Western Quotes - Page 2

• Western man wrote "his" history as if it were the history of the entire human race.

  John Oliver Killens

  Men, Race, Diversity

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• Western society has accepted as unquestionable a technological imperative that is quite as arbitrary as the most primitive taboo: not merely the duty to foster invention and constantly to create technological novelties, but equally the duty to surrender to these novelties unconditionally, just because they are offered, without respect to their human consequences.

  Lewis Mumford

  Technology, Arbitrary, Novelty

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• Today we are in a situation in which the free movement of people can have enormous, monumental dimensions, and I don't think that any country in Western Europe or in America can any longer adopt the idea of totally free movement of people. I t would simply overwhelm their social facilities, their societies and create migratory dynamics on the scales of tens and tens of millions of people. That simply is not practical.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Country, Thinking, Europe

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• O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down
  Thro' the clear windows of the morning, turn
  Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
  Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!
  
  The hills tell each other, and the listening
  Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned
  Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth,
  And let thy holy feet visit our clime.
  
  Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds
  Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste
  Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
  Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.

  William Blake

  Morning, Spring, Eye

  William Blake (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of William Blake (Illustrated)”, p.18, Delphi Classics

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• The influence (for good or ill) of Plato's work is immeasurable. Western thought, one might say, has been Platonic or anti-Platonic, but hardly ever non-Platonic.

  Karl Popper

  Plato, Hard Work, Science

  Karl Popper (2014). “After The Open Society: Selected Social and Political Writings”, p.190, Routledge

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• Women over fifty already form one of the largest groups in the population structure of the western world. As long as they like themselves, they will not be an oppressed minority. In order to like themselves they must reject trivialization by others of who and what they are. A grown woman should not have to masquerade as a girl in order to remain in the land of the living.

  Germaine Greer

  Girl, Order, Land

  "The Change: Women, Aging and the Menopause". Book by Germaine Greer, 1991.

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• One reason which I find particularly fascinating about Israel is this. There is no such thing as a Jewish civilization. There is a Jewish culture, a Jewish religion, but there is no such thing as a Jewish civilization. The Jews were a component basically of two civilizations. In the Western world, we talk about the Judeo-Christian tradition and you talk about the Judeo-Islamic tradition because there were large and important Jewish communities living in the lands of Islam.

  Bernard Lewis

  Community, Islam, Important

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• New York is the place where all the aspirations of the western world meet to form one vast master aspiration, as powerful as the suction of a steam dredge. It is the icing on the pie called Christian civilization.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, New York, Powerful

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• Her blue eyes sought the west afar,
  For lovers love the western star.

  Walter Scott

  Love, Life, Stars

  Sir Walter Scott (1855). “The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott”, p.31

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• It is impossible not to feel stirred at the thought of the emotions of man at certain historic moments of adventure and discovery - Columbus when he first saw the Western shore, Pizarro when he stared at the Pacific Ocean, Franklin when the electric spark came from the string of his kite, Galileo when he first turned his telescope to the heavens. Such moments are also granted to students in the abstract regions of thought, and high among them must be placed the morning when Descartes lay in bed and invented the method of co-ordinate geometry.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Morning, Ocean, Adventure

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• Violence is hidden within democratic structures because they are not radically democratic - Western democracy is merely a domestic convenience of consumerism.

  Edward Bond

  Democracy, Literature, Violence

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• But he knew people and he was head writer for Have Gun Will Travel, and if you took those early Star Treks that we did and put us in a western wardrobe and put us on wagon train going west, we can say the same lines.

  Majel Barrett

  Travel, Stars, Gun

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• Generally, the shaking is consciously felt in its positive aspects — as the wonderful new heaven and earth which love with its miracle and mystery has suddenly produced. Love is the answer, we sing. Our Western culture seems to be engaged in a romantic - albeit desperate - conspiracy to enforce the illusion that that is all there is to eros.

  Rollo May

  Life, Falling In Love, Love Is

  "Love & Will".

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• In the West, people pride themselves on being the defenders of democratic rights and the champions of freedom. But if the Western world really cares for the benevolence of the whole world, it will have to turn to introspection.

  Nirmala Srivastava

  Yoga, Pride, Rights

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• Who in the world remembers who won the 1975 Westchester Classic or the 1978 Western Open? Basically, the majors are the only comparison over time . . . played on the same courses for generations. All the best players are always there.

  Jack Nicklaus

  Golf, Player, Generations

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• When I was young I used to read about the decline of Western civilization, and I decided it was something I would like to make a contribution to.

  George Carlin

  Humorous, Civilization, Used

  George Carlin (2002). “Napalm & Silly Putty”, Hyperion

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• In the Western standards of modesty, there are different guidelines.

  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  Basketball, Different, Modesty

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• It is a fact that all the ballet's fundamental dance steps are derived from the folk dances of Western Europe.

  Ninette de Valois

  Dance, Europe, Fundamentals

  "Ninette de Valois: An Idealist Without Illusions".

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• One of the stupidest theories of Western life.

  Malcolm Muggeridge

  Evolution, Theory, Stupidest

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• A terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event [will occur] somewhere in the Western world - it may be in the United States of America - that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event.

  Tommy Franks

  Country, Order, America

  "General Tommy Franks". Interview by Marvin R. Shanken, www.cigaraficionado.com. December 2003.

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• Since Western society is deteriorating, it has become overrun with immorality, and God is going to judge it, and destroy it. And the only way the black people caught up in this society can be saved is not to integrate into this corrupt society, but to separate from it, to a land of our own, where we can reform ourselves, lift up our moral standards and try to be godly.

  Malcolm X

  Godly, Land, People

  Malcolm X (2015). “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, p.282, Ballantine Books

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• The kind of pace that you want to use in a Western - just to acknowledge the land in the distance that everyone has to travel, and the way things develop sort of slowly - it's almost the antithetical of what's currently going on in the movies, you know.

  Lawrence Kasdan

  Travel, Distance, Land

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• When I was a kid, if a guy got killed in a western movie I always wondered who got his horse.

  George Carlin

  Movie, Horse, Kids

  George Carlin (2002). “Napalm & Silly Putty”, Hyperion

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• Western laziness consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues.

  Sogyal Rinpoche

  Real, Buddhism, Issues

  Sogyal Rinpoche (2009). “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: The Spiritual Classic & International Bestseller: Revised and Updated Edition”, p.27, Harper Collins

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• Public charities, foodbanks and church pantries are doing more than ever before, but they can't keep up with the need. We can never end hunger only through the wonderful work of local charities. Like other Western democracies, we must end our national problem of hunger through national and political leadership. Charity is nice for some things, but not as a way to feed a nation. We don't protect our national security through charity, and we shouldn't protect our families and children that way either.

  Jeff Bridges

  Children, Nice, Inspiration

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