Insistence Quotes - Page 5

• Part of the power of Emerson's individualism is his insistence, at crucial moments, that individualism does not mean isolation or self-sufficiency. This is not a paradox, for it is only the strong individual who can frankly concede the sometimes surprising extent of his own dependence.

  Robert D. Richardson

  Strong, Mean, Thinking

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• The rhythmic pattern of the poem, which forces continuity of attention - incites a pleasurable compulsion to 'follow' - is either a tried metrical suasion-contrivance or a specially invented pattern of physical insistences, equally, if not more, binding in its effect on the reader. From a straight linguistic point of view, there is room for wonder if there is not latent vice in this environment in which pleasurable physically-compelled responses, produced by incidents of poetic utterance, are identified with the Good.

  Laura Riding

  Views, Vices, Attention

  "The Promise of Words". London Review of Books, Vol. 17, No. 17, p. 23, September 07, 1995.

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• The material memories are not usually part of what is said about a picture, and that is a fault in interpretation because every painting captures a certain resistance of paint, a prodding gesture of the brush, a speed and insistence in the face of mindless matter.

  James Elkins

  Memories, Gestures, Matter

  James Elkins (2004). “What Painting Is”, p.2, Routledge

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• I might have arguments with the size of Reagan's military buildup, but given the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, staying ahead of the Soviets militarily seemed a sensible thing to do. Pride in our country, respect for our armed services, a healthy appreciation for the dangers beyond our borders, an insistence that there was no easy equivalence between East and West--in all this I had no quarrel with Reagan. And when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, I had to give the old man his due, even if I never gave him my vote.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Appreciation, Wall

  Barack Obama (2007). “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream”, p.289, Canongate Books

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• It happens from time to time in every complex and active society, that certain persons feel the complexity and insistence as a tangle, and seek freedom in retirement, as Thoreau sought at Walden Pond. They do not, however, in this manner escape from the social institutions of their time, nor do they really mean to do so; what they gain, if they are successful, is a saner relation to them.

  Charles Horton Cooley

  Retirement, Mean, Successful

  Charles Horton Cooley (1992). “Human Nature and the Social Order”, p.429, Transaction Publishers

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• This insistence on "having his say upon the universe" is the profoundest motive of William James thinking as well as of his filial gratitude.

  Ralph Barton Perry

  Gratitude, Thinking, Motive

  "The Thought and Character of William James, Volume 1". Book by Ralph Barton Perry, 1935.

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• There is nothing in the basic principles of liberalism to make it a stationary creed; there are no hard-and-fast rules fixed once and for all. ... Probably nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rules of thumb, above all the principle of laissez faire.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Principles, Done, Thumbs

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 1 : The Abandoned Road, 1940 - 1943.

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• The weaker the man in authority... the stronger his insistence that all his privileges be acknowledged.

  Austin O'Malley

  Men, Stronger, Privilege

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• The real problem is not the religion itself, but its insistence that the interpretation it offers of the world is the only valid interpretation.

  Avtarjeet Singh Dhanjal

  Real, Religion, World

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• There is no ideal length, but you develop a little interior gauge that tells you whether or not you're supporting the house or detracting from it. When a piece gets too long, the tension goes out of it. That word—tension—has an animal insistence for me. A piece of writing rises and falls with tension. The writer holds one end of the rope and the reader holds the other end—is the rope slack, or is it tight? Does it matter to the reader what the next sentence is going to be?

  John Jeremiah Sullivan

  Fall, Writing, Animal

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• Education, and the life of the mind generally, is a matter in which individual initiative is the chief thing needed; the function of the state should begin and end with insistence on some kind of education, and, if possible, a kind which promotes mental individualism, not a kind which happens to conform to the prejudices of government officials.

  Bertrand Russell

  Government, Mind, Prejudice

  Bertrand Russell, Richard A. Rempel (1995). “Pacifism and Revolution, 1916-18”, p.261, Psychology Press

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• Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

  Eric Hoffer

  Good Life, Fighting, Men

  "The Temper of Our Time". Book by Eric Hoffer, 1967.

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• Personalism's insistence that only personality-finite and infinite-is ultimately real strengthened me in two convictions: it gave me metaphysical and philosophical grounding for the idea of a personal God, and it gave me a metaphysical basis for the dignity and worth of all human personality.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Real, Philosophical

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Alex Ayres (1993). “The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Plume

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• Satyagraha means insistence on what one knows to be the truth. The insistence implies the exercise of free will as the need of social obligation. If one is content to know the truth himself, he does not become a votary of Satyagraha. A Satyagrahi should not only know the truth but should insist upon it in social relations. So Satyagraha is activation of truthfulness.

  Goparaju Ramachandra Rao

  Mean, Exercise, Atheism

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• The insistence on truthfulness does not disturb the freedom of the individual. The social obligation implied in Satyagraha turns the freedom of the individual into moral freedom. An atheist is free to say or to do what he likes, provided he does what he says and says what he does. So, in the context of social relations, the freedom of the individual is moral freedom.

  Goparaju Ramachandra Rao

  Atheist, Atheism, Doe

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• It cannot be too strongly asserted that the insistence on blind, unreasoning faith is due mainly to the maintenance of a subject-matter upon which there was no knowledge, namely the 'other world'; and that this basis was assumed because of early man's preoccupation with death. It is, unfortunately, quite possible to believe a thing which is contradicted by facts, especially if the facts are not generally known; but if the whole position on which we rested our religions had been visibly opposed by what we did know, even the unthinking masses would, in time, have noticed it.

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Faith, Believe, Men

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman (2003). “His Religion and Hers: A Study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work of Our Mothers”, p.228, Rowman Altamira

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• Our skin, our borders, all seem petty compared to alien races and the scale of galaxies. Nobody in the Star Wars universe cares about white or black humans, it seems, and what meaning could physical appearance possibly have when there are sentient beings that look like lobsters or like Jabba the Hutt? Unfortunately, in the real world, such hopeful sentiments are regularly refuted by our stubborn insistence on always finding someone to discriminate against.

  Garry Kasparov

  Real, War, Hopeful

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• The only way a work of art can become great is for one to acknowledge that it doesn't belong to anybody. The greatness is in constantly giving back, coming to an acknowledgment of the source. Look back to the source of any individual, any process, any set of materials. If the individual personality can relinquish its insistence on concepts like this is mine, I did it, this is original, nobody else has done it, it goes straight for greatness or the essential spirit.

  Paul Caponigro

  Art, Greatness, Giving

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• advocating women's rights and greater opportunity for women in the workplace and in every avenue of public life is inconsistent with an insistence on mother taking care of children and housework.

  Mary Frances Berry

  Mother, Children, Opportunity

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• The great, God-blessed churches in the world today have one common characteristic: an insistence upon an exposition of God's infallible Word.

  O. S. Hawkins

  Bible, Blessed, Church

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• The moral spectacle of capitalism still offends, as does American capitalism's implacable insistence that the market determine value even in the political, intellectual, and artistic spheres.

  William Pfaff

  Political, Intellectual, Spheres

  "Barbarian Sentiments - How The American Century Ends". Book by William Pfaff, Chapter 2, The Challenge of Europe, p. 31, 1989.

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• The end of poetry is not to create a physical condition which shall give pleasure to the mind... The end of poetry is not an after-effect, not a pleasurable memory of itself, but an immediate, constant and even unpleasant insistence upon itself.

  Laura Riding

  Memories, Giving, Mind

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• We are commanded to love God with all our strength, heart, mind and soul and our neighbor in the same way God loves us - it is the same love flowing between God and the soul - the soul and its neighbor. It is difficult, but the burden of the cross is light compared to the cross of uncontrolled emotions, anger, insistence on one's own opinion, the frustration of trying to change others rather than being changed oneself, resentment, regrets and guilt. Accepting the present moment like Jesus did is certainly a lighter burden.

  Mother Angelica

  Jesus, Regret, Heart

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• I associate the garden with the whole experience of being alive, and so, there is nothing in the range of human experience that is separate from what the garden can signify in its eagerness and its insistence, and in its driving energy to live -- to grow, to bear fruit.

  Stanley Kunitz

  Garden, Energy, Alive

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• Liberalism regards all absolutes with profound skepticism, including both moral imperatives and final solutions... Insistence upon any particular solution is the mark of an ideologue.

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

  Faith, Freedom, Knowledge

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