Modern World Quotes - Page 7

• They [Arabs] wanted to catch up with the modern world. The West appreciated that, but was more interested in colonies, markets, and spheres of influence. Such is the way in which historical forces operate: the give and take between nations, as between cultures, is no simple exchange

  Jabra Ibrahim Jabra

  Simple, Giving, Historical

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• The presence of the blacks is the greatest evil that threatens the United States. They increase, in the Gulf States, faster than do the whites. They cannot be kept for ever in slavery, since the tendencies of the modern world run strongly the other way. They cannot be absorbed into the white population, for the whites will not intermarry with them, not even in the North where they have been free for two generations. Once freed, they would be more dangerous than now, because they would not long submit to be debarred from political rights. A terrible struggle would ensue.

  James Bryce

  Running, Struggle, Two

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• Revisiting the Revolutionary War is a bracing reminder that the fate of a continent, and the shape of the modern world, turned on the free choices of remarkably few Americans defying an empire.

  George Will

  War, Fate, Choices

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• Although I studied Dante's Inferno as a student, it wasn't until recently, while researching in Florence, that I came to appreciate the enduring influence of Dante's work on the modern world.

  Dan Brown

  Appreciate, Florence, World

  "Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code sequel Inferno revealed by readers" by Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. January 15, 2013.

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• Some critics will say Coca-Cola made a marketing mistake. Some cynics will say that we planned the whole thing. The truth is we are not that dumb, and we are not that smart.

  Donald Keough

  Mistake, Smart, America

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• Newspaper : A device unable to distinguish between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.

  George Bernard Shaw

  America, World, Modern

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• People killing each other in the Middle East is not news. People not killing each other in the Middle East is news.

  Kelvin MacKenzie

  America, People, Killing Each Other

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• You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God! The British journalist.
  But seeing what the man will do unbribed, there's no occasion to!

  Humbert Wolfe

  Funny, Men, America

  The Uncelestial City (1930)

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• Every well-thought-out rebuttal to dogma, every scrap of intelligent logic, every absurdist reduction of some bullying stance is the antidote.

  George Sanders

  Bullying, Intelligent, America

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• I don't care what the New York Times says about me, and no one I care about cares what the New York Times says about me.

  Jesse Helms

  New York, America, World

  Jesse Helms (2005). “Here's where I Stand: A Memoir”, p.64, Jesse Helms Center

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• The best time to have a baby is when you're a black teenager.

  Sarah Silverman

  Funny, Baby, Teenager

  "Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic". www.imdb.com. 2005.

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• There are plenty of people who believe that Elvis is alive, or that aliens occasionally land here to do highly personal things to people, or that the whole idea of evolution is a conspiracy of godless scientists. Almost all of these people can vote and some of them have got guns.

  Terry Pratchett

  Believe, Gun, Land

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• Your DVD collection is organized, and so is your walk-in closet. Your car is clean and vacuumed, your frequently dialed numbers are programmed into your cordless phone, your telephone plan is suited to your needs, and your various gizmos interact without conflict. Your spouse is athletic, your kids are bright, your job is rewarding, your promotions are inevitable, everywhere you need to be comes with its own accessible parking. You look great in casual slacks.

  David Brooks

  Jobs, Kids, Phones

  David Brooks (2004). “On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense”, p.42, Simon and Schuster

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• Here we are at the edge of the world, the very edge of Western civilization, and all of us are so desperate to feel something, anything, that we keep falling into each other and f*****g our way toward the end of days.

  M.I.A.

  Fall, America, Civilization

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• How many of y'all wondered, like I did, during the LA riots when those people were being pulled out of their trucks and beaten half to death - step on the f***ing gas, man! They're on foot, you're in a truck - I think I see a way out of this.

  Bill Hicks

  Men, Thinking, Feet

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• San Francisco is the only city in America where marijuana is legal but plastic bags are not.

  Conan O'Brien

  Marijuana, San Francisco, America

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• The Greenpeace booth at all the rock and roll shows nowadays are akin to the old sorcerers who used to stand in the middle of villages warning of danger, 'When night wolf swallows mother moon, there will be great famine.'

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Mother, Night, Moon

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• In the realm of pop celebrity, the bar has been lowered so far that there is no bar. People can be famous for being famous, famous for being infamous, famous for having once been famous and, thanks largely to the Internet, famous for not being famous at all.

  Tom Shales

  America, People, Bars

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• 'Civilians' is a term I love. It's what Elizabeth Hurley used to describe people who weren't on TV.

  Alan Carr

  America, People, World

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• A modest critique of an age in which an actor is the President, in which fashion models are asked for their opinions, in which getting into a nightclub is seen as a significant human achievement.

  Jay McInerney

  Fashion, America, Achievement

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• Celebrity is a national drama whose characters' parts and plots are written by the tabloids, gossip columnists, websites and interactive buttons. The famous don't actually have to turn up to their own lives at all.

  A. A. Gill

  Drama, Character, America

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• During the Vietnam War, which lasted longer than any war we've ever been in - and which we lost - every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Country, War, Artist

  "Vonnegut at 80". Interview with David Hoppe, www.nuvo.net. January 1, 2003.

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• The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.

  Bertrand Russell

  Work, Needs, World

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “In Praise of Idleness”, p.7, Lulu Press, Inc

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• The moral certitude of the state in wartime is a kind of fundamentalism. And this dangerous messianic brand of religion, one where self-doubt is minimal, has come increasingly to color the modern world of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

  Chris Hedges

  Self, Color, Doubt

  Chris Hedges (2014). “War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning”, p.147, PublicAffairs

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• The mark of the modern world is the imagination of its profiteers and the counter-assertiveness of the oppressed. Exploitation and the refusal to accept exploitation as either inevitable or just constitute the continuing antinomy of the modern era, joined together in a dialectic which has far from reached its climax in the twentieth century.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Imagination, Together, World

  Immanuel Wallerstein (2011). “The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century, With a New Prologue”, p.357, Univ of California Press

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