Frequent Quotes - page 10
But his genetic and physical inference from cases of ethnic durability cannot account for the considerable variability, wide range and frequent absorptions and dissolutions of instances of ethnic affiliation, and the fact that many ethnies have undergone large-scale changes of culture and, in some cases, of demography. This is the case even in such a culturally long-lived example as the Greeks, where undoubted evidence of massive rupture of demographic continuity by the influx of Albanians and Slavs on the Greek mainland from the sixth to eighth centuries AD and of considerable, though not complete, culture change after the conversion to Orthodoxy, call into question the continuity and influence of a common ancient Greek biological and genetic inheritance on modern Greeks.
Anthony D. Smith
One of the most fascinating parts of their story is the Game Change authors' insistence that John McCain – he of the clenched fists and frequent outbursts, the infamous temper – never publicly repudiated Sarah Palin. McCain's advisors, staff and friends, yes. They complained long and hard and nastily about her in ensuing years. But never the senator, Heilemann and Halperin write. And now, as the nation says farewell to one of the most fascinating politicians in history, a question remains: Will all of John McCain's railing against Donald Trump ever make up for the fact that it might have been the senator's own desperation to win in 2008 that led the nation to this point? Only time will tell.
John McCain
1910–11 was a time of the wildest uncertainty and political ferment. True, those good old politicians who still figure in the cartoons were already with us, but in what different guise! Our die-hard Mr Winston Churchill was the radical Home Secretary; Mr Ramsay MacDonald was preaching class war with something very near to verbal coherence; Mr Lloyd George, whom frequent photographs have endeared to us as a benevolent landed proprietor, was inveighing against the privileges of the gentry in terms which might have been translated direct from Danton or Robespierre.
Evelyn Waugh
A good Prince ought to make his passions subservient to the interest of his country, for all things are either good or bad for him as they regard his people; but Francis had been bred up with different sentiments from these, flattery the bane of all princes had poisoned his mind; he instead of regarding the affairs of his country, totally gave himself to pleasure, which was the reason all his military operations met with such frequent delays.
George III of the United Kingdom
[Ur-Fascism] depends on the cult of action for action's sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering's alleged statement ("When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," "universities are a nest of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.
Umberto Eco
We now continued our journey without encountering any further casualty, except in crossing the Arkansas river, where we lost several mules by drowning; and on the 22d of April we made our entrance into Van Buren. This trip was much more tedious and protracted than I had contemplated - owing, in the first part of the journey, to the inclemency of the season, and a want of pasturage for our animals; and, towards the conclusion, to the frequent rains, which kept the route in a miserable condition.
Josiah Gregg
The Senate has unlimited debate; in the House, debate is ruthlessly circumscribed. There is frequent discussion as to which technique most effectively frustrates democratic process. However, a more important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality. Superficial observers have long criticized the United States for making a fetish of youth. This is unfair. Uniquely among modern organs of public and private administration, its national legislature rewards senility.
John Kenneth Galbraith
[T]he deepest level of hell is reserved for traitors. Why traitors? Because they make life in community impossible. In medieval Italy, cities were in a frequent state of war with each other. When they closed the city gates at night, everybody in the city had to trust that no one would open the gates during the night and let in troops of the enemy. If you could not have that trust, you couldn't sleep. You couldn't live, for fear that your neighbor would betray you, and everyone, to the enemy. To render everyone isolated from everyone else, and living in fear - this was hell.
Rod Dreher
Christine O'Donnell ... was one of our most frequent guests on Politically Incorrect. People who may not remember Politically Incorrect because they're too young or they were watching Johnny Carson or something ... may not remember that we created people like Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham... we did like to book a lot of female conservatives. They were good press and they were good for the show. We loved Christine O'Donnell. I still like her. You cannot not like her. She is such a nice person.
We have a great clip that used to be in our highlight reel of Ben Affleck on that show just saying "Please, Christine, shut up." Because I guess she would just go on. She was known back then as the girl from SALT. SALT being the Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth. ... So part of me for sentimental reasons is rooting for Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. The other part of me is rooting for her because she's going to get her Christian ass kicked in the general election.
Bill Maher
In these frequent talks about the books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give me explanations and ideas respecting civilization, government, morality, mental cultivation, which he required me afterwards to restate to him in my own words. He also made me read, and give him a verbal account of, many books which would not have interested me sufficiently to induce me to read them of myself: among others, Millar's Historical View of the English Government, a book of great merit for its time, and which he highly valued; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, McCrie's Life of John Knox, and even Sewel's and Rutty's Histories of the Quakers. He was fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming them: of such works I remember Beaver's African Memoranda, and Collins's account of the first settlement of New South Wales.
John Stuart Mill
God knows I have little interest in animals, but I do not like to see them insulted. I used to feel the same thing in the days when I was a frequent visitor at the London Zoo; in the lion house there were always ninnies who mocked the captive lions. I often wished that the bars would turn to butter, and that the great, noble beasts would practise their particular form of wit upon the little, ignoble men.
Robertson Davies
It's very difficult to convey how alien and horrifying accounts of how American health care works sound to a Canadian. Seriously, if I didn't know they were real - if, for example, I didn't know an American reviewer who died because she had to choose between paying her mortgage or having a doctor investigate her incapacitating chest pains - it would seem like something from a particularly silly Kornbluth and Pohl Garbageman novel. About the only thing about the US that seems even less believable is the collective enthusiasm for frequent mass murders.
James Nicoll
From his position in the 8 p.m. slot, Carlson has managed to become one of the most influential voices in conservative politics, often by refusing to adhere to Republican conventional wisdom. Only a few weeks before the Iran flare-up, he delivered a monologue in praise of Elizabeth Warren's "economic patriotism” plan; in January, he launched an intra-conservative war over the virtues of capitalism with a monologue attacking Mitt Romney, private equity, and conservatives who "worship” the market. He is also perhaps the most reviled talking head in the country thanks to his frequent diatribes against diversity, immigration, and multiculturalism.
Tucker Carlson
While Singer presents men in terms of their individual psychological aberrations, he treats women as a class, making far more frequent use of clichés and stereotypes in depicting them than in depicting men. Singer's vision-combining the traditional Jewish image of woman as subservient and inferior with the misogynistic view of woman's nature in the philosophies of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud and Weininger represents a powerful assault on the Jewish woman.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
I have never proceeded from any Genus supremum of the actual infinite. Quite the contrary, I have rigorously proved that there is absolutely no Genus supremum of the actual infinite. What surpasses all that is finite and transfinite is no Genus; it is the single, completely individual unity in which everything is included, which includes the Absolute, incomprehensible to the human understanding. This is the Actus Purissimus, which by many is called God.
I am so in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that Nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that Nature makes frequent use of it everywhere, in order to show more effectively the perfections of its Author. Thus I believe that there is no part of matter which is not - I do not say divisible - but actually divisible; and consequently the least particle ought to be considered as a world full of an infinity of different creatures.
Georg Cantor
