Primaries Quotes - Page 3

• Writing is incidental to my primary objective, which is spinning a good yarn. I view myself as a storyteller more than a writer. The story - and hence the extensive research that goes into each one of my books - is much more important than the words that I use to narrate it.

  Ashwin Sanghi

  Book, Writing, Views

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• In 2008, I was one of the young feminist whippersnappers who voted for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries - or as many of my older counterparts called me at the time, a traitor.

  Jessica Valenti

  Feminist, Clinton, Traitor

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• Surely by now there can be few here who still believe the purpose of government is to protect us from the destructive activities of corporations. At last most of us must understand that the opposite is true: that the primary purpose of government is to protect those who run the economy from the outrage of injured citizens.

  Derrick Jensen

  Running, Believe, Government

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• A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?

  George Washington

  Inspirational, Motivational, Education

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1838). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private”, p.71

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• Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings throughout many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and the less gifted.

  Isaiah Berlin

  Powerful, Rights, Goal

  Isaiah Berlin (1991). “The crooked timber of humanity: chapters in the history of ideas”, Random House Inc

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• The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy's cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him.

  Miyamoto Musashi

  Spring, Mean, Cutting

  Miyamoto Musashi, Victor Harris (2007). “A Book of Five Rings: With the Unfettered Mind”

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• The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Spiritual, Thinking, Live In The Moment

  Eckhart Tolle (2008). “Oneness With All Life: Inspirational Selections from A New Earth”, p.8, Penguin

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• Generally, old media don't die. They just have to grow old gracefully. Guess what, we still have stone masons. They haven't been the primary purveyors of the written word for a while now of course, but they still have a role because you wouldn't want a TV screen on your headstone.

  Douglas Adams

  Media, Hitchhiking, Want

  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future" (BBC Radio 4) with Douglas Adams, 2001.

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• If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

  James Madison

  Lying, Angel, Men

  Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2017). “The Origin of the Nation: Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and Other Amendments, Federalist Papers & Common Sense: Creating America - Landmark Documents that Shaped a New Nation”, p.308, Madison & Adams Press

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• The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Inspirational, Life, Happiness

  Twitter post from Jul 19, 2009

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• I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story.

  Wilkie Collins

  Fiction, Stories, Opinion

  Wilkie Collins (2013). “The Woman in White”, p.16, Courier Corporation

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• The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of the body. The child's primary business is learning. It is also the primary entertainment. To retain that orientation into adulthood, so that consciousness is not a burden but a joy, is the mark of the successfully developed human being.

  Nathaniel Branden

  Children, Joy, Mind

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• It's hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with other persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar. Such communication has always been... one of the primary sources of progress.

  John Stuart Mill

  Communication, Progress, Action

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• The primary urge that motivates and engenders writing...is the writer's desire to invent and tell a story, and to know himself. But the more I write, the more I feel the force of the other urge, which collaborates with and completes the first one: the desire to know the Other from within him. To feel what it means to be another person. To be able to touch, if only for a moment, the blaze that burns within another human being.

  David Grossman

  Writing, Mean, Desire

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• Even if I seemed to remember, I could not know. For just to remember something is not to know if it really happened. That is a primary fact of the inner life, the most difficult fact with which we must live.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Remember Something, Facts, Difficult

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• There's a scientific hypothesis that every person's name is a primary suggestive command that contains the entire script of their life in highly concentrated form. . . . According to this point of view, there is only a limited number of names, because society only needs a limited number of human types. Just a few models of worker and warrior ants, if I could put it like that. And everybody's psyche is preprogrammed at a basic level by the associative semantic fields that their first name and surname activate.

  Victor Pelevin

  Warrior, Views, Names

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• I think one of the primary goals of a feminist landscape architecture would be to work toward a public landscape in which we can roam the streets at midnight, in which every square is available for Virginia Woolf to make up her novels

  Rebecca Solnit

  Thinking, Squares, Virginia

  Rebecca Solnit (2008). “Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics”, p.288, Univ of California Press

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• The primary subject of fiction is and has always been human emotion, values, and beliefs.

  John Gardner

  Fiction, Emotion, Belief

  John Gardner (2010). “The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers”, p.14, Vintage

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• When I am battered and oppressed by the world that humanity has made - which is difference from the world that is was given - my primary defense, my consolation, is the absurdity of that world

  Dean Koontz

  Differences, Humanity, Defense

  Dean Koontz (2008). “Odd Hours: An Odd Thomas Novel”, p.150, Bantam

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• We must eschew anything trivial. We must embrace all that is frivolous.... Trivial things take up all your time and dull your senses, whereas frivolity is meaningful, profound, worth living and dying for.... If we devote our lives to frivolity, the world will be a far, far better place. Humanity will be better able to fulfill its primary goal, that of having a good time.

  Cynthia Heimel

  Meaningful, Profound, Goal

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• As Charles Darwin said,'The economy shown by Nature in her resources is striking,'' says the Spirit. 'All wealth comes from Nature. Without it, there wouldn't be any economics. The primary wealth is food, not money. Therefore anything that concerns the handling of the land also concerns me.

  Margaret Atwood

  Land, Spirit, Wealth

  Margaret Atwood (2012). “Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth”, p.182, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Pastries . . . can only be appreciated to the full extent of their subtlety when they are not eaten to assuage our hunger, when the orgy of their sugary sweetness is not destined to full some primary need but to coat our palate with all the benevolence of the world.

  Muriel Barbery

  Needs, World, Coats

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• Everything I’ve ever gotten in life is largely due to the fact that I was born in this country, America, at this time with these opportunities for its citizens. It is the primary obligation of our generation to turn over a similar America to our kids.

  Thomas Friedman

  Country, Kids, Opportunity

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• Remember that your thoughts are the primary cause of everything.

  Rhonda Byrne

  Law Of Attraction, Causes, Remember

  Rhonda Byrne (2008). “The Secret”, p.48, Simon and Schuster

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• Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you are. You need not merit truth. It is your own....Stand still, be quiet.

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Meditation, Needs, Behaviour

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