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Active Quotes

“In every human being one or the other of these two instincts is predominant: the active or positive instinct to offer hospitality, the negative or passive instinct to accept it. And either of these instincts is so significant of character that one might as well say that mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.”

HumansWellsTwoCharacterMightHuman BeingsAcceptingClassMankindOffersNegativeInstinctActiveSignificantHostGuestsPassiveHospitality
Book:And Even Now
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“[Footnote:] The female of any species is generally regarded as a relatively anabolic organism, more passive than the male, who is relatively katabolic and active. The fact remains that one frequently runs across a rather katabolic female.”

FactsRunningFemaleRemainsSpeciesMalesActivePassiveOrganismsFootnotes
Book:The Great Bustard and Other People: Containing: How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes and How to Become Extinct
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“Active liberty is particularly at risk when law restricts speech directly related to the shaping of public opinion, for example, speech that takes place in areas related to politics and policy-making by elected officials. That special risk justifies especially strong pro-speech judicial presumptions. It also justifies careful review whenever the speech in question seeks to shape public opinion, particularly if that opinion in turn will affect the political process and the kind of society in which we live.”

IfsKindLawPoliticalTurnsStrongProcessLibertyOpinionRiskSpecialPolicyExampleShapesSpeechAreasCarefulActiveRelatedOfficialsJustifyReviewsFreedom Of SpeechPublic OpinionJudicialPresumptionElected OfficialsLive FreePublic OfficialsPolicy Making
Author:Stephen Breyer
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“No one supposed that dinoflagellates might actively kill fish as an evolved response for their own specific advantage, including a potential nutritional benefit for the algal cells. And yet the dinoflagellates do seem to be killing and eating fishes in a manner suggesting active evolution for this most peculiar reversal.”

SeemsMightEvolutionBenefitsEatingAdvantageResponseKillingIncludingFishesActiveCellsPeculiarSuggestingReversal
Book:Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History
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“It happens from time to time in every complex and active society, that certain persons feel the complexity and insistence as a tangle, and seek freedom in retirement, as Thoreau sought at Walden Pond. They do not, however, in this manner escape from the social institutions of their time, nor do they really mean to do so; what they gain, if they are successful, is a saner relation to them.”

IfsFeelsMeanPersonsHappensCertainSocialSuccessfulGainsRelationInstitutionsComplexesActiveComplexityRetirementReally MeanPondsInsistenceSocial InstitutionsWalden Pond
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
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“The question so often asked of modern painting, "What is it?", contains more than the dull skepticism of the man who is not going to have the wool pulled over his eyes. It speaks of a fundamental placement in relation to the work, that of a voyager in the world coming upon a strange object. The reader reconstitutes the work by his active participation, by approaching the object, tapping it, shaking it, holding it to his ear to hear the roaring within. It is characteristic of the object that it does not declare itself all at once, in a rush of pleasant naïveté.”

MenWorldDoeEyeSpeakModernObjectsStrangeHe ManPaintingReaderEarsRelationFundamentalsActiveCharacteristicsPleasantHis EyesDullSkepticismParticipationShakingRoaringTappingWoolVetsPlacementActive ParticipationShaking It
Author:Donald Barthelme
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“The masses in any given place are generally composed of three parts, the relatively active, the intermediate and the relatively backward. The leaders must therefore be skilled in uniting the small number of active elements around the leadership and must rely on them to raise the level of the intermediate elements and to win over the backward elements.”

ThreeWinningGivenLevelsNumbersLeaderElementsMassRaisesActiveRelySmall NumbersUniting
Book:Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (The Little Red Book) & Other Works
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“Recognizing that the world is governed by a minority, the sexually active, and that they hold sway of a huge majority of the nonsexual, those people too young or too old or too poor or too homely or sick or crazy or powerless to be able to afford sexual partners (or the luxury of systematic, sustained and shared introspection, so sexual in its own way). All advertisements and films and songs are addressed to sexuals, to their rash whims and finicky tastes.”

PeopleWorldWayAbleFilmYoungSongPoorCrazyHugeTasteSickMajorityActivePartnersLuxuryMinoritiesIntrospectionPowerlessRecognizingSexuallySystematicWhimAdvertisementsHomely
Author:Edmund White
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“1) Différance is the systematic play of differences, of the traces of differences, of the spacing by means of which elements are related to each other. This spacing is the simultaneously active and passive (the a of différance indicates this indecision as concerns activity and passivity, that which cannot be governed by or distributed between the terms of this opposition) production of the intervals without which the "full" terms would not signify, would not function.”

MeanPlayTermDifferencesActivityElementsConcernFunctionProductionsActiveRelatedOppositionPassiveSystematicIntervalsIndecisionPassivitySpacing
Author:Jacques Derrida
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“Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My whole approach in broadcasting has always been 'You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions.' Maybe I'm going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is important.”

PeopleWayFeelsPersonsLongImportantWholeDecisionHealthyApproachActiveBroadcastingImportant Person
Author:Fred Rogers
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“Ordinary Americans, and especially the small minority active in Democrat and Republican primaries, must learn more of what people across the globe are thinking and saying about the US. For if you follow that, you realise that the erosion of American power is happening faster than most of us predicted -- while the politicians in Washington behave like rutting stags with locked antlers.”

PeopleIfsThinkingAmericaPoliticianRepublicanHappeningsOrdinaryDemocratActivePrimariesFasterBehaveMinoritiesRealisingLockedGlobesErosionAmerican PowerStagsAntlers
Author:Timothy Garton Ash
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“Having analyzed these traits, we can now advance a definition of propaganda - not an exhaustive definition, unique and exclusive of all others, but at least a partial one: Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and incorporated in an organization.”

WantActionIndividualGroupsMassUniqueOrganizationMethodDefinitionsActivePsychologicalPropagandaOrganizedManipulationTraitsPassiveParticipationEmployedExclusiveUnifiedPsychological Manipulation
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“Most people think witches are a coven of lesbians dancing naked in the forest celebrating the semen stolen from imprisoned hypnotized males, which they then use to inseminate one another using turkey basters in order to create a legion of demon babies. Well, that's only part of it. We are also active in community outreach programs.”

PeopleThinkingWellsUseOrderCommunityBabyProgramDancingMalesActiveForestsNakedCelebrateDemonWitchStolenTurkeysWitchcraftLegionOutreach
Author:Amy Sedaris
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“The love-making of the bluebird is as beautiful as the bird itself, and normally as gentle, unless interrupted by some jealous rival who would steal his bride; then gentleness gives place to active combat. The male usually arrives a few days ahead of the female, selects what he considers to be a suitable summer home, and carols his sweetest, most seductive notes day after day until she appears in answer to his call.”

GivingHomeBeautifulAnswersSummerBirdFemaleNotesMalesActiveStealingGentleJealousCombatGentlenessRivalsSweetestBridesSuitableSeductiveInterruptedLove MakingCarolsBluebird
Book:Life histories of North American thrushes, kinglets, and their allies: order Passeriformes
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“Fate knows all about you, it knows your fears and your weaknesses and your confidences and strengths, and it can be ready for all of them when it decides that the time is right. It can move you like a pawn in a terrible game of chess, sacrifice you for the good of others, drop you from a building you should never have been inside, give you a disease that no one has ever heard of. Luck and chance are impartial. Fate is active. It picks on people. Almost as if it thinks about things too much.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsGivingShouldHas BeensMovingGamesChanceToo MuchFateHeardSacrificeBuildingReadyTerribleDiseasePicksWeaknessLuckActiveChessChances ArePawnsConfidence And Strength
Book:Face
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“As South Korea shows, active participation in international trade does not require free trade. Indeed, had South Korea pursued free trade and not promoted infant industries, it would not have become a major trading nation. It would still be exporting raw materials (e.g., tungsten ore, fish, seaweed) or low-technology, low-price products (e.g., textiles, garments, wigs made with human hair) that used to be its main export items in the 1960s.”

HumansDoeMadeStillsShowsUsedNationsTechnologyMaterialsProductsHairIndustryMajorsLowsTradeSouthInternationalFishesActiveUsed To BeParticipationTradingInfantItems1960sKoreaPursuedGarmentsRaw MaterialsFree TradeWigsSeaweedSouth KoreaTextilesInternational TradeExportingActive Participation
Book:Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
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“A politician will always tip off his true belief by stating the opposite at the beginning of the sentence. For maximum comprehension, do not start listening until the first clause is concluded. Begin instead at the word 'BUT' which begins the second, or active, clause. This is the way to tell a liberal from a conservative - before they tell you. Thus: 'I have always believed in a strong national defense, second to none, but...(a liberal, about to propose a $20 billion defense cut).”

WayFirstsPoliticsBeliefStrongCuttingListeningPoliticianOppositesConservativeActiveSentencesDefenseBillionsMaximumAlways BelieveProposeComprehensionClausesNational Defense
Author:Frank Mankiewicz
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