Pretext Quotes - Page 7

Mine was a trained Presbyterian conscience and knew but the one duty - to hunt and harry its slave upon all pretexts and on all occasions, particularly when there was no sense nor reason in it.

Mark Twain

Atheism, Slave, Reason

Mark Twain (2010). “Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1: The Complete and Authoritative Edition”, p.158, Univ of California Press

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By the combination of lines and colors, under the pretext of some motif taken from nature, I create symphonies and harmonies that represent nothing absolutely real in the ordinary sense of the word but are intended to give rise to thoughts as music does.

Paul Gauguin

Real, Taken, Color

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I don't have an aversion to quote unquote remakes, because I understand what dramatic writing is, what the dramatic profession has always been about, which is talent, not the pretext for its exhibition.

William Monahan

Writing, Exhibitions, Aversion

Source: collider.com

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In 1856...I preferred the success of a candidate whose election would prevent or postpone secession, to seeing the country plunged into a war the end of which no man could foretell. With a Democrat elected by the unanimous vote of the Slave States, there could be no pretext for secession for four years.... I therefore voted for James Buchanan as President.

Ulysses S. Grant

Country, War, Men

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It is a virtual reflex for governments to plead security concerns when they undertake any controversial action, often as a pretext for something else.

Noam Chomsky

Government, Action, Controversial

Noam Chomsky (2007). “Interventions”, p.71, City Lights Publishers

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[Terrorism] is formed of certain fundamental problems, [including] ignorance, poverty, and fear of others. Some people take advantage of the young and foolish. They are manipulated, abused, and even drugged to such an extent that they can be used as murderers on the pretext of some crazy ideals or goals.

Fethullah Gulen

Crazy, Ignorance, People

"Meet Fethullah Gülen, the World’s Top Public Intellectual". Foreign Policy Interview, foreignpolicy.com. August 4, 2008.

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The whole drug war is nothing but a pretext to increase police power and personnel, and that, of course, is dead wrong. So many created imagined drug offenses.

William S. Burroughs

War, Police, Drug

Source: www.litkicks.com

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It's not religious war, but Al-Qaeda always use religions, Islam - actually, as a pretext and as a cover and as a mantle for their war and for their terrorism and for their killing and beheading and so on.

Bashar al-Assad

Religious, War, Islam

Source: legrandsoir.info

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Let's not use the term democracy as a play on words which is what people commonly do, using human rights as a pretext. Those people that really violate human rights [the West] violate human rights from all perspectives. Typically on the subject of human rights regarding the nations from the south and Cuba they say, "They are not democratic societies, they do not respect human rights, and they do not respect freedom of speech".

Alejandro Castro Espin

Play, Rights, Perspective

"The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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And what do you say of lovers of wine... they are glad of any pretext of drinking any wine

Plato

Drinking, Wine, Lovers

Plato, Catholic Way Publishing (2015). “The Plato Collection [47 Books]”, p.1613, Catholic Way Publishing

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It is intolerable that the world's religions - founded on the values of love and compassion - should provide a pretext for the expression of hatred and violence.

Federico Mayor Zaragoza

Religious, Compassion, Expression

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. . . [T]hese [ideas] are only suggestions of the evil spirit who, to jeopardize your salvation, suggests to you extraordinary works that are beyond your strength, under the fine pretext of practicing, on your own, the spiritual and corporal works of mercy . . .

Vincent de Paul

Faith, Spiritual, Ideas

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May no one use religion as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman.

Pope Francis

Men, Rights, Use

Address of Pope Francis at the meeting with the civil authorities of Albania, w2.vatican.va. September 21, 2014.

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To be governed is, under pretext of public utility and in the name of the general interest, to be laid under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, exhausted, hoaxed and robbed; then, upon the slightest resistance, at the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, annoyed, hunted down, pulled about, beaten, disarmed, bound, imprisoned, shot, judged, condemned, banished, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and, to crown all, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Government, Names, Annoyed

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Often, the pretexts for starting a war are not real shortages of land, food or fuel, but rather perceptions - like fear, honor and perceived self-interest.

Victor Davis Hanson

Real, War, Self

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A 1940 Gallup poll showed 83 percent of the public was against intervention. A good pretext was needed to gain support from an intransigent public.

Jim Marrs

Support, Gains, Polls

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In a thing, they can create a pretext coined hundreds of excuses , but the truth is only one.

Khem Veasna

Truth Is, Excuse

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Imagine how differently American business would function were our faith in the power of goodness to replace our faith in the power of money. Huge industries would no longer make billions of dollars on activities that diminish the well-being and safety of our children, our health, and our environment, on the pretext that it's "just business." To put money before goodness is idolatry, and the laws of the universe ensure that in the end all idols will fall.

Marianne Williamson

Children, Fall, Idols

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Germany, which has lately united 80 million Germans, has submitted certain neighboring countries to her supremacy and gained military strength in many aspects, and thus has become, as clearly can be seen, a dangerous rival to principal imperialistic powers in Europe - England and France. That is why they declared war on Germany on a pretext of fulfilling the obligations given to Poland. It is now clearer than ever, how remote the real aims of the cabinets in these countries were from the interests of defending the now disintegrated Poland or Czechoslovakia.

Vyacheslav Molotov

Country, Military, Real

Molotov's report on (29 March 1940), after the Polish defeat, as quoted in the weekly Soviet newspaper "Moscow News", published by Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga, April 1, 1940.

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In Iraq, [American administration] said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction endangering mankind. With this pretext, the U.S. intervened militarily, and all they did is take control over oil fields, and oil wells.

Evo Morales

Mass Destruction, Oil, Iraq

Source: bigthink.com

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Some of my unhappiest moments have been in organizations. Somehow it seems to be quite respectable to do things in organizations that you would never do in private life. I have had people insult me to my face in front of colleagues. I have had my feelings rammed down my throat on the pretext that it would do me good. I have been required to do things which I didn't agree with because the organization wished it... In my worst moments I have thought organizations were places designed to be run by sadists and staffed by masochists.

Charles Handy

Running, Communication, Worst Moments

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As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.... The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.

John Adams

Christian, Country, Religious

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Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.

St. George Tucker

Army, Gun, Color

William Blackstone, St. George Tucker (1996). “Blackstone's Commentaries: With Notes of Reference to the Constitution and Laws, of the Federal Government of the United States, and of the Commonwealth of Virginia: With an Appendix to Each Volume, Containing Short Tracts Upon Such Subjects as Appeared Necessary to Form a Connecte”, p.300, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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Chuchill has renounced all British interests in Europe and those of his people who are not blind now realise that the pretext for this war was far removed from the cause of it, namely, the subservience of the so-called democratic politicians to their Jewish masters.

William Joyce

War, Europe, People

Broadcast on Radio Cologne, August 30, 1944.

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The Statist has an insatiable appetite for control. His sights are set on his next meal even before he has fully digested his last. He is constantly agitating for government action. And in furtherance of that purpose, the Statist speaks in the tongue of the demagogue, concocting one pretext and grievance after another to manipulate public perceptions and build popular momentum for the divestiture of liberty and property from its rightful possessors.

Mark Levin

Government, Sight, Perception

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