Pernicious Quotes - Page 7

• there is a pernicious tendency to make the opinions of the expert prevail by crowd methods, to rush the people instead of educating them.

  Mary Parker Follett

  People, Experts, Crowds

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• A poet or novelist will invent interruptions to avoid long consecutive days at the ordained page; and of these the most pernicious are other kinds of writing -- articles, lectures, reviews, a wide correspondence.

  Shirley Hazzard

  Writing, Long, Novelists

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• as for the possibility of 'having it all,' career and family with no sacrifice to either, that is a myth we would do well to abandon, together with the pernicious notion that a woman who chooses one of the other is somehow deficient.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Sacrifice, Careers, Together

  Sonia Sotomayor (2013). “My Beloved World”, Vintage

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• The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is - second only to American political campaigns - the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time.

  Larry Laudan

  Ideas, Perspective, Political

  Larry Laudan (2012). “Science and Relativism: Some Key Controversies in the Philosophy of Science”, p.10, University of Chicago Press

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• In effort Happiness idleness life pleasure superstition support trouble work The superstition that all our hours of work are a minus quantity in the happiness of life, and all the hours of idleness are plus ones, is a most ludicrous and pernicious doctrine, and its greatest support comes from our not taking sufficient trouble, not making a real effort, to make work as near pleasure as it can be.

  Arthur Balfour

  Life, Real, Work

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• We see no where the pernicious effects of luxury on a republic more than in that of the ancient Romans, who immediately found itself poor as soon as this vice got footing among them, though they were possessed of all the riches in the world.

  Joseph Addison

  Luxury, Vices, Ancient

  "The Works of Joseph Addison".

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• No more fatuous chimera has ever infested the brain than that you can control opinions by law or direct belief by statute, and no more pernicious sentiment ever tormented the heart than the barbarous desire to do so. The field of inquiry should remain open, and the right of debate must be regarded as a sacred right.

  William Borah

  Heart, Law, Brain

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• People who do not know the Bible well have been gulled into thinking it is a good guide to morality. This mistaken view may have motivated the "millionaire Conservative party donors". I have even heard the cynically misanthropic opinion that, without the Bible as a moral compass, people would have no restraint against murder, theft and mayhem. The surest way to disabuse yourself of this pernicious falsehood is to read the Bible itself.

  Richard Dawkins

  Party, Thinking, Views

  "Why I want all our children to read the King James Bible". www.theguardian.com. May 19, 2012.

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• The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.

  Bertrand Russell

  Time, Lying, Thinking

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.16, Lulu Press, Inc

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• We are fully justified in valuing the life and person of an intended victim more highly than the life of a pernicious assailant. The attacker must be stopped. At once and completely.

  Jeff Cooper

  Justified, Victim, Self Defense

  Jeff Cooper (2006). “Principles of Personal Defense: Revised Edition”, p.44, Paladin Press

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• ... you must hasten to oppose pernicious pride of mind, before it penetrates into the marrow of your bones. Resist it, curb the quickness of your mind and humbly subject your opinion to the opinions of others. Be a fool for the love of God, if you wish to be wiser than Solomon: 'If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise' (I Cor. 3:18).

  Lorenzo Scupoli

  Wise, Christian, Pride

  Lorenzo Scupoli (1978). “Unseen Warfare: The Spiritual Combat and Path to Paradise of Lorenzo Scupoli”, p.94, St Vladimir's Seminary Press

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• The efforts on the parts of Eastern magazine writers to educate the people of the United States, particularly parents, to the doctrine that they limit the number of their offspring to three or four children, and how this can be accomplished, is both pernicious and an abomination in the sight of the Lord; and it robs both man and his Maker of their glory and increase.

  George F. Richards

  Children, Men, Numbers

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• You can see the goldenrod, that most tenacious and pernicious and beauteous of all New England flora, bowing away from the wind like a great and silent congregation.

  Stephen King

  Wind, England, Silent

  Stephen King (2000). “Salem's Lot”, p.141, Simon and Schuster

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• The pernicious influence of the prize and medal giving in art is so great that it should be stopped. History proves that juries in art have been generally wrong.

  Robert Henri

  Art, Giving, Rewards

  Robert Henri (1960). “The art spirit”, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

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• The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty- four hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor the sun revolves....Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it.

  Philipp Melanchthon

  Honesty, Moving, Eye

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• But, historians, and even common sense, may inform us, that, however specious these ideas of perfect equality may seem, they are really, at bottom, impracticable; and were they not so, would be extremely pernicious to human society. Render possessions ever so equal, men's different degrees of art, care, and industry will immediately break that equality. Or if you check these virtues, you reduce society to the most extreme indigence; and instead of preventing want and beggary in a few, render it unavoidable to the whole community.

  David Hume

  Art, Men, Ideas

  David Hume (2013). “Essays and Treatises on Philosophical Subjects”, p.290, Broadview Press

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• .. that a rule, which, in speculation, may seem the most advantageous to society, may yet be found, in practice, totally pernicious and destructive.

  David Hume

  Practice, May, Ethics

  David Hume, Tom L. Beauchamp (2006). “An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals: A Critical Edition”, p.20, Oxford University Press

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• We all understand that the debasement of a nation's coinage is very pernicious and must prove disastrous to its commerce. How much more dangerous is the debasement of the spiritual coinage!

  Virchand Gandhi

  Spiritual, Dangerous, Commerce

  "Christian Missions: A Triangular Debate, Before the Nineteenth Century Club of New York". The Monist Magazine, Volume 5, 1895.

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• Because the pernicious opposition by Satan continues, the continuous enlightened guidance of the Holy Ghost is absolutely essential.

  Keith K. Hilbig

  Essentials, Ghost, Satan

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• But a most pernicious error widely prevails that Scripture has only so much weight as is conceded to it by the consent of the church. As if the eternal and inviolable truth of God depended upon the decision of men!

  John Calvin

  Men, Errors, Decision

  John Calvin (1975). “John Calvin: Selections from His Writings”, p.354, Oxford University Press

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• By the 'mud-sill' theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be -- all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly. According to that theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious, and dangerous. In fact, it is, in some sort, deemed a misfortune that laborers should have heads at all.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Horse, Illustration, Should Have

  Abraham Lincoln, G. S. Boritt (2004). “Lincoln on Democracy”, p.162, Fordham Univ Press

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• Today the insatiable quest for profit promotes the new slavery. In bewildering ways, the new is more pernicious than the old, for the New American Slave is told he is free, and he clings to that myth as if his life depended upon it, a suspicion that cannot be totally ignored.

  Gerry Spence

  Quests, Slavery, Today

  Gerry Spence (1999). “Give Me Liberty: Freeing Ourselves in the Twenty-First Century”, p.36, Macmillan

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