Refusal Quotes - Page 7

• South Africa does not have a poverty problem. Poverty is a result of denialism of the way corruption taxes poor people, the inefficiencies that undermine poor people's opportunities and our refusal to admit that we are part of the problem.

  Mamphela Ramphele

  Opportunity, People, Way

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• The mastery of the true self, and the refusal to permit others to dominate us, is the ultimate in living and self-expression in athletics.

  Percy Cerutty

  Sports, Hockey, Self

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• Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride, or laziness of mind.

  Karl Popper

  Ignorance, Pride, Simple

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• The statement "I am in pain" may be one piece of evidence for the conclusion that the speaker is in pain, but it is not the only possible evidence, and since people sometimes tell lies, not even the best possible evidence. Even if there were stronger grounds for refusing to attribute pain to those who do not have language, the consequences of this refusal might lead us to reject the conclusion. Human infants and young children are unable to use language. Are we to deny that a year-old child can suffer?

  Peter Singer

  Children, Pain, Lying

  Peter Singer (1975). “Animal liberation: a new ethics for our treatment of animals”

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• [W]hen the empirical investigator glories in his refusal to go beyond the specialized observation dictated by the traditions of his discipline, be they ever so inclusive, he is making a virtue out of a defense mechanism which insures him against questioning his presuppositions.

  Karl Mannheim

  Discipline, Hens, Defense

  Karl Mannheim (1936). “Ideology and utopia: an introduction to the sociology of knowledge”

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• Christian love is the only kind of love in which there is no rivalry, no jealousy. There is jealousy among the lovers of art; there is jealousy among the lovers of song; there is jealousy among the lovers of beauty. The glory of natural love is its monopoly, its power to say, 'It is mine. ' But the glory of Christian love is its refusal of monopoly.

  George Matheson

  Love, Christian, Song

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• In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.

  Susan Sontag

  Art, Real, Criticism

  Evergreen Review Dec. 1964

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• What is a rebel? A man who says no: but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation.

  Albert Camus

  Men, Rebel, Doe

  "Yes, and: Simulacra by Airea D. Matthews" by Julie Marie Wade, therumpus.net. December 1, 2017.

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• It is the mind that tells you that the mind is there. Don't be deceived. All the endless arguments about the mind are produced by the mind itself, for its own protection, continuation and expansion. It is the blank refusal to consider the convolutions and convulsions of the mind that can take you beyond it.

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Spiritual, Wisdom, Mind

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• For the essence of science, I would suggest, is simply the refusal to believe on the basis of hope.

  Barrington Moore, Jr.

  Hope, Believe, Science

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• Faith is the refusal to panic.

  Martyn Lloyd-Jones

  Faith, Panic

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• Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Life, Love Is, Men

  "Loving Your Enemies". Sermon by Martin Luther King, Jr. at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 1957.

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• The strike, the boycott, the refusal to serve, the ability to paralyze the functioning of a complex social structure-these remain potent weapons against the most fearsome state or corporate power.

  Howard Zinn

  Fear, Weapons, Economy

  Howard Zinn (2013). “A Power Governments Cannot Suppress”, p.26, City Lights Books

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• Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.

  Nathaniel Branden

  Depression, Self Esteem, Acceptance

  Nathaniel Branden (1998). “A Woman's Self-Esteem: Struggles and Triumphs in the Search for Identity”, Jossey-Bass

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• Lying is, almost by definition, a refusal to cooperate with others. It condenses a lack of trust and trustworthiness into a single act. It is both a failure of understanding and an unwillingness to be understood. To lie is to recoil from relationship.

  Sam Harris

  Lying, Understanding, Definitions

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• I've always admired your rather formidable will, your refusal to back away from difficulties, but sometimes strength isn't about perseverance. Sometimes it's about knowing when to quit.

  Jennifer Donnelly

  Perseverance, Knowing, Quitting

  Jennifer Donnelly (2014). “The Tea Rose”, p.483, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• ...into hate, into refusal, against hope and without fear

  Lauren Oliver

  Hate

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• Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle.

  Sam Harris

  Philosophy, Views, Atheism

  "Letter to a Christian Nation". Book by Sam Harris, p. 51, September 19, 2006.

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• A vampire is branding girls, okay?" I ignored his refusal. "Something about that just feels wrong to me." "I would hope so.

  Amanda Hocking

  Girl, Vampire, Ignored

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• Ethical veganism results in a profound revolution within the individual; a complete rejection of the paradigm of oppression and violence that she has been taught from childhood to accept as the natural order. It changes her life and the lives of those with whom she shares this vision of nonviolence. Ethical veganism is anything but passive; on the contrary, it is the active refusal to cooperate with injustice

  Gary L. Francione

  Order, Profound, Rejection

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• Between now and when we graduate next year there are at least ten weeks' holiday and five random public holidays. There's email and if you manage to get down to the town, there's text messaging and mobile phone calls. If not, the five minutes you get to speak to me on your communal phone is better than nothing. There are the chess nerds who want to invite you to our school for the chess comp next March and there's this town in the middle, planned by Walter Burley Griffin, where we can meet up and protest against our government's refusal to sign the Kyoto treaty." -Jonah Griggs

  Melina Marchetta

  School, Holiday, Kyoto

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• A weapon men use against women is the refusal to take them seriously.

  David Mitchell

  Inspirational, Women, Use

  David Mitchell (2007). “Ghostwritten”, p.254, Vintage

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• She used to pride herself on her refusal to see two sides of an argument, but increasingly she accepts that issues are more ambiguous and complicated than she once thought.

  David Nicholls

  Pride, Two Sides, Issues

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• In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric.

  John Stuart Mill

  Order, Break Through, People

  John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.67, Cambridge University Press

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• The principle was, death should not be entered like some snug harbor. It should be an unambiguous refusal to surrender.

  Thomas Keneally

  Principles, Surrender, Should

  Thomas Keneally (2013). “Schindler's List”, p.177, Simon and Schuster

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