Reluctance Quotes - Page 3

• Our forbearance should never be misunderstood. Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will. When action is required to preserve our national security, we will act.

  Ronald Reagan

  Misunderstood, Politics, Action

  First Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1981

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• Fellow senators balked at punishing Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York though he was caught in a series of transactions that earned him the label "Senator Sleaze." D'Amato explained their reluctance as he defended his own behavior. "There but for the grace of God go most of my colleagues," he said.

  William Greider

  New York, Punishment, Grace

  William Greider (2010). “Who Will Tell The People: The Betrayal Of American Democracy”, p.27, Simon and Schuster

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• MARTYR, One who moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Death, Moving, Lines

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2460, Delphi Classics

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• I do still see that my nature is not to be quite conquered, but will esteem pleasure above all things, though yet in the middle of it, it has reluctances after my business, which is neglected by my following my pleasure. However musique and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is.

  Samuel Pepys

  Business, Giving, Way

  Diary, 9 Mar. 1666

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• In one way, I'm sympathetic to the institutional reluctance to face the music. I'd give a lot to mark my weight to 'model' rather than to 'market.'

  Warren Buffett

  Giving, Weight, Way

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• One of the most persistent cultural tics of the early 21st century is Americans' reluctance to absorb, let alone prepare for, bad news.

  Frank Rich

  News, Century, Tics

  "What We Don’t Know Will Hurt Us". www.nytimes.com. February 21, 2009.

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• I believe that if Israel were to put an end to the settlements in the West Bank tomorrow, as it did in Gaza, there would still be reluctance on the part of the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish secular democracy.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Believe, Israel, Democracy

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• With his decision to use force against the violent extremists of the Islamic State, President
  Obama ... is stepping once again - and with understandably great reluctance - into the chaos
  of an entire civilization that has broken down. Arab civilization, such as we knew it, is all but
  gone. The Arab world today is more violent, unstable, fragmented and driven by extremism -
  the extremism of the rulers and those in opposition-than at any time since the collapse of the
  Ottoman Empire a century ago.

  Hisham Melhem

  Islamic, Civilization, Broken

  "The Barbarians Within Our Gates" by Hisham Melhem, www.politico.com. September 18, 2014.

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• I wish to preface my reflections by saying that I am conducting this prayer service and am speaking to you now with great reluctance. I did not seek to enter any controversy and I don't relish being part of one. But I have given this matter a great deal of thought and prayer, which has led me to the conviction that God is calling me to speak out and conduct these prayers.

  Thomas J. Paprocki

  Prayer, Reflection, Speaks Out

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• I should love to do a novel, about one abnormal character seeing present-day life, very ordinary life, yet arresting through it, abnormality, until at the end the reader sees, and with little reluctance, that he is not abnormal at all, and that the main character might as well be himself.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Character, Ordinary, Abnormal

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• Love, marriage, divorce, infidelity... life was the same here as anywhere else, wasn't? She realized now wrong she'd been; the pali wasn't a headstone and Kalaupapa wasn't a grave. It was a community like any other, bound by ties deeper than most, and people here went to their deaths as people did anywhere: with great reluctance, dragging the messy jumble of their lives behind them.

  Alan Brennert

  Divorce, Ties, People

  Alan Brennert (2010). “Moloka'i: A Novel”, p.382, St. Martin's Press

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• Now naturally, like many of us, I have a reluctance to change too much of the old ways.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Too Much, Way, Old Ways

  Kazuo Ishiguro (2010). “The Remains of the Day”, p.7, Vintage

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• Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect all who seek it ... We should grant power over our affairs only to those who are reluctant to hold it and then only under conditions that increase that reluctance.

  Frank Herbert

  Affair, Increase, Should

  Frank Herbert (1986). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, Berkley Trade

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• Experience teaches, that men are often so much governed by what they are accustomed to see and practice, that the simplest and most obvious improvements . . . are adopted with hesitation, reluctance, and slow gradations.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Education, Men, Practice

  Alexander Hamilton, Donald R. Hickey, Connie D. Clark (2006). “Citizen Hamilton: The Wit and Wisdom of an American Founder”, p.73, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only 'with the greatest reluctance’.

  Raymond P. Shafer

  Law, Drug, Criminals

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• On the approach of spring, I withdraw without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure.

  Edward Gibbon

  Spring, Crowds, April

  "Memoirs". Book by Edward Gibbon, Vol. i. p. 116, 1796.

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• It is true that the reluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have been long accustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons of weak minds, as to be scarcely overcome; but this is far from bringing any argument in its favour

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Animal, Long, Mind

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats (1829). “The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats: Complete in One Volume”

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• The extravagance of any corporate office is directly proportional to management's reluctance to reward the shareholders.

  Peter Lynch

  Office, Extravagance, Rewards

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• Dogs display reluctance and wrath If you try to give them a bath. They bury bones in hideaways And half the time they trot sideaways.

  Ogden Nash

  Dog, Time, Wrath

  Ogden Nash (1945). “The Selected Verse of Ogden Nash”, New York : Modern Library

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• The usability tests we have conducted during the last year have shown an increasing reluctance among users to accept innovations in Web design. The prevailing attitude is to request designs that are similar to everything else people see on the Web.

  Jakob Nielsen

  Attitude, Years, People

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• Who says you need to wait until you 'feel like' doing something in order to start doing it? The problem, from this perspective, isn't that you don't feel motivated; it's that you imagine you need to feel motivated. If you can regard your thoughts and emotions about whatever you're procrastinating on as passing weather, you'll realise that your reluctance about working isn't something that needs to be eradicated or transformed into positivity. You can coexist with it. You can note the procrastinatory feelings and act anyway.

  Oliver Burkeman

  Positivity, Order, Weather

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• Software never was perfect and won't get perfect. But is that a license to create garbage? The missing ingredient is our reluctance to quantify quality.

  Boris Beizer

  Perfect, Missing, Quality

  Boris Beizer (1990). “Software Testing Techniques”, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company

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• ...Americans...automatically equate dissension with disloyalty. They view any criticism of our existing social, economic, and political forms, as sedition and subversion. ...(" The growing reluctance of Americans to criticize, and their increasing tendency to condemn those who, in ever dwindling numbers, will still voice dissent") is disturbing, deplorable, and truly dangerous.

  J. Paul Getty

  Dark, Numbers, Views

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• Why this reluctance to make the change? We fear the process of reeducation.

  Isaac Asimov

  Management, Process, Change Management

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• The characteristic virtue of Englishmen is power of sustained practical activity and their characteristic vice a reluctance to test the quality of that activity by reference to principles.

  R. H. Tawney

  Quality, Vices, Principles

  'The Acquisitive Society' (1921)

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