Pernicious Quotes - Page 3

• Kitsch is the most pernicious of all prisons. The bars are covered with the gold of simplistic, unreal feelings, so that you take them for the pillars of a palace.

  Pascal Mercier

  Feelings, Gold, Bars

  Pascal Mercier (2008). “Night Train to Lisbon: A Novel”, p.332, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The effectiveness of political and religious propaganda depends upon the methods employed, not upon the doctrines taught. These doctrines may be true or false, wholesome or pernicious it makes little or no difference.

  Aldous Huxley

  Religious, Differences, Effectiveness

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2002). “Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948”, Ivan R. Dee Publisher

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• Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?

  Vladimir Lenin

  Believe, Gun, Men

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• This doctrine of forgiveness of sin is a premium on crime. Forgive us our sins means Let us continue in our iniquity. It is one of the most pernicious of doctrines, and one of the most fruitful sources of immorality. It has been the chief cause of making Christian nations the most immoral of nations. In teaching this doctrine Christ committed a sin for which his death did not atone, and which can never be forgiven. There is no forgiveness of sin. Every cause has its effect; every sinner must suffer the consequences of his sins.

  John Remsburg

  Christian, Teaching, Mean

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• Before our eyes we have the results of ideologies such as Marxism, Nazism and fascism, and also of myths like racial superiority, nationalism and ethnic exclusivism. No less pernicious, though not always as obvious, are the effects of materialistic consumerism, in which the exaltation of the individual and the selfish satisfaction of personal aspirations become the ultimate goal of life. In this outlook, the negative effects on others are considered completely irrelevant.

  Pope John Paul II

  Selfish, Eye, Goal

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• If the chief party, whether it be the people, or the army, or the nobility, which you think most useful and of most consequence to you for the conservation of your dignity, be corrupt, you must follow their humor and indulge them, and in that case honesty and virtue are pernicious.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Honesty, Party, Army

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• A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice. The evil terminates in itself. A vice condemned by the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole character. The former is a local malady; the latter, constitutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost, he too often flings the remainder of his virtue after it in despair.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Character, Evil, Despair

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• Imagination, which is the Eldorado of the poet and of the novel-writer, often proves the most pernicious gift to the individuals who compose the talkers instead of the writers in society.

  Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

  Imagination, Storytelling, Poet

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• The days of the Cross are counted. We must deliver the German nation from the pernicious influence of Christianity.

  Erich Ludendorff

  Christian, Religious, Influence

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• Those who need a champion cannot afford compromise, in the face of forces that are powerful, persistent and pernicious and greedy.

  Elizabeth Edwards

  Powerful, Champion, Faces

  "Elizabeth Edwards: 'With Less Armor Than I Have, They Fight Too'". Elizabeth Edwards' speech at Consumer Watchdog’s 2007 Rage for Justice dinner, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 7, 2010.

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• I feel all those human beings to be pernicious who can no longer oppose what they love: they thereby ruin the best things and people.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Love, People, Ruins

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• If unbridled licence of speech and writing be granted to all, nothing will remain sacred and inviolate; even the highest and truest mandates of nature, justly held to be the common and noblest heritage of the human race, will not be spared. Thus, truth being gradually obscured by darkness, pernicious and manifold error, as too often happens, will easily prevail.

  Pope Leo XIII

  Writing, Errors, Race

  Pope Leo XIII (1990). “A Light in the Heavens: Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII”, p.108, TAN Books

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• The single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our affections: the skillful evolutions of war may inform the mind, and improve a necessary, though pernicious, science. But in the uniform and odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood, and horror, and confusion . . .

  Edward Gibbon

  War, Hero, Blood

  Edward Gibbon, Francis Parkman, William H. Prescott, Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “The Modern Library Essential World History 4-Book Bundle: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged); Montcalm and Wolfe; History of the Conquest of Mexico; The Naval War of 1812”, p.1712, Modern Library

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• Creationism, perhaps the most pernicious of the intellectual perversions now afflicting the American public.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Intellectual, Creationism, Perversion

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• Theological error is the most pernicious of errors; it strikes at man's center and separates him from his Creator and Redeemer. God insisted not only that Israelites should judge their own hearts and cast aside falsehood about Him but that they should also confront it wherever it emerged.

  Max Anders

  Heart, Men, Errors

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• Not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all
  alike,
  boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities
  and
  towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school.
  Education is indeed necessary for all, and this is evident if we
  consider
  the different degrees of ability. No one doubts that those who are
  stupid
  need instruction, that they may shake off their natural dullness. But
  in
  reality those who are clever need it far more, since an active mind, if
  not occupied with useful things, will busy itself with what is useless,
  curious, and pernicious.

  John Amos Comenius

  Girl, Powerful, Children

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• I have spent a lot of time arguing that the theory of group selection is not the stupid, pernicious doctrine that many biologists once claimed it to be. The theory is not just conceptually coherent; there are adaptations out there in nature (like reduced virulence in some viruses) that evolved because there was group selection.

  Elliott Sober

  Stupid, Groups, Viruses

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• That said, a lot of people buy products with "green" in the brand name, but make no attempt to understand what it would really take to live sustainably. I think one of the most pernicious examples of magical environmental thinking is the anti-GMO movement.

  Annalee Newitz

  Thinking, Names, Gmos

  Source: therumpus.net

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• There's something profoundly liberating about giving, yet we don't do it often enough. It begs the question: why not? For some of us, our demanding schedules overtake our time to volunteer. For others, our fear of economic instability manifests a mindset dominated by pernicious lies like, "You can't afford to give" and "If you give, you won't have enough". However, truth of the matter is we simply cannot afford to not give back!

  Jen Lilley

  Lying, Volunteer, Giving

  "Count Your Blessings and Watch them Multiply" by Jen Lilley, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• Let's move forward to try to address the most egregious and outrageous corrupting aspect of campaigns in America today and that is the incredible inundation of soft money and its pernicious effects.

  John McCain

  Moving, America, Trying

  "Senate to take up softened campaign finance reform" by Jonathan Karl, www.cnn.com. October 12, 1999.

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• The most pernicious of his [Obama] proposals will be the massive Make Work Pay refundable tax credit. Dressed up as a tax cut, it will be a national welfare program, guaranteeing a majority of American households an annual check to 'refund' taxes they never paid. And it will eliminate the need for about 20% of American households to pay income taxes, lifting the proportion that need not do so to a majority of the voting population.

  Dick Morris

  Cutting, Welfare Programs, Voting

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• New and expanded refundable tax credits would raise the fraction of taxpayers paying no income taxes to almost 50% from 38%. This is potentially the most pernicious feature of the president's budget, because it would cement a permanent voting majority with no stake in controlling the cost of general government.

  Michael J. Boskin

  Government, Voting, President

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• More pernicious than the power of a dictator is that of a class; the most terrible - the tyranny of a majority.

  Emma Goldman

  Class, Majority, Dictator

  Emma Goldman (1998). “Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader”

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• I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either.

  John Adams

  Running, Democracies Have, Long

  John Adams (2001). “The Political Writings of John Adams”, p.405, Regnery Publishing

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• Comics can be pernicious, fascist propaganda or anti-authoritarian. The ones that shaped me were particularly anti-authoritarian.

  Art Spiegelman

  Propaganda, Fascists

  Source: www.esquire.com

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