Passive Quotes - Page 6

• I lived in Chicago for a few years and got a sense of - kind of that broad-shouldered, windy, um, stern, Midwestern, warm-slash-passive aggressive, wonderful - every adjective I can think of, very cold.

  Amy Poehler

  Thinking, Years, Chicago

  "Amy Poehler: Playing Politics, But Only On Television". NPR Interview, www.npr.org. October 20, 2011.

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• Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.

  Alan Rickman

  Misfits, Appeals, Maverick

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• The question I'm always asking myself is: are we masters or victims? Do we make history, or does history make us? Do we shape the world, or are we just shaped by it? The question of do we have agency in our lives or whether we are just passive victims of events is, I think, a great question, and one that I have always tried to ask.

  Salman Rushdie

  Thinking, Agency, Events

  "Salman Rushdie says he's glad he wrote The Satanic Verses". www.mirror.co.uk. October 1, 2008.

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• Dr. King used Gandhi's commitment to non-violence and to passive resistance.

  Al Sharpton

  Kings, Commitment, Passive Resistance

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• Man is constituted as a speculative being; he contemplates the world, and the objects around him, not with a passive indifferent eye, but as a system disposed with order and design.

  John Herschel

  Eye, Men, Order

  "A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy". Book by John Herschel, 1830.

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• In a tough situation, don't avoid acting just because it's easier or comfortable. Don't lapse into a passive state. People who give up, die.

  Gregory Benford

  Giving Up, People, Acting

  Gregory Benford, Larry Niven (2012). “Bowl of Heaven”, p.175, Macmillan

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• White space is to be regarded as an active element, not a passive background.

  Jan Tschichold

  White, Space, Design

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• Without knowledge and understanding, one tends to become a passive spectator rather than an active participant in the great decisions of our time.

  Diane Ravitch

  Decision, Understanding, Spectators

  Diane Ravitch (2016). “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, p.238, Basic Books

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• You are not a passive observer in the cosmos. The entire universe is expressing itself through you at this very moment.

  Jean Houston

  Cosmos, Moments, Observers

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• The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared food, confronts inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality.

  Wendell Berry

  Inspiring, Reality, Agriculture

  Wendell Berry (2010). “Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food (Large Print 16pt)”, p.286, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• There's nothing to be gained from passive observance, the simple documenting of conditions, because, at its core, it sets a bad example. Every time something is observed and not fixed, or when one has a chance to give in some way and does not, there is a lie being told, the same lie we all know by heart but which needn't be reiterated.

  Dave Eggers

  Lying, Heart, Simple

  Dave Eggers (2009). “You Shall Know Our Velocity”, p.297, Vintage

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• Lena knew she had spent too much of her life in a state of passive dread, just waiting for something bad to happen. In a life like that, relief was as close as you got to happiness.

  Ann Brashares

  Waiting, Relief, Too Much

  Ann Brashares (2012). “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Complete Collection”, p.287, Delacorte Press

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• His response was to fight it with the only weapons at hand—passive resistance and open displays of contempt.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Fighting, Hands, Passive Resistance

  Kurt Vonnegut (2007). “The Sirens of Titan”, p.203, Dial Press

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• I entered the classroom with the conviction that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer...education as the practice of freedom.... education that connects the will to know with the will to become. Learning is a place where paradise can be created.

  Bell Hooks

  Practice, Paradise, Students

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• This is passive-aggression in action.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Action, Aggression

  "Survivor". Book by Chuck Palahniuk, 1999.

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• Holmes had cultivated the ability to still the noise of the mind, by smoking his pipe and playing nontunes on the violin. He once compared this mental state with the sort of passive seeing that enables the eye, in a dim light or at a great distance, to grasp details with greater clarity by focusing slightly to one side of the object of interest. When active, strained vision only obscures and frustrates, looking away often permits the eyes to see and interpret the shapes of what it sees. Thus does inattention allow the mind to register the still, small whisper of the daughter of the voice.

  Laurie R. King

  Daughter, Distance, Eye

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• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

  George Orwell

  Cutting, Thinking, Passive Voice

  George Orwell (1953). “Shooting an Elephant: And Other Essays”

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• ...so much attention is paid to the aggressive sins, such as violence and cruelty, and greed with all their tragic effects, that too little attention is paid to the passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating and destructive effect upon society than the others.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Running, Long, Greed

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1960). “You Learn by Living”, p.153, Westminster John Knox Press

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• You guys are so caught up in your polished images and your passive-aggressive comments that no one ever comes right out and says anything. Well, I'm going to.

  Richelle Mead

  Guy, Say Anything, Passive Aggressive

  Richelle Mead (2013). “Gameboard of the Gods: Age of X”, p.347, Penguin

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• Audacious faith is not passive. Neither is audacious prayer. Every aspiration you have in prayer needs an accompanying action. Otherwise you're not really praying. You're just pontificating. You do the natural. Trust God for the super.

  Steven Furtick

  Prayer, Needs, Trust In God

  Steven Furtick (2010). “Sun Stand Still: What Happens When You Dare to Ask God for the Impossible”, p.177, Multnomah

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• Cath wished she didn't use the word "just" so much. It was her passive-aggressive tell, like someone who twitched when they were lying.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Lying, Use, Passive Aggressive

  Rainbow Rowell (2013). “Fangirl”, p.51, Pan Macmillan

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• There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely the absence of war. It is larger than that. The peace I am thinking of is not at the mercy of history's rule, nor is it a passive surrender to the status quo. The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one -- an activity that occurs most naturally, most often in the reading/writing world we live in. Accessible as it is, this particular kind of peace warrants vigilance.

  Toni Morrison

  Peace, War, Reading

  Toni Morrison (2007). “The Dancing Mind”, p.6, Vintage

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• We have thought of peace as the passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest-cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences.

  Mary Parker Follett

  Peace, War, Opposites

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• Peace is not a passive but an active condition, not a negation but an affirmation.

  Mary Roberts Rinehart

  Peace, Affirmation, Negation

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• The object of defense is preservation; and since it is easier to hold ground than to take it, defense is easier than attack. But defense has a passive purpose: preservation; and attack a positive one: conquest.... If defense is the stronger form of war, yet has a negative object, it follows that it should be used only so long as weakness compels, and be abandoned as soon as we are strong enough to pursue a positive object.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  Strong, War, Long

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