Refusal Quotes - Page 2

• There are no real successes without rejection. The more rejection you get, the better you are, the more you've learned, the closer you are to your outcome... If you can handle rejection, you'll learn to get everything you want.

  Tony Robbins

  Inspirational, Success, Real

  FaceBook post by Tony Robbins from Jun 13, 2012

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• Some refuse the loan of life to avoid the debt of death.

  Otto Rank

  Life, Death, Debt

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• Save the Children is often told that its aims are impossible - that there has always been child suffering and there always will be. We know. It's impossible only if we make it so. It's impossible only if we refuse to attempt it.

  Eglantyne Jebb

  Children, Knowing, Suffering

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• I don't have the Big Idea. I don't have the arrogance to even want to have the Big Idea. But I believe the physics of resisting power is as old as the physics of accumulating power. That's what keeps the balance in the universe... the refusal to obey.

  Arundhati Roy

  Believe, Ideas, Arrogance

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• These are the four abuses: desire to succeed in order to make oneself famous; taking credit for the labors of others; refusal to correct one's errors despite advice; refusal to change one's ideas despite warnings.

  Confucius

  Humility, Order, Ideas

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• The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.

  John Updike

  Artist, Risk, Excess

  John Updike (2012). “Assorted Prose”, p.189, Random House

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• One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

  Plato

  Plato, War, Government

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• Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.

  Annie Besant

  Believe, Ignorance, Denial

  Annie Besant (1890). “Why I Became a Theosophist”

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• Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Good Life, Roots, Evil

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• Why is it that many contemporary male thinkers, especially men of color, repudiate the imperialist legacy of Columbus but affirm dimensions of that legacy by their refusal to repudiate patriarchy?

  Bell Hooks

  Men, Color, Males

  bell hooks (2012). “Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations”, p.239, Routledge

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• Protest is when I say I don't like this. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don't like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along with this anymore. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along too.

  Ulrike Meinhof

  Germany, Stopping, Resistance

  Ulrike Meinhof (2011). “Everybody Talks About the Weather . . . We Don't: The Writings of Ulrike Meinhof”, p.31, Seven Stories Press

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• Intellectual sodomy, which comes from the refusal to be simple about plain matters, is as gross and abundant today as sexual perversion and they are nowise different from one another.

  Edward Dahlberg

  Intelligent, Simple, Intellectual

  Edward Dahlberg (1967). “Alms for Oblivion”, U of Minnesota Press

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• Now, what produces a want of demand A refusal to take from other countries the commodities which they produce.

  Joseph Hume

  Country, Demand, Want

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• Thousands of people may have been killed by hurricane Katrina and many more could die in its aftermath because of the President's refusal to heed the calls of governors for help in repairing the infrastructure in their states.

  Charles Rangel

  People, President, Aftermath

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• We called [the] process photomontage, because it embodied our refusal to play the part of the artist. We regarded ourselves as engineers, and our work as construction: we assembled our work, like a fitter.

  Raoul Hausmann

  Artist, Play, Construction

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• A really intelligent man makes an indifferent painter. For painting requires a certain blindness, a partial refusal to be aware of all the options.

  Peter Greenaway

  Intelligent, Men, Painting

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• The two pillars of 'political correctness' are, a) willful ignorance, and b) a steadfast refusal to face the truth.

  George MacDonald Fraser

  Ignorance, Two, Political

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• You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope, and without fear. I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.

  Lauren Oliver

  Strength, Courage, Wall

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• Pain can be endured and defeated only if it is embraced. Denied or feared, it grows in perception if not in reality. The best response to terror is righteous anger, confidence in ultimate justice, a refusal to be intimidated.

  Dean Koontz

  Pain, Reality, Justice

  Dean Koontz (2007). “Velocity: A Novel”, p.321, Bantam

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• One cannot always bestow all manner of things upon everybody. To refuse a request for just cause is as praiseworthy as to grant a request that is worthy. It is for this reason that the "no" of some people pleases more than the "yes" of others. A refusal accompanied by sweet words and a civil manner gives more satisfaction to a true heart than a favor given with bad grace.

  Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

  Sweet, Heart, People

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• Suppose you feel you cannot accept some fact about yourself. Then own your refusal to accept. Own the block. Embrace it fully. And watch it begin to disappear. The principal is this: Begin where you are-accept that. Then change and growth become possible.

  Nathaniel Branden

  Block, Acceptance, Growth

  Nathaniel Branden (1998). “Nathaniel Brandens Self-Esteem Every Day: Reflections on Self-Esteem and Spirituality”, p.145, Simon and Schuster

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• One of the problems I have always discussed is the refusal to distinguish between comment and fact. The newspaper wraps every fact into a comment. It is impossible to give mere fact without establishing point of view.

  Umberto Eco

  Views, Giving, Facts

  Interview with Chris Wallace, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 2, 2015.

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• The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Happiness, Pain, Stupid

  "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". Book by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1973.

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• The absurd hero's refusal to hope becomes his singular ability to live in the present with passion.

  Albert Camus

  Hero, Passion, Live In The Present

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• The same chemicals were used in the cooking as were used on the composition of her own being: only those which caused the most violent reaction, contradiction, and teasing, the refusal to answer questions but the love of putting them, and all the strong spices of human relationship which bore a relation to black pepper, paprika, soybean sauce, ketchup and red peppers.

  Anais Nin

  Strong, Cooking, Black

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