Dubious Quotes - Page 4

• I will no longer allow my obligation as a veteran to remember those who died in the great wars to be co-opted by current or former politicians to justify our folly in Iraq, our morally dubious war on terror and our elimination of one's right to privacy.

  Harry Leslie Smith

  War, Iraq, Veteran

  "This year, I will wear a poppy for the last time" by Harry Leslie Smith, www.theguardian.com. November 8, 2013.

  49 Copy quote

  Show source

• All "if" statements about the past are as dubious as prophecies of the future are. It seems fairly plausible that if Alexander or Ghengis Khan had never been born, some other individual would have filled his place and executed the design of the Hellenic or Mongolic expansion; but the Alexanders of philosophy and religion, of science and art, seem less expendable; their impact seems less determined by economic challenges and social pressures; and they seem to have a much wider range of possibilities to influence the direction, shape and texture of civilizations.

  Arthur Koestler

  Art, Philosophy, Past

  "The Sleepwalkeers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe". Book by Arthur Koestler, 1959.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Except for half a dozen in each town the citizens are proud of that achievement of ignorance which is so easy to come by. To be 'intellectual' or 'artistic' or, in their own word, to be 'highbrow,' is to be priggish and of dubious virtue.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Ignorance, Achievement, Intellectual

  Sinclair Lewis (2008). “Main Street”, p.55, ReadHowYouWant.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• What we really need the poet's and orator's I help to keep alive in us is not, then, the common and gregarious courage which Robert Shaw showed when he marched with you, men of the Seventh Regiment. It is that more lonely courage which he showed when he dropped his warm commission in the glorious Second to head your dubious fortunes, negroes of the Fifty-fourth. That lonely kind of courage (civic courage as we call it in times of peace) is the kind of valor to which the monuments of nations should most of all be reared.

  William James

  Lonely, Men, Needs

  William James, Frederick Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, Ignas K. Skrupskelis (1982). “Essays in Religion and Morality”, p.72, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• No government is ever really in favor of so-called civil rights. It always tries to whittle them down. They are preserved under all governments, insofar as they survive at all, by special classes of fanatics, often highly dubious.

  H. L. Mencken

  Rights, Government, Class

  "Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks". Book by H. L. Mencken (p. 33), 1956.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The promises of pie-in-the-sky liberal environmentalists that we can convert to 'clean' energy sources and stimulate our economy are based on dubious environmental and economic assumptions, fantastic notions about alternative energy, and a disturbing acceptance of the tyrannies inherent in command-control economies.

  David Limbaugh

  Acceptance, Sky, Pie

  4 Copy quote

• New York congressmen have recently been plagued by a string of embarrassing scandals. Shirtless craigslist hunk Chris Lee, nonconsensual staff tickle monster, Eric Massa, naked texter Anthony Weiner, so this guy is now running to join those dubious ranks and win the Michael Grimm seat. And he`s campaigning on the promise that he`s too old to be too gross. And I`m not paraphrasing the campaign pledge.

  Rachel Maddow

  Running, New York, Winning

  4 Copy quote

• Most bloggers have no institutional credibility, and so they must build it, by linking transparently, and allowing you to easily double check their work. But more than anything, because linking sources is such an easy thing to do, and the motivations for avoiding links are so dubious, I've detected myself using a new rule of thumb: if you don't link to primary sources, I just don't trust you.

  Ben Goldacre

  Pain, Motivation, Thumbs

  7 Copy quote

• Scepticism commonly takes up the room left by defect of imagination, and is the very quality of mind most likely to seek for sensual proof of supersensual things. If one came from the dead it could not believe; and yet it longs for such a witness, and will put up with a very dubious one.

  James Russell Lowell

  Believe, Imagination, Sensual

  James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.1162, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I personally have never trusted museums. ... It is because museums, broadly speaking, live off of the art and artifacts of others, often art and artifacts that have been obtained by dubious means. But they also manipulate whatever it is they present to the public; hence, until Judy Chicago, in the 1970s ... few women artists were hung in any major museum. Indian artists? Artifacts only, please. Black artists? Something musical, maybe? And so forth.

  Alice Walker

  Art, Mean, Museums

  9 Copy quote

• The age of credulity is every age the world has ever known. Men have always turned from the ascertained, which is limited and discouraging, to the dubious, which is unlimited and full of hope for everybody.

  Agnes Repplier

  Men, Thinking, Age

  7 Copy quote

• Early publication can be a dubious blessing: we all know writers who would give anything not to have published their first book, and go about trying to buy up all existing copies.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Blessing, Giving

  Joyce Carol Oates (2009). “The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art”, p.25, Zondervan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• ... the advantages of being a postman seemed more and more dubious. It is not a congenial profession for anyone who is at all sensitive, for people visit upon the postman all their first annoyance at receiving a couple of bills when they looked for a love-letter, and if a packet is insufficiently stamped they hand over the pennies as though to a despicable bandit, too outrageous to be denied, too groveling to be feared.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Couple, Hands, People

  8 Copy quote

• Similarly, the press never tested many of the assumptions about WMDs. One of the great myths about the WMD issue is that everybody believed Iraq had them. Well, that's not true. There were a number of people in the intelligence community and the State Department who were skeptical, and many analysts in the Department of Energy were dubious about Iraq's nuclear capability. There were also people like Scott Ritter who were saying quite accurately what was going on.

  Seymour Hersh

  Wmd, Iraq, Numbers

  Source: www.progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Critics who perceive the first level of Mann's irony recognize that the second voice is giving us reasons to be dubious about various aspects of Aschenbach's life and work. But many of them don't appreciate the second level of irony, the one exemplified in setting this narrative voice alongside the more sympathetic one, and inviting us to choose.

  Philip Kitcher

  Narrative Voice, Appreciate, Giving

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The fact of the matter is that, for years, the restaurant and service industry has been, to a great extent, built on the backs of often underpaid immigrants of often dubious legal status.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Years, Matter, Facts

  "What's Eating Bourdain?". Interview with Leeanne Griffin, digitaledition.courant.com.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I would have private conversations with [Buckminster Fuller]. I once had an argument, for four hours, about the existence of the Mobius strip. Because he believed in the Klein Bottle, you see. And I said, "How in hell can you claim to believe in the Klein Bottle and think that the Mobius strip is dubious?" He said, "Well, it's a torus." I don't know what he had in his mind as a mathematical background, because I don't think he got topology. Because, in other words, the Mobius strip didn't have angles in it.

  Paul Laffoley

  Believe, Thinking, Mind

  Source: www.paranoiamagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When something tragic has happened, you'll find that you, the tragicee, become the person that has to make everything comfortable for everyone else.... As a tragicee and future divorcee, you'll also find that people will question you on the biggest decisions you've ever made in your life as though you hadn't thought about them at all before – as though, through their twenty questions and dubious faces, they're going to shine light on something that you missed the hundredth time around during your darkest hours.

  Cecelia Ahern

  Divorce, Light, People

  4 Copy quote

• Jesse [James] was known as a kind of Robin Hood character and also it was known that his exploits were somewhat dubious - however, he perpetuated this myth. Our film [The Assassination of Jesse James] really takes place at the end of all that, the last year of his life, at the end of all that celebrity.

  Brad Pitt

  Character, Years, Robins

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is hardly an aspect of contemporary history more irritating and mystifying than the fact that of all the great unsolved political questions of our century, it should have been this seemingly small and unimportant Jewish problem that had the dubious honor of setting the whole infernal machine in motion.

  Hannah

  Should Have, Political, Honor

  4 Copy quote

• It would have been easier to fight alone with inadequate forces than to have to accept...responsibility for our ally's lack of fighting qualities and dubious loyalty.

  Albert Kesselring

  Loyalty, War, Responsibility

  16 Copy quote

• The state is an organization of mere mortals who, by one dubious method or another, have been allowed to don the mantle of political legitimacy and to command obedience on pain of imprisonment even of those who never consented to the preposterous arrangement.

  Sheldon Richman

  Pain, Organization, Political

  10 Copy quote

• Profound insights arise only in debate, with a possibility of counterargument, only when there is a possibility of expressing not only correct ideas but also dubious ideas.

  Andrei Sakharov

  Wisdom, Ideas, Profound

  19 Copy quote

• If we address frankly what is evoked by cheese, I think it becomes clear why so little is said. So what does cheese evoke? Damp dark cellars, molds, mildews and mushrooms galore, dirty laundry and high school locker rooms, digestive processes and visceral fermentations, he-goats which do not remind of Chanel ... In sum, cheese reminds of dubious, even unsavory places, both in nature and in our own organisms. And yet we love it.

  Michael Pollan

  Dirty, School, Dark

  Michael Pollan (2013). “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation”, p.222, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The birth of a true poet is neither an insignificant event nor an easy delivery. Complications generally begin long before the fated soul carries its dubious light into whatever womb has been kind enough to volunteer the intricate machinery of its blood and prayers and muscles for a gestation period much longer than nine months or even nine years.

  Aberjhani

  Prayer, Light, Gestation Period

  Aberjhani (2014). “Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry”, p.28, Lulu.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source