Assertion Quotes - Page 13

• Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator. A mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement. He wants them to surrender their consciousness to his assertions, his edicts, his wishes, his whims - as his consciousness is surrendered to theirs. He wants to deal with men by means of faith and force - he finds no satisfaction in their consent if he must earn it by means of facts and reason.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Men, Wish

  Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.986, Penguin

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• Commitment is the ultimate assertion of human freedom. It releases all the energy you possess and enables you to take quantum leaps in creativity. When you set a one-pointed intention and absolutely refuse to allow obstacles to dissipate the focused quality of your attention, you engage the infinite organizing power of the universe.

  Deepak Chopra

  Creativity, Commitment, Quality

  FaceBook post by Deepak Chopra from Nov 02, 2015

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• Numbing the senses by monotonously repeating an assertion is a key element in utilizing mind control techniques.

  Joost Meerloo

  Keys, Mind, Technique

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• The assertion of failure coming from such persons does not mean that Mr. Mill failed to promote the practical success of those objects the advocacy of which forms the chief feature of his political writings.

  Millicent Fawcett

  Writing, Mean, Political

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• Self-sacrifice, not self-assertion, is the law of the highest universe.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Sacrifice, Self, Law

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.2567, Manonmani Publishers

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• Hence intellect[ual perception] is both a beginning and an end, for the demonstrations arise from these, and concern them. As a result, one ought to pay attention to the undemonstrated assertions and opinions of experienced and older people, or of the prudent, no less than to demonstrations, for, because the have an experienced eye, they see correctly.

  Aristotle

  Eye, People, Perception

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• All discourse of which others cannot partake is not only an irksome usurpation of the time devoted to pleasure and entertainment, but, what never fails to excite resentment, an insolent assertion of superiority, and a triumph over less enlightened understandings. The pedant is, therefore, not only heard with weariness but malignity; and those who conceive themselves insulted by his knowledge never fail to tell with acrimony how injudiciously it was exerted.

  Samuel Johnson

  Understanding, Triumph, Acrimony

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.196

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• For talking monkeys to speak of truth is hubris of the highest degree. Where is it writ large that talking monkeys should be able to model the cosmos? If a sea urchin or a racoon were to propose to you that it had a viable truth about the universe, the absurdity of that assertion would be self-evident, but in our case we make an exception.

  Terence McKenna

  Self, Talking, Sea

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• Despite the amount of suffering, pain, misery, sorrow and travail which can exist in life, the reason for existence is the same reason as one has to play a game-interest, contest, activity and possession. The truth of this assertion is established by an observation of the elements of games and then applying these elements to life itself.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Pain, Games, Play

  L. Ron Hubbard (1976). “Scientology, a New Slant on Life”, p.99, Bridge Publications, Inc.

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• Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out values all the utilities of the world. If dandelions were hard to grow, they would be most welcome on any lawn.

  Andrew Mason

  Flower, Dandelions, Rays

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• Loneliness is black coffee and late-night television; solitude is herb tea and soft music. Solitude, quality solitude, is an assertion of self-worth, because only in the stillness can we hear the truth of our own unique voices.

  Pearl Cleage

  Loneliness, Coffee, Self Worth

  Pearl Cleage (1990). “Mad at Miles: a blackwoman's guide to truth”, Cleage Group

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• Again: there is nothing inherently superior about resistance. All our claims for the righteousness of resistance rest on the rightness of the claim that the resisters are acting in the name of justice. And the justice of the cause does not depend on, and is not enhanced by, the virtue of those who make the assertion. It depends first and last on the truth of a description of a state of affairs that is, truly, unjust and unnecessary.

  Susan Sontag

  Names, Justice, Acting

  Susan Sontag (2007). “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches”, p.184, Macmillan

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• The Idols of Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.

  Francis Bacon

  Men, Mirrors, Race

  Francis Bacon (2016). “New Atlantis and The Great Instauration”, p.36, John Wiley & Sons

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• The statement, "The debt problem has become so extreme that we have no choice but to cut social spending" is presented as an objective assessment of our situation. But can you imagine a media commentator making the following assertion? "The debt problem has become so extreme that we have no choice but to raise taxes on the rich."

  Linda McQuaig

  Cutting, Assessment, Media

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• From study of known normal brains we have learned that there is a certain range of variation. No two brains are exactly alike, and the greatest source of error in the assertions of Benedict and Lombroso has been the finding of this or that variation in a criminal's brains, and maintaining such to be characteristic of the 'criminal constitution,' unmindful of the fact that like variations of structure may and do exist in the brains of normal, moral persons.

  Edward Anthony Spitzka

  Creativity, Two, Errors

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• There is in St. Paul's definite, soul-stirring assertion of the wrath of God and the reality of the judgment at hand, a truth more profound than any that underlies our somewhat enfeebled ideas of universal benevolence and the determined progress of the race.

  Roland Allen

  Reality, Wrath, Race

  Roland Allen (2016). “Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours?”, p.70, Gideon House Books

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• The fate of the physiology of the brain is independent of the truth and falsity of my assertions relative to the laws of the organization of the nervous system, in general, and of the brain in particular, just as the knowledge of the functions of a sense is independent of the knowledge of the structure of its apparatus.

  Franz Joseph Gall

  Independent, Fate, Law

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• The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse... By misuse, I mean that people who have never glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind that word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or they argue against it, as if they knew what it is they are denying. This misuse gives rise to absurd beliefs, assertions, and egoic delusions, such as "My or our God is the only true God, and your God is false," or Nietzsche's famous statmeent "God is dead.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Mean, Talking, Years

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• The world looks for happiness through self-assertion. The Christian knows that joy is found in self-abandonment. 'If a man will let himself be lost for My sake,' Jesus said, 'he will find his true self.

  Elisabeth Elliot

  Christian, Jesus, Men

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• Only in love can I find you, my God. In love the gates of my soul spring open, allowing me to breathe a new air of freedom and forget my own petty self. In love my whole being streams forth out of the rigid confines of narrowness and anxious self-assertion, which make me a prisoner of my own poverty emptiness. In love all the powers of my soul flow out toward you, wanting never more to return, but to lose themselves completely in you, since by your love you are the inmost center of my heart, closer to me than I am to myself.

  Karl Rahner

  Spring, Love You, Heart

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• Truth is not only a matter of offense, in that it makes certain assertions. It is also a matter of defense in that it must be able to make a cogent and sensible response to the counterpoints that are raised.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Defense, Matter, Able

  FaceBook post by Ravi Zacharias from Mar 15, 2017

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• The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Political, Doe, Fence

  "Patriotic Gore" by Brian Doherty, reason.com. January 18, 2006.

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• When I speak of the erotic, then I speak of it as an assertion of the life force of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.

  Audre Lorde

  Dancing, Creative, Erotic

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.55, Crossing Press

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• The rash assertion that "God made man in His own image" is ticking like a time bomb at the foundation of many faiths.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Men, Foundation, Bombs

  "Space and the Spirit of Man". Book by Arthur C. Clarke, 1965.

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• Soon the sun will set'- is that prophecy? No, it's merely an assertion of faith in the consistency of events.

  Walter M. Miller, Jr.

  Consistency, Events, Sun

  Walter M. Miller Jr. (1959). “A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ”

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