Reluctant Quotes - Page 2

• Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure.

  Edward Abbey

  Adventure, Climbing, Half

  "Saving Nature's Legacy : Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity" by Reed F. Noss, Allen Y. Cooperrider, and Rodger Schlickeisen, (p. 338), 1994.

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• Make no mistake; the American Revolution was not fought to obtain freedom, but to preserve the liberties that Americans already had as colonials. Independence was no conscious goal, secretly nurtured in cellar or jungle by bearded conspirators, but a reluctant last resort, to preserve "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

  Samuel Eliot Morison

  Life, Mistake, Pursuit Of Happiness

  Samuel Eliot Morison (1972). “The Oxford history of the American people”, Signet

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• This is a private home." "And?" "And I can't enter without an invitation." She jerked her head up. "You're kidding me?" "No." "You don't live in a crypt and you can't turn into a bat, but you have to have an invitation to enter a house?" Abby hissed. A reluctant amusement softened the flat eyes. "You wanted me to be vampirish." "Not when it's inconvenient.

  Alexandra Ivy

  Home, Eye, House

  Alexandra Ivy (2012). “When Darkness Comes”, p.225, Zebra Books

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• So you’re reluctant, I said to myself. Many, many people are reluctant. It’s like having feet. It’s nothing to brag about.

  Daniel Handler

  Feet, People, Said

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• I am sorry to have to introduce the subject of Christmas. It is an indecent subject; a cruel, gluttonous subject; a drunken, disorderly subject; a wasteful, disastrous subject; a wicked, cadging, lying, filthy, blasphemous and demoralizing subject. Christmas is forced on a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press: on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred; and anyone who looked back to it would be turned into a pillar of greasy sausages.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Sorry, Lying, Hatred

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• Victory may now require a level of force deemed objectionable by civilized peoples, meaning that some, for justifiable reasons, may be reluctant to pursue it. But victory has not become an ossified concept altogether.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Victory, Levels, May

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• The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial. ... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.

  Edward Abbey

  Hate, Thinking, Air

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• Inertia is comforting, and Americans will be extremely reluctant to make any change that might affect their high standard of living.

  Deepak Chopra

  Change, Comforting, High Standards

  "Superpower, Real and Unreal" by Deepak Chopra, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 17, 2005.

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• I see this as the central issue of our time: how to find a substitute for war in human ingenuity, imagination, courage, sacrifice, patience... War is not inevitable, however persistent it is, however long a history it has in human affairs. It does not come out of some instinctive human need. It is manufactured by political leaders, who then must make a tremendous effort--by enticement, by propaganda, by coercion--to mobilize a normally reluctant population to go to war.

  Howard Zinn

  War, Sacrifice, Issues

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• There are occasions when I have moved boulders, but I'm reluctant to, especially ones that have been rooted in a place for many years.

  Andy Goldsworthy

  Years, Boulders, Occasions

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• Things happen in a way that surprises. That's why I'm reluctant to predict. You cannot predict.

  Amira Hass

  Way, Surprise, Happens

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• At a recent conference, a colleague told one of us that in IPCC discussions, some scientists have been reluctant to make strong claims about the scientific evidence, lest contrarians "attack us". Another said that she'd rather err on the side of conservatism in her estimates, because then she feels more "secure."

  Naomi Oreskes

  Strong, Sides, Scientist

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• There's a virtue,' Felix said, 'to listening to a reluctant storyteller. You know that he is in fact diving deep for the salvageable truth.

  Anne Rice

  Diving Deep, Listening, Facts

  Anne Rice (2013). “The Wolf Gift”, p.544, Random House

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• The individuals inside are frequently fighting that their individual voices be heard, while the walls of the place, which are the mask, and the perception, are reluctant to give over to the voices of the individuals. Those in the margins are always trying to get to the center, and those at the center, frequently in the name of tradition, are trying to keep the margins at a distance. Part of the identity of a place is the tension between those in the margins, and those in the center, and they all live behind the walls which wear the tradition.

  Anna Deavere Smith

  Wall, Distance, Fighting

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• I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.

  C. S. Lewis

  Atheist, Night, England

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “Yours, Jack: The Inspirational Letters of C. S. Lewis”, p.9, HarperCollins UK

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• Now shut the engines off. Come down and flatten out, feel the long float, and at the given moment pull the stick right home. She's down. Now taxi in. Switch off. It's over - but not quite, for the port engine, just as if it knew, as if reluctant at the last to let me go, kicked, kicked, and kicked again, as overheated engines will, then backfired with an angry snorting: Fool! The best is over ...But I did not hear.

  Cecil Arthur Lewis

  Home, Long, Down And

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• Passonate, irreverent, utterly relevant, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk offers an unforgettable portrait of a reluctant hero. Ben Fountain writes like a man inspired and his razor sharp exploration of our contemporary ironies will break your heart.

  Margot Livesey

  Hero, Writing, Heart

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• It's difficult to get started-when it comes to dealing with an unknown quantity, people are reluctant to trust their own opinion. It helps if two or three people give you a boost.

  Lyle Lovett

  Two, People, Giving

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I hate war, and I hate having to struggle. I honestly do because I wish I had been born into a world where it was unnecessary. This context of struggle and being a warrior and being a struggler has been forced on me by oppression. Otherwise I would be a sculptor, or a gardener, carpenter - You know, I would be free to be so much more… I guess part of me or a part of who I am, a part of what I do is being a warrior - a reluctant warrior, a reluctant struggler. But I do it, because I’m committed to life.

  Assata Shakur

  Hate, War, Struggle

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• Almost all war making states borrow extensively, raise taxes, and seize the means of combat - including men - from reluctant citizens.

  Charles Tilly

  Money, War, Mean

  Charles Tilly, Arthur L. Stinchcombe (1997). “Roads from Past to Future”, p.149, Rowman & Littlefield

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• You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.

  C. S. Lewis

  God, Night, Feelings

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “Yours, Jack: The Inspirational Letters of C. S. Lewis”, p.9, HarperCollins UK

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• It takes years for me to trust; I know that about myself. A lot of it is because I am so private, and so reluctant to make myself vulnerable.

  Michelle Pfeiffer

  Years, Vulnerable, Knows

  "Michelle Pfeiffer Talks Trust, Vulnerability And Her Empty Nest" by Liz Smith, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 16, 2012.

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• Prayer is not a means for us to persuade a reluctant God to do something which is against His better judgment. Prayer, rather is coming to God for the fulfillment of His will, coming to a God who delights to answer prayer.

  John F Walvoord

  Prayer, Mean, Delight

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• Sometimes I sit up late with my thoughts, reluctant to fall asleep and leave my thoughts alone by themselves.

  Robert Breault

  Fall, Sleep, Insomnia

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• The reason why [the medical community] is reluctant to talk about it is because there's such a huge business in pharmaceuticals.

  Jenny McCarthy

  Autism, Community, Reason Why

  "16 Things Jenny McCarthy Has Actually Said" by Aly Weisman, www.businessinsider.com. July 15, 2013.

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