Deflection Quotes

• Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures... There are perhaps three such measures: powerful deflections, which cause us to make light of our misery; substitutive satisfactions, which diminish it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensible to it.

  Sigmund Freud

  Pain, Powerful, Disappointment

  Sigmund Freud, Peter (AFT) Gay, Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Civilization and Its Discontents”, W W Norton & Company Incorporated

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• You know, a meme is now circulating that's called the Ostrich Brigade. And it's used to describe all those people who are burying their heads in the sand. I call it the three D strategy. It's denial, deflection, and a demonization of those of us who want to speak honestly about these issues of extremism.

  Dalia Mogahed

  Ostriches, Issues, People

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

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• Men seek for vocabularies that are reflections of reality. To this end, they must develop vocabularies that are selections of reality. And any selection of reality must, in certain circumstances, function as a deflection of reality.

  Kenneth Burke

  Reflection, Reality, Men

  Kenneth Burke, Joseph R. Gusfield (1989). “On Symbols and Society”, p.158, University of Chicago Press

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• And for the authentical truth of either person or actions, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poem, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth? Poor envious souls they are that cavil at truth's want in these natural fictions; material instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of an authentical tragedy.

  George Chapman

  Soul, Tragedy, Fiction

  George Chapman (1874). “The Works of George Chapman: Plays”, p.178

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• We not only need to train people, we also need to develop deflection technologies.

  Rusty Schweickart

  Technology, People, Needs

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• The determined fixing of our will upon God, and pressing toward him steadily and without deflection; this is the very center and the art of prayer.

  Evelyn Underhill

  Art, Prayer, Fixing

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• I gained in experience with every plane shot down, and now was able to fire in a calm, deliberate manner. Each attack was made in a precise manner. Distance and deflection were carefully judged before firing. This is not something that comes by accident; only by experience can a pilot overcome feelings of panic. A thousand missions could be flown and be of no use if the pilot has not exchanged fire with the enemy.

  John Trevor Godfrey

  Distance, Fire, Feelings

  John Trevor Godfrey (1958). “The look of eagles”

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• I'm straight, but the character was too important to me to muddle his world with my private life. As a nobody, I got away with that deflection. I think it may have helped to introduce Brian as a believable gay man. Maybe not. However it played, it's been out of my hands for a long time.

  Gale Harold

  Character, Gay, Men

  "Queer as Folk‘s Gale Harold". Interview with Ilana Rapp, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 6, 2017.

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• Even if any given terminology is a reflection of reality, by its very nature as a terminology it must be a selection of reality; and to this extent it must function also as a deflection of reality.

  Kenneth Burke

  Reflection, Reality, Given

  Kenneth Burke (1966). “Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method”, p.45, Univ of California Press

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• I never got tired of watching the radar echo from an aircraft as it first appeared as a tiny blip in the noise on the cathode-ray tube, and then grew slowly into a big deflection as the aircraft came nearer. This strange new power to "see" things at great distances, through clouds or darkness, was a magical extension of our senses. It gave me the same thrill that I felt in the early days of radio when I first heard a voice coming out of a horn.

  Robert Hanbury Brown

  Distance, Tired, Science

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• Science is now the craft of the manipulation, substitution and deflection of the forces of nature. What I see coming is a gigantic slaughterhouse, an Auschwitz, in which valuable enzymes, hormones, and so on will be extracted instead of gold teeth.

  Erwin Chargaff

  Gold Teeth, Enzymes, Crafts

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• On sand, you can never be sure of anything. An ordinary shot can take a wicked deflection at the last moment.

  Eric Cantona

  Wicked, Ordinary, Lasts

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• I am not a good shot. Few of us are. To make up for this I hold my fire until I have a shot of less than 20 degrees deflection and until I'm within 300 yards. Good discipline on this score can make up for a great deal.

  John C. Meyer

  Fire, Discipline, Yards

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