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Abdication Quotes

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Abdication Quotes

“…the skyscrapers of God dominated the countryside. They had made them as high as possible, extraordinarily high. It may seem a disproportion in the ensemble. Not at all, it was an act of optimism, a gesture of courage, a sign of pride, a proof of mastery! In addressing themselves to God, men did not sign their own abdication.”

Pride Optimism Abdication

Book:When the cathedrals were white

Source: When the cathedrals were white

“The best and most regal course is to abdicate. The supreme empire belongs to the emperor who abdicates from all normal life and from other men, for the preservation of his supremacy won't weigh on him like a load of jewels.”

Separation Isolation Supremacy Empire Abdication

Book:The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“No intelligent idea can gain general acceptance unless some stupidity is mixed in with it. Collective thought is stupid because it's collective. Nothing passes into the realm of the collective without leaving at the border--like a toll--most of the intelligence it contained. In youth we're twofold. Our innate intelligence, which may be considerable, coexists with the stupidity of our inexperience, which forms a second, lesser intelligence. Only later on do the two unite. That's why youth always blunders - not because of its inexperience, but because of its non-unity. Today the only course left for the man of superior intelligence is abdication.”

Youth Intelligence Stupidity Inexperience Abdication Collective Thought

Book:The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“Toys here reveal the list of all the things the adult does not find unusual: war, bureaucracy, ugliness, Martians, etc. It is not so much, in fact, the imitation which is the sign of an abdication, as its literalness: French toys are like a Jivaro head, in which one recognises, shrunken to the size of an apple, the wrinkles and hair of an adult.”

Imitation Abdication Literalness

Book:Mythologies

Source: Mythologies

“The abdication of Belief Makes the Behavior small- Better an ignis fatuus Than no illume at all.”

Belief Behavior Abdication

Author:Emily Dickinson

“There is no difference between machine autonomy and the abdication of human responsibility.”

Humans Differences Responsibility Machines Autonomy Abdication

Author:Jaron Lanier

“Cruel and paradoxical though it undoubtedly is, the record shows that yje most succesful 20th century monarchs have been those who were not actually born to succeed. King George VI was 41 when the abdication of Edward VIII propelled him suddenly and unexpectedly to take up the crown; and Queen Elizabeth II spent her first decade with no inkling thay she herself might one day have to reign. Taken together, these examples suggest that the best preparation for the job of sovereign is not to be prepared for it at all, ir not to be too well prepared for it, or for too long.”

“It is important that Miers not be confirmed unless, in her 61st year, she suddenly and unexpectedly is found to have hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court's role. Otherwise the sound principle of substantial deference to a president's choice of judicial nominees will dissolve into a rationalization for senatorial abdication of the duty to hold presidents to some standards of seriousness that will prevent them from reducing the Supreme Court to a private plaything useful for fulfilling whims on behalf of friends.”

“The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind; it is the appeaser's intellectual abdication that invites them to take over. When a culture's dominant trend is geared to irrationality, the thugs win over the appeasers. When intellectual leaders fail to foster the best in the mixed, unformed, vacillating character of people at large, the thugs are sure to bring out the worst. When the ablest men turn into cowards, the average men turn into brutes.”

Source: The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

“"Next," said Mrs Wilfer with a wave of her gloves, expressive of abdication under protest from the culinary throne, "I would recommend examination of the bacon in the saucepan on the fire, and also of the potatoes by the application of a fork. Preparation of the greens will further become necessary if you persist in this unseemly demeanour."”

Source: THE GREATEST DICKENS CLASSICS (Illustrated Edition): Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, Hard Times, David Copperfield, A Christmas Carol, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Our Mutual Friend, The Life of Dickens

“In the past, the U.S. has shown its capacity to reinvent its gifts for leadership. During the 1970s, in the aftermath of the Nixon abdication and the Ford and Carter presidencies, the whole nation peered into the abyss, was horrified by what it saw and elected Ronald Reagan as president, which began a national resurgence.”

Whole Past Nations President Saws Capacity Presidency Abyss Carter Aftermath Resurgence Abdication

Author:Paul Johnson

“No system of criminal justice can, or should, survive if it comes to depend for its continued effectiveness on the citizens' abdication through unawareness of their constitutional rights. No system worth preserving should have to fear that if an accused is permitted to consult with a lawyer, he will become aware of, and exercise, these rights.”

Ifs Should Justice Rights Depends Citizens Exercise Should Have Criminals Lawyer Accused Effectiveness Criminal Justice Constitutional Rights Unawareness Abdication

Author:Arthur Goldberg

“This is a perfect snapshot of the West at twilight. On the one hand, governments of developed nations microregulate every aspect of your life in the interests of 'keeping you safe.' ... On the other hand, when it comes to 'keeping you safe' from real threats, such as a millenarian theocracy that claims universal jurisdiction, America and its allies do nothing. ... It is now certain that Tehran will get its nukes, and very soon. This is the biggest abdication of responsibility by the Western powers since the 1930s.”

“I feel much more strongly about the abdication of responsibility by the media than by political advocates. They're representing a constituency.”

Feels Political Responsibility Media Representing Abdication

Author:Jon Stewart

“The truth is you cannot command the respect of the world when you spend years apologizing to our enemies and abandoning our friends. Lecturing the American people about the Crusades while refusing to call Islamic extremism by name is an abdication of leadership.”

People World Years Names Enemy Truth Is Command Islamic Apologizing Extremism Crusades Lecturing Abdication

Author:Mike Pence

“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.”

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“Every man builds his world in his own image; he has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence—by his own choice.”

Ifs Men World Choices Existence Vision Power Achieve Building Achievement Chaos Every Man Denial Spheres Irrational Worldview Grind Escaping Irrationality Power Of Choice Imaging Abdication

Book:Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind both in theory and practice.”

Humans Ideas Ends Reason Religion Justice Liberty Practice Mankind Theory Enslavement Negation Human Reason Theory And Practice Abdication

Author:Mikhail Bakunin

“The task of all Christian scholarship—not just biblical studies—is to study reality as a manifestation of God’s glory, to speak and write about it with accuracy, and to savor the beauty of God in it, and to make it serve the good of man. It is an abdication of scholarship when Christians do academic work with little reference to God. If all the universe and everything in it exist by the design of an infinite, personal God, to make his manifold glory known and loved, then to treat any subject without reference to God’s glory is not scholarship but insurrection.”

Source: Think

“That many if not most people...who want fresh leafy greens in January buy them at the supermarket after they've been bleached and plastic-bag shipped from California or beyond is not a tribute to modern technology; it's an unprecedented abdication of personal responsibility and a ubiquitous benchmark of abnormality.”

People Ifs Want Responsibility Technology Modern California Bags Plastic Personal Responsibility Tribute Unprecedented January Supermarkets Modern Technology Plastic Bags Abnormality Abdication

Author:Joel Salatin

“Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. Rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue, love of country and faith in an idea.”

“The proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gifts...Thus a heavy task is laid upon Gift-love. It must work toward its own abdication. We must aim at making ourselves superfluous. The hour when we can say 'They need me no longer' should be our reward. But the instinct, simply in its own nature, has no power to fulfill this law.”

Needs Giving Should States Law Hours Tasks Aim Instinct Charity Rewards Heavy Philanthropy Superfluous Philanthropic Abdication

Author:C. S. Lewis

“Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions and covetous desires, and for the ruled the abdication of human dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish enthrallment to those in power.”

Humans Mean Reason Desire Ambition Conscience Dignity Patriotism Rulers Simplest Human Dignity Obtaining Abdication

Author:Leo Tolstoy

“What citizens of a free country would listen to any offers of good and skillful administration in return for the abdication of freedom?”

Country Liberty Return Citizens Offers Administration Skillful Free Country Abdication

Book:The Subjection of Women ... Third Edition

Source: The Subjection of Women ... Third Edition

“Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.”

Success Certain Risk Elements Congratulations Prudence Foresight Abdication

Book:Demonology

Source: Demonology

“Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress.”

Giving War Force Hero Constitution Congress Heroic Representatives Reverse Abdication

Author:Daniel Ellsberg

“"Judge not, that ye be not judge"... is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself. There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accesory to the torture and murder of his victims. The moral principle to adopt... is: "Judge, and be prepared to be judged."”

“I knew all about Edward VIII's abdication, George VI becoming the king and having a stammer, but nothing about how he got rid of it.”

Kings Becoming Abdication

Author:Geoffrey Rush

“Voter apathy is a civic abdication.”

Voters Apathy Civics Abdication

Author:Charles M. Blow

“Yet there comes a time in the life of a patriot when abdication would amount to a betrayal if not outright treachery.”

Ifs Amount Betrayal Patriot Treachery There Comes A Time Abdication

Author:Olusegun Obasanjo

“Pregnancy seemed like a tremendous abdication of control. Something growing inside you which would eventually usurp your life.”

Growing Pregnancy Abdication

Book:Fear of Flying: 40th Anniversary Edition

Source: Fear of Flying: 40th Anniversary Edition

“The reality is that the media are probably the most powerful of all our institutions today and they, or rather we [journalists], too often are squandering our power and ignoring our obligations. The consequence of our abdication of responsibility is the ugly spectacle of idiot culture!”

Reality Today Culture Powerful Responsibility Media Consequence Institutions Ugly Obligation Idiot Most Powerful Squandering Abdication

Author:Carl Bernstein

“Love consents to all and commands only those who consent. Love is abdication. God is abdication.”

Love Is Command Consent Abdication

Author:Simone Weil

“Our 'normal' 'adjusted' state is too often the abdication of ecstasy, the betrayal of our true potentialities.”

States Normal Betrayal Ecstasy Abdication

Author:R. D. Laing

“Our happiest times are those in which we forget ourselves, usually in being kind to someone else. That tiny moment of self-abdication is an act of true humility: the man who loses himself finds himself and finds his happiness.”

Men Kind Self Moments Loses Forget Identity Humility He Man Happy Tiny Finding Yourself Be Kind Losing Yourself True Humility Abdication

Author:Fulton J. Sheen

“A citizenship of wholesale delegation and abdication to public and private power systems, such as prevails now, makes such periodic checks as elections little more than rituals.”

Littles Age Dark Election Medical Checks Ritual Citizenship Dark Ages Wholesale Delegation Abdication

Book:The Ralph Nader Reader

Source: The Ralph Nader Reader

“Submissiveness to fate, the total abdication of your own will in the shaping of your life, the recognition that it was impossible to guess the best and the worst ahead of time but that it was easy to take a step you would reproach yourself for-all this freed the prisoner from any bondage, made him calmer, and even ennobled him.”

Made Easy Steps Fate Impossible Worst Prison Recognition Prisoner Bondage Reproach Ahead Of Time Calmer Abdication

Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn