Provocation Quotes - Page 2

• People have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation - much like building a mosque at Ground Zero.

  Sarah Palin

  Zero, People, Religion

  "Hardball" with Chris Matthews, www.nbcnews.com. September 09, 2010.

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• She was on edge, feeling that she might snap or cry at the smallest provocation.

  J. K. Rowling

  Feelings, Might, Cry

  J.K. Rowling (2012). “The Casual Vacancy”, p.69, Hachette UK

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• If I took it away, no doubt I'd find a morningstar hidden under your pillow within a fortnight. Try not to stab your sister, whatever the provocation.

  George R. R. Martin

  Doubt, Trying, Fortnight

  George R. R. Martin (2012). “George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones 5-Book Boxed Set (Song of Ice and Fire Series): A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and and A Dance with Dragons”, p.196, Bantam

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• A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.

  Edward P. Morgan

  Wisdom, Fear, Book

  Edward P. Morgan (1963). “Clearing the air”, Washington, D.C.

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• Through music I either tame my demons or unleash them and allow them to be what they are. I don't want the music to be about provocation, I want the music to bring you to a place where you feel at home

  Michael Franti

  Music, Home, Want

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• By his provocations to good-natured merriment, a humorist of the first water contributes as much to the sum of happiness as the gravest philosopher.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Humor, Water, Firsts

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• The approval of the public is to be avoided like the plague. It is absolutely essential to keep the public from entering if one wishes to avoid confusion. I must add that the public must be kept panting in expectation at the gate by a system of challenges and provocations.

  Andre Breton

  Expectations, Confusion, Challenges

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• Never was sin seen to be more abominably sinful and full of provocation than when the burden of it was upon the shoulders of the Son of God...Would you, then, see the true demerit of sin?-take the measure of it from the mediation of Christ, especially his cross.

  John Owen

  Son, Sin, Christ

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• Infatuation is one of those slightly comic illnesses which are at once so undignified and so painful that a nice-minded world does its best to ignore their existence altogether, referring to them only under provocation and then with apology, but, like its more material brother, this boil on the neck of the spirit can hardly be forgotten either by the sufferer or anyone else in his vicinity. The malady is ludicrous, sad, excruciating and, above all, instantly diagnosable.

  Margery Allingham

  Brother, Nice, Apology

  Margery Allingham (1961). “Three Cases for Mr. Campion”

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• You cannot hurt animals, so what do I do? I kill the dog first. Then I do it with the boy. You're not supposed to break the illusion of this being a film, so I make the actor talk to the audience. Provocation is the principle of the whole film [ Funny Games]. It is very ironic.

  Michael Haneke

  Dog, Hurt, Animal

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• To forgive the incessant provocations of daily life - to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son - how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night, “Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it is to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what he says.

  C. S. Lewis

  Daughter, Mother, Bullying

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• I'm probably the most militant person you'll ever meet and I speak my mind without provocation sometimes.

  Octavia Spencer

  Mind, Sometimes, Speak

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• Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or reject; and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, I can accept nothing.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Soul, May, Accepting

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.79, Penguin

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• It seems to me probably that any one who has a series of intolerable positions to put up with must have been responsible for them to some extent... they have contributed to it by impatience or intolerance, or brusqueness-or some provocation.

  Robert Hugh Benson

  Intolerance, Impatience, Responsible

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• At root, a pearl is a 'disturbance' a beauty caused by something that isn't supposed to be there, about which something needs to be done. It is the interruption of equilibrium that creates beauty. Beauty is a response to provocation, to intrusion. ... The pearl's beauty is made as a result of insult.

  Julia Cameron

  Beauty, Roots, Needs

  Julia Cameron (2005). “The Sound of Paper”, p.14, Penguin

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• Learning to forgive is much more useful than merely picking up a stone and throwing it at the object of one's anger, the more so when the provocation is extreme. For it is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.

  Dalai Lama

  Forgiveness, Adversity, Forgiving

  His Holiness The Dalai Lama (1998). “Path To Tranquility”, p.17, Penguin Books India

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• After we have thought out everything carefully in advance and have sought and found without prejudice the most plausible plan, we must not be ready to abandon it at the slightest provocation. should this certainty be lacking, we must tell ourselves that nothing is accomplished in warfare without daring; that the nature of war certainly does not let us see at all times where we are going; that what is probable will always be probable though at the moment it may not seem so; and finally, that we cannot be readily ruined by a single error, if we have made reasonable preparations.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  Military, War, Errors

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• There are few who would not rather be taken in adultery than in provocation.

  Aldous Huxley

  Marriage, Taken, Adultery

  'Antic Hay' (1923) ch. 10

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• No matter what the provocation, I never fire a man who is honestly trying to deliver a job. Few workers who become established at the Disney Studio ever leave voluntarily or otherwise, and many have been on the payroll all their working lives.

  Walt Disney

  Jobs, Business, Men

  Walt Disney, Kathy Merlock Jackson (2006). “Walt Disney: Conversations”, p.45, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• The vice named surrealism is the immoderate and impassioned use of the stupefacient image or rather of the uncontrolled provocation of the image for its own sake and for the element of unpredictable perturbation and of metamorphosis which it introduces into the domain of representation; for each image on each occasion forces you to revise the entire Universe.

  Louis Aragon

  Vices, Use, Elements

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• Elderly gentlemen, gentle in all respects, kind to animals, beloved by children, and fond of music, are found in lonely corners of the downs, hacking at sandpits or tussocks of grass, and muttering in a blind, ungovernable fury elaborate maledictions which could not be extracted from them by robbery or murder. Men who would face torture without a word become blasphemous at the short fourteenth. It is clear that the game of golf may well be included in that category of intolerable provocations which may legally excuse or mitigate behavior not otherwise excusable.

  A. P. Herbert

  Lonely, Children, Golf

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• I enjoy a challenge or provocation, something to think about, to talk about after it's done.

  Joseph Gordon-Levitt

  Thinking, Challenges, Done

  "Inception - Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• Agential realism is not a manifesto, it does not take for granted that all is or will or can be made manifest. On the contrary, it is a call, a plea, a provocation, a cry, a passionate yearning for an appreciation of, attention to the tissue of ethicality that runs through the world.

  Karen Barad

  Running, Appreciation, Doe

  "'Matter feels, converses, suffers, desires, yearns and remembers'". "Meeting Utrecht Halfway", quod.lib.umich.edu. June 6, 2009.

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• Museums are not normally presenting the works on the walls as provocations to work. It's more like going to a Jacuzzi.

  Hans Haacke

  Wall, Museums, Jacuzzi

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• I admit that invective is one of my pleasures. This only brings me problems in life, but that's it. I attack, I insult. I have a gift for that, for insults, for provocation. So I am tempted to use it.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Use, Insult, Problem

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