Taboo Quotes - Page 3

• The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Thinking, Social Taboos

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.145, Vintage

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• Civilized people can talk about anything. For them no subject is taboo.... In civilized societies there will be no intellectual bogeys at sight of which great grownup babies are expected to hide their eyes.

  Clive Bell

  Baby, Eye, Sight

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• If throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect toward your parents, church, and your king, you are conventionally held to deserve moral admiration even if you have never done a single kind, generous or useful action. This very inadequate notion of virtue is an outcome of taboo morality, and has done untold harm.

  Bertrand Russell

  Kings, Parent, Disrespect

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Human Society in Ethics and Politics”, p.27, Routledge

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• It's likely that taboo words are stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. Massive left hemisphere strokes or the entire surgical removal of the left hemisphere can leave people with no articulate speech other than the ability to swear, spout cliches and song lyrics.

  Steven Pinker

  Song, People, Brain

  "This much I know". Interview with Tom Templeton, www.theguardian.com. June 21, 2008.

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• At seventeen most people get their ears pierced or get a tattoo or something slightly taboo. That is what I love about Rodrigo Garcia, he's not conventional. He's someone who sees people in extraordinary ways, and forgives them for being such.

  Naomi Watts

  Tattoo, People, Forgiving

  Source: www.fanbolt.com

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• To think deeply in our culture is to grow angry and to anger others; and if you cannot tolerate this anger, you are wasting the time you spend thinking deeply. One of the rewards of deep thought is the hot glow of anger at discovering a wrong, but if anger is taboo, thought will starve to death.

  Jules Henry

  Thinking, Deep Thought, Rewards

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• But the drugs are kind of like taboo, at least among me and my friends and the people I've worked with.

  Ethan Suplee

  Friends, People, Drug

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Madonna was so flamboyant in terms of her look, her style, her public pronouncements, her religious taboo-smashing.

  Rob Sheffield

  Religious, Style, Looks

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• The trickster's function is to break taboos, create mischief, stir things up. In the end, the trickster gives people what they really want, some sort of freedom.

  Tom Robbins

  People, Giving, Want

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• Every field has its taboos. In algebraic geometry the taboos are (1) writing a draft that can be followed by anyone but two or three of one's closest friends, (2) claiming that a result has applications, (3) mentioning the word 'combinatorial,' and (4) claiming that algebraic geometry existed before Grothendieck (only some handwaving references to 'the Italians' are allowed provided they are not supported by specific references).

  Gian-Carlo Rota

  Writing, Two, Three

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• There have been only two taboos in the world: sex and death. It is very strange why sex and death have been the two taboos not to be talked about, to be avoided. They are deeply connected. Sex represents life because all life arises out of sex, and death represents the end. And both have been taboo - don't talk about sex and don't talk about death.

  Rajneesh

  Death, Sex, Two

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• Those who see what's obvious aren't necessarily brighter than others. They're just more likely to observe that the emperor is naked. Like children, they see what's actually there. Their perceptions are less clouded by belief systems, taboos, habits of thought. One responsibility of management--an important one--is to call attention to the invisible obvious, pointing it out as a child does (sometimes to the embarrassment of adults). Doing so also requires supporting employees who take that risk, too, and other risks as well.

  Richard Farson

  Children, Responsibility, Risk

  Richard Farson, Ralph Keyes (2003). “Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins”, p.76, Simon and Schuster

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• Sex was always surrounded by taboos, and I don't see it necessarily as a manifestation of evil. I think that sexuality is first and foremost the way that God chooses for us to be here on earth, to enjoy this energy of love in the physical plane.

  Paulo Coelho

  Love, Sex, Thinking

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• Life is livable because we know that wherever we go most of the people we meet will be restrained in their actions towards us by an almost instinctive network of taboos.

  Havelock Ellis

  People, Politics, Action

  Havelock Ellis (2013). “On Life and Sex: Essays of Love & Virtue”, p.193, Elsevier

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• The betrayal of trust carries a heavy taboo.

  Aldrich Ames

  Betrayal, Heavy, Carrie

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• A lot of Donna Summer and things that maybe weren't trendy anymore or weren't hip in gay clubs but you'd hear them at Taboo.

  Boy George

  Summer, Gay, Clubs

  "Taboo". Interview with Mark Ronson, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 28, 2012.

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• Every story, each poem that a person shares, each voice that speaks against menstrual taboo, inspires me.

  Additi Gupta

  Journey, Voice, Inspire

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• In distinguishing between Islamic teachings and social taboos, we must remember that Islam forbids injustice; Injustice against people, against nations, against women. It shuns race, color, and gender as a basis of distinction amongst fellowmen. It enshrines piety as the sole criteria for judging humankind.

  Benazir Bhutto

  Teaching, Islamic, Race

  Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan. Directorate of Films & Publications (2008). “Speeches and Statements: Oct. 1993-Nov. 1996”

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• What happened during the previews of 'Taboo' [musical] was that it was the first time I'd ever been written about as a great song-writer - I cried. I absolutely wept, because it wasn't the usual stuff like, "Oh, he was a drug addict and he did this and that..." It was really looking at the music and it was really complimentary. It was a huge thing.

  Boy George

  Song, Drug, Musical

  "Taboo". Interview with Mark Ronson, www.interviewmagazine.com. December 19, 2008.

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• Through her paintings, she breaks all the taboos of the woman's body and of female sexuality.

  Diego Rivera

  Artist, Female, Body

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• I suppose all of those New Romantic clubs were quite up their own asses in a way. Well, Taboo was up its own ass in a different way, but not in terms of rules.

  Boy George

  Different, Clubs, Way

  "Taboo". Interview with Mark Ronson, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 28, 2012.

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• Somebody must trespass on the taboos of modern nationalism, in the interests of human reason. Business can't. Diplomacy won't. It has to be people like us.

  Robert Byron

  People, Reason, Modern

  Robert Byron (2016). “The Road to Oxiana: New edition linked and annotaded”, p.6, MarcoPolo

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• Customs, morals — is there a difference? Woman, do you realize what you are doing? Here, by the grace of God and an inside straight, we have a personality untouched by the psychotic taboos of our tribe — and you want to turn him into a carbon copy of every fourth-rate conformist in this frightened land! Why don't you go whole hog? Get him a brief case and make him carry it wherever he goes — make him feel shame if he doesn't have it.

  Jubal

  Land, Differences, Personality

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• Fashion is as profound and critical a part of the social life of man as sex, and is made up of the same ambivalent mixture of irresistible urges and inevitable taboos.

  Rene Konig

  Fashion, Sex, Men

  René König (1973). “A la Mode: On the Social Psychology of Fashion”

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• The very general occurrence of the homosexual in ancient Greece, and its wide occurrence today in some cultures in which such activity is not taboo suggests that the capacity of an individual to respond erotically to any sort of stimulus, whether it is provided by another person of the same or opposite sex, is basic in the species.

  Alfred Kinsey

  Sex, Opposites, Culture

  Alfred C. Kinsey (1998). “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male”, p.660, Indiana University Press

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