Remarks Quotes - Page 2

• Consultation and compliance can conduce little to the perfection of any literary performance; for whoever is so doubtful of his own abilities as to encourage the remarks of others, will find himself every day embarrassed with new difficulties, and will harass his mind, in vain, with the hopeless labour of uniting heterogeneous ideas, digesting independent hints, and collecting into one point the several rays of borrowed light, emitted often with contrary directions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Independent, Light

  Samuel Johnson (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.183, Harvard University Press

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• After initially trying to defend his remarks about gun-toting, tabacky-chewing, bitter Jesus freaks, Barack Obama is now backpedaling furiously.

  Charles Foster Johnson

  Jesus, Gun, Trying

  Little Green Footballs weblog, April 12, 2008.

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• On one level the sixties revolt was an impressive illustration of Lenin's remark that the capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with.

  Ellen Willis

  Illustration, Rope, Levels

  Ellen Willis (2011). “Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music”, p.221, U of Minnesota Press

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• How are we to adjudicate among rival ontologies? Certainly the answer is not provided by the semantical formula "To be is to be the value of a variable"; this formula serves rather, conversely, in testing the conformity of a given remark or doctrine to a prior ontological standard.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Doctrine, Answers, Variables

  Willard Van Orman Quine, Roger F. Gibson (2004). “Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine”, p.189, Harvard University Press

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• I happened to read recently a remark by the American nuclear physicist W. Davidson, who noted that the explosion of one hydrogen bomb releases a greater amount of energy than all the explosions set off by all countries in all wars known in the entire history of mankind. And he, apparently, is right.

  Nikita Khrushchev

  Country, War, Hydrogen Bomb

  Address to the United Nations, New York City, on September 18, 1959. The New York Times, p. 8, September 19, 1959.

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• There were nights when he took a deal more rum and water than his head could carry; and then he would sometimes sit and sing his wicked old wild sea-songs, minding nobody... Often I have heard the house shaking with Yo-ho-ho and a bottle and rum, all the neighbours joining in for dear life with the fear of death upon them and each singing louder than the other to avoid remark. Fiften men on the dead man's chest, Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil have done for the rest. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Song, Night, Men

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• The thought of the novelist lies not in the remarks of his characters or even in their introspection but in the plight he has invented for his characters - in the juxtaposition of those characters and in the lifelike ramifications of the ensemble they make: their density, their substantiality, their lived existence actualized in all its nuanced particulars, is in fact his thought metabolized.

  Philip Roth

  Lying, Character, Novelists

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• When we take the position that it is not only the programmer's responsibility to produce a correct program but also to demonstrate its correctness in a convincing manner, then the above remarks have a profound influence on the programmer's activity: the object he has to produce must be usefully structured.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Responsibility, Profound, Influence

  "Notes On Structured Programming" by Edsger Dijkstra, April 1970.

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• A raised eyebrow, an inflection of the voice, a caustic remark dropped in the middle of a broadcast can raise doubts in a million minds about the veracity of a public official or the wisdom of a governmental policy.

  Spiro T. Agnew

  Eyebrows, Voice, Doubt

  "Spiro Agnew's Media Legacy: Trump, Obama and Time Magazine" by Jeffrey Lord, www.newsbusters.org. February 11, 2017.

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• I have not taken my good looks seriously from the beginning. When I would be teased by my friends about my looks, I would just make a self-deprecating remark and let it pass.

  Arjun Rampal

  Taken, Self, Would Be

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• The act the act must not be a revenge. It must be a calm, weary renunciation, a closing of accounts, a private, rhythmic deed. The last remark.

  Cesare Pavese

  Revenge, Deeds, Lasts

  Cesare Pavese, Alma Elizabeth Murch (1961). “This Business of Living”, p.347, Transaction Publishers

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• It is impossible to decide whether a particular detail of the Pythagorean universe was the work of the master, or filled in by a pupil a remark which equally applies to Leonardo or Michelangelo . But there can be no doubt that the basic features were conceived by a single mind; that Pythagoras of Samos was both the founder of a new religious philosophy, and the founder of Science, as the word is understood today.

  Arthur Koestler

  Religious, Philosophy, Filled In

  Arthur Koestler (2017). “The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe”, p.27, Penguin UK

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• If I had to describe my remarks this evening frankly as if I were in police court and on oath, so to speak I should have to call it a ramble over several subjects, portions of which may seem to you to be impudent, and portions of which will be ignorant, and portions of which may contrive to be both at once.

  Robertson Davies

  Should Have, Police, Ignorant

  Robertson Davies (2008). “Selected Works on the Pleasures of Reading”, Penguin Group Canada

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• There seems to be no agent more effective than another person in bringing a world for oneself alive, or, by a glance, a gesture, or a remark, shriveling up the reality in which one is lodged.

  Erving Goffman

  Reality, Agents, Alive

  "Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction". Book by Erving Goffman, p. 38, 1971.

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• Marriage is not something that can be accomplished all at once; it has to be constantly reaccomplished. A couple must never indulge in idle tranquility with the remark: "The game is won; let's relax." The game is never won. The chances of life are such that anything is possible. Remember what the dangers are for both sexes in middle age. A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.

  Andre Maurois

  Marriage, Sex, Couple

  "The Art of Living". Book by Andre Maurois, 1939.

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• Hey listen -- I've proved a lot of things. That's how I pay my rent. Theories and little observations. A puckish remark now and then. Occasional maxims. It beats picking olives, but let's not get carried away.

  Woody Allen

  Hey, Littles, Pay

  Woody Allen (2007). “The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose”, Random House Incorporated

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• I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks about me. Debating with him at the Dispatch Box has been exciting, fascinating, fun, an enormous challenge and, from my point of view, wholly unproductive in every sense. I am told that in my time at the Dispatch Box I have asked the Prime Minister 1,118 direct questions, but no one has counted the direct answers-it may not take long.

  William Hague

  Fun, Views, Long

  House of Commons, Prime Minister's Questions, July 18, 2001.

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• I am obliged to interpolate some remarks on a very difficult subject: proof and its importance in mathematics. All physicists, and a good many quite respectable mathematicians, are contemptuous about proof. I have heard Professor Eddington, for example, maintain that proof, as pure mathematicians understand it, is really quite uninteresting and unimportant, and that no one who is really certain that he has found something good should waste his time looking for proof.

  G. H. Hardy

  Good Man, Example, Waste

  "Ramanujan: Twelve Lectures on Subjects Suggested by His Life and Work". Book by G. H. Hardy, 1940.

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• I understand that in the UK there have already been 10,000 complaints from viewers about these remarks, which people see, rightly, as offensive. I want Britain to be seen as a country of fairness and tolerance. Anything detracting from this I condemn.

  Gordon Brown

  Country, People, Tolerance

  "Reality TV Racism Row Grips Viewers". uk.reuters.com. January 19, 2007.

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• I know politicians are going to be judged on everything they say but sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. The statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared scripted remarks.

  Tony Abbott

  Taken, Needs, Littles

  "Gospel truth not always in the telling says Tony Abbott". "AM" with Lyndal Curtis, www.abc.net.au. May 18, 2010.

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• Democracy is the best revenge. After Benazir Bhutto's death, her son's brief public remarks were captured on video, and they were reported in international newspapers. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari announced, "My mother always said, ' Democracy is the best revenge.

  Benazir Bhutto

  Mother, Revenge, Son

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• Some president wishes to be re-elected, and thereupon speaks about the Bible as "the corner-stone of American Liberty." This sentence is a mouth large enough to swallow any church, and from that time forward the religious people will be citing that remark of the politician to substantiate the inspiration of the Scriptures.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Religious, Inspiration, People

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.2547, Library of Alexandria

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• Don't wear your heart on your sleeve when your remarks are off the cuff.

  Elvis Costello

  Heart, Cuffs, Sleeves

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• ... it's vastly more irksome to give up one's own way, than to hear a few impertinent remarks.

  Fanny Burney

  Giving Up, Giving, Way

  Fanny Burney (1796). “Camilla: Or, a Picture of Youth”, p.220

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• Now we must remark, that there are two parts in the Commandment-the first forbids the erection of a graven image, or any likeness; the second prohibits the transferring of the worship which God claims for Himself alone, to any of these phantoms or delusive shows.

  John Calvin

  Two, Phantoms, Firsts

  John Calvin (2012). “John Calvin's Commentaries On The Harmony Of The Law Vol. 2”, p.133, Jazzybee Verlag

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