Dubious Quotes - Page 2

• If your opponent has you by fifty pounds, winning a fight against him is a dubious proposition, at best. If your opponent has you by eight thousand and fifty pounds, you’ve left the realm of combat and enrolled yourself in Road-kill 101. Or possibly in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

  Jim Butcher

  Fighting, Winning, Eight

  Jim Butcher (2009). “Small Favor: A Novel of the Dresden Files”, p.200, Penguin

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• One can forget the meaninglessness of his own existence by occupying himself with scientific experiments of dubious import. Countless scientists and scholars spend their lives in the search of truths that are irrelevant to them.

  John Silber

  Life, Forget, Scientist

  7 Copy quote

• I'm not a pacifist by any measure, but I'm also fully aware that the reasons I might go to war could be very dubious.

  Sherman Alexie

  War, Might, Reason

  "Sherman Alexie: Don’t Call Me Warrior". Interview with Kiera Butler, www.motherjones.com. November 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• He is a friend who, in dubious circumstances, aids in deeds when deeds are necessary.

  Plautus

  Friends, Deeds, Aids

  Titus Maccius Plautus (1852). “The comedies of Plautus literally tr., with notes, by H.T. Riley”, p.427

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• My back swing off the first tee had put him in mond of an eldery woman of dubious morals trying to struggle out of a dress too tight around the shoulders.

  Patrick Campbell, 3rd Baron Glenavy

  Struggle, Swings, Trying

  4 Copy quote

• Computer models of the climate....[are] a very dubious business if you don't have good inputs.

  Freeman Dyson

  Climate, Input, Global Warming

  4 Copy quote

• Self-pity is an ignoble emotion, but we all feel it, and the orthodox critical line that it represents some kind of artistic flaw is dubious, a form of emotional correctness.

  Nick Hornby

  Emotional, Self, Lines

  Nick Hornby (2003). “Songbook”, p.49, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am always shocked that there are still a handful of defenders of the dubious practice of abstinence, surely the worst idea since chocolate-covered ants.

  Dick Cavett

  Practice, Ideas, Chocolate

  4 Copy quote

• I’m saying language is a passport. A dubious, dangerous passport too.

  Xiaolu Guo

  Language, Dangerous, Passports

  "Writers attack 'overrated' Anglo-American literature at Jaipur festival" by Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. January 20, 2014.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I adore [photography's] uneasy mix of fact and fiction - its dubious claim to truth - its status as history.

  Eleanor Antin

  Photography, Fiction, Facts

  9 Copy quote

• We say that we often see animals in our dreams, but we forget that almost always we are ourselves animals therein, deprived of that reasoning power which projects upon things the light of certainty; on the contrary we bring to bear on the spectacle of life only a dubious vision, extinguished anew every moment by oblivion, the former reality fading before that which follows it as one projection of a magic lantern fades before the next as we change the slide.

  Marcel Proust

  Dream, Animal, Reality

  Marcel Proust (1981). “Remembrance of Things Past: Swann's way. Within a budding grove”, New York : Random House

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• When you go apartment-hunting in the South, you encounter little old ladies who ask you if you use strong drink. In New York you encounter paranoids who wonder if you will commit suicide--not that they care; what they worry about is blood on their fresh paint, a dubious smell in the hallway, or a hole in the awning as you pass through on your way to the sidewalk. The Southerner who moves to any part of the country has problems, but the culture shock that attacks the Southerner who moves North is almost indescribable.

  Florence King

  Suicide, Country, Strong

  Florence King (1976). “Southern ladies and gentlemen”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The idea that Hezbollah is acting as an agent of Iran is very dubious. It's not accepted by specialists on Iran or specialists on Hezbollah. But it's the party line. Or sometimes you can put in Syria, i.e. "Syrian-supported Hezbollah," but since Syria is of less interest now you have to emphasize Iranian support.

  Noam Chomsky

  Party, Iran, Ideas

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• This is why I believe that many of our current eschatologies, intoxicated by dubious interpretations of John’s Apocalypse are not only ignorant and wrong, but dangerous and immoral.

  Brian D. McLaren

  Believe, Ignorant, Apocalypse

  Brian D. McLaren (2009). “Everything Must Change: When the World's Biggest Problems and Jesus' Good News Collide”, p.144, Thomas Nelson Inc

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• So many young decorators are trying to reinvent the wheel, and the results are sometimes very dubious. They're striving to do things that have never been done before. Quite often it is done without authority, without knowledge, and without a background in taste. They need to be educated about the past, and they need a richer vocabulary.

  Albert Hadley

  Past, Vocabulary, Design

  14 Copy quote

• All obvious moves look dubious in analysis after the game.

  Viktor Korchnoi

  Moving, Games, Analysis

  24 Copy quote

• To me, nothing in the art world is neutral. The idea of 'disinterest' strikes me as boring, dishonest, dubious, and uninteresting.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Ideas, World

  8 Copy quote

• Landscape pictures can offer us, I think, three verities: geography, autobiography, and metaphor. Geography is, if taken alone, sometimes boring, autobiography is frequently trivial, and metaphor can be dubious. But taken together, as in the best work of people like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, the three kinds of information strengthen each other and reinforce what we all work to keep intact - the affection for life.

  Robert Adams

  Photography, Taken, Thinking

  Robert Adams (1989). “Beauty in photography: essays in defense of traditional values”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Bernard Williams has been a distinctive presence on the intellectual scene for more than three decades. . . . His writings do not offer the dubious exhilaration of grand philosophical theory, in which messy reality is tamed and caged, but the thrill of seeing pretension punctured by a kind of high-voltage common sense (backed up by impressive erudition). . . . There is no one in philosophy quite like him.

  Colin McGinn

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Writing

  8 Copy quote

• From her dubious tone alone, I could see how Karin had no idea how terrifying words spoken quietly could be. How words chosen precisely to wreak maximum damage ticked like a bomb in your head, but exploded in your heart hours later, leaving you scarred and changed.

  Justina Chen

  Heart, Ideas, Leaving

  4 Copy quote

• I kissed her," he explained, aggrieved. "Mmm, yes, I had the dubious pleasure of witnessing that, ah-hem, overly public occurrence." Lyall sharpened his pen nib, using a small copper blade that ejected from the end of his glassicals. "Well! Why hasn't she done anything about it?" the Alpha wanted to know. "You mean like whack you upside the noggin with that deadly parasol of hers? I would be cautious in that area if I were you.

  Gail Carriger

  Mean, Would Be, Done

  6 Copy quote

• I can be fairly optimistic, but I'm probably more a realist, I think. I mean, optimism's an interesting quality, isn't it, because I'm always slightly dubious as to what's behind it?

  Guy Pearce

  Optimistic, Mean, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsifies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes.

  Blaise Cendrars

  Eye, Writing, Light

  7 Copy quote

• Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art. It makes art into an article for use, for arrangement into a mental scheme of categories.

  Susan Sontag

  Art, Criticism, Use

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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I still come closest to success with drawing. When I use color the results are dubious, for these painfully gained experiences bear less fruit.

  Paul Klee

  Color, Drawing, Use

  Paul Klee, Felix Klee (1968). “The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918”, p.141, Univ of California Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source