Tendencies Quotes - Page 18

• Travel is like adultery: one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one's own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live. There is in men, as Peter Quennell said, "a centrifugal tendency." In our wanderlust, we are lovers looking for consummation.

  Anatole Broyard

  Country, Travel, Men

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• Justice is a moral virtue, merely because it has that tendency to the good of mankind, and indeed is nothing but an artificial invention to that purpose. The same may be said of allegiance, of the laws of nations, of modesty, and of good manners. All these are mere human contrivances for the interest of society.

  David Hume

  Law, Justice, Good Man

  David Hume (2015). “A Treatise of Human Nature”, p.984, David Hume

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• There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities, with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice or good-will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us.

  David Hume

  Hurt, Army, Moon

  David Hume (1957). “The Natural History of Religion”, p.29, Stanford University Press

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• My father used to tell me stories before I fell asleep. When the children would gather, at a certain point, I had a tendency to make up my own elementary variations on stories I had heard, or to invent totally new ones.

  Wole Soyinka

  Children, Father, Stories

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• Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have "really happened,"or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.

  Northrop Frye

  Fall, Together, Special

  Northrop Frye, Germaine Warkentin (2006). “Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962”, p.412, University of Toronto Press

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• The Fanaticism which discards the Scripture, under the pretense of resorting to immediate revelations is subversive of every principle of Christianity. For when they boast extravagantly of the Spirit, the tendency is always to bury the Word of God so they may make room for their own falsehoods.

  John Calvin

  Lying, Religion, May

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• Even in an advanced stage of civilization, there is always a tendency to prefer those parts of literature which favor ancient prejudices, rather than those which oppose them; and in cases where this tendency is very strong, the only effect of great learning will be to supply the materials which may corroborate old errors and confirm old superstitions. In our time such instances are not uncommon; and we frequently meet with men whose erudition ministers to their ignorance, and who, the more they read the less they know.

  Henry Thomas Buckle

  Strong, Ignorance, Men

  Henry Thomas Buckle (1913). “History of Civilization in England”

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• The tendency of organization is to kill out the spirit which gave it birth. Organizations do not protect the sacredness of the individual; their tendency is to sink the individual in the mass, to sacrifice his rights, and to immolate him on the altar of some fancied good.

  Angelina Grimke

  Sacrifice, Rights, Organization

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• Recently, the Germans have developed a tendency to prefer the so-called first (youthful) style of great artists to their mature works. Could it be that they do not realize that their aesthetic criteria, generally speaking, are juvenile?

  Franz Grillparzer

  Art, Style, Immaturity

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• To exclude religious teaching altogether from education... is a very dangerous and curious tendency. The result is to give paganism a new importance and influence.

  Nicholas Murray Butler

  Christian, Religious, Teaching

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• I sense a general hostility toward Christianity among the literary and media establishments in our country. There is a tendency to keep Christian thinking out of the mainstream, to marginalize it and make it look like a product of 'fringe' groups.

  Cal Thomas

  Christian, Country, Religious

  Cal Thomas (1983). “Book burning”, Good News Pub

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• We tend to be so bombarded with information, and we move so quickly, that there's a tendency to treat everything on the surface level and process things quickly. This is antithetical to the kind of openness and perception you have to have to be receptive to poetry.poetry seems to exist in a parallel universe outside daily life in America.

  Rita Dove

  Moving, America, Poetry

  Quoted in N.Y. Times, 20 June 1993

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• The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding.

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Passive Voice, Nouns, Adjectives

  Benjamin Lee Whorf, John B. Carroll, Stephen C. Levinson, Penny Lee (2012). “Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf”, p.113, MIT Press

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• This tendency to consider only bombings or picking up the gun as revolutionary, with the glorification of the heavier the better,we've called the military error.

  Bernardine Dohrn

  Military, Gun, Errors

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• Directors have a tendency to use their hands like orchestra conductors. They don't realize that the actor is looking at their faces, anyway.

  Alan J. Pakula

  Hands, Directors, Use

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• Democracies are notorious for a tendency to obey the feelings rather than the mind; thus the nature of democracies often makes itdifficult to conclude a peace after a hard-won war. Generous victors are rare.

  Amos Elon

  War, Feelings, Victory

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• ... [the] special relation of women to children, in which the heart of the world has always felt there was something sacred, serves to impress upon women certain tendencies, to endow them with certain virtueswhich will render them of special value in public affairs.

  Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi

  Children, Heart, Motherhood

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• I think I have a tendency to overwork things. I have a hard time finding that sweet spot that most actors seem to be able to hit where they're doing the exact right amount of work, not overthinking, not underdoing it. I seem to either overdo it or underdo it.

  Paul Giamatti

  Sweet, Hard Times, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Nothing goes on forever. I think that's one of the illusions of life. When I talk about my life being an extension of my dreams and fantasies, there's a tendency to think of them as immature. I live in a mature world. The majority of the people in this society live with delusions and illusions much more irrational and hurtful than mine. They deal with mortality, with fantasies relating to heaven and hell, and they don't really deal with their problems at all.

  Hugh Hefner

  Dream, Thinking, People

  "Media: Rabbit is Rich". Interview with Jonathan Roberts, www.interviewmagazine.com. December, 1985.

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• I do read some of the scripts from America and, even though the themes or subject of the film is very interesting, and some of the scenes are very interesting, there is a tendency that they have to explain everything. There will be no dilemma. This guy was evil, and this girl was very sweet. And in the end, we'd have to see eight endings because we'd also have to know what happened to the uncle. It's like, "Are you kidding me?!"

  Mads Mikkelsen

  Girl, Sweet, Uncles

  Source: collider.com

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• I think that actors are terrible communicators as people by and large. I think our tendency is to kind of be self-centered and tune people out and just kind of get really me-focused, so I think communication for actors is a big challenge actually.

  Rainn Wilson

  Communication, Thinking, Self

  Interview with David Hirschman, bigthink.com. November 11, 2010.

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• Not my biggest fear, but my biggest problem onstage is over-emphasizing what I do. I'm pushing too hard. You need to engage an audience. They need to be able to involve their own imaginations as well. They don't need everything thrust down their throat, and I have a tendency to do that. I always have had a tendency to do that.

  Nick Cave

  Imagination, Needs, Able

  Source: www.esquire.com

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• The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is measured. It's uncontroversial. It's going up. We know that has a tendency to warm the atmosphere and we should be worried about that.

  Martin Rees

  Atmosphere, Worried, Carbon Dioxide

  "Lord Martin Rees, Eminent British Scientist". "Sunday Profile" with Monica Attard, www.abc.net.au. March 28, 2010.

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• Before we snap to judge someone who's done a horrible crime, is it possible that all of us in the worst possible circumstances could be capable of something like that? So it's about not judging people before really considering what the circumstance was and that not all murderers are created equal. We have a tendency in our society to just say murder? Cut and dried. Go away forever. Or maybe you should have the electric chair yourself.

  Jack Black

  Cutting, Should Have, Judging People

  "Actor Jack Black". "The Tavis Smiley show" with Tavis Smiley, www.pbs.org. November 1, 2012.

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• Those who have been eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, and the arts have all had tendencies toward melancholia.

  Aristotle

  Art, Philosophy, Has Beens

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