Provocation Quotes - Page 3

• A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Military, War, Navy

  Theodore Roosevelt (1916). “Fear God and Take Your Own Part”, New York : George H. Doran

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• One way to cope with the provocations of novel art is to rest firm and maintain solid standards... set by the critic's long-practiced taste and by his conviction that only those innovations will be significant which promote the established direction of advanced art.

  Leo Steinberg

  Art, Standards Set, Long

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• What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the only established defense against nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. How do we prevent the use of nuclear weapons? By threatening to use nuclear weapons. And we can't get rid of nuclear weapons, because of nuclear weapons. The intransigence, it seems, is a function of the weapons themselves.

  Martin Amis

  Priorities, Defense, Nuclear

  "Einstein's Monsters". Book by Martin Amis, 1987.

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• War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. Though you follow the trade of the warrior, you do so in the spirit of Washington - not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our way of life justifies resort to conflict.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  War, Stupid, Men

  Graduation Exercises at the United States Military Academy, www.dwightdeisenhower.com. June 03, 1947.

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• If we could make up our minds to spare our friends all details of ill health, of money losses, of domestic annoyances, of altercations, of committee work, of grievances, provocations, and anxieties, we should sin less against the world's good-humor. It may not be given us to add to the treasury of mirth; but there is considerable merit in not robbing it.

  Agnes Repplier

  Loss, Ill Health, Anxiety

  Agnes Repplier (1904). “Compromises”

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• Everything has two handles; the one soft and manageable, the other such as will not endure to be touched. If then your brother do you an injury, do not take it by the hot hard handle, by representing to yourself all the aggravating circumstances of the fact; but look rather on the soft side, and extenuate it as much as is possible, by considering the nearness of the relation, and the long friendship and familiarity between you--obligations to kindness which a single provocation ought not to dissolve. And thus you will take the accident by its manageable handle.

  Epictetus

  Brother, Kindness, Two

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• Meditation may require a lifetime to master, but it will have been a lifetime well spent. ... If you want to judge your progress, ask yourself these questions: Am I more loving? Is my judgment sounder? Do I have more energy? Can my mind remain calm under provocation? Am I free from the conditioning of anger, fear, and greed? Spiritual awareness reveals itself as eloquently in character development and selfless action as in mystical states.

  Eknath Easwaran

  Spiritual, Character, Judging

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• Christian society is like a bundle of sticks laid together, whereof one kindles another. Solitary men have fewest provocations to evil, but, again, fewest incitations to good. So much as doing good is better than not doing evil will I account Christian good-fellowship better than an hermitish and melancholy solitariness.

  Joseph Hall

  Christian, Men, Evil

  Joseph Hall, Josiah Pratt (1808). “The Works: Now First Collected : with Some Account of His Life and Sufferings. Devotional works”, p.21

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• The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure.

  Sigmund Freud

  Reality, Ego, Suffering

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• Anything that can hurt the convictions of another, particularly religious convictions, must be avoided. Freedom of expression must be exercised in a spirit of responsibility. I condemn all manifest provocation that might dangerously fan passions.

  Jacques Chirac

  Religious, Hurt, Passion

  "Chirac warns media over cartoons". news.bbc.co.uk. February 8, 2006.

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• Love, to the inferior man, remains almost wholly a physical matter. The heroine he most admires is the one who offers the grossest sexual provocation; the hero who makes his wife roll her eyes is a perambulating phallus.

  H. L. Mencken

  Hero, Eye, Men

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Notes On Democracy”, p.27, Knopf

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• A film is not a documentary. And what's wonderful about film is that it's a real provocation for people. I never, ever see film as being an absolute version of the truth.

  Cate Blanchett

  Real, People, Documentaries

  "Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett and Six More Top Actresses on Pay Gap, Sex Scenes and the Price of Speaking Frankly: "There Is Always a Backlash"". "Actress Roundtable" with Stephen Galloway, www.hollywoodreporter.com. November 18, 2015.

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• The ocean was waiting with grand and bitter provocations, as if it invited you to think how deep it was, how much colder than your blood or saltier, or to outguess it, to tell which were its feints or passes and which its real intentions, meaning business.

  Saul Bellow

  Real, Ocean, Thinking

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• Tuthmosis IV was, like his father Amenhotep II, a belligerent pharaoh and one of the first to wage war without provocation beyond Egypt's boundaries. As a result of his aggressive attacks slaves and foreign elements were common in Egypt. Consequently, there was more intermarriage during his reign than at other times. Egypt was visited by merchants and traders and was extremely prosperous and cosmopolitan during this period.

  Michael Tsarion

  Father, War, Egypt

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• The provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength.

  Mike Pence

  Russia, Needs, Mets

  Source: www.politico.com

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• Passing too eagerly upon a provocation loses the guard and lays open the body; calmness and leisure and deliberation do the business much better.

  Jeremy Collier

  Body, Leisure, Retribution

  Jeremy Collier (1720). “Essays Upon Several Moral Subjects: Part III. ... By Jeremy Collier, M.A.”, p.31

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• The consciousness of one's physical self had to be repressed because, socially, the female body was so visible, an ongoing provocation and incitement of specular curiosity and fascination.

  Shirley Geok-lin Lim

  Self, Curiosity, Ongoing

  "Walking with Her Muse: An Interview with Shirley Geok-lin Lim". Contemporary Women's Writing, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1 July 2014, Pages 123 - 135, academic.oup.com. June 22, 2013.

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• A philosopher may deplore the eternal discords of the human race, but he will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of conquest.

  Edward Gibbon

  Vanity, Race, Desire

  Edward Gibbon, Francis Parkman, William H. Prescott, Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “The Modern Library Essential World History 4-Book Bundle: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged); Montcalm and Wolfe; History of the Conquest of Mexico; The Naval War of 1812”, p.714, Modern Library

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• I'm very proud of being persona non grata. I've never been that before in my life, and that suits me extremely wellI'm known for provocations, but I like provocations when they have a purpose. And this had no purpose whatsoever. Because I'm not Mel Gibson. I'm definitely not Mel Gibson.

  Lars von Trier

  Purpose, Proud, Suits

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• Because when you kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the provocations Hezbollah staged, but you do it in effect deliberately by being indifferent to the scale of collateral damage, you're killing hostages in the hope of intimidating those that you want to intimidate. And more likely than not you will not intimidate them. You'll simply outrage them and make them into permanent enemies with the number of such enemies increasing.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Numbers, People, Enemy

  "Zbig Brzezinski: Israel’s Actions in Lebanon Essentially Amount to 'the Killing of Hostages'” by Steve Clemons, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 26, 2006.

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• If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

  George Washington

  Attitude, War, Government

  George Washington, United States. President (1789-1797 : Washington) (1847). “Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States of America: Published in September, 1796”, p.11

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• We should always settle disputes through dialogue and cooperation, and should not resort to the use or threat of force on the slightest provocation. We should get rid of Cold War thinking and broaden the converging points of our common interests, notwithstanding the differences in social systems and ideologies.

  Wu Bangguo

  War, Thinking, Differences

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• My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus.

  Michael Haneke

  Distance, Empowerment, Cinema

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• It requires real strength to love Man. And to love him despite all invitations to do otherwise, all provocations and all reasons why one should not.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Real, Men, Reason Why

  L. Ron Hubbard (1976). “Scientology, a New Slant on Life”, p.183, Bridge Publications, Inc.

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• I don't believe anything can do as much for a room as a glowing fire in an attractive fireplace. Men and dogs love an open fire - they show good sense. It is the heart of any room and should be kindled on the slightest provocation.

  Dorothy Draper

  Dog, Believe, Heart

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