Undermining Quotes - Page 4

• The vital consideration of incentives is almost systematically overlooked in the proposals of agitators for more and bigger government welfare schemes. We should all be concerned about the plight of the poor and unfortunate. But the hard two-part question that any plan for relieving poverty must answer is: How can we mitigate the penalties of failure and misfortune without undermining the incentives to effort and success.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government Welfare, Two, Effort

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.211, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• Far too many businesses have been all too eager to lobby for maintaining and increasing subsidies and mandates paid by taxpayers and consumers. This growing partnership between business and government is a destructive force, undermining not just our economy and our political system, but the very foundations of culture.

  Charles Koch

  Government, Political, Foundation

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• Fear can make you do more wrong than hate or jealousy. If you’re afraid you don’t commit yourself to life completely; fear makes you always, always hold something back. You shouldn’t be alone. It’s killing you; it’s undermining you. All the time, every day, you should be somewhere with people.

  Philip K. Dick

  Hate, People, Killing

  "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said". Book by Philip K. Dick, Chapter 21 (p. 171), 1974.

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• From the late 1940s, into and through the '50s, there developed a complex interaction between federal government, state and local government, real-estate interests, commercial interests and court decisions, which had the effect of undermining the mass transit system across the country.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Real, Government

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• As I said, there are two approaches-first, a strong economy, stability and helping families or, secondly, the Tory cuts, the undermining of stability, and a return to the boom and bust of the 1990s.

  Alistair Darling

  Strong, Cutting, Two

  www.publications.parliament.uk. March 17, 2005.

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• The September 11 attacks were major atrocities. . . . This was a horrendous crime . . . The primary victims . . . were working people: janitors, secretaries, firemen, etc. It is likely to prove to be a crushing blow to Palestinians . . . It is also likely to lead to harsh security controls, with many possible ramifications for undermining civil liberties and internal freedom.

  Noam Chomsky

  Crush, Blow, People

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• We can give our intelligence and law enforcement community the powers they need to track down and take out terrorists without undermining our commitment to the rule of law, or our basic rights and liberties.

  Barack Obama

  Commitment, Nsa, Rights

  "Senate Passes Its FISA Bill, While House Rejects 21 Day Extension Bill". www.techlawjournal.com. February 13, 2008.

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• As those that pull down private houses adjoining to the temples of the gods, prop up such parts as are contiguous to them; so, in undermining bashfulness, due regard is to be had to adjacent modesty, good-nature and humanity.

  Plutarch

  House, Humanity, Temples

  Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.62

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• I think it's very disheartening and undermining to focus on nostalgia or youthful sentimentality as the lens through which you view art and culture, because then you feel like everything good already happened. I really just try to be in the present with music and just find the things that are invigorating and make me feel happy to be alive right now.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Art, Thinking, Views

  "'Portlandia' Duo Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein Discuss the Secrets to the Cult Show's Success". Interview with Marlow Stern, www.thedailybeast.com. February 27, 2014.

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• Let me tell you something about hypochondria: It's a pernicious, undermining little demon. It won't kill you, but it will sap the color from your life so that in the loveliest moments, the moments of grace, you are hit with that whisper in your ear that takes it all away. I'm sick, I'm dying - I just don't know it yet.

  Dani Shapiro

  Color, Sick, Grace

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• The great presidents never forget the principle of the republic and seek to preserve and enhance them – in the long run– without undermining the needs of the moment. Bad presidents simply do what is expedient, heedless of principles. But the worst presidents are those who adhere to the principles regardless of what the fortunes of the moment demand.

  George Friedman

  Running, Long, President

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• A lot of street crime is horrible, but in terms of the dislocation, the undermining of the family - the corporate criminals, many of whom reside in Congress and the White House - are getting away literally with murder.

  Jerry Brown

  White, House, Criminals

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• Both Bush as well, as Tony Blair, are undermining an idea which was sponsored by their predecessors. They do not care. Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations [Ghanaian Kofi Annan] is now a black man? They never did that when secretary-generals were white.

  Nelson Mandela

  Men, Ideas, White

  "Mandela: U.S. wants holocaust". Nelson Mandela's speech at the International Women's Forum in Johannesburg, prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, edition.cnn.com. January 29, 2003.

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• The habit of seen the public rule, is gradually accustoming the American mind to an interference with private rights that is slowly undermining the individuality of the national character. There is getting to be so much public right, that private right is overshadowed and lost. A danger exists that the ends of liberty will be forgotten altogether in the means.

  James F. Cooper

  Character, Mean, Rights

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.

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• I just haven't been conditioned into thinking that the right answer can't be a simple one. When I told you you'd been contaminated I meant by that attitude, which is wider-spread than the common cold and just as undermining. Did nobody ever point out to you that the only liberty implied by free will is the opportunity to be wrong?

  John Brunner

  Attitude, Opportunity, Simple

  John Brunner (2011). “Stand on Zanzibar”, p.491, Macmillan

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• Emma Rothschild's magnificently researched and lucidly written book reveals the many connections and layers of empire without in any way undermining the less edifying aspects of empire.

  Rudrangshu Mukherjee

  Book, Connections, Rothschild

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• The dilemma of Brechtian performance is that, for all of Brecht's emphasis on rationality and the undermining of theatrical illusion, the actor must convincingly portray something that she is not.

  Philip Auslander

  Actors, Illusion, Brecht

  Philip Auslander (2002). “From Acting to Performance: Essays in Modernism and Postmodernism”, p.33, Routledge

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• The danger is not only that these austerity measures are killing the European economies but also that they threaten the very legitimacy of European democracies - not just directly by threatening the livelihoods of so many people and pushing the economy into a downward spiral, but also indirectly by undermining the legitimacy of the political system through this backdoor rewriting of the social contract.

  Ha-Joon Chang

  People, Political, Democracy

  "The root of Europe's riots" by Ha-Joon Chang, www.theguardian.com. September 28, 2012.

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• When people feel their insignificance as individual persons, they also suffer an undermining of their sense of human responsibility.

  Rollo May

  Responsibility, People, Suffering

  "Psychology and the Human Dilemma". Book by Rollo May, p. 31, 1967.

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• The reason that I like SF and fantasy and horror is that to me it's the pulp wing of surrealism. That's the aesthetic of undermining and creative alienation that I really go for.

  China Mieville

  Wings, Creative, Fantasy

  "The Road to Perdido". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. February 2003.

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• It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

  Albert Einstein

  Death, Religious, Atheist

  "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930.

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• I feel like the Internet needs to be disarmed in some way. There needs to be a philosophical undermining of the Internet. We take it too seriously and too literally. For a reference we go to Wikipedia, which is full of inaccuracies and misinformation. It's kind of beautiful - it's all the product of imagination; it's not reality at all.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Beautiful, Philosophical, Reality

  "It’s Sufjan Stevens’ Way or the Highway". Interview With Brandon Stosuy, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 30, 2009.

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• Bealer has a number of reasons for thinking that a naturalistic epistemology is self-undermining. Let me focus on one of these. (I've tried to take on all of them in the first chapter of Knowledge and Its Place in Nature.)

  Hilary Kornblith

  Thinking, Self, Numbers

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Because mothers make us, because they map our emotional terrain before we even know we are capable of having an emotional terrain, they know just where to stick the dynamite. With a few small power plays - a skeptical comment, the withholding of approval or praise - a mother can devastate a daughter. Decades of subtle undermining can stunt a daughter, or so monopolize her energy that she in effect stunts herself. Muted, fearful, riddled with self-doubt, she can remain trapped in daughterhood forever, the one place she feels confident she knows the rules.

  Rebecca Walker

  Daughter, Mother, Emotional

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• Putin is someone who has been undermining the norms of what we consider the world order since he got into power and in increasing success.

  David Brooks

  Order, World, Putin

  Source: www.pbs.org

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