Resistance Quotes - Page 23

• The light dove, in free flight cutting through the air the resistance of which it feels, could get the idea that it could do even better in airless space. Likewise, Plato abandoned the world of the senses because it posed so many hindrances for the understanding, and dared to go beyond it on the wings of the ideas, in the empty space of pure understanding.

  Immanuel Kant

  Plato, Cutting, Light

  Immanuel Kant, Paul Guyer (1998). “Critique of Pure Reason”, p.129, Cambridge University Press

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• If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back.

  Lois McMaster Bujold

  Friendship, People, Like You

  Lois McMaster Bujold (2002). “Diplomatic Immunity”, p.49, Baen Books

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• The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community.

  Susan Sontag

  Inspirational, Change, Community

  Susan Sontag (2007). “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches”, p.243, Macmillan

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• The power of resistance is to set an example: not necessarily to change the person with whom you disagree, but to empower the one who is watching and whose growth is not yet completed, whose path is not at all clear, whose direction is still very much up in the proverbial air.

  Tim Wise

  Air, Empowering, Growth

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• I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Truth, Lying, Science

  "What is Art?". Book by Leo Tolstoy, Ch. 14, 1897.

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• It is true that some have greater power of resistance than others, but everyone has the power to close his heart against doubt, against darkness, against unbelief, against anger, against hatred, against jealousy, against malice, against envy. God has given this power unto all of us, and we can gain still greater power by calling upon Him for that which we lack. If it were not so, how could we be condemned for giving way to wrong influences?

  George Q. Cannon

  Heart, Giving, Envy

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• The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.

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  Ram Dass

  Spiritual, Yoga, Acceptance

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• There is in nature a parallel unity which corresponds to the unity in the mind and makes it available. This methodizing mind meets no resistance in its attempts. The scattered blocks, with which it strives to form a symmetrical structure, fit. This design following after finds with joy that like design went before. Not only man puts things in a row, but things belong in a row.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Block, Men, Design

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2005). “The Selected Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.21, University of Georgia Press

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• Again: there is nothing inherently superior about resistance. All our claims for the righteousness of resistance rest on the rightness of the claim that the resisters are acting in the name of justice. And the justice of the cause does not depend on, and is not enhanced by, the virtue of those who make the assertion. It depends first and last on the truth of a description of a state of affairs that is, truly, unjust and unnecessary.

  Susan Sontag

  Names, Justice, Acting

  Susan Sontag (2007). “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches”, p.184, Macmillan

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• Look, Gail." Roark got up, reached out, tore a thick branch off a tree, held it in both hands, one fist closed at each end; then, his wrists and knuckles tensed against the resistance, he bent the branch slowly into an arc. "Now I can make what I want of it: a bow, a spear, a cane, a railing. That's the meaning of life." "Your strength?" "Your work." He tossed the branch aside. "The material the earth offers you and what you make of it . . .

  Ayn Rand

  Hands, Tree, Looks

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.711, Penguin

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• Objection is when I say: this doesn't suit me. Resistance is when I make sure that what doesn't suit me never happens again.

  Ulrike Meinhof

  Suits, Happens, Objections

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• Despite long-standing claims by elites that Blacks, women, Latinos, and other similarly derogated groups in the United States remain incapable of producing the type of interpretive, analytical thought that is labeled theory in the West, powerful knowledges of resistance that toppled former social structures of social inequality repudiate this view. Members of these groups do in fact theorize, and our critical social theory has been central to our political empowerment and search for justice.

  Patricia Hill Collins

  Powerful, Views, Long

  Patricia Hill Collins (1998). “Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice”, p.16, U of Minnesota Press

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• But by accident, not by cunning calculation, books, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our minds and souls, in a spiritual adventure I would be very sorry for my grandchildren not to know about.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Spiritual, Sorry, Book

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• His response was to fight it with the only weapons at hand—passive resistance and open displays of contempt.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Fighting, Hands, Passive Resistance

  Kurt Vonnegut (2007). “The Sirens of Titan”, p.203, Dial Press

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• Resistances do not derive from a few heterogeneous principles; but neither are they a lure or a promise that is of necessity betrayed. They are the odd term in relations of power; they are inscribed in the latter as an irreducible opposite.

  Michel Foucault

  Opposites, Promise, Principles

  Michel Foucault (2012). “The History of Sexuality: An Introduction”, p.96, Vintage

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• I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told, and I have squandered my resistance, for a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises. All lies in jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest...la-la-la-la-la-la-la-lala-la-la-la-la...

  Paul Simon

  Lying, Boys, Men

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• Rain was coming down in sheets. I could hear it, on the concrete outside and on the old building above me. It creaked and swayed in the spring thunderstorm and the wind, timbers gently flexing, wise enough with age to give a little, rather than put up stubborn resistance until they broke. I could probably stand to learn something from that.

  Jim Butcher

  Wise, Spring, Rain

  Jim Butcher (2010). “The Dresden Files Collection 1-6”, p.190, Penguin

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• Love the world and yourself in it, move through it as though it offers no resistance, as though the world is your natural element.

  Audrey Niffenegger

  Moving, Natural Elements, World

  Audrey Niffenegger (2014). “The Time Traveler's Wife”, p.515, Simon and Schuster

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• They gave themselves up to the stars the way swimmers can surrender to the waves, and the stars took them without resistance.

  Mark Helprin

  Stars, Way, Swimmer

  Mark Helprin (1983). “Winter's Tale”, p.577, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow-- it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it

  Shakti Gawain

  Real, Ignorance, Fighting

  Shakti Gawain (2016). “Creative Visualization - 40th Anniversary Edition: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life”, p.45, New World Library

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• Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Encouragement

  Eckhart Tolle (2010). “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”, p.35, New World Library

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• Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is... The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds.

  Dan Millman

  Life, Pain, Attitude

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• You can’t go the distance with too much resistance

  Billy Joel

  Distance, Too Much

  Song: A Matter Of Trust, Album: The Bridge, 1986

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• There was an air of indifference about them, a calm produced by the gratification of every passion; and through their manners were suave, one could sense beneath them that special brutality which comes from the habit of breaking down half-hearted resistances that keep one fit and tickle one’s vanity—the handling of blooded horses, the pursuit of loose women.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Horse, Passion, Vanity

  Gustave Flaubert (1993). “Madame Bovary: Patterns of Provincial Life”, Everyman's Library

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• She looked up at him with a smile. The smile broke what was left of his resistance--shattered it. He had let the walls down when he'd thought she was gone, and there was no time to build them back up.

  Cassandra Clare

  Wall, Gone, Broke

  Cassandra Clare (2011). “Clockwork Angel”, p.450, Simon and Schuster

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