Discourse Quotes - Page 13

• Themistocles replied that a man's discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost.

  Plutarch

  Beautiful, Men, Speech

  Plutarch (2012). “Greek and Roman Lives”, p.61, Courier Corporation

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• If you light upon an impertinent talker, that sticks to you like a bur, to the disappointment of your important occasions, deal freely with him, break off the discourse, and pursue your business.

  Plutarch

  Disappointment, Light, Break Off

  Plutarch, Matthew Morgan (1718). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.64

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• We can't handle violence in women characters but we CAN handle what's done to women in our present tense every second of the day worldwide? Or next door? Or in political or medical discourse? Please. That idea just makes me want to crap on a table at a very fancy restaurant.

  Lidia Yuknavitch

  Character, Doors, Ideas

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Of all sorts of flattery, that which comes from a solemn character and stands before a sermon is the worst-complexioned. Such commendation is a satire upon the author, makes the text look mercenary, and disables the discourse from doing service.

  Jeremy Collier

  Character, Looks, Flattery

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• It is a difficult task to talk to the purpose, and to put life and perspicuity into our discourse.

  Jeremy Collier

  Talking, Tasks, Purpose

  Jeremy Collier (1732). “Essays upon several moral subjects”, p.24

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• In common discourse we denominate persons and things according to the major part of their character; he is to be called a wise man who has but few follies.

  Isaac Watts

  Wise, Character, Men

  Isaac Watts (1809). “Logic: Or, The Right Use of Reason, in the Inquiry After Truth”, p.151

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• Where no interest is takes in science, literature and liberal pursuits, mere facts and insignificant criticisms necessarily become the themes of discourse; and minds, strangers alike to activity and meditation, become so limited as to render all intercourse with them at once tasteless and oppressive.

  Madame de Stael

  Meditation, Mind, Criticism

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• This is what happens when the discourse of publishing, defined and driven by spoken and written language, is talked about in exactly the same vocabulary and syntax as any widgetmaking industry. Books are reformulated as 'product' - like screwdrivers or flea-bombs or soap - and the majority of writers are perceived as typists with bad attitudes.

  Suzette Haden Elgin

  Attitude, Book, Vocabulary

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• There can be no religious discourse which is in conflict with its environment and with the world and therefore, we Muslims need to modify this religious discourse. And this has nothing to do with conviction and with religious beliefs, because those are immutable. But we need a new discourse that will be adapted to a new world and which will remove some of the misconceptions.

  Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

  Religious, Needs, World

  "Egyptian President Sisi: Muslims Need To Reform Their Religious Discourse" by Kathleen Miles, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 22, 2015.

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• Uncommon expressions are a disfigurement rather than an embellishment of discourse.

  David Hume

  Expression, Style, Embellishment

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• Affectation hath always had a greater share both in the action and discourse of men than truth and judgment have.

  Aphra Behn

  Men, Action, Share

  Aphra Behn (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Aphra Behn (Illustrated)”, p.274, Delphi Classics

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• One would think that the larger the company is in which we are engaged, the greater variety of thoughts and subjects would be started into discourse; but, instead of this we find that conversation is never so much straightened and confined, as in numerous assemblies.

  Joseph Addison

  Thinking, Would Be, Assembly

  Joseph Addison (2017). “Delphi Complete Works of Joseph Addison (Illustrated)”, p.2472, Delphi Classics

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• In England we see people lulled sleep with solid and elaborate discourses of piety, who would be warmed and transported out of themselves by the bellowings and distortions of enthusiasm.

  Joseph Addison

  Sleep, People, Would Be

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1832). “The Spectator: with notes and general index, from the London stereotype edition ...”

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• Every one knows the veneration which was paid by the Jews to a name so great, wonderful, and holy. They would not let it enter even into their religious discourses. What can we then think of those who make use of so tremendous a name, in the ordinary expression of their anger, mirth, and most impertinent passions?

  Joseph Addison

  Religious, Passion, Thinking

  Joseph Addison (1827). “The Evidences of the Christian Religion: To which are Added, Several Discourses Against Atheism and Infidelity, and in Defence of the Christian Revelation”, p.92

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• A brave man is clear in his discourse, and keeps close to truth.

  Aristotle

  Men, Bravery, Clear

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• To write a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation, who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.

  William Hazlitt

  Writing, Choices, Style

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1270, Delphi Classics

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• It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Atheist, Civilization

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• What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it doesn't only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse. It needs to be considered as a productive network which runs through the whole social body, much more than as a negative instance whose function is repression

  Michel Foucault

  Running, Negative, Needs

  Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault (2006). “The Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature”, The New Press

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• We are wont to see friendship solely as a phenomenon of intimacy in which the friends open their hearts to each other unmolested by the world and its demands...Thus it is hard for us to understand the political relevance of friendship...But for the Greeks the essence of friendship consisted in discourse...The converse (in contrast to the intimate talk in which individuals speak about themselves), permeated though it may be by pleasure in the friend’s presence, is concerned with the common world.

  Hannah Arendt

  Heart, Essence, Political

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• I think we should be very clear on this. You know, this country was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment... It was the idea that people could talk, reason, have dialogue, discuss the issues. It wasn't founded on the idea that someone would get struck by a divine inspiration and know everything right from wrong. I mean, people who founded this country had religion, they had strong beliefs, but they believed in reason, in dialogue, in civil discourse. We can't lose that in this country. We've got to get it back.

  Wesley Clark

  Country, Strong, Inspiration

  "Real Time with Bill Maher", September 5, 2003.

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• Discourse says, 'You are.' Rhetoric preserves the freedom to say, 'I am not.

  Samuel R. Delany

  Rhetoric, Preserves

  Samuel R. Delany (2014). “The American Shore: Meditations on a Tale of Science Fiction by Thomas M. Disch—“Angouleme””, p.150, Wesleyan University Press

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• No longer is the body a temple to be worshipped as the house of God; it has become a commodified and regulated object that must be strictly monitored by its owner to prevent lapses into health-threatening behaviors as identified by risk discourse. For those with the socioeconomic resources to indulge in risk modification, this discourse may supply the advantages of a new religion; for others, this discourse has the potential to create anxiety and guilt, to promote hopelessness and fear of the future.

  Deborah Lupton

  Indulge In, House, Anxiety

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• In Israel, there is this reduction of the political discourse to something that is very limited. It's as if you have that pitch that only dogs can hear. Sometimes I feel I speak at such a pitch that very few people around me communicate with what I'm saying.

  Etgar Keret

  Dog, Israel, People

  "My country right and wrong". Interview With Rory McCarthy, www.theguardian.com. June 6, 2008.

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• Somaaesthetics can be provisionally defined a the critical meliorative study of one's experience and use of one's body as a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-fashioning. It is therefore also devoted to the knowledge, discourses, and disciplines that structure such somatic care or can improve it.

  Richard Shusterman

  Appreciation, Philosophy, Self

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• Relations of power "are indissociable from a discourse of truth, and they can neither be established nor function unless a true discourse is produced, accumulated, put into circulation, and set to work. Power cannot be exercised unless a certain economy of discourses of truth functions in, on the basis of, and thanks to, that power."

  Michel Foucault

  Knowledge And Power, Thanks, Economy

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