Refusal Quotes - Page 8

• 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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• Suffering is basically the mind's refusal to accept reality as it is.

  Marcus Thomas

  Reality, Mind, Suffering

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• Perhaps that is what love is -- the momentary or prolonged refusal to think of another person in terms of power.

  Phyllis Rose

  Love Is, Thinking, Term

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• Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think. Don't ignore your own desires.... Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to how much you should have to bear.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Thinking, Reality

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.1454, Penguin

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• The very notion of tabu is one of the rightest notions in the world. Better any old tabu than none, for a man cannot be said to be"on the side of the stars" at all, unless he makes refusals.

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould

  Stars, Men, World

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1920). “Modes and Morals”

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• In any conflict area, it is always the women who are the first point of attack. But I think the more they have seen of oppression and violence, they have gotten more brave, more strong, more fearless than they were. You see this refusal to just keep quiet and do as you are told.

  Fatima Bhutto

  Leadership, Wisdom, Strong

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• Non-co-operation means refusal both to help the sinner in his sin and not to accept any help or gift from him till he has repented.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Mean, Helping, Sin

  Mahatma Gandhi (1958). “Collected Works”

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• That is my job as an intellectual, as an extension of my vocation: to engage in a serious reckoning with the present manifestation of both white supremacy, white refusal to acknowledge culpability, and the attempts of black people to re-describe the harm and trauma we've endured, as well as to say afresh what it is that must be done if we are to be conscientious.

  Michael Eric Dyson

  Jobs, White, People

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The engineer's power was usually limited to a refusal to endorse a given plan, or to the tender of his resignation.

  Samuel Florman

  Engineering, Given, Resignation

  Samuel Florman (2013). “The Existential Pleasures of Engineering”, p.31, Souvenir Press

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• The leading characteristic of the savage state is its refusal or avoidance of industry.

  Arthur Brisbane

  Savages, Characteristics, States

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• In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service.

  John Stuart Mill

  Political, Age, Example

  John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.67, Cambridge University Press

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• The unification of opposites which characterizes the commercial and political style is one of the many ways in which discourse and communication make themselves immune against the expression of protest and refusal.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Communication, Expression, Opposites

  Herbert Marcuse (2012). “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society”, p.90, Beacon Press

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• There is a vast difference - a constitutional difference-between restrictions imposed by the state which prohibit the intellectual commingling of students, and the refusal of individuals to commingle where the state presents no such bar.

  Fred M. Vinson

  Differences, Intellectual, Bars

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• The nobility of our calling will always be rooted in two commitments difficult to observe: refusal to lie about what we know, and resistance to oppression.

  Albert Camus

  Lying, Commitment, Writing

  Albert Camus (1960). “Speech of Acceptance Upon the Award of the Nobel Prize for Literature: Delivered in Stockholm on the Tenth of December, Nineteen Hundred and Fifty-seven. [Translated by Justin O'Brien”

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• I'm English enough to feel something of a gut-reaction to modernism, to continental philosophising and anything that smacks of a refusal to pay attention to the forensics: the empirical facts on the ground.

  Will Self

  Attention, Pay, Facts

  "Will Self: modernism and me" by Will Self, www.theguardian.com. August 3, 2012.

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• Every time a bank swoops down to snatch up a home, it should be met with a crowd of jeering, obstructive neighbors. And although this may be point 4.5, how about organizing a mass refusal to pay back student loans?

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Home, Crowds, May

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• The Declaration of Independence...is not a legal prescription conferring powers upon the courts; and the Constitution's refusal to 'deny or disparage' other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even farther removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges' list against laws duly enacted by the people.

  Laura Schlessinger

  Rights, Government, Law

  "The Grandparent Dissent" by George F. Will, www.washingtonpost.com. June 7, 2000.

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• Freedom without opportunity is a devil's gift, and the refusal to provide such opportunities is criminal

  Noam Chomsky

  Opportunity, Devil, Criminals

  Noam Chomsky (1999). “Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order”, p.91, Seven Stories Press

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• Once you have confidence in your instincts, you must never allow other people's refusal to believe, or their data to refute, what you instinctively know is true.

  T. D. Jakes

  Inspirational, Believe, Data

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• The simplest spiritual discipline is some degree of solitude and silence. But it's the hardest, because none of us want to be with someone we don't love. Besides that, we invariably feel bored with ourselves, and all of our loneliness comes to the surface.We won't have the courage to go into that terrifying place without Love to protect us and lead us, without the light and love of God overriding our own self-doubt. Such silence is the most spacious and empowering technique in the world, yet it's not a technique at all. It's precisely the refusal of all technique.

  Richard Rohr

  Love, Spiritual, Loneliness

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• The noblest relationship is marriage, that is, love. Its nobility resides in its altruism, the desire to serve another beyond all the pleasures of the relationship; and in its refusal ever to regard the other as a thing, an object, a utilizability. Sex is an exchange of pleasures, of needs; love is a giving without return. It is this giving without return, this helping without reward, this surplus of pure good, that identifies the uniqueness of man as well as the true nature of the true marriage. This is the quintessence the great alchemy of sex is for.

  John Fowles

  Love, Sex, Men

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• I understand why so many Americans are fed up with government. The 112th Congress was almost universally derided as the worst ever. It was the most polarized body since the end of Reconstruction, according to one study, and I grew embarrassed by its partisan bickering, inactivity, and refusal to address the vital challenges facing America.

  Olympia Snowe

  Government, America, Challenges

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• Of course, I'm aware of the animosities destroying brain cells on both sides, and I know all about the obstinacy of the warring parties, their refusal to reach an agreement, their devotion to their own murderous hatred.

  Yasmina Khadra

  Party, Agreement, Cells

  Yasmina Khadra (2005). “The Attack”, Nan A. Talese

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• Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards because a refusal often offends, I read somewhere.

  Terry Pratchett

  Wizards, Affair

  Terry Pratchett (2009). “Mort: (Discworld Novel 4)”, p.214, Random House

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• It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in, God.
  He only has to refuse his ultimate love to everything that is not God.
  This refusal does not presuppose any belief.
  It is enough to recognize what is obvious to any mind:
  that all the goods of this world, past, present, and future, real or imaginary,
  are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying
  the desire that perpetually burns within us
  for an infinite and perfect good.

  Simone Weil

  Real, Believe, Past

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