Affirmative Quotes

• Whether or not the world would be vastly benefited by a total banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks seems not now an open question. Three-fourths of mankind confess the affirmative with their tongues, and I believe all the rest acknowledge it in their hearts.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Believe, Heart, Would Be

  Abraham Lincoln (1842). “An Address Delivered by Abraham Lincoln: Before the Springfield Washingtonian Temperance Society at the Second Presbyterian Church, Springfield Illinois, on the 22d Day of February, 1842”, p.12

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• Action eradicates fear. No matter what you fear,--- positive, self-affirming action can diminish or completely cancel that which you are fearful of.

  Mark Victor Hansen

  Inspirational, Positive, Fear

  FaceBook post by Mark Victor Hansen from Sep 04, 2013

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• Affirmative action is an effort to include every aspect of society in the decision making.

  Andrew Young

  Effort, Decision, Action

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• Well, certainly one of the ironies of the success of affirmative action is that the middle class within the black community no longer lives within 'black community' by and large.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Class, Community, Black

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• You can't be a minority in this society without having someone express disapproval about affirmative action.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Minorities, Action, This Society

  "Justice Sotomayor prefers "Sonia from the Bronx"". Interview with Scott Pelley, www.cbsnews.com. January 29, 2013.

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• I regard affirmative action as pernicious - a system that had wonderful ideals when it started but was almost immediately abused for the benefit of white middle-class women.

  Camille Paglia

  Class, White, Benefits

  "Interview with the Vamp". Interview with Virginia Postrel, reason.com. August/September 1995.

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• You know, I love all kinds of activism. I certainly think blacks deserve to have something whether it is affirmative action or an opportunity that should be opened up to them. But at the same time I believe that people of color are not the only poor people in America and all over the world.

  Russell Simmons

  Believe, Opportunity, Thinking

  "More Questions with Russell Simmons". content.time.com. May 3, 2007.

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• We have to think about affirmative action and craft it in such a way where some of our children, who are advantaged, aren't getting more favorable treatment than a poor white kid who struggled more.

  Barack Obama

  Children, Kids, Thinking

  "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer", www.cnn.com. July 27, 2008.

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• In the final analysis courage is nothing but an affirmative answer to the shocks of existence, to the shocks which it is necessary to bear for the sake of realizing one's own nature.

  Kurt Goldstein

  Courage, Bravery, Finals

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• When I call myself an affirmative action baby, I'm talking about the essence of what affirmative action was when it started.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Baby, Talking, Essence

  "NBC's Guthrie Frets Over Supreme Court Split: 'So-Called Liberals' vs 'Conservative Bloc'". "Today" with Savannah Guthrie, www.newsbusters.org. January 14, 2013.

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• And affirmative action is a very nice term for racial discrimination against better-qualified white people in jobs, employment, promotions and scholarships, and college admittance.

  David Duke

  Jobs, Nice, College

  "David Duke's View Of An Obama Presidency". Interview with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. October 31, 2008.

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• I was critical of race-based affirmative action early on in my career and I've changed my mind. And I've publicly acknowledged that I was wrong.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Careers, Race, Mind

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• Affirmative action was designed to keep women and minorities in competition with each other to distract us while white dudes inject AIDS into our chicken nuggets.

  Tracy Morgan

  Rocks, White, Competition

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• In modern European thought a tragedy is occurring in that the original bonds uniting the affirmative attitude towards the world with ethics are, by a slow but irresistible process, loosening and finally parting. Out of my life and Thought.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Attitude, Tragedy, World

  Albert Schweitzer (1949). “Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography”, New York : H. Holt

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• Preferential affirmative action patronizes American blacks, women, and others by presuming that they cannot succeed on their own. Preferential affirmative action does not advance civil rights in this country.

  Alan Keyes

  Country, Rights, Doe

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• There's a lot of Americans, black and white, who think that we've arrived where we need to be and nothing else needs to be done and affirmative action needs to be dismantled.

  Spike Lee

  Black And White, Thinking, Needs

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• It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.

  John Burroughs

  Believe, Optimism, Mind

  John Burroughs (1900). “Writings: The light of day”

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• Affirmative action was always racial justice on the cheap.

  Joe Klein

  Justice, Action, Racial Justice

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• The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

  Hermann Hesse

  Sympathy, Death, Sweet

  Hermann Hesse (2013). “Hermann Hesse: A Pictorial Biography”, p.218, Macmillan

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• With my academic achievement in high school I was accepted rather readily at Princeton and equally as fast at Yale, but my test scores were not comparable to that of my classmates. And that's been shown by statistics, there are reasons for that - there are cultural biases built into testing, and that was one of the motivations for the concept of affirmative action to try to balance out those effects.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Motivation, School, Yale

  "Videotaped remarks shed light on Sotomayor" by Charlie Savage, www.sfgate.com. June 11, 2009.

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• Affirmative action has a negative effect on our society when it means counting us like so many beans and dividing us into separate piles.

  John Kasich

  Mean, Negative, Our Society

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• I am a product of affirmative action. I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in the south Bronx. My test scores were not comparable to my colleagues at Princeton and Yale. Not so far off so that I wasn't able to succeed at those institutions.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Baby, Yale, Perfect

  "Sotomayor Praises Affirmative Action". "Hannity" with Sean Hannity, www.foxnews.com. June 12, 2009.

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• I had no need to apologize that the look-wider, search-more affirmative action that Princeton and Yale practiced had opened doors for me. That was its purpose: to create the conditions whereby students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be brought to the starting line of a race many were unaware was even being run.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Running, Race, Yale

  Sonia Sotomayor (2013). “My Beloved World”, p.191, Vintage

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• There are cultural biases built into testing, and that was one of the motivations for the concept of affirmative action - to try to balance out those effects.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Motivation, Balance, Trying

  "Videotaped remarks shed light on Sotomayor" by Charlie Savage, www.sfgate.com. June 11, 2009.

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• Here's the point - you're looking at affirmative action, and you're looking at marijuana. You legalize marijuana, no need for quotas, because really, who's gonna wanna work?

  Jon Stewart

  Marijuana, Needs, Quota

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