narrow corridors.

  Clementine Ford

  Girl, Hurt, Women

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• To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere Philosophy.

  Thomas Browne

  Faith, Philosophy, Believe

  1634-5 Religio Medici (published 1643), pt.1, section 48.

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