Affirmative Quotes - Page 7

• Some would argue that the president himself benefited from a form of affirmative action because as a C student, he only got into Yale because his father was a wealthy alumnus. But the White House counters that Saddam is a menace and must be stopped.

  Jon Stewart

  Father, Yale, White

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• [I] can't actually imagine a time in which the need for more diversity would ever cease. Affirmative action has been an issue since segregation practices. The question is not when does it end, but when does it begin [..] When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?

  Eric Holder

  Color, Practice, Issues

  "Holder talks financial crime, affirmative action at Low". Columbia Spectator, February 24, 2012.

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• The fact is that in too many parts of our country, we still have discrimination. And affirmative action is not just something that applies to people of color. Some people have a mistaken view of it in America. It also is with respect to women, it's with respect to other efforts to try to reach out and be inclusive in our country.

  John F. Kerry

  Country, Views, Color

  "Text Of Bush-Kerry Debate III (3)". www.cbsnews.com. October 13, 2004.

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• The fact that laws were given to man, both affirmative and negative, supports the principle, that God's knowledge of future events does not change their character. The great doubt that presents itself to our mind is the result of the insufficiency of our intellect.

  Maimonides

  Character, Men, Law

  Moses Maimonides (2016). “Guide for the perplexed”, p.1116, Moses Maimonides

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• Men don't like to step abruptly out of the security of familiar experience; they need a bridge to cross from their own experience to a new way. A revolutionary organizer must shake up the prevailing patterns of their lives - agitate, create disenchantment and discontent with the current values, to produce, if not a passion for change, at least a passive, affirmative, non-challenging climate.

  Saul Alinsky

  Passion, Men, Bridges

  "Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals" by Saul Alinsky, (pp. xxi-xxii), 1971.

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• You got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positiveE-lim-i-nate the negativeAnd latch on to the affirmative.Don't mess with mister inbetween.

  Johnny Mercer

  Latches, Cents, Mess

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• Whether a law be void for its repugnancy to the Constitution, is, at all times, a question of much delicacy, which out seldom, if ever, to be decided in the affirmative, in doubtful case. ... But it is not on slight implication and vague conjecture that the legislature is to be pronounced to have transcended its powers, and its acts to be considered as void. The opposition between the Constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other.

  John Marshall

  Strong, Law, Judging

  Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. (6 Cranch) 87, 128, 1810.

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• Affirmative precepts are distinguished from negative whenever one is not comprised in the other; thus, that of honoring parents does not comprise that of not killing, and vice versa.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Parent, Vices, Negative

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• In those days [1955], affirmative action was for whites only. I might still be working for the grocery store in the small Texas town where I grew up were it not for affirmative action for Southern white boys.

  Bill Moyers

  Boys, Texas, White

  "Moyers on Democracy" by Bill Moyers, (p. 99), 2008.

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• I nearly always find, when I ask a vegetarian if he is a socialist, or a socialist if he is a vegetarian, that the answer is in the affirmative.

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould

  Vegetarianism, Answers, Socialist

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1920). “Modes and Morals”

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• I think that even someone who got into an institution through affirmative action could prove they were qualified by what they accomplished there.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Thinking, Action, Institutions

  Sonia Sotomayor (2013). “My Beloved World”, p.188, Vintage

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• I was painting her portrait in the little studio, and when I came to the eyes I stopped, overcome by emotion, and said to her, 'Have you understood me?' She nodded affirmatively. 'Will you be my wife?' I asked. She made the same affirmative sign.

  Jules Breton

  Eye, Wife, Overcoming

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• What if two negatives make an affirmative ...does it follow that two nobodies shall be some body?

  Samuel Laman Blanchard

  Negatives Make, Two, What If

  "Sketches from Life, Vol. 1-2". Book by Laman Blanchard, Wiley & Putnam, "That Two Heads are Better than One", 1846.

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• What makes the Southern Poverty Law Center particularly odious is its habit of taking legitimate conservatives and jumbling them with genuine hate groups (the Klan, Aryan Nation, skinheads, etc.), to make it appear that there's a logical relationship between say opposing affirmative action and lynching, or demands for an end to government services for illegal aliens and attacks on dark-skinned immigrants. The late novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand called this 'the broad-brush smear.'

  Don Feder

  Hate, Dark, Government

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• If they're all so brilliant and I'm such an affirmative-action hire, how come they didn't catch me?

  Jayson Blair

  Action, Brilliant, Catch Me

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• The affirmative class monopolize the homage of mankind. They originate and execute all the great feats. What a force was coiled upin the skull of Napoleon!

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Greatness, Class, Skulls

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.352

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• There is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it
  successful.

  John F. Kennedy

  Successful, Space, United States

  Speech to Congress on Urgent National Needs, delivered 25 May 1961, Washington, D.C.

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• I wonder whether I should gain anything by the attempt to assume a character which is not mine. My wavering manner, born of doubt and scruple, has at least the advantage of rendering all the different shades of my thought, and of being sincere. If it were to become terse, affirmative, resolute, would it not be a mere imitation?

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Character, Doubt, Shade

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• The new statement will comprise the skepticisms, as well as the faiths of society, and out of unbeliefs a creed shall be formed. For, skepticisms are not gratuitous or lawless, but are limitations of the affirmative statement, and the new philosophy must take them in, and make affirmations outside of them, just as much as must include the oldest beliefs.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Belief

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Selected Writings”, p.181, Simon and Schuster

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• Affirmative action was designed originally for "women and other minorities" but the phrase has become just another tortured euphemism. Female conscientiousness and eagerness to please have always made women good students and natural test takers. Jews have gloried in scholarship throughout the ages, and Asians of both sexes score so high on SATs and IQ tests that they regard affirmative action as an impediment. Affirmative action really means favoritism for blacks for the sake of racial peace, but the favor is pure chimera, and so, increasingly, is the peace.

  Florence King

  Sex, Mean, Race

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• I would say that deconstruction is affirmation rather than questioning, in a sense which is not positive: I would distinguish between the positive, or positions, and affirmations. I think that deconstruction is affirmative rather than questioning: this affirmation goes through some radical questioning, but it is not questioning in the field of analysis.

  Jacques Derrida

  Thinking, Analysis, Fields

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• The system knows how to cherry pick black people. It's like affirmative action - once a year, one is recognized. But what has to occur is self-emergence so if they ignore you, you don't have to disappear.

  Haile Gerima

  Self, Years, People

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• Biggest affirmative argument I know in favor of 'If a man die, shall he live again?' is just the way you feel inside you that nothin' can stop you from livin' on.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Men, Favors, Way

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1939). “Song of Years”

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• I believe that a person should take an affirmative outlook. There are always problems in life, old and new, uncertainties, and unexpected contingencies. The optimal way to deal with this is not to give up in despair, but to move ahead using the best intelligence and resources that we have to overcome adversity.

  Paul Kurtz

  Giving Up, Moving, Believe

  "Isn't Religion Weird? Quotations for Atheists". Book by Dave Lane (p. 117), August 8, 2008.

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• I want to make one thing clear: I'm pro-choice, I'm pro-affirmative action, I'm pro- environment, pro-health care, and pro-labor. And if that ain't a Democrat, then I must be at the wrong meeting.

  Wesley Clark

  Choices, Care, Want

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