Refusal Quotes - page 6

Labour has always been a coalition between workerist and progressive elements, liberals and conservatives, mediated by socialism. It was held together by the belief that we are social beings who resist the domination of capital through democracy; and by the refusal to accept that human beings are a commodity or that our inheritance is exclusively monetary. (Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman)
Intellectual sodomy, which comes from the refusal to be simple about plain matters, is as gross and abundant today as sexual perversion and they are nowise different from one another. View quote
Edward Dahlberg
The objective of these barbaric acts is to terrorise, to paralyse through fear, to subjugate or to censor. Undisputedly after this act that traumatised the whole nation, fear is there. It is my responsibility to say that this fear must be overcome. And to say that this attack must continue to prompt free speech in the face of Islamic fundamentalism. We must not stay silent. And we must say what happened. We must not be scared of words: this is a terrorist act committed in the name of radical Islamism. Denial and hypocrisy are no longer an option. The absolute refusal of Islamic fundamentalism must be proclaimed high and loud by whomever. Life and liberty are among the most precious values. View quote
Marine Le Pen
The refusal of free inquiry derives from an awareness of the fragility of the basis of religious faith; and since certainty is psychologically preferable to truth, the former often being willfully mistaken for the latter, anything that threatens certainty is anathematized with fury. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
Nationalism is fraught with dangers, of course, but so is the blind refusal to recognize that attachment to one's own culture, traditions, and history is a creative, normal, and healthy part of human experience. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
The worshiping of other things, the showing of disrespect by thought, word, or deed, and the refusal to acknowledge our obligation to him-these things shut God out from our lives. View quote
Kirby Page
Non-resistance in the sense of rejecting all forms of coercion is not always a legitimate expression of love toward man and love toward God. ...the refusal under some circumstances to exercise forcible restraint is a betrayal of love and therefore a betrayal of higher religion. View quote
Kirby Page
The proportions of good and evil in any society depend partly upon the proportion of consent to that of refusal and partly upon the distribution of power between those who consent and those who refuse. View quote
Simone Weil
As we look over the list of the early leaders of the republic, Washington, John Adams, Hamilton, and others, we discern that they were all men who insisted upon being themselves and who refused to truckle to the people. With each succeeding generation, the growing demand of the people that its elective officials shall not lead but merely register the popular will has steadily undermined the independence of those who derive their power from popular election. The persistent refusal of the Adamses to sacrifice the integrity of their own intellectual and moral standards and values for the sake of winning public office or popular favor is another of the measuring rods by which we may measure the divergence of American life from its starting point. View quote
James Truslow Adams
However often you may have done them a favour, if you once refuse they forget everything except your refusal. View quote
Pliny the Younger
I didn't go to drama school because, from the first refusal I then, as I said, a couple of weeks later, was offered a professional job, where I am immensely grateful to the journey. (Ben Kingsley)
REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive. View quote
Ambrose Bierce
The habit of obscurity is partly caused by a settled disinclination among public servants to give a definite refusal even where assent is out of the question; or to convey a vigorous rebuke even where, in private correspondence, any person with self-respect would feel bound to do so. View quote
Robert Graves
I understand why so many Americans are fed up with government. The 112th Congress was almost universally derided as the worst ever. It was the most polarized body since the end of Reconstruction, according to one study, and I grew embarrassed by its partisan bickering, inactivity, and refusal to address the vital challenges facing America. View quote
Olympia Snowe
I'm English enough to feel something of a gut-reaction to modernism, to continental philosophising and anything that smacks of a refusal to pay attention to the forensics: the empirical facts on the ground. View quote
Will Self
There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth, the persistent refusal to analyze the causes of happenings. View quote
Dorothy Thompson
At the moment we have a critical situation in Greece. Even as we speak, where there is an open attempt by the EU to destroy Syriza by splitting it. There is a German obstinacy and utter refusal to seriously consider an alternative. The reason isn't even a lack of money, because money swims around the EU coffers endlessly, and they could write off the debt tomorrow if they wanted. But they don't want to do so, because of the election of a left-wing government. They want to punish Syriza in public, to humiliate it so that this model doesn't go any further than Greece. View quote
Tariq Ali
A principal characteristic of technique ... is its refusal to tolerate moral judgments. It is absolutely independent of them and eliminates them from its domain. View quote
Jacques Ellul
What is a rebel? A man who says no: but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. View quote
Albert Camus
The prompter the refusal, the less the disappointment. View quote
Publilius Syrus
At Bishop they learn'd that Dixon had been buried in back of the Quaker Meeting-House in Staindrop. Doctor Isaac stay'd with his Father, step for step. At the grave, which by Quaker custom was unmark'd, Mason beseech'd what dismally little he knew of God, to help Dixon through. The grass was long and beaded with earlier rain. A Cat emerg'd from it and star'd for a long time, appearing to know them. "Dad?" Doc had taken his arm. For an instant, unexpectedly, Mason saw the little Boy who, having worried about Storms at Sea, as Beasts in the Forest, came running each time to make sure his father had return'd safely, - whose gift of ministering to others Mason was never able to see, let alone accept, in his blind grieving, his queasiness of Soul before a life and a death, his refusal to touch the Baby, tho' 'twas not possible to blame him.... The Boy he had gone to the other side of the Globe to avoid was looking at him now with nothing in his face but concern for his Father. "Oh, Son." (Thomas Pynchon)
I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal. . . . The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth. View quote
William Butler Yeats
I have heard it asserted that the inadequate sanctions already applied have not achieved their object. At no time, and under no circumstances could sanctions that were intentionally inadequate, intentionally badly applied, stop an aggressor. This is not a case of the impossibility of stopping an aggressor but of the refusal to stop an aggressor. View quote
Haile Selassie
In view of the meaning given to this honor in the community to which I belong, I should abstain from the undeserved prize that has been awarded to me. Do not meet my voluntary refusal with ill will. View quote
Boris Pasternak
Your depression is connected to your insolence and refusal to praise. View quote
Rumi