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W Quotes

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All W Quotes

“When confronting their distorted way of living, personal essayists must inevitably deal with the horrors of the solipsistic self. Essayists remind us to be astutely aware that life is what occurs before death, and because life is the only truth that we will ever experience, we might as well attempt to get our arms around it and embrace it with all our might. In contrast to the essayist’s desire to make clear-cut distinctions, poetry is an airy art form that makes ample use of metaphors and allusions.”

“When Congress gets through investigating Attorney General Janet Reno, will her agency become known as the Obstruction of Justice Department? The civil rights movement was one of the great moral crusades in the first half of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, in more recent times it has become all too much like those it opposed, demanding racial double standards and even condoning verbal and violent attacks against members of other races.”

“When Congress votes for all sorts of benefits, without voting for enough taxes to pay for them, they get the support of those who have been promised the benefits, without getting grief from the taxpayers. It's strictly win-win as far as the welfare-state politicians are concerned. But it is strictly lose-lose, big-time, for the country, as deficits skyrocket.”

“When consequentialist theories are developed in terms of an equally shallow psychology of the good - such as a crude form of hedonism - the results can sometimes strike sensible people as revolting and inhuman. People can be reduced to simple repositories of positive or negative sensory states, and their humanity is lost sight of entirely.”

“When considering grand plans for effective communicable disease control in this time of Ebola peril, malaria continues to kill nearly a million people a year world-wide, and by far the single most reliable protection against malaria is to sleep under a mosquito net, but one of the major impediments to this basic and effective malaria control is that many people, regardless of education level or country of origin, in malaria endemic zones don't install and use one, not that they can't get one, but because they don't think the mosquito net 'looks nice.”

“When considering -the- event of history, namely the incarnation, Kierkegaard does not de-historicize this event to make faith more palatable to a sophisticated modern audience. Instead, employing contemporaneity he accentuates the historicity of the event, and then identifies our response to it as -either- faith -or- offence. In this way coming to have faith, and thus becoming a whole, authentic person, is essentially and inextricably tied up with the attitude towards an historical event.”

“When considering the Islamic world, Turkey is the best example of a country where democracy irreversibly gained a foothold despite religious and cultural traditions still respected today. With some reservation, this can be said about Pakistan, too, where we can observe dynamic political processes going on [and] governments change as a result of elections. In my opinion, it is up to the ruling elite to initiate cardinal changes.”

“When considering the stature of an athlete or for that matter any person, I set great store in certain qualities which I believe to be essential in addition to skill. They are that the person conducts his or her life with dignity, with integrity, courage, and perhaps most of all, with modesty. These virtues are totally compatible with pride, ambition, and competitiveness”

“When considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn't. Religion is one area of our lives where people imagine that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies.”

“When considering which identity to emphasize in our humanist/freethought/nontheist communities, reflect on the fact that you can use more than one, and keep in mind the benefits of humanism. Humanism is a positive identification that speaks about what you do care about, as opposed to only what you don't. I am a non-smoker, a non-physicist, and a non-German speaker, and as much as those aspects may have meaning, they aren't what's important to know about me. In the society we happen to live in, my absence of a belief in a god is a relevant component of my identity, but it doesn't define who I am. Humanism does that better than any other description.”

“When contemplating a shield that would protect America for incoming missiles, Democrats suddenly became hardheaded fiscal conservatives. For the first time in recorded history, liberals were concerned about the cost and usefulness of a government program. These people believe federally funded art therapy for the homeless will pay for itself. That you can take to the bank. But a shield to repel incoming nuclear missiles from American soil they said, was too expensive and wouldn't work.”

“When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty.We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors.”

“When contemplating the pursuit of a dream or the start of a new venture, too many people are hesitant to begin because they can't comprehend the entire journey. If that's where you find yourself right now, don't expect to understand what it takes to get to the top. Just take the next step. There's no shame in starting small; in fact, if you don't start small, you'll probably never start at all.”

“When conversion takes place, the process of revelation occurs in a very simple way - a person is in need, he suffers, and then somehow the other world opens up. The more you are in suffering and difficulties and are 'desperate' for God, the more He is going to come to your aid, reveal Who He is and show you the way out.”

“When corrupt lawyers become judges, do you think they will suddenly change? No, They will have more power and resources to commit further corruption. More cases will be thrown out, and criminals will never be held accountable. Only the poor and those unwilling to pay will be sentenced and prosecuted. They will favor criminals over law-abiding citizens because criminals are willing to pay. Victims will never get justice.”