Sacred Cows Quotes

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  Sacred cows make the best hamburger.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Witty, Humorous

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist”, p.30, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.

  Abbie Hoffman

  Advice, Hamburgers, Cows

  Quoted in N.Y. Times, 20 Apr. 1989.

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• In the average newspaper there is not a complete suppression of stories that the sacred cows don't want printed. But rather what happens is that the stories get printed with stresses, colorations and emphasis that favor the sacred cows.

  Carl Sandburg

  Stress, Average, Stories

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• Sacred cows make very poor gladiators.

  Nikki Giovanni

  Cows, Sacred, Poor

  Nikki Giovanni (1988). “Sacred cows-- and other edibles”, William Morrow & Co

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• Knowledge is a sacred cow, and my problem will be how we can milk her while keeping clear of her horns.

  Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

  Knowledge, Milk, Cows

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• Questioning the status quo can result in banishment, imprisonment, ridicule or being burned at the stake, depending on your era, your locale, and the sacred cows you wish to butcher.

  Gene Spafford

  Wish, Cows, Sacred

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• For almost seventy years the life insurance industry has been a smug sacred cow feeding the public a steady line of sacred bull.

  Ralph Nader

  Life, Years, Bulls

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• I don't know how many sacred cows there are today. I think there's a little confusion between humor and gross passing for humor. That's kind of regrettable.

  Bob Newhart

  Humor, Thinking, Confusion

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• Sacred cows make great hamburgers.

  Robert Reisner

  Hamburgers, Cows, Sacred

  Robert George Reisner, Lorraine Wechsler (1974). “Encyclopedia of Graffiti”, MacMillan Publishing Company

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• Everyone now has a sacred cow in the tax code. For my money, the most sacred thing of all is our country and its growth, but the sacred cows have turned into a pack of wolves.

  Ari Fleischer

  Country, Growth, Sacred Things

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• Go your own way. Question everything. Accept nothing. Accept no dogma, no cant. There are too many people walking around thinking they're sacred cows, and they're only half right.

  Rosie DiManno

  Acceptance, Thinking, People

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• ...I am afraid that education is conceived more in terms of indoctrination by most school officials than in terms of enlightenment. My own belief is that education must be subversive if it is to be meaningful. By this I mean that it must challenge all the things we take for granted, examine all accepted assumptions, tamper with every sacred cow, and instill a desire to question and doubt. Without this the mere instruction to memorise data is empty. The attempt to enforce conventional mediocrity on the young is criminal.

  Bertrand Russell

  Meaningful, School, Data

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• When it came to slaughtering sacred cows with such crude yet perfect musical precision, there was no one better than Frank. I wonder what songs he's teaching the angels right now? Good luck God! You've got your hands full this time.

  Terry Gilliam

  Song, Teaching, Good Luck

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• You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.

  Abbie Hoffman

  Freedom, Giving, Political

  Tikkun magazine, July-August 1989.

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• So, this is my plea to all Western editors and producers: Display the Muhammad cartoon daily, until the Islamists become accustomed to the fact that we turn sacred cows into hamburger.

  Daniel Pipes

  Editors, Cartoon, Hamburgers

  "A Muhammad cartoon a day" by Daniel Pipes, www.foxnews.com. September 21, 2012.

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• Everybody thinks of baseball as a sacred cow. When you have the nerve to challenge it, people look down their noses at you. There are a lot of things wrong with a lot of industries....baseball is one of them.

  Curt Flood

  Baseball, Thinking, People

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• Okay," I said. "Just a normal afternoon and two normal people." She nodded. "And so...hypothetically, if these to people likes each other, what would it take to get the stupid guy to kiss the girl, huh?" "Oh..." I felt like one of Apollo's sacred cows-slow, dumb, and bright red. "Um.

  Rick Riordan

  Girl, Stupid, Kissing

  Rick Riordan (2009). “Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth”, p.262, Penguin UK

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• The only sacred cow is an organisation should be its basic philosophy of doing business.

  Thomas Watson, Jr.

  Philosophy, Cows, Sacred

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• She looks like the type that might freak out. It's something in the eyes, Frannie. It says if you shoot my sacred cows, I'll shoot yours.

  Stephen King

  Eye, Looks, Might

  Stephen King (2008). “The Stand”, p.256, Anchor

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• Science is not a sacred cow-but there are a large number of would-be sacred cowherds busily devoting quantities of time, energy and effort to the task of making it one, so they can be sacred cowherds.

  John W. Campbell

  Science, Numbers, Effort

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• Man is naturally a religious being. His heart instinctively seeks for God whether he reverences the sacred cow or prays to the sun or moon; whether he kneels before wood and stone images, or prays in secret to his Heavenly Father, he is satisfying an inborn urge.

  Spencer W. Kimball

  Religious, Father, Heart

  Spencer W. Kimball (1982). “The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, Twelfth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”

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• You lose that sacred-cow status when you lose three straight years.

  Joe Dumars

  Years, Three, Cows

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• When you are challenging the young, they can come back at you with language of tremendous power and they are no respecters of sacred cows, you know, the young. There's nothing politically correct about the average young Australian when it comes to use of language.

  Tony Abbott

  Average, Challenges, Use

  "Live from the Melbourne Writers Festival". "Q&A" with Tony Jones, www.abc.net.au. August 27, 2009.

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• It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great.

  Havelock Ellis

  Men, Atheism, Dignity

  HAVELOCK ELLIS (1930). “IMPRESSIONS & COMMENTS”

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• The velocity of light occupies an extraordinary place in modern physics. It is lèse-majesté to make any criticism of the velocity of light. It is a sacred cow within a sacred cow, and it is just about the Absolutest Absolute in the history of human thought.

  Anthony Standen

  Science, Light, Criticism

  4 Copy quote