Spineless Quotes

My generation's apathy. I'm disgusted with it. I'm disgusted with my own apathy too, for being spineless and not always standing up against racism, sexism and all those other -isms the counterculture has been whining about for years.

Kurt Cobain

Courage, Honesty, Fear

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A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.

James A. Baldwin

Civilization, People, Wicked

"Letter from a Region in My Mind" by James Baldwin, www.newyorker.com. November 17, 1962.

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Many a man has failed because he had his wishbone where his backbone should have been.

Ronald Reagan

Men, Should Have, Backbone

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I think the most tortured place in hell should be reserved not for traitors, but... for cowards. The weakest, most spineless losers. Because it seems to me that traitors? At least they made a choice. But cowards? They just run around biting their fingernails, totally afraid to do anything. Which is totally worse.

Lauren Kate

Running, Thinking, Choices

Lauren Kate (2011). “The Fallen Sequence: An Omnibus Edition”, p.160, Delacorte Press

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One thing I have learned in my time in politics is that if one of the parties is shameless, the other party cannot afford to be spineless.

Frank Lautenberg

Party, Shameless, I Have Learned

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I went to the UN and even the guidebook was spineless.

Dennis Miller

Politics

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Spineless politics do not change the mind of a tyrant.

Friedrich Kellner

Tyrants, Mind

"My Opposition, Volume 1 (May 29, 1940)". Diary by Friedrich Kellner, 2011.

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The tragic reality of today is reflected in the true plight of our spiritual existence. We are spineless and cannot stand straight.

Ai Weiwei

Spiritual, Reality, Plight

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If you go against someone, you say, you can't vote for these Democrats, they don't have good values, they're not good people, they're weak, they're spineless, they're don't love America, they're giving aid and comfort to Saddam Hussein, that's the kind of thing I think is bad for America, because it stops the voters from thinking. And any time you stop thinking in a free society you get in trouble.

William J. Clinton

Thinking, America, People

Source: www.foxnews.com

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Lord save us from off-handed, flabby-cheeked, brittle-boned, weak-kneed, thin-skinned, pliable, plastic, spineless, effeminate, ossified, three-karat Christianity.

Billy Sunday

Three, Christianity, Lord

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As a producer, sitting on the other side of the desk, I have never once had an agent go out on a limb for his client and fight for him. I've never heard one say, 'No, just a minute! This is the actor you should use.' They will always say, 'You don't like him? I've got somebody else.' They're totally spineless.

Orson Welles

Fighting, Sitting, Use

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In our rough and rugged individualism, we think of gentleness as weakness, being soft and virtually spineless. Not so! Gentleness includes such enviable qualities as having strength under control, being calm and peaceful when surrounded by a heated atmosphere, emitting a soothing effect on those who may be angry or otherwise beside themselves, and possessing tact and gracious courtesy that causes others to retain their self-esteem and dignity. Instead of losing, the gentle gain. Instead of being ripped off and taken advantage of, they come out ahead!

Charles R. Swindoll

Self Esteem, Taken, Thinking

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Why, I've never even had a quarrel with any one. I haven't an enemy. What a spineless thing I must be not to have even one enemy!

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Enemy

"The Complete Novels of Lucy Maud Montgomery".

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The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love.

Luther Burbank

Love, Knowledge, Garden

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Democrats are so spineless, so afraid to go against the tide... but dissension is the greatest form of patriotism.

Jesse Ventura

Tides, Form, Democrat

"Jesse Ventura Challenges Hannity On Waterboarding: “I’ll Get Him To Say Obama Is The Greatest President” By Marcus Baram, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 22, 2009.

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I feel like, in a lot of shows where the woman is in charge, the woman is this ball buster and the guy is sort of weak and spineless. And that's never been my experience in a relationship. I think it's much more interesting that the guy is the boss. And there are stakes.

Whitney Cummings

Relationship, Thinking, Interesting

Interview with John Scott Lewinski, www.askmen.com. September 15, 2011.

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Hunger reduces one to an utterly spineless, brainless condition, more like the after-effects of influenza than anything else. It is as though all one's blood had been pumped out and lukewarm water substituted.

George Orwell

Blood, Water, Hunger

George Orwell (2001). “Orwell and the dispossessed: Down and out in Paris and London in the context of essays, reviews and letters selected from The complete works of George Orwell”, ePenguin

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One side thinks the president's request for war-making powers is too brazen and even reckless. The other side thinks it is too spineless and probably ineffectual. 'It does not seem to have resonated with anyone,' said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a member of the Intelligence Committee. 'I haven't found any colleague who's been enthusiastic about it.'

Peter Baker

War, Thinking, President

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Investigative superstar Jason Leopold spares no one, least of all himself, in this devastatingly accurate first-hand exposé. News Junkie provides the best account so far of how, and why, current American journalism has become so pharisaical, spineless, and detached from the truth

T. D. Allman

Hands, Jason, News

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Never will we be able to understand our times if we naively 'think' of this system of self Government as the work of a few gangsters or the creation of a pack of criminals we call a political party. The appeal of Socialism, Fascism and communism was principally negative; they were protests against a live and let live anything goes liberalism, a spineless indifference to causes, a failure to recognize that nothing was evil enough to hate, and nothing was good enough to die for.

Fulton J. Sheen

Hate, Party, Thinking

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The airline business is it is mostly run by a bunch of spineless nincompoops who actually don't want to stand up to the environmentalists and call them the lying wankers that they are.

Michael O'Leary

Running, Lying, Airline Business

"Michael O’Leary: a gift for controversy and an eye on the bottom line" by Rob Davies, www.execreview.com. September 24, 2017.

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In Leon's account of his life, no-one was mean-spirited, no-one schemed or lied or betrayed; everyone was celebrated at least in some degree... Leon turned out to be a spineless, grinning idiot.

Ian Mcewan

Mean, Degrees, Betrayed

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The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love. While I was conducting experiments to make spineless cacti, I often talked to the plants. . . . "You have nothing to fear," I would tell them. "You don't need your defensive thorns. I will protect you." Gradually the useful plant of the desert emerged in a thornless variety.

Luther Burbank

Love, Secret, Needs

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If liberalism has grown so weak and ineffective, why does it evoke such alarm on the part of conservatives? It turns out that while liberals are weak and spineless, they are also sneaky and clever.

Eric Alterman

Clever, Alarms, Doe

Eric Alterman (2008). “Why We're Liberals: A Handbook for Restoring America's Most Important Ideals”, p.17, Penguin

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Why did I desert Labour? Total bloody disillusionment. The party was a corpse. It had no ideology, it became detached, old, spineless and needed to go.

John le Carre

Party, Desert, Disillusionment

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