Sacred Cows Quotes

Sacred cows make the best hamburger.

Mark Twain

Funny, Witty, Humorous

Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist”, p.30, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.

Abbie Hoffman

Advice, Hamburgers, Cows

Quoted in N.Y. Times, 20 Apr. 1989.

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In the average newspaper there is not a complete suppression of stories that the sacred cows don't want printed. But rather what happens is that the stories get printed with stresses, colorations and emphasis that favor the sacred cows.

Carl Sandburg

Stress, Average, Stories

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Sacred cows make very poor gladiators.

Nikki Giovanni

Cows, Sacred, Poor

Nikki Giovanni (1988). “Sacred cows-- and other edibles”, William Morrow & Co

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Knowledge is a sacred cow, and my problem will be how we can milk her while keeping clear of her horns.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Knowledge, Milk, Cows

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Questioning the status quo can result in banishment, imprisonment, ridicule or being burned at the stake, depending on your era, your locale, and the sacred cows you wish to butcher.

Gene Spafford

Wish, Cows, Sacred

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For almost seventy years the life insurance industry has been a smug sacred cow feeding the public a steady line of sacred bull.

Ralph Nader

Life, Years, Bulls

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I don't know how many sacred cows there are today. I think there's a little confusion between humor and gross passing for humor. That's kind of regrettable.

Bob Newhart

Humor, Thinking, Confusion

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Everyone now has a sacred cow in the tax code. For my money, the most sacred thing of all is our country and its growth, but the sacred cows have turned into a pack of wolves.

Ari Fleischer

Country, Growth, Sacred Things

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Sacred cows make great hamburgers.

Robert Reisner

Hamburgers, Cows, Sacred

Robert George Reisner, Lorraine Wechsler (1974). “Encyclopedia of Graffiti”, MacMillan Publishing Company

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Go your own way. Question everything. Accept nothing. Accept no dogma, no cant. There are too many people walking around thinking they're sacred cows, and they're only half right.

Rosie DiManno

Acceptance, Thinking, People

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...I am afraid that education is conceived more in terms of indoctrination by most school officials than in terms of enlightenment. My own belief is that education must be subversive if it is to be meaningful. By this I mean that it must challenge all the things we take for granted, examine all accepted assumptions, tamper with every sacred cow, and instill a desire to question and doubt. Without this the mere instruction to memorise data is empty. The attempt to enforce conventional mediocrity on the young is criminal.

Bertrand Russell

Meaningful, School, Data

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When it came to slaughtering sacred cows with such crude yet perfect musical precision, there was no one better than Frank. I wonder what songs he's teaching the angels right now? Good luck God! You've got your hands full this time.

Terry Gilliam

Song, Teaching, Good Luck

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You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.

Abbie Hoffman

Freedom, Giving, Political

Tikkun magazine, July-August 1989.

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So, this is my plea to all Western editors and producers: Display the Muhammad cartoon daily, until the Islamists become accustomed to the fact that we turn sacred cows into hamburger.

Daniel Pipes

Editors, Cartoon, Hamburgers

"A Muhammad cartoon a day" by Daniel Pipes, www.foxnews.com. September 21, 2012.

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Everybody thinks of baseball as a sacred cow. When you have the nerve to challenge it, people look down their noses at you. There are a lot of things wrong with a lot of industries....baseball is one of them.

Curt Flood

Baseball, Thinking, People

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Okay," I said. "Just a normal afternoon and two normal people." She nodded. "And so...hypothetically, if these to people likes each other, what would it take to get the stupid guy to kiss the girl, huh?" "Oh..." I felt like one of Apollo's sacred cows-slow, dumb, and bright red. "Um.

Rick Riordan

Girl, Stupid, Kissing

Rick Riordan (2009). “Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth”, p.262, Penguin UK

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The only sacred cow is an organisation should be its basic philosophy of doing business.

Thomas Watson, Jr.

Philosophy, Cows, Sacred

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Science is not a sacred cow-but there are a large number of would-be sacred cowherds busily devoting quantities of time, energy and effort to the task of making it one, so they can be sacred cowherds.

John W. Campbell

Science, Numbers, Effort

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She looks like the type that might freak out. It's something in the eyes, Frannie. It says if you shoot my sacred cows, I'll shoot yours.

Stephen King

Eye, Looks, Might

Stephen King (2008). “The Stand”, p.256, Anchor

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Science is not a sacred cow. Science is a horse. Don’t worship it. Feed it.
[Addressing a group of prospective contributors to an Israeli scientific research program]

Abba Eban

Horse, Groups, Research

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Our freedom is our sacred cow; no one should touch it! We must be very pious in this holy matter.

Mehmet Murat Ildan

Freedom, Cows, Sacred

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In the 1990s, it's OK to do comedy about the Chernobyl disaster or the Space Shuttle blowing up. It's acceptable to ridicule the Pope or the President of the United States, but God forbid you do a joke... about gays. The gay community is the last sacred cow in this society.

Sam Kinison

Gay, Space, Community

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Because of these new car models there is suddenly on the streets of Delhi a new intolerance by the motorists for both the cows and the cyclists. So for the first time the sacred cow in India, which used to be such a wonderful speed-breaker, is now seen as a nuisance. For the first time, Ive seen cows being hit and hurt. These guys just go right past, and if the cow is sitting on the road, they dont care. We cant afford to have a sacred car rather than a sacred cow.

Vandana Shiva

Hurt, Past, Car

Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. September 29, 2011.

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Every sacred cow in the business has to do with economics.

Gena Rowlands

Movie, Hollywood, Cows

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