Distortion Quotes - Page 3

• I am interested in making up a good case for distortion, as I am coming to believe it is the only way to make people see.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Believe, People, Crafts

  Flannery O'Connor (1988). “The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor”, p.79, Macmillan

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• Rationalization is a cover-up, a process of providing one's emotions with a false identity, of giving them spurious explanations and justifications - in order to hide one's motives, not just from others, but primarily from oneself. The price of rationalizing is the hampering, the distortion, and, ultimately, the destruction of one's cognitive faculty. Rationalization is a process not of perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one's emotions.

  Ayn Rand

  Reality, Order, Giving

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.25, Penguin

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• In a word, to perceive an object abstractly means not to perceive some aspects of it. It clearly implies selection of some attributes, rejection of other attributes, creation or distortion of still others. We make of it what we wish. We create it.

  Abraham Maslow

  Mean, Rejection, Wish

  Abraham H. Maslow (2013). “Toward a Psychology of Being”, p.91, Simon and Schuster

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• Vanity, fear, desire, competition - all such distortions within our own egos - condition our vision of those in relation to us. Add to those distortions to our own egos the corresponding distortions in the egos of others, and you see how cloudy the glass must become through which we look at each other.

  Tennessee Williams

  Vanity, Glasses, Competition

  Tennessee Williams (2007). “The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams Volume II: 1945-1957”, p.95, New Directions Publishing

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• But I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure at all. How did I know that someday―at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere―the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?

  Sylvia Plath

  College, Europe, Bells

  Sylvia Plath (2016). “The Bell Jar”, p.124, Hamilton Books

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• ...in words and pickles, I have immortalized my memories, although distortions are inevitable in both methods. We must live, I'm afraid, with the shadows of imperfections.

  Salman Rushdie

  Memories, Imperfection, Shadow

  Salman Rushdie (2010). “Midnight's Children”, p.642, Random House

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• The need for truth is not constant; no more than is the need for repose. An idea which is a distortion may have a greater intellectual thrust than the truth; it may better serve the needs of the spirit, which vary. The truth is balance, but the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie.

  Susan Sontag

  Lying, Opposites, Ideas

  Susan Sontag (1983). “A Susan Sontag reader”, Vintage

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• The fear that we cannot grow beyond whatever distortions we may find within ourselves keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, externally defined, and leads us to accept many facets of our own oppression as women.

  Audre Lorde

  Loyal, May, Oppression

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• The old idea that words possess magical powers is false; but its falsity is the distortion of a very important truth. Words do have a magical effect - but not in the way that magicians supposed, and not on the objects they were trying to influence. Words are magical in the way they affect the minds of those who use them.

  Aldous Huxley

  Ideas, Mind, Important

  Quoted as the opening passage of "BOOK ONE: The Functions of Language" in "Language in Thought and Action" by S. I. Hayakawa, (p. 3), 1949.

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• We act empty and innocent but we are fueled by distortions of lives led in discontent trading misfortunes cause faith is one thing that is hard to deliver it feels funny being free.

  Amy Ray

  Being Free, Causes, Innocent

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• Our attempts to reshape others may produce change, but the change is distortion rather than transformation.

  David Keirsey

  May, Transformation, Produce

  David Keirsey (1998). “Please Understand Me 2”, Prometheus Nemesis Book Company

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• The exhibition of real strength is never grotesque. Distortion is the agony of weakness. It is the dislocated mind whose movements are spasmodic.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Strength, Real, Agony

  Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.40

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• Inside each of us resides the truth, I began, the absolute truth. But sometimes the truth is hidden in a hall of mirrors. Sometimes we believe we are viewing the real thing, when in fact we are viewing a facsimile, a distortion.

  Garth Stein

  Real, Believe, Mirrors

  Garth Stein (2008). “The Art of Racing in the Rain”, Harper

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• So after a long time of utilizing the American propaganda machine, along with official statements of lies, distortion and falsehood, the focus was basically turned on inciting the American public against Iraq and pushing them to accept the American administration's schemes of aggression as a fait accompli, as if it were the solution or the necessary rescue that would allow American citizens to live in security and stability, after what they had gone through in the September 11 attacks.

  Naji Sabri

  Lying, Iraq, Long

  "Saddam's letter to U.N. says U.S. wants oil". www.cnn.com. September 20, 2002.

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• Lies and distortions can be spread, via the Internet, in an inexpensive way, and the effects are astounding.

  Tony Campolo

  Lying, Way, Internet

  "Why the Religious Right Will Dominate" by Tony Campolo, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 4, 2010.

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• Men cannot abandon their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect and a sort of violent distortion of their true nature; they are invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments. Unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state of mankind.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Religious, Men, Aberration

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2003). “Democracy in America”, p.282, Barnes & Noble Publishing

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• There is no true expertise in the humanities without knowing all of the humanities. Art is a vast, ancient interconnected web-work, a fabricated tradition. Over-concentration on any one point is a distortion.

  Camille Paglia

  Art, Knowing, Humanity

  Camille Paglia (2011). “Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays”, p.208, Vintage

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• I think the greatest illusion we have is that denial protects us. It's actually the biggest distortion and lie. In fact, staying asleep is what's killing us.

  Eve Ensler

  Lying, Thinking, Denial

  "Interview with Eve Ensler: In The Body of the World". Interview with Marianne Schnall, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 29, 2013.

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• . . . the upsurge of Spirit is the only plausible way to stop the ecological destruction of our planet. Even people who have no interest in a communal solution to the distortions in our lives will have to face up [to] this ecological reality. Unless we transform our relationship with nature, we will destroy the preconditions for human life on this planet.

  Michael Lerner

  Reality, People, Way

  Michael Lerner (2000). “Spirit Matters”, Hampton Roads Publishing Company Incorporated

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• President Obama has outsourced a major portion of the U.S. space program to the Russians. That's national policy. Taxpayer money. So let's stop playing games with this outsourcing distortion and talk about the fact that when we need is a president that knows how to manage big enterprise and create jobs.

  John Sununu

  Jobs, Playing Games, Space

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• The universal pervasion of ugliness, hideous landscapes, vile noises, foul language...everything. Unnatural, broken, blasted; the distortion of the dead, whose unburiable bodies sit outside the dug outs all day, all night, the most execrable sights on earth. In poetry we call them the most glorious.

  Wilfred Owen

  Night, Sight, Broken

  Wilfred Owen (1965). “The Collected poems of Wilfred Owen”, p.22, New Directions Publishing

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• Truth is always the first war casualty. The emotional disturbances and distortions in historical writing are greatest in wartime.

  Harry Elmer Barnes

  War, Writing, Emotional

  Harry Elmer Barnes (1980). “Revisionism: A Key to Peace and Other Essays”

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• The society to which we belong seems to be dying or is already dead. I don't mean to sound dramatic, but clearly the dark side is rising. Things could not have been more odd and frightening in the Middle Ages. But the tradition of artists will continue no matter what form the society takes. And this is another reason to write: people need us, to mirror for them and for each other without distortion-not to look around and say, 'Look at yourselves, you idiots!,' but to say, 'This is who we are.

  Anne Lamott

  Mean, Writing, Dark

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.234, Anchor

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• I've never known, at least a modern historical instance, where the truth wasn't superior to distortion in every way.

  Shelby Foote

  Historical, Way, Modern

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