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afddceb
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The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....
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acceptable-opinion
lively-debate
obedient
limit
passive
debate
opinion
control
passivity
obedience
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Noam Chomsky |
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e19ec87
|
Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge... is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.
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empathy
inspirational
accountability
opinion
ego
knowledge
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Bill Bullard |
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b8b5aa0
|
"All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously." At the time Switters had disputed her assertion. Even at seventeen, he was aware that depression could have chemical causes. "The key word here is roots," Maestra had countered. "The roots of depression. For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can be, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscientious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass. Even an old tomato like me can recall how painful, scary, and disillusioning that realization was. So, there's a tendency, then, to slip into rage and self-pity, which if indulged, can fester into bouts of depression." "Yeah but Maestra--" "Don't interrupt. Now, unless someone stronger and wiser--a friend, a parent, a novelist, filmmaker, teacher, or musician--can josh us out of it, can elevate us and show us how petty and pompous and monumentally useless it is to take ourselves so seriously, then depression can become a habit, which, in tern, can produce a neurological imprint. Are you with me? Gradually, our brain chemistry becomes conditioned to react to negative stimuli in a particular, predictable way. One thing'll go wrong and it'll automatically switch on its blender and mix us that black cocktail, the ol' doomsday daiquiri, and before we know it, we're soused to the gills from the inside out. Once depression has become electrochemically integrated, it can be extremely difficult to philosophically or psychologically override it; by then it's playing by physical rules, a whole different ball game. That's why, Switters my dearest, every time you've shown signs of feeling sorry for yourself, I've played my blues records really loud or read to you from The Horse's Mouth. And that's why when you've exhibited the slightest tendency toward self-importance, I've reminded you that you and me-- you and I: excuse me--may be every bit as important as the President or the pope or the biggest prime-time icon in Hollywood, but none of us is much more than a pimple on the ass-end of creation, so let's not get carried away with ourselves. Preventive medicine, boy. It's preventive medicine." "But what about self-esteem?" "Heh! Self-esteem is for sissies. Accept that you're a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace--and maybe even glory."
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self-awareness
one-woman-s-opinion
mentor
self-pity
opinion
teacher
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Tom Robbins |
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5d8a409
|
I agree with yours of the 22d tha
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inspirational
best
university-of-virginia
opinion
theology
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Thomas Jefferson |
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c9a8c26
|
I agree with yours of the 22d that . but we cannot always do what is absolutely best. those with whom we act, entertaining different views, have the power and the right of carrying them into practice. truth advances, & error recedes step by step only; and to do to our fellow-men the most good in our power, we must lead where we can, follow where we cannot, and still go with them, watching always the favorable moment for helping them to another step. [ ]
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inspirational
university-of-virginia
opinion
theology
|
Thomas Jefferson |
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7d5cd7f
|
If you fuel your journey on the opinions of others, you are going to run out of gas.
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motivational
success
happiness
life
inspirational
gas
fuel
opinion
journey
|
Steve Maraboli |
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10a9cac
|
Your opinion is not my reality.
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|
reality
motivational
inspirational
opinion
|
Steve Maraboli |
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5bd4643
|
A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.
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|
understanding
wisdom
probes
social-science
opinion
|
Marshall McLuhan |
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ca315ce
|
Insecure people have a special sensitivity for anything that finally confirms their own low opinion of themselves.
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people
opinion
|
Sue Grafton |
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337c8ab
|
"I wish it were different. I wish that we privileged knowledge in politicians, that the ones who know things didn't have to hide it behind brown pants, and that the know-not-enoughs were laughed all the way to the Maine border on their first New Hampshire meet and greet. I wish that in order to secure his party's nomination, a presidential candidate would be required to point at the sky and name all the stars; have the periodic table of the elements memorized; rattle off the kings and queens of Spain; define the significance of the Gatling gun; joke around in Latin; interpret the symbolism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting; explain photosynthesis to a six-year-old; recite Emily Dickinson; bake a perfect popover; build a shortwave radio out of a coconut; and know all the words to Hoagy Carmichael's "Two Sleepy People," Johnny Cash's "Five Feet High and Rising," and "You Got the Silver" by the Rolling Stones. After all, the United States is the greatest country on earth dealing with the most complicated problems in the history of the world--poverty, pollution, justice, Jerusalem. What we need is a president who is at least twelve kinds of nerd, a nerd messiah to come along every four years, acquire the Secret Service code name Poindexter, install a Revenge of the Nerds screen saver on the Oval Office computer, and one by one decrypt our woes."
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politics
patriotic
nerdiness
politics-of-the-united-states
opinion
patriotism
nerds
nerd
|
Sarah Vowell |
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89f1e9a
|
"It was always the view of my parents," Emily said, "that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people."
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youth
opinion
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Ian McEwan |
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18d131d
|
" was of the opinion... that his ideas were generally misunderstood and distorted even by those who professed to be his disciples. He doubted he would be better understood in the future. He once said he felt as though he were writing for people who would think in a different way, breathe a different air of life, from that of present-day men.
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doubt
future
ludwig-wittgenstein
misunderstood
wittgenstein
opinion
ideas
|
Georg Henrik von Wright |
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0140d91
|
Whatever modern democracies may tell themselves about their commitment to free speech and to diversity of opinion, the values of a given society will uncannily match those of whichever organizations have the scale to pay for runs of thirty-second slots around the nightly news bulletin.
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money
democracies
organizations
opinion
free-speech
values
|
Alain de Botton |
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ae324de
|
What I mean is something like a closed circuit. Everybody on the same frequency. And after a while you forget about the rest of the spectrum and start believing that this is the only frequency that counts or is real. While outside, all up and down the land, there are these wonderful colors and x-rays and ultraviolets going on.
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|
reinforcement
opinion
|
Thomas Pynchon |
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fc6dcbe
|
We need a temporary cessation in people having any opinions about any women, ever. I propose a, say, five-year moratorium on having opinions about women, in order to let one generation of girls get from one side of puberty to the other without growing up in a climate where women are constantly being scolded, chivvied, harassed, or subjected to thunderous opinion columns concluding that, yet again, some woman in the public eye has overreached herself and should wind her neck in.
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women
opinion
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Caitlin Moran |
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490d108
|
"Privilege" is something else. "Privilege" is a judgment. "Privilege" is an opinion. "Privilege" is an accusation."
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privilege
opinion
judgment
|
Joan Didion |
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94629e3
|
In the South of England northerners were regarded then as uncouth, brutish, undisciplined savages ...
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nothingchanges
north
south
opinion
|
Alison Weir |
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95865ee
|
"There is, certainly, an unbreachable chasm between the subjective and objective world. A reasonable person expects subjective facts to be overturned, because subjective facts are not facts; they're just well-considered opinions, held by multiple people at the same time. Whenever the fragility of those beliefs is applied to a specific example, people bristle--if someone says, "It's possible that Abraham Lincoln won't always be considered a great president," every presidential scholar scoffs. But if you remove the specificity and ask, "Is it possible that someone currently viewed as a historically great president will have that view reversed by future generations?" any smart person will agree that such a scenario is not only plausible but inevitable. In other words, everyone concedes we have the potential to be subjectively wrong about anything, as long as we don't explicitly name whatever that something is."
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objectivity
subjectivity
opinion
judgement
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Chuck Klosterman |
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9656a3a
|
Mr. Craig was not above talking politics occasionally, though he piqued himself rather on a wise insight than on specific information.
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politics
opinion
|
George Eliot |
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19b04b1
|
So, Colonna, please demonstrate to our friends how it's possible to respect, or appear to respect, one fundamental principle of democratic journalism, which is separating fact from opinion. ...' 'Simple,' I said. 'Take the major British or American newspapers. If they report, say, a fire or a car accident, then obviously they can't indulge in saying what they think. And so they introduce into the piece, in quotation marks, the statements of a witness, a man in the street, someone who represents public opinion. Those statements, once put in quotes, become facts - in other words, it's a fact that that person expressed that opinion. But it might be assumed that the journalist has only quoted someone who thinks like him. So there will be two conflicting statements to show, as a fact, that there are varying opinions on a particular issue, and the newspaper is taking account of this irrefutable fact. The trick lies in quoting first a trivial opinion and then another opinion that is more respectable, and more closely reflects the journalist's view. In this way, readers are under the impression that they are being informed about two facts, but they're persuaded to accept just one view as being more convincing.
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journalism
opinion
|
Umberto Eco |
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8f2191b
|
"Con las palabras todo cuidado es poco, mudan de opinion como las personas"."
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|
words
fiction
literature-communication
opinion
humankind
|
José Saramago |
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9376545
|
When you lay down a proposition which is forthwith controverted, it is of course optional with you to take up the cudgels in its defence. If you are deeply convinced of its truth, you will perhaps be content to leave it to take care of itself; or, at all events, you will not go out of your way to push its fortunes; for you will reflect that in the long run an opinion often borrows credit from the forbearance of its patrons. In the long run, we say; it will meanwhile cost you an occasional pang to see your cherished theory turned into a football by the critics. A football is not, as such, a very respectable object, and the more numerous the players, the more ridiculous it becomes. Unless, therefore, you are very confident of your ability to rescue it from the chaos of kicks, you will best consult its interests by not mingling in the game.
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criticism
truth
opinion
|
Henry James |
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e2d21e9
|
"That's what you think of me, is it, girl?" said his lordship, a glint in his eyes. "Oh, no!" she responded, dropping him a curtsy. "It's what I , sir! You must know that my featherheaded Mama has taught me to behave with all the propriety in the world! To tell you what I of you would be to sink myself quite below reproach!"
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|
humor
personal-opinions
bantering
opinion
banter
insults
wit
|
Georgette Heyer |
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fe19f82
|
... she wondered if she owned a faint idea of many things, and a strong idea of only a few. As if she had developed an immunity to depth. That she only, now, skimmed the surface.
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|
depth
opinion
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Colum McCann |