Negation Quotes - Page 2

• The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind both in theory and practice.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Practice, Ideas, Justice

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• But when I fell in love with black, it contained all color. It wasn’t a negation of color. It was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors. Black is the most aristocratic color of all.... You can be quiet and it contains the whole thing.

  Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

  Acceptance, Color, Black

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• Where no guiding ideals are left to point the way, the scale of values disappears and with it the meaning of our deeds and sufferings, and at the end can lie only negation and despair. Religion is therefore the foundation of ethics, and ethics the presupposition of life.

  Werner Heisenberg

  Lying, Suffering, Despair

  Werner Heisenberg (1990). “Across the frontiers”, Ox Bow Pr

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• All the seemingly positive valuations and judgments of ressentiment are hidden devaluations and negations.

  Max Scheler

  Judgment, Valuation

  Max Scheler, Harold J. Bershady (1992). “On Feeling, Knowing, and Valuing: Selected Writings”, p.132, University of Chicago Press

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• The decision must be made between Judaism and Christianity, between business and culture, between male and female, between the race and the individual, between unworhtiness and worth, between the earthly and the higher life, between negation and God-like. Mankind has the choice to make. There are only two poles, and there is no middle way.

  Otto Weininger

  Race, Two, Choices

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• Panentheistic doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations.

  Charles Hartshorne

  Doctrine, Arbitrary, Deism

  "Man's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism" by Charles Hartshorne, (p. 348), 1941.

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• I believe it safe to say that all progress must lead, not to further progress, but finally to the negation of progress, a return to the point of departure.

  Eugene Delacroix

  Believe, Progress, Departure

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• There is no virtue in being uncritical; nor is it a habit to which the young are given. But criticism is only the burying beetle that gets rid of what is dead, and, since the world lives by creative and constructive forces, and not by negation and destruction, it is better to grow up in the company of prophets than of critics.

  Richard Livingstone

  Education, Growing Up, Creative

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• Far too many girls' and women's romantic relationships are formed around a negation of their own worth and attributes rather than a confirmation of them.

  Mariella Frostrup

  Girl, Confirmation, Attributes

  "I enjoy the freedom of being single - but should I be looking for a partner?" by Mariella Frostrup, www.theguardian.com. December 22, 2013.

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• I no longer see Descartes' statement as arbitrary. It is representative of our culture's narcissism. This narcissism leads to a disturbing disrespect for direct experience and a negation of the body.

  Derrick Jensen

  Disrespect, Culture, Arbitrary

  Derrick Jensen (2012). “The Derrick Jensen Reader: Writings on Environmental Revolution”, p.19, Seven Stories Press

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• Mere negation, mere Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes, has never disturbed the peace of the world. It furnishes no motive for action; it inspires no enthusiasm; it has no missionaries, no crusades, no martyrs.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Inspire, Infidelity, World

  "Ranke's History of the Popes" by Thomas B. Macaulay, "Edinburgh Review", October, 1840.

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• In contrast to the knowledge that keeps man in a passive quietude, Desire dis-quiets him and moves him to action. Born of Desire, action tends to satisfy it, and can do so only by the 'negation,' the destruction or at least the transformation, of the desired object: to satisfy hunger, for example, the food must be destroyed or, in any case, transformed. Thus all action is 'negating'.

  Alexandre Kojeve

  Moving, Men, Desire

  Alexandre Kojève (1980). “Introduction to the Reading of Hegel”, p.4, Cornell University Press

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• When affirmation and negation came into being, Tao faded. After Tao faded, then came one-sided attachments.

  Zhuangzi

  Attachment, Tao, Affirmation

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• Liberty is no negation. It is a substantive, tangible reality.

  James A. Garfield

  Reality, Liberty, Tangible

  Garfield, James A. (1882). “The works of James Abram Garfield. Volume 1”, p.108, Best Books on

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• Christianity is the complete negation of common sense and sound reason.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Common Sense, Sound, Christianity

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• Atheism in its negation of gods is at the same time the strongest affirmation of man, and through man, the eternal yea to life, purpose, and beauty.

  Emma Goldman

  Atheist, Men, Atheism

  Emma Goldman (1983). “Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader”, Schocken

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• And here we come to the vital distinction between the advocacy of temperance and the advocacy of prohibition. Temperance and self-control are convertible terms. Prohibition, or that which it implies, is the direct negation of the term self-control. In order to save the small percentage of men who are too weak to resist their animal desires, it aims to put chains on every man, the weak and the strong alike. And if this is proper in one respect, why not in all respects? Yet, what would one think of a proposition to keep all men locked up because a certain number have a propensity to steal?

  Felix Mendelssohn

  Strong, War, Animal

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• My work...is to shatter the faith of men here, there, and everywhere, faith in affirmation, faith in negation, and faith in abstention from faith, and this for the sake of faith in faith itself.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Writing, Men, Sake

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• Indeed, the term body (jism), organs ('arad), extent (mutahayyiz) and their like are all newly-invented terminologies. We have mentioned many a time before that the Salaf and the Imaams have not spoken about such things, neither by way of a negation nor by way of affirmation. Rather, they declared those who spoke about such matters to be innovators and went to great lengths to censure them.

  Ibn Taymiyyah

  Body, Matter, Way

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• I discovered that joy is not the negation of pain, but rather acknowledging the presence of pain and feeling happiness in spite of it.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Pain, Joy, Feelings

  Interview with T. Cole Rachel, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 5, 2013.

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• The student should bear in mind that the very essence of consciousness is constantly to identify itself with the Not-Self, and as constantly to re-assert itself by rejecting the Not-Self. Consciousness, in fact, consists of this alternating assertion and negation - "I am this" - "I am not this." Hence consciousness is, and causes in matter, the attracting and repelling that we call a vibration.

  Arthur E. Powell

  Spiritual, Self, Essence

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• Take away from love the fullness of self surrender, the completeness of personal commitment, and what remains will be a total denial and negation of it.

  Pope John Paul II

  Commitment, Self, Denial

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• Men are admitted into heaven not because they have curbed and governed their passions or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. The treasures of heaven are not negations of passion, but realities of intellect, from which all the passions emanate uncurbed in their eternal glory.

  William Blake

  Passion, Reality, Men

  William Blake (1977). “The Portable William Blake”, p.454, Penguin

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• He thought of the jungle, already regrowing around him to cover the scars they had created. He thought of the tiger, killing to eat. Was that evil? And ants? They killed. No, the jungle wasn’t evil. It was indifferent. So, too, was the world. Evil, then, must be the negation of something man had added to the world. Ultimately, it was caring about something that made the world liable to evil. Caring. And then the caring gets torn asunder. Everybody dies, but not everybody cares.

  Karl Marlantes

  Caring, Men, Evil

  Karl Marlantes (2010). “Matterhorn”, p.264, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Live Life, Reality, Two

  Charlotte Bronte (2016). “Villette”, p.76, Xist Publishing

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