Benign Quotes - Page 5

• Whatever your religious persuasion, if you believe that the universe is governed by benign forces, at some point you have to explain why there is so much suffering, misfortune and misery in the world.

  Julian Baggini

  Religious, Believe, Suffering

  "The Thought Police Brief Answers to Big Questions: Hoddle Has Gone, but the Question of Evil Remains". www.independent.co.uk. February 07, 1999.

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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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• 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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• 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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• If you pursue meditation with a non-competitive attitude, with a hopeful and helpful attitude, without violence, then you will find that you will become a very benign and powerful being, one who is at peace with himself and the universe.

  Frederick Lenz

  Powerful, Attitude, Buddhism

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• Biocides, for example, are designed to kill bacteria—it's not a benign material.

  William Stringfellow

  Bacteria, Example, Materials

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• I used to take musical instruments home from elementary school. There were some music teachers there - we all learned instruments. A lot of us got started in public schools. Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, for example. But now there are no more music teachers in public elementary schools. It's like (Senator) Moynihan said, 'benign neglect.' Just let it rot and fester.

  Max Roach

  Teacher, Home, School

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• In retrospect, it's ridiculous that anyone saw me as a fashion icon, since all I was trying to do was to dumb down my middle-class look by messing with my hair. Throughout the eighties I was invariably half-sure and half-confident about whatever it was I wore…Still, I've always believed—still do—that the radical is far more interesting when it looks benign and ordinary on the outside.

  Kim Gordon

  Fashion, Class, Icons

  Kim Gordon (2015). “Girl in a Band”, p.113, Faber & Faber

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• Every major player is working on this technology of artificial intelligence. As of now, it's benign... but I would say that the day is not far off when artificial intelligence as applied to cyber warfare becomes a threat to everybody.

  Ted Bell

  Technology, Player, Cyber Warfare

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• Easter celebrations are evidence of the increased benign influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional churches in our country on society.

  Vladimir Putin

  Country, Easter, Church

  "Orthodox Easter meets space age". www.cnn.com. May 5, 2002.

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• For people who live their lives in classical music the Three Tenors is a kind of benign tumor: unsightly but not life threatening.

  Bernard Holland

  Music, People, Three

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• The more important point, however, is not about what the money does. It's about what has to be done to get the money. The effect of the money might be (democratically) benign. But what is done to secure that money is not necessarily benign. To miss this point is to betray the Robin Hood fallacy: the fact that the loot was distributed justly doesn't excuse the means taken to secure it.

  Lawrence Lessig

  Taken, Mean, Missing

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• What I believe is so magnificent, so glorious, that it is beyond finite comprehension. To believe that the universe was created by a purposeful, benign Creator is one thing. To believe that this Creator took on human vesture, accepted death and mortality, was tempted, betrayed, broken, and all for love of us, defies reason. It is so wild that it terrifies some Christians who try to dogmatize their fear by lashing out at other Christians, because tidy Christianity with all answers given is easier than one which reaches out to the wild wonder of God's love, a love we don't even have to earn.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Christian, Believe, Broken

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• The pure and benign light of revelation has had a meliorating influence on mankind.

  George Washington

  Light, Influence, Christianity

  George Washington (1855). “Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral and Religious”, p.367

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• The good or evil we confer on others very often, I believe, recoils on ourselves; for as men of a benign disposition enjoy their own acts of beneficence equally with those to whom they are done, so there are scarce any natures so entirely diabolical as to be capable of doing injuries without paying themselves some pangs for the ruin which they bring on their fellow-creatures.

  Henry Fielding

  Believe, Men, Evil

  Henry Fielding (1975). “The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling”, p.765, Wesleyan University Press

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• All we are asked to bear we can bear. That is a law of the spiritual life. The only hindrance to the working of this law, as of all benign laws, is fear.

  Elizabeth Goudge

  Spiritual, Law, Bears

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• I think there are people in this Congress who actually believe that government does not have a benign role in the lives of the people, except as an engine to redistribute the wealth of the Nation upwards.

  Dennis Kucinich

  Believe, Thinking, Government

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• Humor helps us get through life with a modicum of grace. It offers one of the few benign ways of coping with the absurdity of it all.

  Diane Keaton

  Humor, Grace, Way

  Diane Keaton (2011). “Then Again”, p.135, Random House

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• No small thing, a bee's sting When it enters the heart Not so benign, the growing vine When it tears stone apart

  Shannon Hale

  Heart, Tears, Vines

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• At that moment, Harry fully understood for the first time why people said Dumbledore was the only wizard Voldemort had ever feared. The look upon Dumbledore's face as he stared down at the unconscious form of Mad-Eye moody was more terrible than Harry could have ever imagined. There was no benign smile upon Dumbledore's face, no twinkle in the eyes behind the spectacles. There was cold fury in every line of the ancient face; a sense of power radiated from Dumbledore as though he were giving off burning heat.

  J. K. Rowling

  Eye, People, Giving

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• ...music is sometimes the only benign avenue of communication between antagonists.

  Paul Simon

  Beauty, Art, Communication

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• A doctor recently described to me "benign positional vertigo": it means you get dizzy in certain positions, but you can get over it without necessarily changing the position. Change "vertigo" to "anxiety," and you've summed up the neurotic's plight.

  Mignon McLaughlin

  Mean, Doctors, Anxiety

  Mignon McLaughlin (2014). “Aperçus: The Aphorisms of Mignon McLaughlin”, p.89, BookBaby

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• Heartbreak comes in different sizes, and the departure of an 18-year-old child for a far college has to be treated as a very benign form of the disease.

  Jonathan Raban

  Children, College, Years

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• Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished.

  H. L. Mencken

  Law, Government, Years

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• The execution of William Bonin was not the traditional gas chamber of the past. That has been ruled cruel and unusual. Instead, we have something that seems very kind and benign and technical; the injection of chemicals, Nazi-style.

  Jerry Brown

  Past, Style, Execution

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