Refuse Quotes - Page 8

• Feminism was recognized by the average man as a conflict in which it was impossible for a man, as a chivalrous gentleman, as a respecter of the rights of little nations (like little Belgium), as a highly evolved citizen of a highly civilized community, to refuse the claim of this better half to self-determination.

  Wyndham Lewis

  Determination, Men, Rights

  Wyndham Lewis (1926). “The Art of Being Ruled”

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• The man who can face vilification and disgrace, who can stand up against the popular current, even against his friends and his country when he know he is right, who can defy those in authority over him, who can take punishment and prison and remain steadfast-that is a man of courage. The fellow whom you taunt as a 'slacker' because he refuses to turn murderer-he needs courage. But do you need much courage just to obey orders, to do as you are told and to fall in line with thousands of others to the tune of general approval and the Star Spangled Banner?

  Alexander Berkman

  Country, Stars, War

  Alexander Berkman (2010). “Now and After: the ABC of Anarchist Communism”, p.30, Lulu.com

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• I refused to worry about something I could not change, and I still refuse. Look, I'm like any other woman. All this evolved b.s. that I'm telling you is my mantra. It's not something I practice naturally. I had to surrender to not worrying about the way I looked, how much I weighed, because that's just part of the journey of having a baby. I am not a woman whose self-worth comes from her dress size.

  Kristen Bell

  Baby, Self Worth, Journey

  "How to Be Happy, By Kristen Bell". Interview with Lori Berger, www.redbookmag.com. August 12, 2013.

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• I am dealing with people and not with things. And, because I am dealing with people, I cannot refuse my wholehearted and loving attention, even in personal matters, where I see that a student is in need of such attention.

  Paulo Freire

  Teaching, People, Needs

  Paulo Freire (2000). “Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage”, p.128, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

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• How can one be compelled to accept slavery? I simply refuse to do the master's bidding. He may torture me, break my bones to atoms and even kill me. He will then have my dead body, not my obedience. Ultimately, therefore, it is I who am the victor and not he, for he has failed in getting me to do what he wanted done.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Struggle, Independence, Bidding

  Mahatma Gandhi (2012). “The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas”, p.300, Vintage

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• Mothers, tell your children: be quick, you must be strong. Life is full of wonder, love is never wrong. Remember how they taught you, how much of it was fear. Refuse to hand it down - the legacy stops here.

  Melissa Etheridge

  Mother, Strong, Children

  Song: Silent Legacy, Album: Yes I Am

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• What an English King has no right to demand, an English subject has a right to refuse

  John Hampden

  Kings, Demand, Economics

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• Why would scientists dedicated to uncovering the truth about the natural world deliberately misrepresent the work of their own colleagues? Why would they spread accusations with no basis? Why would they refuse to correct their arguments once they had been shown to be incorrect? And why did the press continue to quote them, year after year, even as their claims were shown, one after another, to be false?

  Naomi Oreskes

  Years, World, Argument

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• I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that's beyond fixing.

  Barack Obama

  Fixing, Generations, Climate Change

  Remarks by the President on Climate Change, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. June 25, 2013.

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• Refuse to deny what you know but consent to how little that will always be, and, when the moment comes, the sky will open and the liberating intrusion will descend upon you.

  Jack Miles

  Inspirational, Sky, Littles

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• The world needs transparent lives, clear souls, pure minds that refuse to be perceived as mere objects of pleasure.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Faith, Inspiration, Soul

  Pope Benedict XVI (2011). “Holiness Is Always in Season”, p.320, Ignatius Press

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• I refuse to be silent any longer. I refuse to be party to an illegal and immoral war against people who did nothing to deserve our aggression. My oath of office is to protect and defend America's laws and its people. By refusing unlawful orders for an illegal war, I fulfill that oath today.

  Ehren Watada

  War, Party, Oath Of Office

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• Exactly Straight women who surround themselves only with gay men or white people who refuse any other race into their circles are unhealthy and it has more to do with one's individual fear and individual closets.

  Judith Light

  Gay, Men, Race

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• Society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy.

  John C. Sawhill

  Environmental, Climate Change, Defined

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• I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction... I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow... I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, War, Believe

  Martin Luther King, Jr.'s acceptance speech on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 1964.

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• What signifies, says some one, giving halfpence to beggars? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco. "And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence (says Johnson)? it is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding.

  Hester Lynch Piozzi

  Taken, Acceptance, Giving

  "Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson".

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• A lot of the people who keep a gun at home for safety are the same ones who refuse to wear a seat belt

  George Carlin

  Home, Gun, Safety

  George Carlin (1998). “Brain Droppings”, Hyperion

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• What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn't that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?

  Ron Paul

  White, Political, Asian

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• Campaigning actress ASHLEY JUDD refuses to 'breed' with her racing star husband DARIO FRANCHITTI while there are starving children in the world. . . . She says, 'It's unconscionable to breed with the number of children who are starving to death in impoverished countries.' 

  Ashley Judd

  Country, Stars, Children

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• Some forms of reality are so horrible we refuse to face them, unless we are trapped into it by comedy. To label any subject unsuitable for comedy is to admit defeat.

  Peter Sellers

  Reality, Faces, Labels

  "Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers". Book by Ed Sikov, 2002.

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• And now, any of those who refuse, or are unable, to prove they are citizens will receive free insurance paid for by those who are forced to buy insurance because they are citizens.

  Ben Stein

  Citizens, Paradoxical, Prove

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• I refuse to eat animals because I cannot nourish myself by the sufferings and by the death of other creatures. I refuse to do so, because I suffered so painfully myself that I can feel the pain of others by recalling my own sufferings.

  David Sztybel

  Pain, Animal, Suffering

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• Men grow up expecting to be the hero of their own story. Women grow up expecting to be the supporting actress in somebody else's I refuse to burn my energy adding extra magic and sparkle to other people’s lives to get them to love me. I’m busy casting spells for myself.

  Laurie Penny

  Growing Up, Hero, Men

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• When your house contains such a complex of piping, flues, ducts, wires, lights, inlets, outlets, ovens, sinks, refuse disposers, hi-fi re-verberators, antennae, conduits, freezers, heaters -when it contains so many services that the hardware could stand up by itself without any assistance from the house, why have a house hold it up. When the cost of all this tackle is half of the total outlay (or more, as it often is) what is the house doing except concealing your mechanical pudenda from the stares of folks on the sidewalk?

  Reyner Banham

  Light, Often Is, House

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• I have felt the pain that arises from a recognition of beauty, pain we hold when we remember what we are connected to and the delicacy of our relations. It is this tenderness born out of a connection to place that fuels my writing. Writing becomes an act of compassion toward life, the life we so often refuse to see because if we look too closely or feel too deeply, there may be no end to our suffering. But words empower us, move us beyond our suffering, and set us free. This is the sorcery of literature. We are healed by our stories.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Pain, Moving, Writing

  Terry Tempest Williams (2015). “An Unspoken Hunger”, p.55, Vintage

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