Concepts Quotes

• Concepts antedate facts.

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Ideas, Facts

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1904). “Human Work”, p.35, Rowman Altamira

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• If you do not have the concept of distance, you may reach an unreachable place!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Distance, May, Unreachable

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• Without goals the very concept of intelligence is meaningless

  Steven Pinker

  Goal, Meaningless

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• There needs to be just a little bit of crazy when dreaming up a new concept.

  Sam Lake

  Dream, Crazy, Needs

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• The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe

  Walter Benjamin

  Ideas, Progress, Status Quo

  Walter Benjamin, Michael William Jennings (2003). “Selected Writings: 1938-1940”, p.184, Harvard University Press

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• Science advances, not by the accumulation of new facts, but by the continuous development of new concepts.

  James Bryant Conant

  Science, Development, Facts

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• I am sometimes perplexed by people who refer to defensive rifles, or defensive rifle shooting. The defensive arm is the pistol, since you have it at hand to meet situations that you do not anticipate. If you have the luxury of anticipating a lethal encounter, you pick up a long arm, either a rifle or a shotgun, but in that case you go on to the attack. Thus rifle shooting is offensive, and pistol shooting is defensive. Of course, life does not always duplicate theory, and there are exceptions to everything, but nevertheless the rifle is not a defensive weapon in concept.

  Jeff Cooper

  Gun, Hands, Luxury

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• Concepts become forces when they resist one another

  Johann Friedrich Herbart

  Force

  Johann Friedrich Herbart, Daniel N. Robinson (1977). “A Text-book in Psychology”, Univ Publications of Amer

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• Corporations hope that the right concept will turn things around overnight. This is what you might call the crash-diet approach: starve yourself for a few days and you'll be thin for life.

  James Surowiecki

  Might, Corporations, Crash

  "The Open Secret of Success". www.newyorker.com. May 12, 2008.

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• The concept of minimum wage is crazy, if you really stop to think about it. If $8 an hour seems right, why not $20 an hour? If its coming by order of the government, why stop at any level? Why not just say everyone should get what Gates gets?

  Malcolm Wallop

  Crazy, Thinking, Government

  "[Flashback interview] Retired Senator Malcolm Wallop: 'The Great American Experiment'". Interview With Peter Evans, Helen Evans, www.ff.org. January 6, 2013.

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• Never fall in love with an idea. They're whores: if the one you're with isn't doing the job, there's always, always, always another.

  Chip Kidd

  Falling In Love, Jobs, Technology

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• If parents wish to preserve childhood for their own children, they must conceive of parenting as an act of rebellion against culture

  Neil Postman

  Children, Parenting, Childhood

  Neil Postman (2011). “Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future”, p.138, Vintage

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• Having 'best friends' is - at least for me - as outdated and small-minded a concept as the idea of 'Sunday best clothes.'

  Julie Burchill

  Sunday, Ideas, Clothes

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• We understand the concept of equality, that we all want to be equal. But I think this is absolutely not true. I don't think anybody really wants to be equal. Everybody wants to be more equal.

  Krzysztof Kieslowski

  Thinking, Want, Equal

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• Responsibility is a unique concept. It can only reside and inhere in a single individual. You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you. You may disclaim it, but you cannot divest yourself of it. If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion, or ignorance or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible.

  Hyman Rickover

  Unique, May, Individual

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• The Internet gives you access to a lot of material, and it's fun to sit and read. I go to something like Wikipedia and look at different topics... I find the subject fascinating. I like to read about concepts and mathematicians.

  Viswanathan Anand

  Fun, Giving, Wikipedia

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• I'm basically a libertarian. I don't want to restrict anyone from doing anything unless it's going to harm me. I don't want [to] pass a law stopping someone from smoking. It's just too dangerous. You lose the concept of a free society. Since we are genetically so diverse and our brains are so different, we're going to have different aspirations.

  James D. Watson

  Law, Smoking, Brain

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• The Federalist Society is changing the culture of our nation's law schools. You are returning the values and concepts of law as our founders understood them to scholarly dialogue, and through that dialogue, to our legal institutions.

  Ronald Reagan

  School, Law, Culture

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• Concepts create idols of God, of whom only wonder can tell us anything.

  Gregory of Nyssa

  Idols, Wonder

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• The invention of the concept of sustainable human development and that of so-called human security, as opposed to territorial security of nation- states, and its promotion by the UN is in clear contradiction to all that we, the Group of 77, and the UN Charter itself consider inalienable, namely national sovereignty and security.

  Pranab Mukherjee

  Development, Groups, Promotion

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• Abandoning who people think you are and becoming who you really are is a simple concept, but sometimes it is very hard to do. It isn't easy to give up others' ideas of who you are. Yet the key to success is to discover your uniqueness and to exploit it. Your authentic persona, either personal or corporate, is the key to your prosperity.

  Larry Winget

  Giving Up, Simple, Thinking

  Larry Winget (2006). “It's Called Work for a Reason!: Your Success Is Your Own Damn Fault”, p.108, Penguin

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• I've always believed in the concept of retirement. I retired for the first time at age 18 ... from school. To me, retirement means doing what you want to do without worrying about getting paid for it.

  Tommy Chong

  Retirement, Mean, School

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• Well, I would say that we've got to redefine democracy, that we have been stuck in concepts of representative democracy, that we believe that it's getting other people to do things for us that we progress.

  Grace Lee Boggs

  Believe, People, Democracy

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• I think our concept of revolution, in terms of getting the power to do things, is too focused on the state. We have a scenario of revolution that first, you know, comes from 1917, that first you take the state power, and then you change things. And we don't realize it's collapsed.

  Grace Lee Boggs

  Thinking, Firsts, Revolution

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• The friends of Job appear on the scene as advisers and "consolers," offering Job the fruits of their moral scientia. But when Job insists that his sufferings have no explanation and that he cannot discover the reason for them through conventional ethical concepts, his friends turn into accusers, and curse Job as a sinner. Thus, instead of consolers, they become torturers by virtue of their very morality, and in so doing, while claiming to be advocates of God, they act as instruments of the devil.

  Thomas Merton

  Jobs, Offering, Suffering

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