Inertia Quotes - Page 4

• The content and forms of American communications-the myths and the means of transmitting them-are devoted to manipulation. When successfully employed, as they invariably are, the result is individual passivity, a state of inertia that precludes action.

  Herbert Schiller

  Communication, Mean, America

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• There are two kinds of discontented in this world, the discontented that works and the discontented that wrings its hands. The first gets what it wants and the second loses what it has. There is no cure for the first but success and there is no cure at all for the second. The very worst of my vices and bad habits will abate of themselves if they are brought to an accounting every day.

  Og Mandino

  Hands, Two, Vices

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• Inertia accounts for two-thirds of marriages. But love accounts for the other third.

  Woody Allen

  Marriage, Two, Thirds

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• Ideals survive through change. They die through inertia in the face of challenge.

  Tony Blair

  Leadership, Challenges, Faces

  Tony Blair during European Parliament Debates, www.europarl.europa.eu. June 23, 2005.

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• Paradox is an overrated threat. There is...a quality similar to inertia at work. Once an event has occurred, there is an extremely strong tendency for that event to occur. The larger, more significant, or more energetic the event, the more it tends to remain as it originally happened, despite any interference." I frowned. "There's...a law of conservation of history?

  Jim Butcher

  Strong, Law, Quality

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• God and the devil lose to a common enemy: inertia.

  Mignon McLaughlin

  Enemy, Devil, Common

  Mignon McLaughlin (2014). “Aperçus: The Aphorisms of Mignon McLaughlin”, p.91, BookBaby

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• I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. I am approaching the threshold of age; in 1977 I shall be 142. This is no time to be flitting about the earth. I must cease from the activities proper to youth and begin to take on the dignities and gravities and inertia proper to that season of honorable senility which is on its way.

  Mark Twain

  Age, Earth, Way

  Mark Twain (2015). “Complete Letters of Mark Twain”, p.689, Litres

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• LAOCOON, n. A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Son, Men, Illustration

  Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.163, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• What I secretly longed for was to disentangle myself of all those lives which had woven themselves into the pattern of my own life and were making my destiny a part of theirs. To shake myself free of these accumulating experiences which were mine only by force of inertia required a violent effort. Now and then I lunged and tore at the net, but only to become more enmeshed. My liberation seemed to involve pain and suffering to those near and dear to me. Every move I made for my own private good brought about reproach and condemnation. I was a traitor a thousand times over.

  Henry Miller

  Pain, Moving, Destiny

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• We'll look for almost any reason not to change our attitudes; the inertia of the established order is powerful. If we can think of a plausible, or even implausible, reason to discount environmental warnings, we will.

  Bill McKibben

  Powerful, Attitude, Thinking

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• He who asks fortune-tellers the future unwittingly forfeits an inner intimation of coming events that is a thousand times more exact than anything they may say. He is impelled by inertia, rather than curiosity, and nothing is more unlike the submissive apathy with which he hears his fate revealed than the alert dexterity with which the man of courage lays hands on the future.

  Walter Benjamin

  Fate, Men, Hands

  Walter Benjamin, Marcus Paul Bullock, Michael William Jennings, Howard Eiland (1996). “Selected Writings: 1913-1926”, p.482, Harvard University Press

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• Thank God for running. It is the ultimate detox for me, whether my poison is bubbles, a foul mood, or a bad attitude. If I combat inertia, get out, and get moving, eventually every kind of toxin works its way out.

  Kristin Armstrong

  Running, Attitude, Moving

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• At least half of my life's many mistakes can be safely put down to impetuosity: the other half derive from inertia.

  Donald James

  Mistake, Half, Other Half

  "Vadim". Book by Donald James, December 2000.

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• We recognize that same-sex marriage makes some people deeply uncomfortable. However, inertia and apprehension are not legitimate bases for denying same-sex couples due process and equal protection of the laws. Civil marriage is one of the cornerstones of our way of life. It allows individuals to celebrate and publicly declare their intentions to form lifelong partnerships, which provide unparalleled intimacy, companionship, emotional support and security.

  Henry Franklin Floyd

  Sex, Couple, Gay

  "Reviewing The 4 Gay Marriage Cases The High Court Tacitly Endorsed" by Eyder Peralta, www.npr.org. October 6, 2014.

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• As a cultural-intellectual power and a moral ideal, collectivism died in World War II. If we are still rolling in its direction, it is only by the inertia of a void and the momentum of disintegration. A social movement that began with the ponderous, brain-cracking, dialectical constructs of Hegel and Marx, and ends up with a horde of morally unwashed children stamping their foot and shrieking: "I want it now is through."

  Ayn Rand

  Children, War, Feet

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.95, Penguin

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• My point is, however, that churches do promote beliefs that would more appropriately find a place in a context of intellectual debate. They wind up cheerleading for highly dubious opinions on historical, scientific, and metaphysical matters, simply on the bases of emotional preference and the inertia of tradition. They demand conformity to these beliefs, and if you cannot swim with the current, then, well partner, maybe you'd be happier in another pool, another lake in fact, the one ablaze with burning sulfur.

  Robert M. Price

  Cheerleading, Emotional, Wind

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• Technology has made it easier for different firms to coordinate their activities with one another, and they don't have to be part of one company. They can get the benefits of scale without the inertia of scale.

  Erik Brynjolfsson

  Technology, Different, Benefits

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• What kind of Dv would it take to escape history, to escape an inertia that powerful, and carve a new course? The hardest part is leaving Earth behind.

  Kim Stanley

  Powerful, Leaving, Earth

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• Democracy is threatened by the inertia of good people, by the selfishness of most people, and by the evil designs of a few people.

  Stanley King

  Evil, People, Design

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• Few economic problems, if any, are difficult of solution. The difficulty, all but invariably, is in confronting them. We know what needs to be done; for reasons of inertia, pecuniary interest, passion or ignorance, we do not wish to say so.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Ignorance, Passion, Wish

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• While self-interest arising from the enjoyment of meat eating is obviously one reason for its entrenchment, and inertia another, a process of language usage engulfs discussions about meat by constructing the discourse in such a way that these issues need never be addressed. Language distances us from the reality of meat eating, thus reinforcing the symbolic meaning of meat eating, a symbolic meaning that is intrinsically patriarchal and male-oriented. Meat becomes a symbol for what is not seen but is always there--patriarchal control of animals and of language.

  Carol J. Adams

  Distance, Reality, Animal

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• All nature works, and then rests; works and rests. I caught its rhythm and worked and rested with it. When I felt that inertia stealing over me, I rested; and while resting my power recuperated - the tide rose in me.

  Elizabeth Towne

  Rose, Tides, Stealing

  Elizabeth Towne (1996). “Experiences in Self Healing”, p.30, Health Research Books

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• I guess I realize that I don't want to die. I don't want to live either, but-there really isn't anything in-between. Depression is about as close as you get to somewhere between dead and alive, and it's the worst. But since the tendency toward inertia means that it's easier for me to stay alive than die, I guess that's how it's going to be, so I guess I should try to be happy.

  Elizabeth Wurtzel

  Suicidal, Mean, Trying

  Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.299, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law; no change. Despotism! They know one rule; force. Maldistribution! They know one desire; to hold what is theirs.

  Isaac Asimov

  Law, Class, Desire

  Isaac Asimov (1986). “Foundation Trilogy”, Del Rey

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• Americans, more than most people, believe that history is the result of individual decisions to implement conscious intentions. For Americans, more than most people, history has been that.... This sense of openness, of possibility and autonomy, has been a national asset as precious as the topsoil of the Middle West. But like topsoil, it is subject to erosion; it requires tending. And it is not bad for Americans to come to terms with the fact that for them too, history is a story of inertia and the unforeseen.

  George Will

  Believe, Erosion, People

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