Norm Quotes - Page 4

• Some people's blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  People, Double Standard, Morality

  Dorothy L. Sayers (2012). “Gaudy Night”, p.131, Open Road Media

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• But if it ever occurs to people to value the honor of the mind equally with the honor of the body, we shall get a social revolution of a quite unparalleled sort — and very different from the kind that is being made at the moment.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Beauty, People, Mind

  "Gaudy Night".

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• A bit of theory as we settle down for lunch: the waiter's treatment of Kitty is actually a kind of sandwich, with the bottom bread being the bored and slightly effete way he normally acts with customers, the middle being the crazed and abnormal way he feels around this famous nineteen-year-old girl, and the top bread being his attempt to contain and conceal this alien middle layer with some mode of behavior that at least approximates the bottom layer of boredom and effeteness that is his norm.

  Jennifer Egan

  Girl, Years, Lunch

  Jennifer Egan (2010). “A Visit from the Goon Squad”, p.128, Anchor

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• "But when you hear men talking," said Cornelia, "all they ever do is speak ill of women. 'And I don't quite know how they've managed to make this law in their favor, or who exactly it was who gave them a greater license to sin than is allowed to us; and if the fault is common to both sexes (as they can hardly deny), why should the blame not be as well?

  Moderata Fonte

  Sex, Men, Thinking

  "The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men".

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• One tended to lose one’s bearings in the presence of willful and persistent acts of craziness, and the more gentle the act, the crazier it seemed, as if rage and violence, being closer to the norm, were easier to accommodate.

  Tom Robbins

  Violence, Rage, Craziness

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Skinny Legs and All”, p.225, Bantam

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• The key is to be true to your community's norms and values. You can't just force yourself on people and try to sell them something they don't want - that's good advice for marketers generally, but particularly on community-driven sites like MySpace. You have to find ways to add value to your members' lives while being consistent with your brand's identity.

  Chris DeWolfe

  Business, Keys, People

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• Beauty might prevail in the very short term, but in the medium and longer terms, cultural norms - primarily those values and norms influenced by family - were more important.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Important, Might, Term

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• The requirement of conspicuous wastefulness is... present as a constraining norm selectively shaping and sustaining our sense of what is beautiful.

  Thorstein Veblen

  Beautiful, Requirements, Wastefulness

  Thorstein Veblen (1993). “A Veblen Treasury: From Leisure Class to War, Peace, and Capitalism”, p.71, M.E. Sharpe

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• Giving importance to what we think because we thought it, taking our own selves not only (to quote the Greek philosopher) as the measure of all things but as their norm or standard, we create in ourselves, if not an interpretation, at least a criticism of the universe, which we don't even know and therefore cannot criticize. The giddiest, most weak-minded of us then promote that criticism to an interpretation that's superimposed, like a hallucination; induced rather than deduced. It's a hallucination in the strict sense, being an illusion based on something only dimly seen.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Thinking, Self, Giving

  Fernando Pessoa (2005). “The Education of the Stoic: The Only Manuscript of the Baron of Teive”

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• Why not assume that our humanity, including the self-control needed for livable societies, is built into us? Does anyone truly believe that our ancestors lacked social norms before they had religion? Did they never assist others in need, or complain about an unfair deal? Humans must have worried about the functioning of their communities well before the current religions arose, which is only a few thousand years ago.

  Frans de Waal

  Believe, Self, Years

  "Morals Without God?". opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com. October 17, 2010.

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• An art form requires genius. People of genius are always troublemakers, meaning they start from scratch, demolish accepted norms, and rebuild a new world.

  Henri Langlois

  Art, People, Scratches

  "Henri Langlois: The Phantom of the Cinémathèque", www.imdb.com. 2004.

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• The repudiation of the primacy of understanding means the repudiation of the norms of judgment as well, and hence the abandonment of all ethical standards.

  Johan Huizinga

  Mean, Ethical Standards, Understanding

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• Nuclear weapons production and testing has involved extensive health and environmental damage .... One of the most remarkable features of this damage has been the readiness of governments to harm the very people that they claimed they were protecting by building these weapons for national security reasons. In general, this harm was inflicted on people in disregard of democratic norms. Secrecy, fabrication of data, cover-ups in the face of attempted public inquiry, and even human experiments without informed consent have all occurred in nuclear weapons production and testing programs.

  Arjun Makhijani

  Government, Data, People

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• Free yourself from all believes, all norms. See that you live completely with beliefs. Free yourself from second hand information. See in you clearly what is beautiful. All that is beautiful in you is right. Look at the situation with an open mind, free from hearsay. The solution is in the situation. So, see the situation clearly with an open mind. Then the choiceless decision comes.

  Jean Klein

  Beautiful, Believe, Hands

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• ...men and women are sacrificed to the idols of profit and consumption: it is the "culture of waste." If you break a computer it is a tragedy, but poverty, the needs, the dramas of so many people end up becoming the norm.

  Pope Francis

  Drama, Men, Idols

  "Pope Francis On World Environment Day Speaks Of Food Waste, Lack Of Attention To Needs Of Poor", www.huffingtonpost.com. June 5, 2013.

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• Hollywood has more than its share of harsh and crewel stories. In fact, it's probably more the norm than the exception.

  Brent Spiner

  Hollywood, Stories, Facts

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• Don't be afraid to do weird stuff, so long as you do it cheaply and cover everyone's bets. Be bold. Be stupid, if you have to: so long as you don't hurt anybody, what's it matter how dopey your dream is? If I hadn't made TUSK? If I'd let it die as a podcast? I wouldn't have three other movies I'm now making within the span of a year. Some folks will try to shame you for trying something outside the norm; the only shame is in not trying to accomplish your dreams.

  Kevin Smith

  Dream, Hurt, Stupid

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• What we consider to be different depends on what we consider to be the norm.

  Youngme Moon

  Different, Depends

  Youngme Moon (2010). “Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd”, p.194, Crown Business

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• We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.

  Steven Pinker

  Children, Views, Law

  Steven Pinker (2011). “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”, p.480, Penguin

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• Only weeks after Oslo began, when nearly all the world and most of Israel was drunk with the idea of peace, I argued that a Palestinian society not constrained by democratic norms would be a fear society that would pose a grave threat to Israel.

  Natan Sharansky

  Peace, Israel, Ideas

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• Music can imply the infinite if enough things depart from the norm far enough. Strange "abnormal" events can lead to the feeling that anything can happen, and you have a music with no boundaries.

  Morton Feldman

  Feelings, Events, Abnormal

  Morton Feldman (2006). “Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964-1987”

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• The only ‘realistic’ prospect is to ground a new
  political universality by opting for the impossible,
  fully assuming the place of the exception, with no
  taboos, no a priori norms (‘human rights,’ ‘democracy’),
  respect for which would prevent us from ‘resignifying’
  terror, the ruthless exercise of power, the spirit of
  sacrifice … if this radical choice is decried by some
  bleeding-heart liberals as Linksfaschismus, so be it!

  Slavoj Žižek

  Heart, Exercise, Sacrifice

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• We no longer even understand the question whether change is by itself good or bad, ...We start out with the axiom that it is the norm. We do not see change as altering the order... We see change as being order itself - indeed the only order we can comprehend today is a dynamic, a moving, a changing one.

  Peter Drucker

  Moving, Order, Today

  "Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World". Book by Peter F. Drucker, 1959.

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• Even today to be civilised is held to be synonymous with being westernised. Advanced countries devote large resources to formulating and spreading ideas and doctrines and they tend to impose on the developing nations their own norms and methods. The pattern of the classical acquisitive society with its deliberate multiplication of wants not only is unsuited to conditions in our countries but is positively harmful.

  Indira Gandhi

  Country, Ideas, Doctrine

  Indira Gandhi (1971). “Selected Speeches of Indira Gandhi: The years of challenge, January 1966-August 1969”

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• On, those ever-changing moods of Moscow! How swiftly they go from black to white, from one extreme to another, from friendship to accusations, from adoration to hatred, from the permissive 'da' to that annihilating 'nyet.' Those eternal swings from a thaw to a freeze, whims that disregard their own rules, norms, and regulations!

  Svetlana Alliluyeva

  Swings, White, Hatred

  Svetlana Alliluyeva (1969). “Only One Year”

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