Views Quotes - Page 221

Nearly all great civilizations that perished did so because they had crystallized, because they were incapable of adapting themselves to new conditions, new methods, new points of view. It is as though people would rather die than change.

The dirty little secret is Donald Trump's views are not all that different from the rest of the Republicans in the field. Nobody in the Republican field supports a path to citizenship. They're all pretty tough on immigration.

The proper way to understand any social system was to view it from above.

Poetry is partly sympathy, don't you think? If it's any good, it gets people to think about others' points of view.

We have to stop all of the fighting and talking without listening and find a sense of compromise. It's very evident that it could possibly happen. No matter what your political views are, we're in a very dangerous state of politics.

Wouldst thou be famed? have those high acts in view, Brave men would act though scandal would ensue.

I wonder if it's conservative or liberal [ inalienable rights idea], because when we think of liberal thought, when we think about the relation to liberty, we're talking about traditional conservatism - as opposed to today's conservatism, which no longer represents those views.

All this is a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because it helps people establish what they value; they understand the sort of ideas they identify with. The curse is that they aren't challenged in their views. The Internet becomes an echo chamber. Users don't see the counterarguments.

The other view is of the official United States, the United States of armies and interventions. The United States that in 1953 overthrew the nationalist government of Mossadegh in Iran and brought back the shah.

Thus, the controversy about the Moral Majority arises not only from its views, but from its name - which, in the minds of many, seems to imply that only one set of public policies is moral and only one majority can possibly be right.

It is extraordinary that each of the three individuals this president [ George W. Bush] has nominated for the Supreme Court - Chief Justice [John] Roberts, Harriet Miers and now Judge Alito - has served not only as a lawyer for the executive branch, but has defended the most expansive view of presidential authority.

If we set the precedent of limiting the First Amendment, in order to protect the sensibilities of those who are offended by flag burning, what will we say the next time someone is offended by some other minority view, or by some other person's exercise of the freedom the Constitution is supposed to protect?

The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear, animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a proper temper of mind calmly to investigate, or candidly to appreciate, the motives of their enemies, which often escape the impartial and discerning view even of those who are placed at a secure distance from the flames of persecution.

To mourn deeply for the death of another loosens from myself the petty desire for, and the animal adherence to life. We have gained the end of the philosopher, and view without shrinking the coffin and the pall.

Man hazards the condition and loses the virtues of a freeman, in proportion as he accustoms his thoughts to view without anguish or shame, his lapse into the bondage of debtor.

In one of the Welsh counties is a small village called A-----. It is somewhat removed from the high road, and is, therefore, but little known to those luxurious amateurs of the picturesque, who view nature through the windows of a carriage and four.

It's insulting to ask a dramatist what his view of his play is. I have no opinion

Some writers' view of things depends upon the success of the final result. I'd rather stand or fall on my own concepts. But there is a fine line to be drawn between pointing up something or distorting it.

The playwright, along with any writer, composer, painter in this society, has got to have a terribly private view of his own value, of his own work. He's got to listen to his own voice primarily. He's got to watch out for fads, for what might be called the critical aesthetics.

You may dislike the intention enormously but your judgment of the artistic merit of the work must not be based on your view of what it's about. The work of art must be judged by how well it succeeds in its intention.

It is always dishonest for a reviewer to review the author instead of the author's book.

We're all undesirable elements from somebody's point of view.

I've never yet read a review of one of my own books that I couldn't have written much better myself.

From the point of view of the economy, the sale of weapons is indistinguishable from the sale of food. When a building collapses or a plane crashes, it?s rather inconvenient from the point of view of those inside, but it?s altogether convenient for the growth of the gross national product, which sometimes ought to be called the "gross criminal product."

What is new about Barthes's posthumous reputation is the view of him as a writer whose books of criticism and personal musings must be admired as serious and beautiful works of the imagination.