Confirmation Quotes - Page 5

• Harry Reid employed the so-called nuclear option, broke the Senate rules to change the Senate rules, lowered the threshold for confirmation from 60 votes to 51 votes. And it is a direct result of Harry Reid that we now have the most conservative Cabinet in decades.

  Ted Cruz

  Cabinets, Nuclear, Conservative

  Source: time.com

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• No senator's vote, except for the declaration of war or the authorization for the use of force, is more important than the confirmation of a nominee for the Supreme Court for a lifetime appointment.

  Arlen Specter

  War, Important, Use

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• I am convinced that international terrorism gave itself the goal of not allowing the re-election of Bush. The statement by bin Laden in the final stages of the pre-election campaign is the best confirmation of this.

  Vladimir Putin

  Goal, Finals, Campaigns

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• I would recommend any American who wants to understand where the government is going in the next four years of George W. Bush presidency to get a copy of her confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It's a road map, and it's pretty frightening testimony. Their definition of where democracy should go in the Middle East doesn't include Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan; it only includes Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

  Seymour Hersh

  Democracy, Relation, Testimony

  Source: progressive.org

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• When we are in the grasp of illusion - or, for that matter, whenever we have a new idea - instead of searching for ways to prove our ideas wrong, we usually attempt to prove them correct. Psychologists call this the confirmation bias, and it presents a major impediment of our ability to break free from the misinterpretation of randomness.

  Leonard Mlodinow

  Ideas, Matter, Way

  Leonard Mlodinow (2009). “The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives”, p.164, Penguin UK

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• It has often been said that, to make discoveries, one must be ignorant. This opinion, mistaken in itself, nevertheless conceals a truth. It means that it is better to know nothing than to keep in mind fixed ideas based on theories whose confirmation we constantly seek, neglecting meanwhile everything that fails to agree with them.

  Claude Bernard

  Knowledge, Mean, Science

  "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine".

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• Beauty, which I admit to being in pursuit of, is an extremely suspect word among many in the art world. But I don't think you can get along without it. It's the confirmation of meaning in life.

  Robert Adams

  Art, Thinking, World

  "Photography, Life, and Beauty". "Art21" Interview, art21.org.

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• The historical resonances are sharp. [Louis] Brandeis is nominated on Jan. 28, 1916. Confirmed on June 1. Waits 125 days between nomination and confirmation, which remains an unbroken record, although Merrick Garland will surpass it in July, if my math is right. Anti-Semitism was definitely not the central reason for the opposition, which tended to focus more on his anti-corporate radicalism, but it was a theme.

  Jeffrey Rosen

  Math, June, July

  Source: www.slate.com

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• Scorecards are common in the political process, but they are inappropriate in the judicial process. The most important tools in the judicial confirmation process are not litmus paper and a calculator.

  Orrin Hatch

  Political, Important, Tools

  "Senate Confirmation Hearings - Day 1". www.nytimes.com. January 9, 2006.

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• I write to withdraw as a nominee to serve as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. ... I am concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of the country.

  Harriet Miers

  Country, Writing, White

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• Don't ask the mind to confirm what is beyond the mind. Direct experience is the only valid confirmation.

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Mind, Direct, Asks

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• The fact is that a "minor exorcism" takes place in every Baptism and Confirmation ceremony when we renounce Satan and all his works and empty promises. This prayer service will be along those lines. I'm not saying that anyone involved in the redefinition of marriage is possessed by the devil, which, if that were the case, would require the remedy of a "Major Exorcism," but all of us are certainly subject to the devil's evil influences and in need of protection and deliverance from evil.

  Thomas J. Paprocki

  Prayer, Evil, Baptism

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• The thought of being a creator, of engendering, of shaping is nothing without the continuous great confirmation and embodiment in the world, nothing without the thousandfold assent from Things and animals... beautiful and rich only because it is full of inherited memories of the engendering and birthing of millions.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Beautiful, Memories, Animal

  Rainer Maria Rilke (2001). “Letters to a Young Poet”

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• I once told you that I am not a saint, and I hope never to see the day that I cannot admit having made a mistake. So I will close with another confession. Frequently, along the tortuous road of recent months from this chamber to the Presidents House, I protested that I was my own man. Now I realize that I was wrong. I am your man, for it was your carefully weighed confirmation that changed my occupation. The truth is I am the peoples man, for you acted in their name, and I accepted and began my new and solemn trust with a promise to serve all the people and do the best that I can for America.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Mistake, Men, Names

  United States. President (1974-1977 : Ford), Gerald R. Ford (1975). “Gerald R. Ford: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President”

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• In my opinion, it helps enormously to know why something is true, rather than being told it is true, for why should you believe me? Never believe anything on the authority of a single person but seek confirmation - and reason is the best confirmation.

  Dennis Lindley

  Believe, Helping, Opinion

  "Understanding Uncertainty". Book by Dennis Lindley (Chapter 2 "Stylistic Questions", pp. 24-25), 2006.

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• But to demand that a work be “relatable” expresses a different expectation: that the work itself be somehow accommodating to, or reflective of, the experience of the reader or viewer. The reader or viewer remains passive in the face of the book or movie or play: she expects the work to be done for her. If the concept of identification suggested that an individual experiences a work as a mirror in which he might recognize himself, the notion of relatability implies that the work in question serves like a selfie: a flattering confirmation of an individual's solipsism.

  Rebecca Mead

  Book, Play, Mirrors

  "The Scourge of 'Relatability'". www.newyorker.com. August 1, 2014.

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• When a spectator approaches a painting with his own particular set of filters or theories, be they historical, political, intellectual or whatever - he either finds what he is looking for or dismisses the work as irrelevant. He has deprived himself of the possibility of any fresh experience or revelation by looking only for confirmation of that which he already 'knows.

  Douglas Portway

  Political, Historical, Intellectual

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• The opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory. Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive. Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.

  Bertrand Russell

  Agreement, Creative, Intuition

  Bertrand Russell (1981). “Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays”, p.17, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The data that can bear on the confirmation of perceptual hypotheses includes, in the general case, considerably less than the organism may know.

  Jerry Fodor

  Data, May, Bears

  "Modularity of Mind". Book by Jerry Fodor, 1983.

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• The degree of confirmation assigned to any given hypothesis is sensitive to properties of the entire belief system... simplicity, plausibility, and conservatism are properties that theories have in virtue of their relation to the whole structure of scientific beliefs taken collectively. A measure of conservatism or simplicity would be a metric over global properties of belief systems.

  Jerry Fodor

  Taken, Simplicity, Degrees

  "The Modularity of Mind". Book by Jerry Fodor, plato.stanford.edu. 1983.

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• The unfortunate part is there`s not enough balance in the legislative chambers, and particularly the senate that has to do that confirmation for there to be enough pushback.

  Al Sharpton

  Balance, Enough, Unfortunate

  Source: www.msnbc.com

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• The research on vision machines was mainly conducted at the Stanford Research Institute in the US. So, we can say that the events that took place in the Kosovo War were a total confirmation of the thesis of The Vision Machine.

  Paul Virilio

  War, Vision, Events

  Source: ctheory.net

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• Being attacked by the press is not something I see as a problem, but rather a confirmation that I am on the right track. It is even better when they ignore me completely, like the Norwegian press does; that means they are really afraid.

  Varg Vikernes

  Mean, Track, Doe

  Source: heathenharvest.org

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• Betsy DeVos, for example, has shown that she’s flatly ignorant of an astounding amount of basic education policy. It might be possible to persuade two or three Republicans to oppose her on these grounds - but only if the entire confirmation process isn’t a pure partisan battle.

  Kevin Drum

  Two, Ignorant, Battle

  "There’s a Good Reason Democrats Aren’t Opposing Every Trump Nominee Unanimously" by Kevin Drum, www.motherjones.com. January 27, 2017.

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• And I was -- this is just how I was afraid you'd take it. I knew it, that you'd think this means you were right to be afraid all the time and never feel secure or trust me. I knew it'd be "See, you're leaving after all when you promised you wouldn't." I knew it but I'm trying to explain anyway, okay? And I know you probably won't understand this either, but --wait-- just try to listen and maybe absorb this, okay? Ready? Me leaving is not the confirmation of all your fears about me. It is not. It's because of them.

  David Foster Wallace

  Mean, Thinking, Waiting

  David Foster Wallace (2012). “Brief Interviews With Hideous Men”, p.16, Hachette UK

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