Omission Quotes - Page 2

• Every person in the world is by nature a slave to sin.  The world, by nature, is held in sin's grip.  What a shock to our complacency- that everything of us by nature belongs to sin.  Our silences belong to sin, our omissions belong to sin, our talents belong to sin, our actions belong to sin.  Every facet of our personalities belong to sin; it own us and dominates us.  We are its servants.

  Joel Beeke

  Silence, Personality, World

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• States kill when they apply the death penalty, when they send their people to war, or when they carry out extra-judicial or summary executions. They can also kill by omission, when they fail to guarantee to their people access to the bare essentials for life.

  Pope Francis

  War, People, Essentials

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• In a brave new world, a post-September 11 world, anyone is going to make certain mistakes. The mistakes that have been made on homeland security, on protecting our Nation from another terrorist attack, are mistakes of omission. We are simply not doing enough.

  Charles Schumer

  Mistake, Brave New World, September 11

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• Errors of omission, lost opportunities, are generally more critical than errors of commission. Organizations fail or decline more frequently because of what they did not do than because of what they did.

  Russell L. Ackoff

  Business, Opportunity, Errors

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• So much blood has been shed by the Church because of an omission from the Gospel: “Ye shall be indifferent as to what your neighbor's religion is.” Not merely tolerant of it, but indifferent to it. Divinity is claimed for many religions; but no religion is great enough or divine enough to add that new law to its code.

  Mark Twain

  Religious, Blood, Law

  "Complete Works of Mark Twain".

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• I do believe that the collapse of the traditional media is catastrophic for our democracy, but I wasn't about to mythologize it. I understand its structural flaws, and the lies it tells, which are primarily, but not always, the lies of omission, and I wasn't going to leave that out. Knopf offered to publish the book but they said that an editor was going to "take out all the negativity," which, of course, I wasn't going to accept. I had been paid half my advance, and I had Nation Books buy the manuscript for that half.

  Chris Hedges

  Lying, Believe, Book

  Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. July 14, 2011.

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• In reference works, as in sin, omission is as bad as willful misbehavior.

  Elizabeth McCracken

  Nonfiction, Sin

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• I think if you don't say something it's lying by omission. I personally think it's immoral.

  Viggo Mortensen

  Lying, Thinking, Immoral

  "Viggo Mortensen Loves Politics". Interview with Nina Siegal, www.alternet.org. October 17, 2005.

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• I would rather commit a sin of commission than a sin of omission, and the evangelical community is exactly the opposite. The evangelical community would rather not do something wrong and the price they're willing to pay for not doing something wrong is they're willing to fail to do something right; they're so afraid of making a mistake. Now the reason they're afraid of making a mistake is they're cowards and our community produces cowards.

  J.P. Moreland

  Mistake, Opposites, Community

  30 Copy quote

• If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take us as long to recall a space of time as it took the original time to elapse, and we should never get ahead with our thinking. All recollected times undergo, accordingly, what M. Ribot calls foreshortening; and this foreshortening is due to the omission of an enormous number of facts which filled them.

  William James

  Thinking, Numbers, Space

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• It is a sin against God not to pray for the Israel of God, especially for those of them that are under our charge. Good men are afraid of the guilt of omissions ( I Samuel 12).

  Matthew Henry

  Men, Israel, Good Man

  Matthew Henry (1808). “An exposition of all the books of the Old and New Testaments: ...: Wherein each chapter is summed up in its contents: the sacred text inserted at large in distinct paragraphs ... largely illustrated with practical remarks and observations”

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• Look not to the faults of others, nor to their omissions and commissions. But rather look to your own acts, to what you have done and left undone.

  Gautama Buddha

  Looks, Done, Faults

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• Of course, we knew that the official reports were sketchy, if not falsified. But, in terms of information theory, this is precisely where the problem lay: How were we to reconstruct reality from incomplete or false reports? It is not true that virtually all news in a totalitarian state is false. On the contrary, most news is completely correct, albeit tendentiously slanded; it is just that certain information is suppressed. One can adjust for the political slanting of the news, but there is virtually no way to fill in the omissions.

  Konrad Zuse

  Reality, Justice, Political

  "The Computer - My Life".

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• Again, the great number of cultivated men keep each other up to a high standard. The habit of meeting well-read and knowing men teaches the art of omission and selection.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Men, Numbers

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.283, Graphic Arts Books

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• The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.

  Abraham Verghese

  Motivational, Destiny, Keys

  "Cutting for Stone". Book by Abraham Verghese, www.sfgate.com. 2009.

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• Some voluntary castaways there will always be, whom no fostering kindness and no parental care can preserve from self-destruction; but if any are lost for want of care and culture, there is a sin of omission in the society to which they belong.

  Robert Southey

  Kindness, Self, Want

  Robert Southey (2006). “Colloquies on Society: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.88, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I am tired of hiding and I am tired of lying by omission. I suffered for years because I was scared to be out. My spirit suffered, my mental health suffered and my relationships suffered. And I'm standing here today, with all of you, on the other side of that pain.

  Ellen Page

  Inspirational, Motivational, Suicide

  "Time to Thrive". www.huffingtonpost.com. February 15, 2014.

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• In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch-Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

  Douglas Adams

  Civilization, Two, Important

  Douglas Adams (2009). “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, p.27, Pan Macmillan

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• The particular sin of omission which gives ground to the evil spirits is the believer’s passivity.

  Watchman Nee

  Evil, Giving, Spirit

  Watchman Nee (2009). “The Spiritual Man”, p.867, Christian Fellowship Publishers

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• All the opportunities you let slip by! The idea, the inspiration just doesn´t come fast enough. Instead of being open, you´re closed up tight. That´s the worst sin of all - the sin of omission.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Inspiration, Opportunity, Ideas

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• Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.

  Abraham Verghese

  Destiny, Our Actions, Action

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• The imitator treads a beaten walk, and with all his diligence can only find a few flowers or branches untouched by his predecessor, the refuse of contempt, or the omissions of negligence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Flower, Branches, Diligence

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.182

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• Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the constant omission of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Mistake, Government, Divine Justice

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (1995). “The Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt”, Gramercy

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• Sins of commission are far more productive of happiness than the sins of omission.

  Myrtle Reed

  Sin, Productive

  Myrtle Reed (2012). “The Spinster Book”, p.91, tredition

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• Can anybody tell me why reporters, in making mention of lady speakers, always consider it to be necessary to report, fully and firstly, the dresses worn by them? When John Jones or Senator Rouser frees his mind in public, we are left in painful ignorance of the color and fit of his pants, coat, necktie and vest - and worse still, the shape of his boots. This seems to me a great omission.

  Fanny Fern

  Ignorance, Color, Mind

  Fanny Fern (1870). “Ginger-snaps”, p.114

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