Absolutes Quotes - Page 27

• There is no such thing as good and bad in an absolute sense. There is only the good and bad- the harm in terms of happiness and suffering- that our thoughts and our actions do to ourselves and others.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Suffering, Our Actions, Ethics

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• How are you going to teach virtue if you teach the relativity of all ethical ideas? Virtue, if it implies anything at all, implies an ethical absolute. A person whose idea of what is proper varies from day to day can be admired for his broadmindedness, but not for his virtue.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Ideas, Ethics, Virtue

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

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• A person is neither a thing nor a process but an opening through which the Absolute can manifest.

  Martin Heidegger

  Humanity, Process, Manifest

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• Yes sir. You can be more careless, you can put more trash in [a novel] and be excused for it. In a short story that's next to the poem, almost every word has got to be almost exactly right. In the novel you can be careless but in the short story you can't. I mean by that the good short stories like Chekhov wrote. That's why I rate that second - it's because it demands a nearer absolute exactitude. You have less room to be slovenly and careless. There's less room in it for trash.

  William Faulkner

  Mean, Stories, Crafts

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• Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one's whole being into the being of another.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, War, Commitment

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• I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, Hate, War

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• But no perfection is so absolute, That some impurity doth not pollute.

  William Shakespeare

  Memorable, Perfection, Impurity

  William Shakespeare (1856). “The works of William Shakspere. Knight's Cabinet ed., with additional notes”, p.99

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• Prune what is turgid, elevate what is commonplace, arrange what is disorderly, introduce rhythm where the language is harsh, modify where it is too absolute.

  Quintilian

  Writing, Language, Introducing

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• Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy.

  Paul Auster

  Writing, Two, Collaboration

  Paul Auster (2010). “Collected Prose: Autobiographical Writings, True Stories, Critical Essays, Prefaces, Collaborations with Artists, and Interviews”, p.460, Macmillan

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• I have made three rules of writing for myself that are absolutes: Never take advice. Never show or discuss work in progress. Never answer a critic.

  Raymond Chandler

  Writing, Advice, Progress

  Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.93, Univ of California Press

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• Real seriousness in regard to writing being one of the two absolute necessities. The other, unfortunately, is talent.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Real, Writing, Two

  "By-Line Ernest Hemingway: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades".

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• I will spark a generation of thinkers who will question traditional thought until they find the absolute truth.

  Kanye West

  Conceited, Generations, Sparks

  "Kanye West Sounds Off About Himself (Again) In E-mail To Media" by Shaheem Reid, www.mtv.com. January 29, 2009.

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• Thank you, darling, for learning to play chess. It is an absolute necessity for any well organized family. (in a letter to his wife)

  Alexander Pushkin

  Play, Wife, Letters

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• My weight and my pant size are the absolute last thing I'm concerned about. People who talk and judge pregnant women's weight need to get a life!

  Ashlee Simpson

  People, Judging, Needs

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• Making pictures is a very simple act. There is no great secret in photography...schools are a bunch of crap. You just need practice and application of what you've learned. My absolute conviction is that if you are working reasonably well the only important thing is to keep shooting...it doesn't matter whether you are making money or not. Keep working, because as you go through the process of working things begin to happen.

  Elliott Erwitt

  Photography, School, Simple

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• Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

  Lord Acton

  Exercise, Men, Influence And Power

  "Historical Essays and Studies". Book by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, oll.libertyfund.org. 1907.

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• Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its realization the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition.

  Lord Acton

  Country, Class, Ideas

  Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom: Great Event”, p.239, VM eBooks

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• Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Ignorance, Government, Errors

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• The history of science teaches only too plainly the lesson that no single method is absolutely to be relied upon, that sources of error lurk where they are least expected, and that they may escape the notice of the most experienced and conscientious worker.

  John William Strutt

  Teaching, Science, Errors

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• Should one break in and free the animals? That is illegal, but the obligation to obey the law is not absolute. It was justifiably broken by those who helped runaway slaves in the American South, to mention only one possible parallel.

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Law, Broken

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• It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road...A stone has no interests because it cannot suffer. The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is, however, not only necessary, but also sufficient for us to say that a being has interests - at an absolute minimum, an interest in not suffering. A mouse, for example, does have an interest in not being kicked along the road because it will suffer if it is.

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Suffering, Stones

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• You're supposed to trust friends. You have no reason to be his friend? That is part of the pleasure of friendship: trusting without absolute evidence and then being rewarded for that trust.

  David Shore

  Friendship, Reason, Pleasure

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• I believe in absolute oneness of God and therefore also of humanity.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  God, Believe, Oneness

  Mahatma Gandhi (194?). “Gandhi's Beads of Wisdow: A Synopsis of Gandhiji's Utterances on Truth and Non-violence”

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• The crime of book purging is that it involves a rejection of the word. For the word is never absolute truth, but only man's frail and human effort to approach the truth. To reject the word is to reject the human search.

  Max Lerner

  Book, Men, Rejection

  Max Lerner (1959). “The Unfinished Country”

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• The taking of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict on another, even when backed by legal process. Where the death penalty persists, conditions for those awaiting execution are often horrifying, leading to aggravated suffering.

  Ban Ki-moon

  Suffering, Execution, Death Penalty

  "Taking of Life Too Absolute, Irreversible, Says Secretary-General at High-Level Event on Death Penalty, Urging End to Capital Punishment". Ban Ki-moon’s remarks at a high-level event on the death penalty, in New York, www.un.org. July 3, 2012.

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