Unnecessary Quotes - Page 24

• There is always a chance of failure, of producing something totally unnecessary. But I guess that chance of failure is what makes tightrope walking, race-car driving.

  John Updike

  Race, Car, Chance

  Source: www.neh.gov

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• My obligation is to focus on the priorities of classroom instruction, parental involvement and student safety, targeting student performance and eliminating unnecessary administrative costs.

  John R. Leopold

  Safety, Focus, Priorities

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• When the boys come into my yard for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, I own I enter into nature's game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, fearing that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy chaff. But this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid on very thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to tears is the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the less they hang it round with frippery romance, like the children of the happiest fortune.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Horse, Children, Boys

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2389, Delphi Classics

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• I guess there have been a few questions about my sexuality, and I’d like to keep quiet any unnecessary rumors about sexuality. While I prefer to keep my personal life private, I hope the fact that I’m gay isn’t the most interesting part of me.

  T. R. Knight

  Gay, Interesting, Rumor

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• One has said that Christ excelled all other moralists in this, that He puts the padlock not upon the hand, but upon the heart. But He does not use the padlock at all, He renders such a thing unnecessary. He takes the tiger from the heart, and replaces it with the lamb.

  Edward Thomson

  Heart, Hands, Padlocks

  Edward Thomson (1872). “Evidences of Revealed Religion”, p.228

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• Most trouble is unnecessary. Between the indignity of being born and the agony of dying enough bad things must of necessity happen to people. But we can't be satisfied with that. We have to go to work and see how much additional trouble we can create. Misunderstanding, turmoil, effort put on all the wrong things, and then more misunderstanding.

  Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett

  Agony, People, Effort

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• We all owe life a death, an inevitable death which we can meet. But the unnecessary death that wastes life denies all consolation.

  Laura Bohannan

  Death, Waste, Deny

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• There is a great deal of political pressure to only talk about abstinence, and to deny support for condoms and education on using them. This policy will lead to the unnecessary deaths of many people.

  Hillary Clinton

  People, Support, Political

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• You must labour to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good breeding, and loving with prudence; to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger; and no friendship dangerous, in care it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Love, Hate, Silly

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• Investors, of course, can, by their own behavior make stock ownership highly risky. And many do. Active trading, attempts to "time" market movements, inadequate diversification, the payment of high and unnecessary fees to managers and advisors, and the use of borrowed money can destroy the decent returns that a life-long owner of equities would otherwise enjoy. Indeed, borrowed money has no place in the investor's tool kit.

  Warren Buffett

  Long, Tools, Use

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• The only object of theoretical physics is to calculate results that can be compared with experiment... it is quite unnecessary that any satisfactory description of the whole course of the phenomena should be given.

  Paul Dirac

  Theoretical Physics, Mechanic, Given

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• It is confidently expected that the period is at hand, when man, through ignorance, shall not much longer inflict unnecessary misery on man; because the mass of mankind will become enlightened, and will clearly discern that by so acting they will inevitably create misery to themselves.

  Robert Owen

  Ignorance, Men, Hands

  Robert Owen (1837). “First American from the third London edition”, p.76

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• There are times when we can feel destiny close around us like a fist around a doorknob. Sure, we can resist. But a knob that won't turn, a door that sticks and never budges, is a nuisance to the gods. The gods may kick in the jamb. Worse, they may walk away in disgust, leaving us to hang dumbly from our tight hinges, deprived of any other chance in life to swing open into unnecessary risk and thus into enchantment.

  Tom Robbins

  Destiny, Swings, Doors

  "Continental Drifting With Tom Robbins" by Mary Eisenhart, www.sfgate.com. July 23, 2000.

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• Sometimes unnecessary roughness is necessary.

  Rodney Harrison

  Sometimes, Roughness

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• It has taken me 20 years to eliminate the unnecessary elements from my work.

  Andrew Lakey

  Taken, Years, Simplicity

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• The principle of avoiding the unnecessary expenditure of energy has enabled the species to survive in a world full of stimuli; but it prevents the survival of the aristocracy.

  Rebecca West

  Survival, Energy, Principles

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.146, Open Road Media

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• Athens' biggest worry was the sheer recklessness of its own democratic government. A simple majority of the citizenry, urged on and incensed by clever demagogues, might capriciously send out military forces in unnecessary and exhausting adventures.

  Thucydides

  Clever, Military, Adventure

  Thucydides, Victor Davis Hanson, Robert B. Strassler (2008). “The Landmark Thucydides”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

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• When you access and evaluate your goals, you will uncluttered your life of the unnecessary.

  Mike Murdock

  Goal, Evaluate, Access

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• After watching the video, the senseless shooting and taking of Walter Scott's life was absolutely unnecessary and avoidable. My heart aches for the family and our North Charleston community. I will be watching this case closely.

  Tim Scott

  Life, Heart, Community

  FaceBook post by Tim Scott from Apr 08, 2015

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• Society expects man to be a passive social animal who believes like the People of the Field in "Jurgen" that "to do what you always have done" and "what is expected of you" are the twin rules of life. This, is course, is not true. The wanton crucifixion of impulses, the unnecessary blocking and frustration of the drives and urges, are an evil that reflects itself in sophistication, ennui and boredom, dissatisfaction, melancholy, fatigue, anxiety and neurosis.

  Abraham Myerson

  Life, Block, Believe

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• One of the reasons so many people fail is they get on this treadmill for an hour or an hour and a half. That's totally unnecessary. If it's cardiovascular, you don't need more than 15 to 17 or 18 minutes if it's vigorous.

  Jack LaLanne

  People, Needs, Half

  Source: billphillipsnews.com

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• I've been in Africa, and I've been to hospitals of Africa, and they're not hospitals, they're places where people go to die. And rows and rows and rows of people just dying and the waiting rooms of the hospitals are full of people waiting to get into the beds of the people who died the night before, and they're dying from unnecessary diseases.

  Richard Branson

  Night, Waiting Rooms, People

  "George Negus interviews CEO and founder of the Virgin Group, Sir Richard Branson". "Dateline" with George Negus, www.sbs.com.au. April 2, 2008.

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• I intend to introduce legislation that will make police accountable for their actions and limit uses of force in cases where it is unnecessary.

  Bernie Sanders

  Police, Limits, Use

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• I refuse to put the unnecessary strain of learning English upon my sisters for the sake of false pride or questionable social advantage.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Pride, Sake, Language

  Mahatma Gandhi, K. Swaminathan (1988). “A Gandhi Reader”, Stosius Incorporated/Advent Books Division

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• A smattering of English is worse than useless; it is an unnecessary tax on our women.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Useless, Language, Taxes

  Mahatma Gandhi (1965). “Collected Works”

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