Absolutes Quotes

• In chess, bigamy is acceptable but monarchy is absolute.

  Garry Kasparov

  Chess, Bigamy, Monarchy

  Garry Kasparov (2010). “How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom”, p.59, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins. Foreign policy is the art of establishing priorities. Demonization is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one. The test is not absolute satisfaction but balanced dissatisfaction.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Art, Priorities, Tests

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• The absolute as the idea is neither subjective nor objective; it is the intellectual structure under which they are subsumed.

  Frederick C. Beiser

  Ideas, Intellectual, Structure

  "Diotima’s child". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. September 21, 2012.

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• I believe in North, South, East, West, The seasons, life and death, geography. That which is provable, absolute and most of all, functional. I believe in things that can kill me.

  Henry Rollins

  Believe, Life And Death, East

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• Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.

  Pope John Paul II

  Science, Errors, Catholic

  Letter to the Rev. George V. Coyne on June 01, 1988. "John Paul II on science and religion: reflections on the new view from Rome". Book edited by George Coyne, 1990.

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• Never accept ultimatums, conventional wisdom, or absolutes.

  Christopher Reeve

  Accepting, Ultimatum, Conventional Wisdom

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  Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  Lord Acton

  Inspirational, Leadership, Work

  Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 3 April 1887, in Louise Creighton 'Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton' (1904) vol. 1, ch. 13.

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• In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute.

  Francis Schaeffer

  Birthday, Age, Aging

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• It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and a plan of action.

  Fidel Castro

  Doe, Have Faith, Matter

  Quoted in N.Y. Times, 22 Apr. 1959

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• Great men are almost always bad men.

  Lord Acton

  Men, Corrupt Power, Power Corrupts

  1887 Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 3 Apr.

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• ...The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet. The Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances.

  Harry Browne

  Thinking, Fbi Agents, Rights

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• My studies in Speculative philosophy, metaphysics, and science are all summed up in the image of a mouse called man running in and out of every hole in the Cosmos hunting for the Absolute Cheese.

  Benjamin De Casseres

  Running, Atheist, Philosophy

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• No one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Life, Mature Person, Knowing

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1954). “It seems to me”

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• There are very few certainties that touch us all in this mortal experience, but one of the absolutes is that we will experience hardship and stress at some point.

  James Dobson

  Stress, Reality, Hardship

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• The beginning of men's rebellion against God was, and is, the lack of a thankful heart.

  Francis Schaeffer

  Heart, Men, Rebellion

  Francis August Schaeffer (1982). “The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian view of spirituality”

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• If there is no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong. By absolute we mean that which always applies, that which provides a final or ultimate standard. There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an absolute if there are to be real values. If there is no absolute beyond man's ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions.

  Francis Schaeffer

  Real, Mean, Men

  Francis August Schaeffer (1982). “The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian view of the west”

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• To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Thinking, Mathematics

  "A Mathematician's Miscellany". Book by John Edensor Littlewood, 1953.

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• There is no sin or transgression, pain or sorrow, which is outside of the healing power of His Atonement.

  C. Scott Grow

  God, Christian, Spiritual

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• If no divine law is recognized above the law of the State, then the law of man has become absolute in men's eyes--there is then no logical barrier to totalitarianism.

  Greg L. Bahnsen

  Eye, Men, Law

  Greg L. Bahnsen (1985). “By This Standard: The Authority of God's Law Today”, p.175, American Vision

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• Self-sufficiency is both a good and an absolute good.

  Aristotle

  Responsibility, Self, Sufficiency

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• When absolutes are abandoned for principles, the U.S. Constitution becomes a blank slate for anyone’s graffiti.

  Wayne LaPierre

  Graffiti, Principles, Constitution

  "NRA chief: Obama makes 'mockery' of American freedoms" by Lateef Mungin, www.cnn.com. January 28, 2013.

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• Why not make a habit of approaching life in the right spirit, joyously, expectantly, and with absolute faith that only the very best is for you?

  Eileen Caddy

  Why Not, Spirit, Habit

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• Absolute freedom is absolute nonsense! We gain freedom in anything through commitment, discipline, and fixed habit.

  Richard J. Foster

  Commitment, Discipline, Gains

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• I am told, in a dream you can only get the answer to all your questions through a dream. So in my dream, I fall asleep, and I dream, in my dream, that I'm having that absolute, revealing dream.

  Eugene Ionesco

  Dream, Fall, Answers

  "Fragments of a Journal". Book by Eugène Ionesco, 1966.

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• Nothing can be more consoling to the man of God, than the conviction that the Lord who made the world governs the world; and that every event, great and small, prosperous and adverse, is under the absolute disposal of Him who doth all things well, and who regulates all things for the good of his people.

  Jerry Bridges

  Men, People, Events

  Jerry Bridges (2017). “31 Days toward Trusting God”, p.108, NavPress

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