Physical Force Quotes - Page 2

• Physiology seeks to derive the processes in our own nervous system from general physical forces, without considering whether these processes are or are not accompanied by processes of consciousness.

  Wilhelm Wundt

  Consciousness, Nervous, Process

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• All the reasons which made the initiation of physical force evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative.

  Ayn Rand

  Evil, Novelists, Use

  "The Virtue of Selfishness". Book by Ayn Rand, 1964.

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• The trouble with conspiracies, even those that are to everybody's advantage in the long run, is that they are open to abuse. If manipulators really had the powers claimed, they could win the lottery every week. I prefer to point out that they could also win a Nobel Prize for discovering fundamental physical forces hitherto unknown to science.

  Richard Dawkins

  Running, Winning, Long

  "The Selfish Gene". Book by Richard Dawkins, 1976.

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• No man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man-or group or society or government-has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense.

  Ayn Rand

  Cutting, Simple, Men

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• The state dictates and coerces; religion teaches and persuades. The state enacts laws; religion gives commandments. The state is armed with physical force and makes use of it if need be; the force of religion is love and benevolence.

  Moses Mendelssohn

  Law, Giving, Needs

  Moses Mendelssohn (1838). “Jerusalem; a Treatise on Ecclesiastical Authority and Judaism”, p.22

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• The use of violence in our struggle would be both impractical and immoral. To meet hate with retaliatory hate would do nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love; we must meet physical force with soul force. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Hate, Struggle, Winning

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1964). “A Martin Luther King Treasury”

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• Somebody must have sense enough to meet hate with love. Somebody must have sense enough to meet physical force with soul force. If we will but try this way, we will be able to change these conditions and yet at the same time win the hearts and souls of those who have kept these conditions alive a way as old as the insights of Jesus of Nazareth, as modern as the techniques of Mohandas K. Gandhi. There is another way.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Jesus, Hate, Heart

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• Power depends ultimately on physical force. By teaching people that violence is wrong (except, of course, when the system itself uses violence via the police or the military), the system maintains its monopoly on physical force and thus keeps all power in its own hands.

  Theodore Kaczynski

  Military, Teaching, Hands

  Theodore John Kaczynski (2010). “Technological Slavery: The Collected Writings of Theodore J. Kaczynski, A.k.a. "The Unabomber"”, p.377, Feral House

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• A century ago mainstream science was still quite happy to countenance vital and mental powers which had a 'downwards' causal influence on the physical realm in a straightforwardly interactionist way. It was only in the middle of the last century that science finally concluded that there are no such non-physical forces. At which point a whole pile of smart philosophers (Feigl, Smart, Putnam, Davidson, Lewis) quickly pointed out that mental, biological and social phenomena must themselves be physical, in order to produce the physical effects that they do.

  David Papineau

  Smart, Order, Way

  "Physical". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. April 8, 2013.

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• Hold the period of youth sacred to education, and the period of maturity, when the physical forces begin to flag, equally sacred to ease and agreeable relaxation.

  Edward Bellamy

  Maturity, Relaxation, Flags

  Edward Bellamy (2000). “Looking Backward: From 2000 to 1887”, p.41, Applewood Books

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• Here we observe the basic obsessive fantasy of Žižek's position: do nothing, sit still, prefer not to, like Melville's Bartleby, and silently dream of a ruthless violence, a consolidation of state power into one man's hands, an act of brutal physical force of which you are the object or the subject or both at once.

  Simon Critchley

  Dream, Men, Hands

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• Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights; it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. When unlimited and unrestricted by individual rights, a government is man's deadliest enemy. It is not as protection against private actions, but against governmental actions that the Bill of Rights was written.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Rights, Enemy

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• Far better than emasculation would be the bravery of those who use physical force. Far better than cowardice would be meeting one's death fighting.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Fighting, Bravery, Coward

  Mahatma Gandhi, U. R. Rao (1963). “The Way to Communal Harmony”, Ahmedabad, [India] : Navajivan Publishing House

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• A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.

  W. H. Auden

  Mother, Writing, Political

  "Paris Review", Writers at Work, 4th series, (p. 251), 1972.

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• In the second and third exiles we have served as a living protest against greed and hate, against physical force, against "might makes right"!

  I. L. Peretz

  Hate, Greed, Might

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• Government force is derived from the sum of the physical force each citizen could exert which by one citizen himself would be ineffective, but when summed from the force of all the area's citizens indeed composes a power no citizen or group can withstand. That force is then rightly but justly to be used against those who violate the foundation pillars of freedom.

  Ludwig von Mises

  War, Government, Foundation

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• A popular government wields a moral force, which is infinitely superior to the physical force that the foreign government could summon to its assistance.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Government, Morality, Force

  Mahatma Gandhi (1983). “Collected Works”

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• In the new science of the twenty-first century, not physical force but spiritual force will lead the way. Mental and spiritual gifts will be more in demand than gifts of a physical nature. Extrasensory perception will take precedence over sensory perception. And in this sphere woman will again predominate.

  Elizabeth Gould Davis

  Spiritual, Science, Perception

  "The First Sex". Book by Elizabeth Gould Davis. Chapter 22: "Woman in the Aquarian Age", 1971.

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• It recognizes no morality but a sham morality meant for deceit, no honor even among thieves and of a thievish sort, no force but physical force, no intellectual power but cunning, no disgrace but failure, no crime but stupidity.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Stupidity, Intellectual, Honor

  Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Stanley Link, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Princeton University (1968). “The papers of Woodrow Wilson”

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• The moral absolute should be: if and when, in any dispute, one side initiates the use of physical force, that side is wrong - and no consideration or discussion of the issues is necessary or appropriate.

  Ayn Rand

  Ifs And, Issues, Use

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• Our problems are not solved by physical force, by hatred, by warOur problems are solved by loving kindness by gentleness, by joy

  Gautama Buddha

  Kindness, Hatred, Joy

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• The new way of thinking, spawned by the cognitive revolution, shows strong promise. Reversing previous doctrine in science, the new paradigm affirms that the world we live in is driven not solely by mindless physical forces but, more crucially, by subjective human values. Human values become the underlying key to world change.

  Roger Wolcott Sperry

  Strong, Thinking, Keys

  "Science and the Problem of Values". Book by Roger Wolcott Sperry, 1972.

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• There are two principles on which all men of intellectual integrity and good will can agree, as a 'basic minimum,' as a precondition of any discussion, co-operation or movement toward an intellectual Renaissance. . . . They are not axioms, but until a man has proved them to himself and has accepted them, he is not fit for an intellectual discussion. These two principles are: a. that emotions are not tools of cognition; b. that no man has the right to initiate the use of physical force against others.

  Ayn Rand

  Integrity, Men, Two

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• Anyone who seeks enlightenment is going to encounter opposition, whether it is from their society or from non-physical forces or friends or whatever it is. Be strong enough to go through that and win.

  Frederick Lenz

  Strong, Winning, Enlightenment

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• Whenever faced with a challenge, I dig deep within myself and summon my spiritual and physical forces. This gives me the focus, determination, perseverance, and support I need to succeed.

  Gail Devers

  Spiritual, Perseverance, Determination

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