B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Blaming the system is soothing because it lets you off the hook. But when the system is broken, we wonder why you were relying in the system in the first place.”
“Blaming the wolf would not help the sheep much. The sheep must learn not to fall in the clutches of the wolf.”
Source: Gandhi Against Fascism
“Blaming therapy, social work and other caring professions for the confabulation of testimony of 'satanic ritual abuse' legitimated a programme of political and social action designed to contest the gains made by the women's movement and the child protection movement. In efforts to characterise social workers and therapists as hysterical zealots, 'satanic ritual abuse' was, quite literally, 'made fun of': it became the subject of scorn and ridicule as interest groups sought to discredit testimony of sexual abuse as a whole. The groundswell of support that such efforts gained amongst journalists, academics and the public suggests that the pleasures of disbelief found resonance far beyond the confines of social movements for people accused of sexual abuse. These pleasures were legitimised by a pseudo-scientific vocabulary of 'false memories' and 'moral panic' but as Daly (1999:219-20) points out 'the ultimate goal of ideology is to present itself in neutral, value-free terms as the very horizon of objectivity and to dismiss challenges to its order as the "merely ideological"'.
The media spotlight has moved on and social movements for people accused of sexual abuse have lost considerable momentum. However, their rhetoric continues to reverberate throughout the echo chamber of online and 'old' media. Intimations of collusion between feminists and Christians in the concoction of 'satanic ritual abuse' continue to mobilise 'progressive' as well as 'conservative' sympathies for men accused of serious sexual offences and against the needs of victimised women and children.
This chapter argues that, underlying the invocation of often contradictory rationalising tropes (ranging from calls for more scientific 'objectivity' in sexual abuse investigations to emotional descriptions of 'happy families' rent asunder by false allegations) is a collective and largely unarticulated pleasure; the catharthic release of sentiments and views about children and women that had otherwise become shameful in the aftermath of second wave feminism. It seems that, behind the veneer of public concern about child sexual abuse, traditional views about the incredibility of women's and children's testimony persist. 'Satanic ritual abuse has served as a lens through which these views have been rearticulated and reasserted at the very time that evidence of widespread and serious child sexual abuse has been consolidating. p60”
Source: Organised Sexual Abuse
“Blaming things on the past does not make them better.”
Source: Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations
“Blaming TV as an abstract entity is nonsensical. It's our hand on the remote. There's a world out there outside the tube.”
“Blaming women is always in fashion.”
“Blaming your faults on your nature does not change the nature of your faults. After growing up on a dairy farm, everything in life seemed easy”
“Blaming yourself makes you feel in control of a situation. It makes you feel safe. If it’s Eton’s fault for this, then your brain tells you that he has the power. That’s scary. If he has the power, he could do it again, and it’s out of your control. So your brain twists things so you don’t feel so vulnerable. If you did this, then you could’ve stopped it. You can control whether it happens again. But you know that’s not true.”
Source: Fling
“Blanca: Teresa recuerda que este es un pueblo chico, tarde o temprano le van a contar sobre ti.
Teresa: Ya le dije que la gente aquí es mal hablada y él se la ha creído, que linda es su inocencia.
Blanca: Teresa reacciona, ese tipo de hombres son curiosos, le preguntará a la gente de tu barrio y va indagar por tu familia. Tarde o temprano se enterará de todo tu pasado. Mujer, tú tienes una historia, tienes que contarle.
Teresa: ¡Soy una mujer sin historia desde que lo conocí!”
Source: Una mujer sin historia
“Blanche is written with a terrible authority, the authority that comes from artistic necessity when the writer is compelled to write by his demon, rather than by his agent or promoter.”
“Blanche, prosaic in a pale yellow sweater and blue jeans, was wondering again if anything mattered—-life, faith--specifically, finishing homework assignments.”
“Blanche: No, I have the misfortune of being an English instructor. I attempt to instill a bunch of bobby-soxers and drugstore Romeos with a reverence for Hawthorne and Whitman and Poe!”
Source: A Streetcar Named Desire: Play in Three Acts
“Blanchefleur felt a quick rush of affection for her. When the world frowned, Branwen went on smiling. There was a heart of steel under all that froth and bubble.”
Source: Pendragon's Heir
“Bland writing - timid, antiseptic, vanilla writing - is nearly as unhealthy as the brutal and dark. Instead of sipping, say, elixir, nectar, tequila, or champagne, the reader is invited to slurp lumpy milk or choke on the author's dust bunnies.”
“Blank House was exactly a nice empty sheet where nothing was accountable because you were so naughty that you were in Blank House.”
“Blank pages inspire me with terror.”
Source: Margaret Atwood: Conversations
“Blank paper has always inspired me.”
“Blank-slate friendships were thin and temperamental. She knew that. There was no history there to cement people together, for better or worse.”
Source: The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel
“BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters - the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.”
Source: The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition
“Blanked out sentences that you had to fill with your imagination.”
Source: Human Acts
“Blanket compassion will shift the distribution decisively towards the manipulative end of the spectrum, and may paradoxically decrease the compassion with which the genuinely despairing are treated: for they are apt to get lost in the great mass of pseudo-distress and manipulation, and often their conduct draws less attention precisely because it is less attention-seeking.”
“Blanket cynicism toward government has always existed.”
“BLANKET
On our bed there is a blanket
It has been greeted by strangers
Become a desert to missiles
Filled with hurtful words and jealousy
A pitched hillside
Where hunched backs lay unmoving
I’ve crawled into its darkness
Night after night
Dove into the wreckage
With my lantern
Hoping for some light
At the end of this silent tunnel
I’ve spooned with the grief
Sifted through the ashes of our love
Been reduced to the seasons
Where people watch our bones
As they lie down exposed
Through our transparent cover
Still warm among the cold winds
But heavy with self-deception
On our bed there is a blanket
It has been greeted by strangers
Become a desert to missiles
Filled with hurtful words and jealousy
A pitched hillside
Where hunched backs lay unmoving”
Source: Safe: The Places I Go In My Head To Feel Acceptance & Peace
“Blanket statements are always stupid. NO EXCEPTIONS!”
“Blanket the sky in ash and you will walk on a plain of embers.”
“Blankets are good to carry around if you want to be able to quickly black bag someone.”
Source: A bit of rubbish about a Brick and a Blanket
“Blankets make great traps for the clinically insane, but a straightjacket might work better.”
Source: A bit of rubbish about a Brick and a Blanket
“Blankets on the other hand are incredibly needy as they are always trying to fill a “void”. Are a bit whorish in that the instant you walk away from them in less than a minute they’ll be all over someone else, and the moment you actually need them they’re nowhere to be found.”
“Blankly expressing oneself can be stronger than words.”
“Blankness is similar to being asleep or unconscious. If that is all it takes to experience enlightenment, my job would be much easier. I would just walk behind each one of you and knock you unconscious with a big stick.”
Source: Song of Mind: Wisdom from the Zen Classic Xin Ming
“BLASPHEMOUS REVERENCE. Acting on the knowledge that the most efficacious form or devotion to the Divine Wow is tinctured with playful or mischievous behavior that prevents the buildup of fanaticism.”
Source: Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings
“Blasphemous words betray the vain foolishness of the speaker.”
“Blasphemy and prayer are one. Both assert the existence of a superior power. The first, however, with conviction.”
Source: Faustus
“Blasphemy and sedition (meaning the truth about Church and State).”
Source: Back to Methuselah
“Blasphemy has always seemed to require taking things very seriously.”
“Blasphemy is a religious experience.”
Source: Sojourn
“Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime.”
“Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor.”
Source: The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton
“Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.”
Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll
“Blasphemy is just the fanatic's name for criticism. Charb writes wisely:
'A believer can blaspheme only to the extent that the idea of blasphemy holds any meaning to him. A non-believer, no matter how hard he tries, 'cannot' blaspheme. God is sacred only to those who believe in him. If you wish to insult or offend God, you have to be sure that he exists. The strategy used by minority group activists masquerading as anti-racists is to pass off blasphemy as Islamophobia and Islamophobia as racism.'
The crucial distinction we must defend is between acts of imagination and acts of violence....Faith is not the enemy. Fanaticism is the enemy. It always is. But only a fool would deny that faith has been the seedbed of fanaticism in mankind's long and sorry struggle for the light. As much as at times we need to seek "solidarity" among unlike groups, we also need to "desolidarize," to "unsolidarize"—to put the people we know before the abstract categories we imagine. Come to think of it, making people, with all their flaws, fully visible while leaving generalized types alone is exactly what the caricaturist has always done for us. It's his special form of bravery.”
Source: Open Letter: On Blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the True Enemies of Free Expression
“Blasphemy is what an old dogma screams at a new truth.”
“Blasphemy (The Sonnet)
Insan dertte olduğunda,
Ne ben, ne sen - hep aynı.
Birbirimize destek olamıyorsa,
Ne insan, ne hayvan - hep aynı.
İnsan merhameti unuttuğunda,
Ne cennet, ne cehennem - hep aynı.
İnsan insanın acılarına ilaç olamıyorsa,
Ne insan, ne canavar - hep aynı.
When another being is in pain,
Only blasphemy is indifference.
If we can't be cure to each other,
It's not life, but derangement.
Dünyanın gözyaşlarını silmek için
gençliğimi bile feda ettim.
Çünkü insanların gülüşünde
ben kendimi kaybettim.”
Source: Mucize Misafir Merhaba: The Peace Testament
“Blasphemy: a law to protect an all-powerful, supernatural deity from getting its feelings hurt.”
“Blasphemy? No, it is not blashphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if he is as little as that, He is beneath it.”
“Blast Cecil!” said Eldric. “You have my permission,” I said.”
Source: Chime
“Blasted spam pigeons!”
Source: Hark! A Vagrant
“Blasts from the past were like the rooms one entered and re-entered in dreams: they would not stay nailed down. When you returned to them, they had changed - they suddenly had more space or a tilt or a door that had not been there before. New people were milling around, the floors undulated, and the sun shone newly, strangely in the windows, or through the now blasted-open ceiling, or else it shone not at all, as if having fled the sky.”
“Blatant attempts to attack a constitutionally guaranteed right and a law-abiding industry.”
“Blatant cover-ups are the business model for most police internal affairs departments.”
“Blatant harassment by the attending law enforcement officer has been the outcome of calling 911 for protection in the past.”