Refusal Quotes - Page 7

• The will, the will not ever to die, the refusal to resign oneself to death, ceaselessly builds the house of life while the keen blasts and icy winds of reason unceasingly batter at the structure and beat it down.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Wind, House, Icy

  Miguel de Unamuno (1977). “The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations”, p.121, Princeton University Press

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• Sensitive husbands don't like second billing. I don't believe Franchot ever for a moment resented the fact that I was a star. Possibly he resented Hollywood's refusal to let him forget it. There was never a doubt in my mind that his talent was greater than mine.

  Joan Crawford

  Stars, Husband, Believe

  Joan Crawford (2017). “A Portrait of Joan: The Autobiography of Joan Crawford”, p.160, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• The best philanthropy is not just about giving money but giving leadership. The best philanthropists bring the gifts that made them successful-the drive, the determination, the refusal to accept that something can't be done if it needs to be into their philanthropy.

  Tony Blair

  Determination, Successful, Giving Money

  "Treasury reveals how little tax the super-rich pay" by Patrick Wintour, www.theguardian.com. April 15, 2012.

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• I wish I could blame my failure on my integrity & refusal to play bullshit games. But the truth is I just play them really badly.

  Stephen Schneider

  Funny, Integrity, Games

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• An important book for our times, in which one woman's determination and refusal to consent sets an example of courage and honesty.

  Giles Foden

  Determination, Honesty, Book

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• Many people are priced out of the medical and insurance markets for one reason: the politicians refusal to give up power. Allowing them to seize another 16 percent of the economy won't solve our problems. Freedom will.

  John Stossel

  Giving Up, People, Medical

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• The yearning for the common good comes from the refusal to accept that perhaps Americans have very little in common apart from the elements of a sometimes successful civil religion based around a sentimental, indeed sometimes teary-eyed, attachment to the constitution and a belief in the quasi-divine wisdom of the founding fathers.

  Simon Critchley

  Father, Successful, Attachment

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• Once one has realized, following the great English literary visionaries William Shakespeare and Thomas Nashe, that sexual puritanism, political disciplinarianism, and abuse of the poor are the result of the refusal of true Christianity ... one is led to articulate a more incarnate, more participatory, more aesthetic, more erotic, more socialized, even a more 'Platonic' Christianity.

  John Milbank

  Political, Erotic, Abuse

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• If racism is not the whole of the Tea Party, it is in its heart, along with blind hatred, a total disinterest in the welfare of others, and a full-flowered self-rationalizing refusal to accept the outcomes of elections, or the reality of democracy, or the narrowness of their minds and the equal narrowness of their public support.

  Keith Olbermann

  Party, Heart, Reality

  "Keith Olbermann Returns With Special Comment: GOP Self-Destruction, Driving ‘Political Toyota’" by Danny Shea, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 22, 2010.

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• All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident. Facts are stubborn, and refusal to accept them does not avoid their inexorable effects-the tragic consequences are now upon us

  Helen Keller

  Self, Stubborn, Firsts

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• America's greatest sin is the refusal to delay gratification.

  M. Scott Peck

  America, Delay, Sin

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• The refusal to be committed and the attitude of indifference can in fact never be neutral.

  John Bertram Phillips

  Attitude, Facts, Indifference

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• There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth, the persistent refusal to analyze the causes of happenings...Fear [False Evidence Appearing Real] grows in darkness; if you think there's a bogeyman around, turn on the light.

  Dorothy Thompson

  Real, Thinking, Light

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• The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life-that is the heart of existentialism.

  Walter Kaufmann

  Philosophy, Heart, School

  Walter Kaufmann (2016). “Existentialism From Dostoevsky To Sartre”, p.10, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Love Is, Men, Creative

  "Loving Your Enemies". Speech delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 1957.

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• The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face.

  Rollo May

  Errors, Evil, Looks

  Rollo May (1999). “Freedom and Destiny”, p.227, W. W. Norton & Company

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• The wholeness, coherence, identity, which we attribute to the depicted scene [in a photograph] is a projection, a refusal of an impoverished reality in favour of an imagined plenitude.

  Victor Burgin

  Reality, Identity, Coherence

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• There is the refusal of style and the refusal of sentimentalism, there is this desire for clarity.

  Luc Delahaye

  Style, Desire, Clarity

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• Hearing politicians tell us we can't afford a tax cut is like listening to a glutton tell you he can't afford a diet. In no other context do people talk about paying for money they don't have. I can't pay for your refusal to give me money because I need a yacht.

  Ann Coulter

  Cutting, People, Giving

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• Obviously, I don't want to minimize the patriarchal nature of our media, our government and our culture as a whole. But I think it's our refusal as women to own our power that is our biggest problem, both individually and collectively. The linchpin that holds the current system in place is the slumber of women.

  Marianne Williamson

  Thinking, Government, Media

  Source: scottlondon.com

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• It seems to me an utterly futile task to prescribe rules and limitations for the conduct of war. War is not a game; hence one cannot wage war by rules as one would in playing games. Our fight must be against war itself. The masses of people can most effectively fight the institution of war by establishing an organization for the absolute refusal of military service.

  Albert Einstein

  Military, War, Fighting

  Albert Einstein (2017). “Einstein on Peace”, p.132, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• Time and time again, the obstinate refusal of the tsarist regime to concede reforms turned what should have been a political problem into a revolutionary crisis... the tsarist regime's downfall was not inevitable; but its own stupidity made it so.

  Orlando Figes

  Should Have, Stupidity, Political

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• The Mayans were right, as it turns out, when they predicted the world would end in 2012. It was just a select world: the G.O.P. universe of arrogant, uptight, entitled, bossy, retrogressive white guys. [...] Instead of smallpox, plagues, drought and Conquistadors, the Republican decline will be traced to a stubborn refusal to adapt to a world where poor people and sick people and black people and brown people and female people and gay people count.

  Maureen Dowd

  Gay, White, Sick

  "A Lost Civilization". www.nytimes.com. December 8, 2012.

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• Sometimes God's refusals are His mercies.

  Elisabeth Elliot

  Sometimes, Mercy

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• I didn't go to drama school because, from the first refusal I then, as I said, a couple of weeks later, was offered a professional job, where I am immensely grateful to the journey.

  Ben Kingsley

  Jobs, Couple, Drama

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