Passivity Quotes - Page 5

• Captivating the spirit of the age is a matter of great talent; being swept away by it characterizes an average mind. The two are as different from one another as activity and passivity.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Average, Two, Mind

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• In using the style of the erotic/pornographic story, I am interested in dismantling stereotypes of an essential feminine identity, particularly one of exclusive tenderness and passivity.

  Barbara Degenevieve

  Erotic, Style, Identity

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• The state of emotional intoxication allows one to grasp existence in one's self and in the other, as both subjectivity and passivity. The two partners merge in this ambiguous unity; each one is freed of his own presence and achieves immediate communication with the other.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Communication, Emotional, Two

  Sade (marquis de), Simone de Beauvoir (1972). “The Marquis de Sade: an essay by Simone de Beauvoir”

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• We've had eight years of passivity with Barack Obama where whatever anybody around the world wanted to do to America, we just huffed and puffed and did nothing. And with Donald Trump, you want to do something to America, there's gonna be a price. And if you offend our sensibilities - we're not gonna put up with it. And he says and does what he does.

  Rush Limbaugh

  America, Eight, Years

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• You're an evolving and transforming person, right? And how do we capture that dynamics of sexuality in that complex sense? There may be times when someone feels oneself more overly masculine or maybe more feminine, or where the terms themselves become confused, where passivity and activity also don't maintain their usual meaning.

  Judith Butler

  Confused, Usual, May

  Source: ilga.org

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• Nonviolent action, the Negro saw, was the way to supplement, not replace, the progress of change. It was the way to divest himself of passivity without arraying himself in vindictive force.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Progress, Way, Saws

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011). “Why We Can't Wait”, p.26, Beacon Press

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• What leads to peace is not violence but peaceableness, which is not passivity, but an alert, informed, practiced, and active state of being.

  Wendell Berry

  Violence, States, Active

  Wendell Berry (2004). “Citizenship Papers: Essays”, p.32, Counterpoint Press

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• One of my moments of coming to writing, of needing to write to attempt to create myself, to attempt to absolve and understand my past passivity, came when a girl I loved very much, who I had been estranged from for some time, killed herself.

  Kate Zambreno

  Girl, Writing, Past

  Source: therumpus.net

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• It's a bit scary to see my book come true: the recent (if minor) LA earthquakes, Hurricane Sandy, the Boston bomber, and so on - much of it stoppable, I think, and yet I, too, am also guilty of passivity.

  Edan Lepucki

  Book, Thinking, Boston

  Source: therumpus.net

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• The line of least resistance is to most people the lifeline.

  Sophie Irene Loeb

  People, Lines, Resistance

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• Enough of passivity and passing time while waiting for the boy friend, the girl friend, the Goddess, or the Revolution.

  Gloria E. Anzaldúa

  Girl, Boys, Waiting

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• What eleven- to thirteen-year-old boys fear is passivity of any kind. When they do act passively we can be fairly certain that it is an act of aggression designed to torment a parent or teacher. . . . Mischief at best, violence at worst is the boy's proclamation of masculinity.

  Louise J. Kaplan

  Teacher, Boys, Years

  Louise J. Kaplan (1995). “Adolescence: The Farewell to Childhood”, Touchstone Books

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• Why is it that nobody cries out, nobody spits in their faces, nobody jumps at their throats? We doff our caps to the S.S. men returning from the little wood; if our name is called out we obediently go with them to die, and we do nothing. We starve, we are drenched by rain, we are torn from our families. What is this mystery? This strange power of one man over another? This insane passivity that cannot be overcome? Our only strength is our great number; the gas chambers cannot accommodate all of us.

  Tadeusz Borowski

  Rain, Men, Names

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• Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving…conflict is a sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity.

  John Dewey

  Memories, Reflection, Sheep

  John Dewey (2007). “Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology”, p.300, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Activity and passivity must go together in asanas.

  B.K.S. Iyengar

  Together, Asana, Activity

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• Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved more by changes in society than by his own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society rather than himself the agent of change. The power he finds in his victimization may lead him to collective action against society, but it also encourages passivity within the sphere of his personal life.

  Shelby Steele

  Black, Agents, May

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• What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

  Neil Postman

  Truth, Fear, Book

  "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business". Book by Neil Postman, 1985.

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• The genuflection toward 'fairness' is a familiar newsroom piety, in practice the excuse for a good deal of autopilot reporting and lazy thinking but in theory a benign ideal. In Washington, however, a community in which the management of news has become the single overriding preoccupation of the core industry, what 'fairness' has often come to mean is a scrupulous passivity, an agreement to cover the story not as it is occurring but as it is presented, which is to say as it is manufactured.

  Joan Didion

  Mean, Thinking, Practice

  FaceBook post by Joan Didion from Aug 25, 2011

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• Along with our passivity, we're entering a profoundly masochistic phase everyone is a victim these days, of parents, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, even love itself. And how much we enjoy it. Our happiest moments are spent trying to think up new varieties of victimhood.

  J. G. Ballard

  Thinking, Doctors, Parent

  "Age of Unreason". Interview with Jeannette Baxter, www.theguardian.com. June 22, 2004.

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• All of the evidence highlights the implicit bargain that is offered to citizens: pose no challenge and you have nothing to worry about. Mind your own business, and support or at least tolerate what we do, and you'll be fine. Put differently, you must refrain from provoking the authority that wields surveillance powers if you wish to be deemed free of wrongdoing. This is a deal that invites passivity, obedience, and conformity. The safest course, the way to ensure being “left alone,” is to remain quiet, unthreatening, and compliant.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Worry, Support, Challenges

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• Passivity can be a provoking modus operandi;
  Consider the Empire and Gandhi.

  Ogden Nash

  Empires, Modus Operandi, Provoking

  Ogden Nash (1945). “The Selected Verse of Ogden Nash”, New York : Modern Library

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• War is by definition the indiscriminate killing of huge numbers of people for ends that are uncertain. Think about means and ends, and apply it to war. The means are horrible, certainly. The ends, uncertain. That alone should make you hesitate. . . . We are smart in so many ways. Surely, we should be able to understand that in between war and passivity, there are a thousand possibilities.

  Howard Zinn

  War, Smart, Mean

  "Untold Truths About the American Revolution" by Howard Zinn, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. July 20, 2009.

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• Nothing remains intact without effort. Repetition of formulas does not assure the transmission of thought. It is not safe to entrust a doctrinal treasure to the passivity of memory. Intelligence must play a part in its conservation, rediscovering it, so to speak, in the process.

  Henri de Lubac

  Memories, Play, Effort

  Henri de Lubac (1987). “Paradoxes of Faith”, p.23, Ignatius Press

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• The study of letters is the study of the operation of human force, of human freedom and activity; the study of nature is the study of the operation of non-human forces, of human limitation and passivity. The contemplation of human force and activity tends naturally to heighten our own force and activity; the contemplation of human limits and passivity tends rather to check it. Therefore the men who have had the humanistic training have played, and yet play, so prominent a part in human affairs, in spite of their prodigious ignorance of the universe.

  Matthew Arnold

  Education, Ignorance, Science

  Matthew Arnold (1868). “Schools and Universities on the Continent”, p.260, Macmillan

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• The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.

  Noam Chomsky

  Smart, Passivity Is, People

  Noam Chomsky (2013). “How the World Works”, p.234, Soft Skull Press

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