Contests Quotes - Page 19

• The definition of an extreme authoritarian is one who is willing blindly to assume that government accusations are true without any evidence presented or opportunity to contest those accusations.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Opportunity, Government, Definitions

  "Chilling legal memo from Obama DOJ justifies assassination of US citizens" by Glenn Greenwald, www.theguardian.com. February 5, 2013.

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• To have an inner life, to think, to juggle and leap, to become a tightrope walker in the world of ideas. To attack, to riposte, to refute, what a contest, what acclaim. To understand. The most generous word of all. Memory. To retain, a geyser of felicity. Intelligence. The agonizing poverty of my mind. Words and ideas flitting in and out like butterflies. My brain a dandelion seed blown in the wind.

  Violette Leduc

  Memories, Butterfly, Thinking

  Violette Leduc (1965). “La bâtarde: an autobiography”

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• That was exactly why people didn't want to give us any kind of life, because we were threatening their status quo, and they just didn't want to have room for girls playing rock 'n' roll. It bothered them. First, people just tried to get around it by saying, "Oh, wow, isn't that cute? Girls playing rock 'n' roll!," and when we said, "Yeah, right, this isn't a phase; it's what we want to do with our lives," it became, "Oh! You must be a bunch of sluts. You dykes, you whores." That's what it became. Then it became a name-calling contest.

  Joan Jett

  Cute, Girl, Names

  The Onion Interview, www.avclub.com. February 25, 1998.

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• Why don’t the Grammys matter? Because it feels rigged and cheap - like a popularity contest that the insiders club has decided.

  Trent Reznor

  Clubs, Matter, Popularity

  "Trent Reznor on Relating to 'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' Darkness; Why Grammys are 'Rigged and Cheap'". Interview with Shirley Halperin, www.hollywoodreporter.com. December 14, 2011.

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• I was extraordinarily lucky. I wrote a book because I wanted to see if I could write a mystery. Someone nagged me into sending it to a contest, which it won, after which I was offered a two-book contract, thus requiring the writing of a second book.

  Donna Leon

  Book, Writing, Two

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• The debate analysis in the media is rampant with contest analogies of war, baseball, boxing, football; you name it. Any testosterone contest imaginable is fair game.

  Jonathan Raymond

  Baseball, Football, War

  "McCain Acts Like A Tough-Guy; We Need A Gentleman" by Jon Raymond, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 28, 2008.

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• As to your kind wishes for myself, allow me to say I can not enter the ring on the money basis--first, because, in the main, it iswrong; and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money. I say, in the main, the use of money is wrong; but for certain objects, in a political contest, the use of some, is both right, and indispensable.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Money, Political, Wish

  "Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 4" by Abraham Lincoln, New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1953.

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• To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Passion, Views, Giving

  Thomas Jefferson (1951). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: 18 June, 1779 to 30 September, 1780”

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• Life is but short; no time can be afforded but for the indulgence of real sorry, or contests upon questions seriously momentous. Let us not throw away any of our days upon useless resentment, or contend who shall hold out longest in stubborn malignity. It is best not to be angry; and best, in the next place, to be quickly reconciled.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sorry, Real, Anger

  Samuel Johnson (2014). “The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume II: 1773-1776”, p.360, Princeton University Press

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• What I loved in the man was his health, his unity with himself; all people and all things seemed to find their quite peaceable adjustment with him, not a proud domineering one, as after doubtful contest, but a spontaneous-looking peaceable, even humble one.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Humble, Men, People

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• Neutrinos ... win the minimalist contest: zero charge, zero radius, and very possibly zero mass.

  Leon M. Lederman

  Zero, Winning, Minimalist

  Leon M. Lederman, Dick Teresi (1993). “The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, what is the Question?”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The Miss America contest isthe most perfectly rendered theater in our culture, for it so perfectly captures what we yearn for: a low-class ritual, a polished restatement of vulgarity, that wants to open the door to high-class respectability by way of plain middle-class anxiety and ambition.

  Gerald Early

  Ambition, Class, America

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• Mention the name George W. Bush in mixed company, and you're likely to spark a lot of debate and emotion - hot and cold, good and bad. Not a lot of neutral reaction. He was elected in the most controversial contest in American electoral history and governed during one of the most tumultuous decades.

  Mark McKinnon

  Hot And Cold, Names, Sparks

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• A virtuous name is the precious only good, for which queens and peasants' wives must contest together.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Queens, Names, Wife

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• When conflict becomes a win-lose contest in our minds, we immediately try to win.

  Thomas Crum

  Winning, Mind, Trying

  Thomas F. Crum, Thomas Crum (1998). “The Magic of Conflict: Turning a Life of Work Into a Work of Art”, p.37, Simon and Schuster

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• The life contest is primarily a competition for available energy.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Competition, Energy, Available

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• You will find that the truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. For, in the vernacular, we Americans are suckers for good news.

  Adlai E. Stevenson

  Truth, Honesty, Fancy

  Adlai E. Stevenson's commencement address at Michigan State University, as quoted in The New York Times, June 9, 1958.

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• He changed more times than a baby in a beer-drinking contest.

  Scott Adams

  Baby, Drinking, Beer

  Scott Adams (2007). “Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Explains Cloning, Blouse Monsters, Voting Machines, Romance, Monkey G ods, How to Avoid Being Mistaken for a Rodent, and More”, p.451, Penguin

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• At an expense trifling indeed, compared to what she frequently spends upon unprofitable contests, she might place the moral world on a new foundation, and to rise the pinnacle of moral glory.

  John Strachan

  Foundation, World, Might

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• As the contest proceeded, public interest increased and the entire country watched to see which company would win the big government subsidies through the mountains.

  John Moody

  Country, Winning, Government

  John Moody (1921). “The Railroad Builders: A Chronicle of the Welding of the States”

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• There is a point in every contest when sitting on the sidelines is not an option.

  Dean Smith

  Sitting, Sidelines

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• I was in a beauty contest once. I not only came in last, I was hit in the mouth by Miss Congeniality.

  Phyllis Diller

  Missing, Mouths, Lasts

  "Legendary Comic Phyllis Diller Dies at 95" by Duane Byrge, www.hollywoodreporter.com. August 20, 2012.

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• What I hate most in life are people who are not really the peach of the day but who want to be young and sexy. You can fool nobody. There is a moment when you have to accept that somebody else is younger and fresher and hotter. Life is not a beauty contest.

  Karl Lagerfeld

  Sexy, Hate, People

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• To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Army, Pride, Age

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “Lives of the poets. Lives of eminent persons. Political tracts. Philological tracts. Miscellaneous tracts. Dedications. Opinions on questions of law. Reviews and criticisms. Journey to the Western islands of Scotland. Prayers and meditations”, p.412

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• Cato, being scurrilously treated by a low and vicious fellow, quietly said to him, "A contest between us is very unequal, for thou canst bear ill language with ease, and return it with pleasure; but to me it is unusual to hear, and disagreeable to speak it." There are none more abusive to others than they that lie most open to it themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me today will have somebody to laugh at him tomorrow.

  Seneca the Younger

  Lying, Laughing, Return

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