Provoking Quotes - Page 23

• The main purpose of my work is to provoke people into using their imagination. Most people spend their lives in dreary, grey-beige conformity, mortally afraid of using colours. By experimenting with lighting, colours, textiles and furniture and utilizing the latest technologies, I try to show new ways to encourage people to use their phantasy and make their surroundings more exciting.

  Verner Panton

  Inspirational, Encouraging, Work

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• I am a director because I believe in my own impulses and my own point of view, and that belief encourages me to tell stories that will move, provoke, and change people. But I became a director because I wanted to be a part of the world.

  Anna D. Shapiro

  Believe, Moving, Views

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• I think cinema should provoke thoughts, sure, but using it as I soapbox I think is the wrong place.

  Jeremy Renner

  Thinking, Cinema, Soapbox

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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  A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.

  Leonard Bernstein

  Art, Essentials, Doe

  Leonard Bernstein (2007). “The Infinite Variety of Music”, p.141, Amadeus Press

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• I'm not a film snob at all. I much prefer a really good Hollywood blockbuster than a thought-provoking art house movie because entertainment is sort of where it's at.

  Ricky Gervais

  Art, Thought Provoking, House

  "Night At The Museum - Ricky Gervais interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• The slightest cooperation with God's grace can provoke a massive spiritual change.

  Robert Barron

  Spiritual, Grace, Cooperation

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• Teaching is a creative profession, not a delivery system. Great teachers do [pass on information], but what great teachers also do is mentor, stimulate, provoke, engage.

  Ken Robinson

  Teacher, Teaching, Creative

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• Madison Avenue is full of masochists who unconsciously provoke rejection by their clients. I know brilliant men who have lost every account they have ever handled.

  David Ogilvy

  Men, Rejection, Clients

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• A good story should provoke discussion, debate, argument...and the occasional bar fight.

  J. Michael Straczynski

  Fighting, Bars, Stories

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• I heard police or ambulancemen, standing in our house, say, 'She must have provoked him,' or, 'Mrs Stewart, it takes two to make a fight.' They had no idea. The truth is my mother did nothing to deserve the violence she endured. She did not provoke my father, and even if she had, violence is an unacceptable way of dealing with conflict. Violence is a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it.

  Patrick Stewart

  Mother, Father, Fighting

  "Patrick Stewart: the legacy of domestic violence" by Patrick Stewart, www.theguardian.com. November 26, 2009.

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• On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

  Charles Babbage

  Ideas, Two, Confusion

  Passages from the Life of a Philosopher ch. 5 (1864) See Countess of Lovelace 1; Modern Proverbs 35

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• People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.

  Milan Kundera

  Past, People, Political

  The Book of Laughter and Forgetting pt. 1, sec. 17 (1980) (translation by Michael Henry Heim)

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• Some people write to please, to soothe, to console. Others to provoke, to challenge, to exasperate and infuriate. I've always found the second approach the more pleasing.

  Edward Abbey

  Writing, People, Challenges

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.35, RosettaBooks

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• Anyone who says failure is not an option has also ruled out innovation.

  Seth Godin

  Thought Provoking, Innovation, Failure Is Not An Option

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• it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance

  William Shakespeare

  Drinking, Alcohol, Desire

  'Macbeth' (1606) act 2, sc. 3, l. [28]

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• Dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth.

  Jacqueline Novogratz

  Thought Provoking, Important, Spirit

  "The Marriage of Love & Power". Interview with Gina Murdock, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• [I provoke] the system [to] show its true face ... so that through its own acts of terrorism ... the masses will rise against it.

  Ulrike Meinhof

  Faces, Rise Against, Terrorism

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• Jack Bogle's passionate cry of Enough! contains a thought-provoking litany of life lessons regarding our individual roles in commerce and society. Employing a seamless mix of personal anecdotes, hard evidence and all-too-often-underrated subjective admonitions, Bogle challenges each of us to aspire to become better members of our families, our professions and our communities.  Rarely do so few pages provoke so much thought.  Read this book.

  David F. Swensen

  Life Lesson, Book, Thought Provoking

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• Truth provokes those whom it does not convert.

  Thomas Wilson

  Truth, Doe

  Thomas Wilson, Clement Cruttwell (1782). “The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God Thomas Wilson, Fifty-eight Years Lord Bishop of Sodor and Man: With His Life”, p.317

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• I think that its an artist's responsibility to have a point of view. Society takes its cue from popular art. People need something to look to, something to provoke them into questioning whether they completely hate something or completely love something.

  Madonna Ciccone

  Art, Hate, Responsibility

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• If a hungry lion suddenly appeared, you'd be terrified. So terrified you'd probably run away. Great, fear's doing its job. But you might get so afraid that you lock up and can't move. This would be very bad. Guilt's the same. It can prevent you from fixing the situation, make you feel so bad you can't function at 100% and even lead to more guilt-provoking bad behavior.

  David D. Burns

  Running, Jobs, Moving

  Source: time.com

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• Wisdom is not finally tested in schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof, Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content, Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things; Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.

  Walt Whitman

  School, Reality, Sight

  Walt Whitman (2012). “Selected Poems”, p.33, Courier Corporation

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• I would injure no man, and should provoke no resentment. I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the benedictions of gratitude. I would choose my friends among the wise and my wife among the virtuous, and therefore should be in no danger from treachery or unkindness. My children should by my care be learned and pious, and would repay to my age what their childhood had received.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wise, Gratitude, Children

  Samuel Johnson, Abraham Raimbach, Robert Smirke (1819). “Rasselas”, p.48

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• Difficult things provoke all your irritations and bring your habitual patterns to the surface. And that becomes the moment of truth. You have the choice to launch into your lousy habitual patterns, or to stay with the rawness and discomfort of the situation and let it transform you.

  Pema Chodron

  Irritation, Choices, Rawness

  "Pema Chödrön and Jack Kornfield talk "The Wondrous Path of Difficulties". Interview with Michael Krasny, www.lionsroar.com. 2005.

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• Though music oft hath such a charm to make bad good, and good provoke to harm.

  William Shakespeare

  Charm, Harm

  'Measure for Measure' (1604) act 4, sc. 1, l. 16

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