Vital Quotes - page 12
Much of what we do as adults is based on this imitative absorption during our childhood years. Frequently we imagine that we are behaving in a particular way because such behaviour accords with some abstract, lofty code of moral principles, when in reality all we are doing is obeying a deeply ingrained and long 'forgotten' set of purely imitative impressions (along with out carefully concealed instinctive urges) that makes it so hard for societies to change their customs and their 'beliefs'. Even when faced with exciting, brilliantly rational new ideas, based on the application of pure, objective intelligence, the community will still cling to its old home-based habits and prejudices. This is the cross we have to bear if we are going to sail through our vital juvenile 'blotting-paper' phase of rapidly mopping up the accumulated experiences of previous generations. We are forced to take the biased opinions along with the valuable facts.
Desmond Morris
He had to give orders that meant men died, and sometimes sacrifice hundreds, thousands of them, knowingly sending them to their near-certain deaths, just to secure some important position or goal, or protect some vital position. And always, whether they liked it or not, the civilians suffered too; the very people they both claimed to be fighting for made up perhaps the bulk of the casualties in their bloody struggle.
He had tried to stop it, tried to bargain, from the beginning, but neither side wanted peace on anything except its own terms, and he had no real political power, and so had had to fight.
Iain Banks
This behavior not only exacerbates tensions in its own right; it has the effect of stifling community confidence that's absolutely vital for effective policing. And this, in turn, deepens the widespread distrust provoked by the department's other unconstitutional exercises of police power – none of which is more harmful than its pattern of excessive force.
Eric Holder
Trump did not create the worst dysfunctions of our democracy; our worst dysfunctions created him. He's the symptom, not the cause, of a dangerous slide away from vital democracy toward corporate authoritarian rule. The slide began 40 years ago and he's simply the climactic event.
Marianne Williamson
Good afternoon. I would like to take the next few moments to address the two investigations that the Justice Department has been conducting in Ferguson, Missouri, these last several months. The matter that we are here to discuss is significant not only because of the conclusions the Department of Justice is announcing today, but also because of the broader conversations and the initiatives that those conversations have inspired across the country on the local and national level. Those initiatives have included extensive and vital efforts to examine the causes of misunderstanding and mistrust between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve; to support and strengthen our public safety institutions as a whole; and to rebuild confidence wherever it has eroded.
Eric Holder
Cross-cultural studies presuppose a systems approach, by which I mean that any element of the total system called ``culture'' should be eligible for analysis, regardless of the discipline that usually deals with such elements. At the level of (national) cultures, these are phenomena on all levels: individuals, groups, organizations, or society as a whole may be relevant. There is no excuse for overlooking any vital factor because it is usually treated in someone else's department at the university.
Geert Hofstede
Modernity is one of the most delicate and vital issues confronting us, the people of non-European countries and Islamic societies. A more important issue is the relationship between an imposed modernization and genuine civilization. We must discover if modernity as is claimed is a synonym for being civilised, or if it is an altogether different issue and social phenomenon having no relation to civilisation at all. Unfortunately modernity has been imposed on us, the non-European nations, in the guise of civilization.
Ali Shariati
The Chartered ccountants by virtue of their qualifications, experience and training can render valuable services in these difficult times in areas which are vital to economic and industrial growth. It should be the duty of the members of the profession in the Northern India Regional Council, apart from examining accuracy of transactions, the modern auditor should also look into the propriety of such transactions... the profession has to develop uniform accounting principles, standard terminologies and precise definitions of various accounting concepts. This was desirable from the point of view of providing reliable information in the financial statements for the benefit of the intending investors, members of the public, government agencies and financial institutions. This will enable individuals and organisations to form a fairly accurate judgment of the financial position by a study of the audited financial statements of companies.
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
A vital leap in the evolution of intellectual capacity would have been the ability to form concepts, to conceive of individual objects as belonging to distinct classes, and thus do away with the almost intolerable burden of relating one experience to another. Concepts, moreover, can be manipulated and this is the root of abstract thought and of invention. The formation of concepts is also a necessary, but apparently not sufficient, condition for the emergence of language.
Richard Leakey
That the German people were spared this final catastrophe was due to -- aside from the rapid advances of the Allied troops, which made the carrying out of such a gigantic demolition impossible -- the superhuman efforts of Speer and a number of Army officers who, in direct disobedience (finally!) of Hitler's orders, raced about the country to make sure that vital communications, plants and stores were not blown up by zealously obedient Army officers and party hacks.
William L. Shirer
Joenes's students quickly absorbed the material given to them, passed their tests, and quickly forgot the material. Like many vital young organisms, they were able to eject anything harmful, disturbing, distressing, or merely boring. Of course they also ejected anything useful, stimulating, or thought provoking. This was perhaps regrettable, but it was part of the educative process to which every teacher had to accustom himself.
Robert Sheckley
The world is the same jungle all over, but New York is its purest distillation. What is useful elsewhere is vital in the big city. You see four guys bunched on a corner waiting for you, you either run like hell in the opposite direction without hesitation, or you keep on walking without slowing down or speeding up or breaking stride. You look ahead with studied neutrality, you check their faces, you look away, like you're saying, Is that all you got?
Truth is, it's smarter to run. The best fight is the one you don't have. But I have never claimed to be smart. Just obstinate, and occasionally bad-tempered. Some guys kick cats. I keep walking.
Lee Child
You have drunk deep at the springs of western knowledge. While you will not hesitate to absorb for your benefit and for the national good the best elements in western culture and thought, you will not in any case permit the destruction of the vital elements of your own civilisation.
Syama Prasad Mookerjee
What the workingmen of the country are profoundly interested in is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, the enslaving and degrading wage-system in which they toil for a pittance at the pleasure of their masters and are bludgeoned, jailed or shot when they protest - this is the central, controlling, vital issue of the hour, and neither of the old party platforms has a word or even a hint about it.
As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the capitalist class.
Eugene V. Debs
Those who, in the nineteenth century, argued the dangers of a mass democracy in which a majority of the voters would have no stake in the country at all, had reason to be fearful. But the remedy is not to restrict the franchise to those who own property: it is to extend the ownership of property to the largest possible majority of those who have the vote. The widespread ownership of private property is crucial to the survival of freedom and democracy. It gives the citizen a vital sense of identification with the society of which he is a part. It gives him a stake in the future-and indeed, equally important, in the present. It creates a society with an inbuilt resistance to revolutionary change.
Nigel Lawson
