Unwilling Quotes - Page 9

• Rules and particular inferences alike are justified by being brought into agreement with each other. A rule is amended if it yields an inference we are unwilling to accept; an inference is rejected if it violates a rule we are unwilling to amend.

  Nelson Goodman

  Yield, Agreement, Justified

  Nelson Goodman (1972). “Problems and projects”

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• Cruise passengers can be blinded to the very real perils of the sea by ship operators unwilling to interrupt the party for security warnings. And after an incident occurs, a thorough investigation can be profoundly difficult when the crime scene literally floats away, on schedule, to its next port of call.

  Chris Shays

  Real, Party, Sea

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• Baptism is not to be conferred on a man who is unwilling to give up his other sins, so neither should Baptism be given to one who is unwilling to renounce his unbelief. Nevertheless, each of them receives the Sacrament if it is conferred on him, although not unto salvation.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Giving Up, Men, Baptism

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• I have never on the field of battle sent you where I was unwilling to go myself, nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers. You can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the government to which you have surrendered can afford to be and will be magnanimous.

  Nathan Bedford Forrest

  War, Law, Government

  "Farewell address". May 9, 1865.

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• I hate it when people call themselves 'entrepreneurs' when what they're really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell of go public, so they can cash in and move on. They're unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business.

  Steve Jobs

  Hate, Real, Moving

  "Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs". Interview With David Sheff, reprints.longform.org. February 1985.

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• The incompetent leading the unwilling to do the unnecessary.

  Evan Wright

  Unnecessary, Incompetent

  Evan Wright (2005). “Generation Kill”, p.23, Penguin

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• It is equally bad when one speeds on the guest unwilling to go, and when he holds back one who is hastening. Rather one should befriend the guest who is there, but speed him when he wishes.

  Homer

  Wish, Guests, Speed

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• I cannot describe to you the despairing sensation of trying to do something for a man who seems incapable or unwilling to do anything further for himself.

  Lord Byron

  Men, Trying, Incapable

  Lord Byron (2013). “Byron: Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.335, Routledge

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• The growing inequality of wealth and income distribution is both a moral and economic problem. If the wealthy are unwilling to pay more taxes, then this is going to lead to spending cuts. And if you put off the table things like national defense, then you're going to end up cutting more and more out of programs that aid the poor. So, I think there are consequences to this idea that tolerance for inequality requires us to - to just do nothing to make the wealthy contribute a higher share of resources to fund the government.

  Bruce Bartlett

  Cutting, Thinking, Ideas

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• My spirit is too weak--mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagin'd pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick Eagle looking at the sky.

  John Keats

  Death, Sleep, Eagles

  John Keats (1818). “The Complete Works of John Keats”, p.178

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• All I can tell you with certainty is that I, for one, have no self, and that I am unwilling or unable to perpetrate upon myself the joke of a self. What I have instead is a variety of impersonations I can do, and not only of myself - a troupe of players that I have internalised, a permanent company of actors that I can call upon when a self is required. I am a theater and nothing more than a theater.

  Philip Roth

  Player, Self, Identity

  "The Counterlife". Book by Philip Roth, 1986.

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• If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement, even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act.

  John F. Kerry

  Hands, Order, Community

  "We Still Have a Choice on Iraq" by John F. Kerry, www.nytimes.com. September 6, 2002.

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• Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her. And we must hazard them to win our prize. Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.

  Karl Popper

  Mean, Winning, Games

  Karl Popper (2005). “The Logic of Scientific Discovery”, p.280, Routledge

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• We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price. But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes - a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.

  Barack Obama

  Attitude, Heart, Pay The Price

  Barack Obama (2008). “An American Story: The Speeches of Barack Obama : a Primer”, Independent Publishing Group

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• Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of the ineluctable tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political action. And it is unwilling to gloss over and obliterate that tension and thus to obfuscate both the moral and the political issue by making it appear as though the stark facts of politics were morally more satisfying than they actually are, and the moral law less exacting than it actually is.

  Hans Morgenthau

  Successful, Law, Issues

  Hans Joachim Morgenthau (1993). “Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace”, McGraw-Hill Humanities Social

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• A token of ecological awareness in a society devoted to self destruction and waste but unwilling to acknowledge its indulgent ways.

  Dan Simmons

  Self, Way, Waste

  Dan Simmons (2014). “The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle: Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion”, p.796, Spectra

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• Socialism is, among other things, the political habitat of low self-esteem, incompetence, self-loathing, and a willingness to steal - or have stolen for you what you are unable or unwilling to work for. Socialism is a philosophy fit only for slugs, leaches, and mosquitoes.

  L. Neil Smith

  Philosophy, Self Esteem, Political

  "Alice Shrugged". December 18, 2008.

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• The university president who cashiered every professor unwilling to support Woodrow Wilson for the first vacancy in the
  Trinity. . . .

  H. L. Mencken

  Support, President, Vacancy

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• The unwilling mind is not a teachable mind.

  Ellen Swallow Richards

  Education, Mind, Teachable

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• We should say to God as we mingle with our dear ones each day, "God, give them each Thy blessing. They need it, because they live with me, and I am very selfish and unwilling to sacrifice very much for them, although I do love them.

  Ole Hallesby

  Selfish, Sacrifice, Blessing

  Ole Hallesby (1975). “Prayer”, Augsburg Fortress Publishing

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• Postmodern theatre seems unwilling to listen to talk about textual or theatrical heritage, which it treats as no more than memory in the technical sense of that word, as an immediately available and reusable memory bank.

  Patrice Pavis

  Memories, Theatre, Heritage

  Patrice Pavis (2003). “Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture”, p.47, Routledge

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• If America's tv and movie producers are unwilling to clean up their act... when it comes to sex, bloodshed and violence in their programming... the government stands ready to step in.

  Janet Reno

  Sex, Government, America

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• We live in a very low state of the world, and pay unwilling tribute to government founded on force. There is not, among the most religious and instructed men of the most religious and civil nations, a reliance on the moral sentiment, and a sufficient belief in the unity of things to persuade them that society can be maintained without artificial restraints, as well as the solar system; or that the private citizen might be reasonable, and a good neighbor, without the hint of a jail or a confiscation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Men, Jail

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2006). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems”, p.265, Bantam Classics

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• Instead of giving the effort the level of attention needed, the Air Force has wasted a year doing very little to end our reliance on Russian rocket engines, if the Air Force is unwilling to do what is necessary to meet the 2019 deadline, they are going to have to figure out how to meet our space launch needs without the RD-180 (Russian engine).

  John McCain

  Air, Years, Space

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• It seems to me we have been in a rhetorical arms race in this country, with each side unwilling to lay down its weapons for fear - usually justified - the other side would beat them to a pulp.

  Pat Sajak

  Country, Race, Arms

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