Quotessence
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Acquiescence Quotes

Browse 68 quotes about Acquiescence.

Acquiescence Quotes

“Civil disobedience, as I put it to the audience, was not the problem, despite the warnings of some that it threatened social stability, that it led to anarchy. The greatest danger, I argued, was civil obedience, the submission of individual conscience to governmental authority. Such obedience led to the horrors we saw in totalitarian states, and in liberal states it led to the public's acceptance of war whenever the so-called democratic government decided on it... In such a world, the rule of law maintains things as they are. Therefore, to begin the process of change, to stop a war, to establish justice, it may be necessary to break the law, to commit acts of civil disobedience, as Southern black did, as antiwar protesters did.”

JusticeOppressionRule Of LawCivil DisobedienceAcquiescenceDangers Of Obedience
Book:You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
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“Most of you,' he went on, 'already know how I have been able to limit the area of investigation in a first approximation. But one or two of you are not yet in formed. For you, and to refresh everyone's memory, I'll go over my calculations again.' At that point he gave me a roguish and forceful look demanding my complicity in this adroit falsehood. For naturally everyone was still in the dark. But by this simple ruse, each person had the impression of belonging to a minority, of being among 'one or two not yet in formed', felt himself surrounded by a convinced majority, and was eager to be quickly convinced himself.”

ParticipationAcquiescenceGroupthinkAssent
Book:Mount Analogue
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“Our house was outside the city, off one of the blacktop roads. We had us a big dog that my daddy would keep on a chain in the front yard. A big part German shepherd. I hated that chain but we didn’t have a fence, we were right off the road there. That dog hated that chain. But he had dignity. What he’d do, he’d never go out to the length of that chain. He’d never even go out to where that chain got tight. Even if a mailman pulled up, or a salesman. Out of dignity, this dog pretended like he chose this one area to stay in that just happened to be inside the length of the chain. He just up and made it not relevant. Maybe he wasn’t pretending—maybe he really up and chose that little circle for his own world. He had a power to him. All his life on that chain. I loved that damned dog.”

AcquiescenceAccustomation
Book:The Pale King
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“We protect our minds by an elaborate system of abstractions, ambiguities, metaphors and similes from the reality we do not wish to know too clearly; we lie to ourselves, in order that we may still have the excuse of ignorance, the alibi of stupidity and incomprehension, possessing which we can continue with a good conscience to commit and tolerate the most monstrous crimes”

RealityFantasyConscienceSelf DeceptionSelf DelusionAcquiescence
Book:The Olive Tree and other essays
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“Americans cannot escape a certain responsibility for what is done in our name around the world. In a democracy, even one as corrupted as ours, ultimate authority rests with the people. We empower the government with our votes, finance it with our taxes, bolster it with our silent acquiescence. If we are passive in the face of America's official actions overseas, we in effect endorse them.”

PeopleIfsWorldDoneGovernmentActionAmericaFacesCertainNamesResponsibilityDemocracyEffectsTaxesAuthorityVoteUltimateSilentFinanceAround The WorldOfficialsEmpoweringPassiveAcquiescence
Book:The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World
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“The ways of Providence being inscrutable, and the justice of it not to be scanned by the shallow eye of humanity, nor to be counteracted by the utmost efforts of human power or wisdom, resignation, and as far as the strength of our reason and religion can carry us, a cheerful acquiescence to the Divine Will, is what we are to aim.”

WayHumansReasonEyeHumanityJusticeEffortDivineAimProvidenceShallowCheerfulResignationInscrutableAcquiescenceHuman PowerDivine Will
Book:The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799: prepared under the direction of the United States George Washington bicentennial commission and published by authority of Congress
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“If philosophy is still necessary, it is so only in the way it has been from time immemorial: as critique, as resistance to the expanding heteronomy, even if only as thought's powerless attempt to remain its own master and to convict of untruth, by their own criteria, both a fabricated mythology and a conniving, resigned acquiescence.”

IfsWayHas BeensStillsPhilosophyMastersMythologyResistancePowerlessExpandingCriteriaCritiqueUntruthResignedConvictsAcquiescenceConniving
Book:Essays on Music
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“As information technology becomes millions of times more powerful, any particular use of it becomes correspondingly cheaper. Thus, it has become commonplace to expect online services (not just news, but 21st century treats like search or social networking) to be given for free, or rather, in exchange for acquiescence to being spied on.”

UseGivenSocialPowerfulMillionsTechnologyCenturyInformationParticularNewsTreatsOnline21st CenturyNetworkingCommonplaceCheaperSocial NetworkingInformation TechnologySocial NetworkAcquiescence
Book:Who Owns the Future?
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“In the form of security and sufficiency for the men who labor to the profit of others, and in the form of registering and controlling them in the form of an organized public supervision of their labor, slavery is already afoot. When slavery shall succeed it will succeed through the acquiescence of those who will be enslaved, for they will prefer sufficiency and security with enslavement, to freedom, responsibility, insecurity and the threat of insufficiency.”

MenWisdomFormPoliticsResponsibilityEconomySecurityHe ManSucceedLaborSlaveryThreatProfitOrganizedLiberalismInsecurityEnslavementSufficiencySupervisionAcquiescenceInsufficiency
Book:Essays of a Catholic
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“What subsists to-day by violence continues to-morrow by acquiescence and is perpetuated by tradition; till at last the hoary abuse shakes the gray hairs of antiquity at us, and gives it-self out as the wisdom of ages.”

GivingSelfAgeLastsViolenceHairTraditionAbuseShakesGrayAntiquityMorrowGray HairAcquiescence
Book:The prospect of reform in Europe [by E. Everett]. From the North Amer. review
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“Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters.”

PeopleMindTwoStatesPoliticalDemocracyElectionCrisisCastsJournalismPropagandaCandidatesDevicesPollsBallotsAutocracyAcquiescence
Book:The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism
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“Nonconformity is an empty goal, and rebellion against prevailing opinion merely because it is prevailing should no more be praised than acquiescence to it. Indeed, it is often a mask for cowardice, and few are more pathetic than those who flaunt outer differences to expiate their inner surrender.”

ShouldGoalDifferencesOpinionEmptySurrenderMaskRebellionCowardicePatheticPrevailingNonconformityAcquiescence
Book:The Organization Man
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“One thing that struck me about going to those tech conferences was all the enthusiasm for free culture, and remixing, and social media, but people's greatest ambition was to be sponsored by Chipotle or something equivalent to that. It was this weird mix of collaborative, utopian claims and this total acquiescence to commercial imperatives.”

PeopleCultureSocialOne ThingMediaAmbitionClaimsSocial MediaEnthusiasmConferencesImperativesUtopianAcquiescenceChipotle
Author:Astra Taylor
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“Realism as a foreign policy doctrine means basically you don't care about values; you consider them a luxury, and it leads to a kind of acquiescence in spheres of influence. Now, spheres of influence sound good if you're a graduate student, or a certain kind of - an academic with a certain habit of mind. But in fact, spheres of influence don't work out very well, certainly not for the victims, and there are always victims.”

IfsMindWellsKindMeanFactsCareCertainValuesSoundInfluencePolicyStudentsHabitVictimWork OutDon't CareDoctrineLuxurySpheresGraduatesAcademicForeign PolicyRealismGraduate StudentsHabits Of MindAcquiescenceSphere Of Influence
Author:Daniel Fried
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“In reality, genuine epiphanies are extremely rare. In contemporary adult life maturation & acquiescence to reality are gradual processes. Modern usage usually deploys epiphany as a metaphor. It is usually only in dramatic representations, religious iconography, and the 'magical thinking' of children that insight is compressed to a sudden blinding flash.”

ThinkingChildrenRealityProcessReligiousModernAdultsMetaphorInsightGenuineContemporaryDramaticFlashRepresentationEpiphanyUsageAcquiescenceIconographyMagical Thinking
Author:David Foster Wallace
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“Every man's reason is his own rightful umpire. This principle, with that of acquiescence in the will of the majority, will preserve us free and prosperous as long as they are sacredly observed.”

MenLongReasonPoliticsPrinciplesMajorityEvery ManPreservesProsperousUmpiresAcquiescence
Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State
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“The best results in the operation of a government wherein every citizen has a share largely depend upon a proper limitation of the purely partisan zeal and effort and a correct appreciation of the time when the heat of the partisan should be merged in the patriotism of the citizen. ... At this hour the animosities of political strife, the bitterness of partisan defeat, and the exultation of partisan triumph should be supplanted by an ungrudging acquiescence in the popular will and a sober, conscientious concern for the general weal. ... Public extravagance begets extravagance among the people.”

PeopleShouldGovernmentPoliticalHoursResultsEffortShareDependsCitizensConcernDefeatAppreciationLimitationTriumphOperationsHeatNationalismBitternessSoberStrifeZealBegetsPartisansExtravaganceAnimosityAcquiescence
Book:Addresses, State Papers and Letters
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“The great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights... not only for acquiescence in poverty, inequality, exploitation and oppression, but also for enthusiastic justifications for slavery, persecution, abandonment of small children, torture, and genocide... Moreover, religion enshrined hierarchy, authority, and inequality... It was the age of equality that brought about the disappearance of such religious appurtenances as the auto-da-fe and burning at the stake.”

HumansChildrenAgeReligionReligiousPovertyRightsAuthoritySlaveryHuman RightsOppressionInequalityBurningIndifferenceTortureGenocideStakesJustificationExploitationPersecutionHierarchyEnthusiasticAbandonmentNotableSmall ChildDisappearanceAcquiescenceGreat ReligiousBurning At The Stake
Author:Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
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