Unanimity Quotes - Page 2

• No political party can ever make prohibition effective. A political party implies an adverse, an opposing, political party. To enforce criminal statutes implies substantial unanimity in the community. This is the result of the jury system. Hence the futility of party prohibition.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Party, Alcohol, Political

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• Unfortunately, unanimity is not always feasible.

  Milton Friedman

  Milton Friedman (1972). “An economist's protest: columns in political economy”

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• Unanimity of opinion may be fitting for a church, for the frightened or greedy victims of some (ancient, or modern) myth, or for the weak and willing followers of some tyrant. Variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge. And a method that encourages variety is also the only method that is comparable with a humanitarian outlook.

  Paul Feyerabend

  Knowledge, Science, Tyrants

  Paul Feyerabend (1975). “Against method: outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge”, Not Avail

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• As a corporation, you cannot let the desire for unanimity override your obligation for fairness.

  Leo Hindery

  Desire, Corporations, Fairness

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• I have lately obtained the opinion of a number of Chief Constables, who declare with almost complete unanimity that the recent great increase in juvenile delinquency is, to a considerable extent, due to demoralising cinematograph films.

  Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel

  Numbers, Opinion, Film

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• You will permit me to say, that a greater drama is now acting on this theatre than has heretofore been brought on the American tage, or any other in the world. We exhibit at present the novel and astonishing spectacle of a whole people deliberating calmly on what form of government will be most conducive to their happiness; and deciding with an unexpected degree of unanimity in favour of a system which they conceive calculated to answer the purpose.

  George Washington

  Drama, Government, People

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• There are certain aspects, and there are - there are 15 attributes of winners and winning slogans. "Which side are you on" sounds divisive, that you're on one side or the other, at a time when we actually want universality. We want unanimity.

  Frank Luntz

  Winning, Sound, Want

  "Frank Luntz: How To 'Win' With Smart Messaging". Interview with Neal Conan, www-s4.npr.org. March 8, 2011.

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• Doctrines like Christianity or Islam or Marxism require unanimity of belief. One dissenter casts doubt on the creed of millions.

  Edward Abbey

  Atheist, Doubt, Islam

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.11, RosettaBooks

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• Contemporary Christianity, diverse and complex as we find it, actually may show more unanimity than the Christian churches of the first and second centuries. For nearly all Christians since that time, Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox, have shared three basic premises. First, they accept the canon of the New Testament; second, they confess the apostolic creed; and third, they affirm specific forms of church institution. But every one of these - the canon of Scripture, the creed, and the institutional structure - emerged in its present form only toward the end of the second century.

  Elaine Pagels

  Christian, Catholic, Religion

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• Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system.

  Nigel Calder

  Government, Trying, Scientist

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• We do not seek the unanimity that comes to those who water down all issues to the lowest common denominator - or to those who conceal their differences behind fixed smiles - or to those who measure unity by standards of popularity and affection, instead of trust and respect. We are allies. This is a partnership, not an empire. We are bound to have differences and disappointments - and we are equally bound to bring them out into the open, to settle them where they can be settled, and to respect each other's views when they cannot be settled.

  John F. Kennedy

  Disappointment, Differences, Issues

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• Like all forms of collective security, multilateral sanctions require a unanimity rarely achieved in international politics.

  Elliott Abrams

  Sanctions, Form, Collective Security

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• Radical views that are outside the mainstream generally (but not always) are more reliable than the dominant view because they are more regularly challenged and tested against evidence. They do not get to float freely down the mainstream; they must swim against the current. They cannot rest on the orthodox power to foreclose dissent, and they are not supported by the unanimity of bias that passes for objectivity.

  Michael Pare

  Views, Objectivity, Political

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• But there are a couple of places where it is clear to me that there should be no ambiguity of corporate responsibility - the environment and civil rights, .. As a corporation, you cannot let the desire for unanimity override your obligation for fairness.

  Leo Hindery

  Couple, Responsibility, Rights

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• The unanimously applauded, self-congratulatory bromides of a Soviet Party Congress seemed contemptible. The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy.

  Susan Sontag

  Party, Reality, Self

  Susan Sontag (2007). “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches”, p.142, Macmillan

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• It is often hard to secure unanimity about the borders of legislative power, but that is much easier than to decide how far a particular adjustment diverges from what the judges deem tolerable. On such issues experience has over and over again shown the difficulty of securing unanimity. This is disastrous because disunity cancels the impact of monolithic solidarity on which the authority of a bench of judges so largely depends.

  Learned Hand

  Issues, Impact, Judging

  "The Bill Of Rights". Book by Learned Hand, p. 72, 1958.

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• I don't think leadership demands yes or no answers; I think leadership is providing the forum for making the right decision, which doesn't demand unanimity.

  Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr.

  Thinking, Decision, Answers

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• Unanimity is the mistress of strength.

  Alphonse de Lamartine

  Mistress

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• The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted [in the federal convention], and surmounted with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.

  James Madison

  Real, Reflection, Men

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2003). “The Federalist: With Letters of Brutus”, p.173, Cambridge University Press

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• It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity the farthest sundered nations and generations consent to give completeness and roundness to an ancient fable, of which they indistinctly appreciate the beauty or the truth. By a faint and dream-like effort, though it be only by the vote of a scientific body, the dullest posterity slowly add some trait to the mythus. As when astronomers call the lately discovered planet Neptune; or the asteroid Astr

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dream, Appreciate, Giving

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.482, Simon and Schuster

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• ...convince all nuclear powers, including those which have been more reluctant up to now, of the necessity to respect the "vital interests" of all peoples and to become fully aware of the profound truth of the following conclusion which the United Nations approved by unanimity four years ago: "Mankind is confronted with a choice: we must halt the arms race and proceed to disarmament or face annihilation".

  Alfonso Garcia Robles

  Years, Nuclear Disarmament, Race

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• Where they do agree on the stage, their unanimity is wonderful.

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  Agreement, Wonderful, Stage

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1833). “The Works of the Late Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Collected by Thomas Moore ... A New Edition ... With a Biographical Sketch”, p.188

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• The 'Big Green Debate' has entered a very interesting stage. Once there was endless controversy; now there is near unanimity. Once there was universal political indifference; now the bandwagon is abrim with politicians in catch-up mode. Once the media were semi-detached: now they're really getting stuck in. And they need to be! Many people are confused and disempowered, and the role of the media in getting then informed and engaged is critical

  Jonathon Porritt

  Confused, Future, Media

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