I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“I do not think that torture is necessary. But it may be the case that interrogation methods that go beyond questioning, but do not arise to the level of torture, may be necessary to get actionable intelligence from high-ranking al Qaeda leaders.”
“I do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and I do not live in chronic dread of disaster. It is no happiness, but suffering that I consider unnatural. It is not success, but calamity that I regard as the abnormal exception in Human Life.”
Source: Atlas Shrugged
“I do not think that we have a “right” to happiness. If happiness happens, say thanks.”
“I do not think that we have psychological and ethical and economic problems. We have human problems, with psychological, ethical and economical aspects, and as many others as you like.”
“I do not think that we should select judges based on a particular philosophy as opposed to temperament, commitment to judicial neutrality and commitment to other more constant values as to which there is general consensus.”
“I do not think that what is called Love at first sight is so great an absurdity as it is sometimes imagined to be. We generally make up our minds beforehand to the sort of person we should like, grave or gay, black, brown, or fair; with golden tresses or raven locks; - and when we meet with a complete example of the qualities we admire, the bargain is soon struck.”
Source: Table Talk: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things
“I do not think that winning is the most important thing. I think winning is the only thing.”
“I do not think that you can be changing the end of a song or a story like that, as though it were quite separate from the rest. I think the end of a story is part of it from the beginning.”
Source: The Shining Company
“I do not think that you can try and systematize education for the whole world. I would try experiments in small communities and in schools to see how they work out, instead of taking the children of an entire nation and trying to bring them up on the same system.”
“I do not think the American peoples are idiots. They are a very playful and sensitive people! I know them!”
“I do not think the Bible is weak, Mr. Morgan; and that is not the reason why I do not wish to read anything that is written against it. But I know that I am weak and ignorant, and that I might not be able to answer in my own mind, and to my satisfaction, all that clever men may choose to say or to write. And so my mind might get unsettled, and i have no wish to have it unsettled.”
Source: Story of Charles Ogilvie
“I do not think the British want to become America's "Airstrip One," as the British Isles are called in George Orwell's "1984." The EU's internal market was a massive success even before the UK joined it, and it joined because there was no real alternative. So while British tabloids are expecting to be punished by Germany, Brexit is punishment in itself.”
“I do not think the crowd affected us, but the position of being in a big time game may well have affected us.”
“I do not think the devil cares how many churches you build, if only you have lukewarm preachers and people in them.”
“I do not think the division of the subject into two parts - into applied mathematics and experimental physics a good one, for natural philosophy without experiment is merely mathematical exercise, while experiment without mathematics will neither sufficiently discipline the mind or sufficiently extend our knowledge in a subject like physics.”
“I do not think the gay population has been all that rabid for gay marriage. Note that I do not use the words 'gay community.' Expunge that expression from your vocabulary. We are not a community.”
“I do not think the long-range bullets I fire provide the mark of a man; I am only dimly aware that they are dehumanising me.
They are my opium tto see me through my time here. But with each hit they give, they only provide a feeling respite from the past I cannot escape from and thre present I have chosen to mire myself in. And, grounded as I am in the reality of this hill, I do not yet fully appreciate how this addiction is infecting my future with malediction.
With this clinical, psychopathically detached behaviour considered as normal, proper and expected on this hall, I cannot yet stop to think - because I cannot allow myself to here - of how hese respites may be blackening my soul in all the time I will have left on my own back Home - should I even live through the remainder of my months here, in some other corner of this Hell of a country.”
Source: Among You: The Extraordinary True Story of a Soldier Broken By War
“I do not think the mere extension of the ballot a panacea for all the ills of our national life. What we need to-day is not simplymore voters, but better voters.”
“I do not think the sunny youth of either will prove the forerunner of stormy age. I think it is deemed good that you two should live in peace and be happy - not as angels but as few are happy amongst mortals. Some lives are thus blessed: it is God's will: it is the attesting trace and lingering evidence of Eden. Other lives run from the first another course. Other travellers encounter weather fitful and gusty wild and variable - breast adverse winds are belated and overtaken by the early closing winter night. Neither can this happen without the sanction of God and I know that amidst His boundless works is somewhere stored the secret of this last fate's justice: I know that His treasures contain the proof as the promise of its mercy.”
Source: Villette
“I do not think there are many among Bishops that will be saved, but many more that perish.”
Source: The Homilies of Saint John Chrysostom: On the Acts of the Apostles
“I do not think there is a demonstrative proof (like Euclid) of Christianity, nor of the existence of matter, nor of the good will and honesty of my best and oldest friends. I think all three are (except perhaps the second) far more probable than the alternatives. The case for Christianity in general is well given by Chesterton…As to why God doesn't make it demonstratively clear; are we sure that He is even interested in the kind of Theism which would be a compelled logical assent to a conclusive argument? Are we interested in it in personal matters? I demand from my friend trust in my good faith which is certain without demonstrative proof. It wouldn't be confidence at all if he waited for rigorous proof. Hang it all, the very fairy-tales embody the truth. Othello believed in Desdemona's innocence when it was proved: but that was too late. Lear believed in Cordelia's love when it was proved: but that was too late. 'His praise is lost who stays till all commend.' The magnanimity, the generosity which will trust on a reasonable probability, is required of us. But supposing one believed and was wrong after all? Why, then you would have paid the universe a compliment it doesn't deserve. Your error would even so be more interesting and important than the reality. And yet how could that be? How could an idiotic universe have produced creatures whose mere dreams are so much stronger, better, subtler than itself?”
“I do not think there is a person in this world who has been a more ardent admirer of him than I have been. His life and work have been an inspiration to the whole earth, shedding light in the dark places which so sadly needed light. His memory calls forth my most sincere homage, love, and esteem.
{Burbank on the great Robert Ingersoll, whom he admired so much that he requested Ingersoll's eulogy for his brother, Ebon Ingersoll, to be read at his own funeral}”
“I do not think there is a woman in whom the roots of passion shoot deeper than in me.”
“I do not think there is any question of photography being an art form!”
“I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success ... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.”
“I do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“I do not think there is such a thing as a "clash of civilizations." When I say that Muslims as Muslims cannot be represented in the West, I was being ironic, and also referring to the fact that ninety percent of the time when people talk about "the problem of Muslims" in the West, it is to complain about the fact that Muslims have not "integrated."”
“I do not think there should be a limit on the rig's liability, because they are sitting on top of unlimited amounts of oil, and thus, there could be an explosion occur that could do untold damage. ... The amount of damage that an offshore oil rig can do is infinite.”
“I do not think therefore I am a moustache”
Source: The diary of Antoine Roquentin
“I do not think very highly of Madame D'Arblay's books. The style is so strutting. She does so stalk about on Dr. Johnson's old stilts.”
Source: The Life of Mary Russell Mitford ; Related in an Selection from Her Letters to Her Friends. Ed. by A.G. Estrange
“I do not think we are ever going to be able to, for a long time, get the kind of quality of school personnel that we need in our schools, especially in the areas of science and math. One of the answers to that problem is to use more educational technology.”
“I do not think we have a "right" to happiness. If happiness happens, say thanks.”
Source: Marlene Dietrich's ABC
“I do not think we remember our family in any real sense. We live in them instead”
Source: The Gathering
“I do not think we should be trying to save our freedom by killing the safeguards that keep our liberties.”
“I do not think we should tax people to a point where they are looking for tax loopholes and getting their money out of the country.”
“I do not think we will see a stateless society in my lifetime. But I am sure we will not see a state that conforms to the minarchists' ideals. The closer we get, the better, but I see no reason not to aspire for the best government as Thoreau imagined it: none at all. It's certainly more consistently idealistic than what the minarchists imagine, and yet it's at least possible, whereas the existence of a lasting, minimal state is a hopeless fantasy.”
“I do not think white America is committed to granting equality to the American Negro... this is a passionately racist country; it will continue to be so in the foreseeable future.”
“I do not think witchcraft is a religion, and I do not think it is in any way appropriate for the US military to promote it.”
“I do not think women understand how repelled a man feels when he sees a woman wholly absorbed in what she is thinking, unless it is about her child, or her husband, or her lover. It ... gives one gooseflesh.”
“I do not think wrestling is going to save the world.”
“I do not think writers or anybody would sit down and think they must write about some cause, or theme, or something. If they write about their own experiences, something true is going to emerge.”
“I do not think you are in any danger of starving," Maximus said. "The surgeon said only two weeks ago that you are too fat." "The devil!" Berkley said indignantly, sitting up; and Maximus snorted in amusement at having provoked him.”
Source: In His Majesty's Service: Three Novels of Temeraire (His Majesty's Service, Throne of Jade, and Black Powder War)
“I do not think you can fault Abraham Lincoln for picking generals that did not work out, because, as he said to John Hay when he went back to George B. McClellan in the fall of 62, we have to work with what we have.”
“I do not think you can find a reason for everything you make.”
Source: Boundaries
“I do not think you can get rid of the fear... but you can dance with it.”
“I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.”
“I do not think you can push public expenditure significantly above 60 per cent and maintain the values of a plural society with adequate freedom of choice. We are here close to one of the frontiers of social democracy.”
“I do not think you can trust bankers to control themselves. They are like heroin addicts.”
“I do not think you should get rid of your sin until you have learned what it has to teach you.”
Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“I do not think you should read about writing while you are writing.”