Urgent Quotes - Page 11

• A man's labor is not only his capital but his life. When it passes it returns never more. To utilize it, to prevent its wasteful squandering, to enable the poor man to bank it up for use hereafter, this surely is one of the most urgent tasks before civilization.

  William Booth

  Work, Men, Civilization

  William Booth (1890). “In Darkest England, and the Way Out”

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• Progress is more of a challenge for the cynic but also more important and urgent, since for the optimist things aren't that bad and are bound to get better anyway.

  Julian Baggini

  Challenges, Get Better, Progress

  "In praise of cynicism" by Julian Baggini, www.theguardian.com. July 10, 2013.

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• For a pandemic of moderate severity, this is one of our greatest challenges: helping people to understand when they do not need to worry, and when they do need to seek urgent care.

  Margaret Chan

  Worry, People, Challenges

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• But you can make good radio, interesting radio, great radio even, without an urgent question, a burning issue at stake.

  Ira Glass

  Issues, Interesting, Burning

  "Ira Glass: Live and Uncut". Interview with Ana Marie Cox And Joanna Dionis, www.motherjones.com. August 11, 1998.

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• America's downgrade may serve as a wakeup call for its policymakers. It is an unambiguous and loud signal of the country's eroding economic strength and global standing. It renders urgent the need to regain the initiative through better economic policymaking and more coherent governance.

  Mohamed El-Erian

  Country, America, Needs

  "U.S. Downgrade Heralds a New Financial Era" by Mohamed A. El-Erian, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 6, 2011.

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• The Social Security Act offers to all our citizens a workable and working method of meeting urgent present needs and of forestalling future need. It utilizes the familiar machinery of our Federal-State government to promote the common welfare and the economic stability of the Nation.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Government, Needs, Citizens

  Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1941). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1938, Volume 7”, p.480, Best Books on

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• There's one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate.

  Barack Obama

  Issues, Climate, Growing

  Remarks by the President at U.N. Climate Change Summit, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. September 23, 2014.

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• Clearly our first task is to use the material wealth of space to solve the urgent problems we now face on Earth: to bring the poverty-stricken segments of the world up to a decent living standard, without recourse to war or punitive action against those already in material comfort; to provide for a maturing civilization the basic energy vital to its survival.

  Gerard K. O'Neill

  War, Space, Civilization

  "The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space". Book by Gerard K. O'Neill, 1976.

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• I believe it is urgent to begin now, before we are constrained by a totally controlled society monitoring limited resources on the planet. Now is the time to establish our extraterrestrial base in freedom; later it may be under the coercion of necessity.

  Barbara Marx Hubbard

  Believe, Space, Limited Resources

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• I am not (yet) facing the problem of emigration. I want my music to be acknowledged here first of all, in this country: after that, we shall see - perhaps the question will then become urgent.

  Alfred Schnittke

  Country, Emigration, Want

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• Among the most urgent political priorities of our age is the separation of economy and state.

  Llewellyn Rockwell

  Priorities, Political, Age

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• No one is obliged to take a position on the urgent issues of the day, but there are times when our impoverished public sphere could do with some occasional assertions of literary and moral authority.

  Pankaj Mishra

  Issues, Spheres, Moral

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I feel that's one of the central questions of fantasy. What did we lose when we entered the 20th and 21st century, and how can we mourn what we lost, and what can we replace it with? We're still asking those questions in an urgent way.

  Lev Grossman

  Asking, Way, Fantasy

  Interview with Todd VanDerWerff, www.avclub.com. August 8, 2011.

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• We spend our time sending messages to each other, talking and trying to listen at the same time, exchanging information. This seems to be our most urgent biological function; it is what we do with our lives.

  Lewis Thomas

  Communication, Talking, Trying

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

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• Time is always wanting to me, and I cannot meet with a single day when I am nut hurried along, driven to by wits'-end by urgent work, business to attent do or some service to render.

  George Sand

  Time, Nuts, Driven

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• Truth has not such an urgent air.

  Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

  Truth, Air

  "The Art of Poetry (Canto I)". Book by Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, 1674.

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• Yale's greatness carries an urgent need to guard against the fall of excellence into exclusivity, of refinement into preciousness, of elegance into class and convention.

  Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.

  Fall, Greatness, Yale

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• Art is a staple of mankind... So urgent, so utterly linked with the pulse of feeling that it becomes the singular sign of life when every other aspect of civilization fails.

  Jamake Highwater

  Art, Civilization, Feelings

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• If the new government rejects our urgent appeal, we will, next year, in solidarity with our people, intensify our struggle for self-determination, our struggle for national liberation to establish self-government in our homeland.

  Velupillai Prabhakaran

  Determination, Struggle, Government

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• An urgent missive sent to Josephine Home in three days. Don't wash.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Home, Greatest Love, Three

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• There are some, I know, who see beautification as a frill, as an extra, or as something that is luxurious enough to postpone. Well, they make me impatient because I am convinced that beauty and order in our environment are not frills. I am convinced that they are urgent necessities because they will determine whether our grandchildren can live in a decent land or whether they will be surrounded by glittering junkheaps.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Future, Grandchildren, Order

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1970). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968-1969”, p.459, Best Books on

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• The important task rarely must be done today, or even this week...But the urgent task calls for instant action...The momentary appeal of these tasks seems irresistible and important, and they devour our energy. But in the light of time's perspective, their deceptive prominence fades; with a sense of loss we recall the vital tasks we pushed aside. We realize we've become slaves to the tyranny of the urgent.

  Charles Hummel

  Motivational, Loss, Light

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• When the urgent crowds out the important, people urgently accomplish nothing of value.

  Orrin Woodward

  Accomplish Nothing, People, Important

  Twitter post from Jan 15, 2016

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• It is a sign of the times, and not a very good sign, that these days it is necessary - and not only necessary but urgent - to interest minds in the fate of Mind, that is to say, in their own fate.

  Paul Valery

  Fate, Mind, These Days

  "Reflections on the World Today" by Paul Valery, (p. 156), 1931.

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• The Evangelistic Harvest is always urgent. The destiny of men and of nations is always being decided. Every generation is strategic. We are not responsible for the past generation, and we cannot bear the full responsibility for the next one; but we do have our generation. God will hold us responsible as to how well we fulfill our responsibilities to this age and take advantage of our opportunities.

  Billy Graham

  Responsibility, Past, Opportunity

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