Benign Quotes - Page 2

• I don't know what the future holds. Anything is possible.

  Liz Phair

  Rum, Knows, Anything Is Possible

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• Pity is a benign form of abuse.

  Michael J. Fox

  Abuse, Pity, Form

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• I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

  George Washington

  Sweet, Retirement, Freedom

  George Washington (1851). “The life of General Washington: first president of the United States”, p.337

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• The most beautiful words in the English language are 'not guilty'.

  Maxim Gorky

  Beautiful, Money, Business

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• It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.

  Albert Camus

  Lonely, Stars, Philosophy

  L'Etranger (The Stranger) pt. 2, ch. 5 (1942)

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• For the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still.

  Albert Camus

  Happiness, Heart, Firsts

  L'Etranger (The Stranger) pt. 2, ch. 5 (1942)

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• ... we find ourselves facing a rising tide of biologically active, synthetic organic chemicals. Some tinker with our hormones. Some attach themselves to our chromosomes and trigger mutations. Some cripple the immune system. Some light up our genes and so enhance the production of certain enzymes. If we could metabolize these chemicals into completely benign breakdown products and excrete them, they would pose less of a hazard. Instead, a good many of them accumulate.

  Sandra Steingraber

  Light, Good Man, Environmental

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• It took a long time, but my heart now feels full when I think of him. When you fall in love again—which I have—it's funny the other things that come back in with that open-ness. You have this ghost chorus of the lovers who came before, but they're benign now, they're good spirits.

  Emma Forrest

  Falling In Love, Heart, Thinking

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• I have written it before and am not ashamed to write it again. Without Wodehouse I am not sure that I would be a tenth of what I am today -- whatever that may be. In my teenage years, his writings awoke me to the possibilities of language. His rhythms, tropes, tricks and mannerisms are deep within me. But more than that, he taught me something about good nature. It is enough to be benign, to be gentle, to be funny, to be kind.

  Stephen Fry

  Teenage, Writing, Years

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• A university is not a service station. Neither is it a political society, nor a meeting place for political societies. With all its limitations and failures, and they are invariably many, it is the best and most benign side of our society insofar as that society aims to cherish the human mind.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Failure, Men, Political

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• To one American family out of four, the idea of capitalism as a benign system of comfort , dignity , and personal advance is only a myth , or worse, a bitter mockery.

  Robert Heilbroner

  Ideas, Four, Comfort

  "The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers". Book by Robert L. Heilbroner, Chapter X, The Modern World, p. 28, 1953.

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• Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it's not merely benign or 'too bad' if we don't use the gifts that we've been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical well-being. When we don't use our talents to cultivate meaningful work, we struggle. We feel disconnected and weighted down by feelings of emptiness, frustration, resentment, shame, disappointment, fear, and even grief.

  Brené Brown

  Motivational, Meaningful, Disappointment

  Brené Brown (2010). “The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are”, p.123, Simon and Schuster

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• In England, the system is benign and the people are hostile. In America, the people are friendlyand the system is brutal!

  Quentin Crisp

  America, People, England

  1985 In The Guardian, 23 Oct.

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• Beneficent spirals, operating by benign feedback, mean that everything needful is not required at once: each individual improvement is beneficial for the whole

  Jane Jacobs

  Mean, Improvement, Individual

  Jane Jacobs (2007). “Dark Age Ahead”, p.175, Vintage

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• You get thought of in terms of your last job. So if my last job is that of a meat cleaver-wielding character, I will hardly be cast as some benign, older gentleman.

  Ben Cross

  Jobs, Character, Gentleman

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• Eating a tuna roll at a sushi restaurant should be considered no more environmentally benign than driving a Hummer or harpooning a manatee.

  Daniel Pauly

  Tuna Fish, Sushi, Driving

  "The Perils Of Overfishing, Part 2". Interview with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. November 3, 2009.

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• New molecular methods that add or modify genes can protect plants from diseases and pests and improve crops in ways that are both more environmentally benign and beyond the capability of older methods.

  Nina Fedoroff

  Add, Pests, Disease

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• Myths about the dire effects of genetically modified foods on health and the environment abound, but they have not held up to scientific scrutiny. And, although many concerns have been expressed about the potential for unexpected consequences, the unexpected effects that have been observed so far have been benign.

  Nina Fedoroff

  Unexpected, Environment, Scrutiny

  "Engineering Food for All". www.nytimes.com. August 18, 2011.

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• When I was a kid, my mother's parenting style teetered between benign neglect and intense bouts of violence.

  Ariel Gore

  Mother, Kids, Style

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• Cultural institutions by and large share one primary objective: herd control. Even when ostensibly benign, their propensity for manipulation, compartmentalization, standardization and suppression of potentially disruptive behavior or ideas, has served to freeze the evolution of consciousness practically in its tracks.

  Tom Robbins

  Ideas, Track, Manipulation

  "The Syntax of Sorcery: An Interview with Tom Robbins". Interview with Tony Vigorito, realitysandwich.com. June 6, 2012.

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• Throughout all of human history we've enjoyed certain benign circumstances: an envelope of atmosphere, an envelope of temperature. A kind of resilience that if you cut down trees, then they'll grow back. You take fish, they recover. You put stuff into the atmosphere that you know is not good for us, but we can still breathe. We haven't awakened, generally, to the sense of urgency that does exist.

  Sylvia Earle

  Cutting, Tree, Over You

  "Her Majesty Of The Deep Blue Sea: An Interview With Dr. Sylvia Earle, Part One". Interview with Dan Linehan, www.mission-blue.org. January 23, 2013.

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• According to a Pew poll, 49% of young Americans have a favorable view of socialism. What is socialism? it is a system that leads to mass misery, mass impoverishment, and human slaughter. That's what it means. Yet almost half of the young think it's benign.

  David Horowitz

  Mean, Thinking, Views

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• Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness. To-night at least, I would be her guest-as I was her child; my mother would lodge me without money and without price.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Mother, Children, Night

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.264, Penguin

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• I humbly thank the gods benign, For all the blessings that are mine... The morning drips her dew for me, Noon spreads an opal canopy. Home-bound, the drifting cloud-crafts rest Where sunset ambers all the west; Soft o'er the poppy-fields of sleep, The drowsy winds of dreamland creep. What idle things are wealth and fame Beside the treasures one could name!

  Robert Loveman

  Gratitude, Morning, Sunset

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• What is too often forgotten is that nature obviously intends the botched to die, and that every interference with that benign process is full of dangers.

  H. L. Mencken

  Nature, Forgotten, Danger

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.347, Vintage

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