Normal Quotes - Page 14

• Political agitation, by the passions it arouses or the convictions it engenders, may in fact stimulate men to the violation of the law. Detestation of existing policies is easily transformed into forcible resistance of the authority which puts them in execution, and it would be folly to disregard the causal relation between the two. Yet to assimilate agitation, legitimate as such, with direct incitement to violent resistance, is to disregard the tolerance of all methods of political agitation which in normal times is a safeguard of free government.

  Learned Hand

  Passion, Men, Law

  Learned Hand (1968). “The art and craft of judging: the decisions of Judge Learned Hand”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The imagination is the power that enables us to perceive the normal in the abnormal, the opposite of chaos in chaos.

  Wallace Stevens

  Opposites, Imagination, Abnormal

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination”, p.153, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am not metrosexual. I am not macho. I am normal. I don't even wear nail paint.

  Arjun Rampal

  Nails, Paint, Metrosexuals

  10 Copy quote

• No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others.

  Thomas Kuhn

  Fit, Scientist, Boxes

  Thomas S. Kuhn (2012). “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.24, University of Chicago Press

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• The supreme empire is that of the Emperor who renounces all normal life, that of other men, and in who the care of supremacy doesn't weigh like a load of jewels.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Men, Jewels, Empires

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa, p. 121, 1982.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The difference between a pessimistic and an optimistic mind is of such controlling importance in regard to every intellectual function, and especially for the conduct of life, that it is out of the question to admit that both are normal, and the great majority of mankind are naturally optimistic.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Optimistic, Differences, Intellectual

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1958). “Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance)”, p.377, Courier Corporation

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Just as the law in civilized countries assumes that the voice of conscience tells everybody, "Thou shalt not kill," even though man's natural desires and inclinations may at times be murderous, so the law of Hitler's land demanded that the voice of conscience tell everybody: "Thou shalt kill," although the organizers of the massacres knew full well that murder is against the normal desires and inclinations of most people. Evil in the Third Reich had lost the quality by which most people recognize it - the quality of temptation.

  Hannah Arendt

  Country, Men, Law

  "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil" by Hannah Arendt, (Ch. VIII), 1963.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• My mother made it seem perfectly normal for thousands of people to be cheering me, as if there was nothing special going on. I thought all children must live as I did.

  Shirley Temple

  Mother, Cheer, Children

  8 Copy quote

• Religion is as healthy and normal as life itself.

  Charles Fletcher Dole

  Healthy

  "The Coming Religion". Book by Charles Fletcher Dole, 1910.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everything in life that deviates from the straight and, so to speak, normal line, makes people first curious and then indignant.

  Stefan Zweig

  People, Lines, Firsts

  "Beware of Pity". Book by Stefan Zweig, 1939.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The world is rather shot to pieces [end of World War II - 1945], but the spectators climb out of their caves and pretend to have again become normal and customary humans who ask each other's pardon instead of eating one another or sucking each other's blood. The entertaining folly of war evaporates, distinguished boredom sits down again on the dignified old overstuffed chairs.. .May I report about myself that I have had a truly grotesque time, brim-full with work, Nazi persecutions, bombs, hunger, and again and again work - in spite of everything [a. o. using his bed sheets as canvas for the new paintings].

  Max Beckmann

  War, Blood, Boredom

  "Max Beckmann". Book by Stephan Lackner, 1983.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual life of maturity.

  William James

  Spiritual, Children, Maturity

  Dr. William James (2013). “The William James Reader”, p.482, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Stupidity is a factor to be reckoned with in human affairs. The true leader always expects to encounter it, and prepares to endure it patiently so long as it is normal stupidity. He knows that his ideas will be distorted, his orders carelessly executed; and that there will be jealousy among his assistants. He takes these inevitable phenomena into account, and instead of attempting to find men without faults, who are non-existent, he tries to make use of the best men at his disposal - as they are, and not as they ought to be.

  Andre Maurois

  Men, Order, Ideas

  "The Art of Living". Book by Andre Maurois, 1939.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The time has come, I think, when we must recognize bisexuality as a normal form of human behavior... we shall not really succeed in discarding the straitjacket of our cultural beliefs about sexual choice if we fail to come to terms with the well-documented, normal human capacity to love members of both sexes.

  Margaret Mead

  Sex, Thinking, Capacity To Love

  Redbook Magazine, 1975.

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• Dichotomy = operation performed on lesbians to make them normal.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Operations, Dichotomy

  The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan (2001), entry for 11 Oct 1977.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• As there must be moderation in other things, so there must be moderation in self-criticism. Perpetual contemplation of our own actions produces a morbid consciousness, quite unlike that normal consciousness accompanying right actions spontaneously done; and from a state of unstable equilibrium long maintained by effort, there is apt to be a fall towards stable equilibrium, in which the primitive nature reasserts itself. Retrogression rather than progression may hence result.

  Herbert Spencer

  Fall, Self, Long

  "The Principles of Ethics" by Herbert Spencer, (Ch. 10), 1897.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lacan , Derrida and Foucault are the perfect prophets for the weak, anxious academic personality, trapped in verbal formulas and perennially defeated by circumstances. They offer a self-exculpating cosmic explanation for the normal professorial state of resentment, alienation, dithering passivity and inaction.

  Camille Paglia

  Self, Perfect, Personality

  "Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf". Camille Paglia, "Arion", Third Series, Volume 1, No. 2, Spring 1991.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Bobbit case, which brought to life the ancient mythic archetype of woman as castrator, demonstrated that women are as aggressive as men and that sex is a dark, dangerous force of nature. But of course the feminist establishment, stuck in its battered-woman blinders, learned nothing as usual from this lurid refutation of its normal views. Classic art works like Bizet's Carmen tell us more about the irrationality of love, jealousy and revenge than do all the pat formulas of the counseling industry.

  Camille Paglia

  Art, Sex, Revenge

  4 Copy quote

• I don't think victory over death... is anything so superficial as a person fulfilling their normal span of life. It can be twofold; a victory over death by the man who faces it for himself without fear, and a victory by those who, loving him, know that death is but a little thing compared with the fact that he lived and was the kind of person he was.

  Vera Brittain

  Men, Thinking, Victory

  Winifred Holtby, Vera Brittain (1960). “Selected letters of Winifred Holtby and Vera Brittain, 1920-1935”

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• The normal present connects the past and the future through limitation. Contiguity results, crystallization by means of solidification. There also exists, however, a spiritual present that identifies past and future through dissolution, and this mixture is the element, the atmosphere of the poet.

  Novalis

  Spiritual, Mean, Past

  "Blüthenstaub". Book by Novalis, 1798.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a notion that complete impartiality is the most fitting and indeed the normal disposition for true exegesis , because it guarantees complete absence of prejudice. For a short time, around 1910, this idea threatened to achieve almost a canonical status in Protestant theology. But now, we can quite calmly describe it as merely comical.

  Karl Barth

  Ideas, Prejudice, Guarantees

  Karl Barth (2004). “Church Dogmatics: The doctrine of the word of God (2 pts.)”, p.469, A&C Black

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Any play that makes an audience think out of the box, that makes connections to life and names our pain and by doing so makes our pain subject to thinking and the process of understanding, is doing something inherently political. By promoting understanding, by putting experience in context, by making connections between the normal and the rational, theatre is an act of anti-terrorism. It stimulates courage and a survival spirit. In that sense of political, there are a lot of serious plays doing their work in the world.

  John Lahr

  Pain, Thinking, Play

  "Questions for John Lahr" by John Lahr, www.newyorker.com. January 23, 2009.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Speeding is like drugs. It makes everything come at you fast, and when you go back to normal driving, safe driving, prudent driving, it seems boring. That's the danger of drugs. At first it's intoxicating, but then the rest of your life you're trying to find that very first time. It never is the same.

  Tim Allen

  Drug, Trying, Safe

  4 Copy quote

• Temporary feelings of regret are a normal part of the mourning process. This helps us retrieve our lost dreams. If we hold on to regret, we risk trapping ourselves in a prison of unrealized dreams from which it is difficult to escape.

  Barbara De Angelis

  Dream, Regret, Mourning

  Barbara De Angelis (2007). “How Did I Get Here?: Finding Your Way to Renewed Hope and Happiness When Life and Love Take Unexpected Turns”, p.215, Macmillan

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• It seems like a cliche, but you do grow up a lot faster when you travel a lot, go through things like this interview, spend time away from home and hang around with other actors. It's inevitable that you're not going to have a so-called normal childhood.

  Matt Dillon

  Growing Up, Home, Childhood

  "Matt Dillon Meets Fame... Diffidently". The Boston Globe, November 03, 1983.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source