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Arbitrary Quotes

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Arbitrary Quotes

“That reality is 'independent' means that there is something in every experience that escapes our arbitrary control. If it be a sensible experience it coerces our attention; if a sequence, we cannot invert it; if we compare two terms we can come to only one result. There is a push, an urgency, within our very experience, against which we are on the whole powerless, and which drives us in a direction that is the destiny of our belief.”

IfsMeanTwoWholeRealityBeliefTermResultsAttentionDestinyExperienceIndependentCompareSensibleRealismPowerlessArbitrarySequenceUrgencyCoerceInvert
Book:The Meaning of Truth: Human Understanding
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“The impulse to perfection cannot exist where the definition of perfection is the arbitrary decision of authority. That which is born in loneliness and from the heart cannot be defended against the judgment of a committee of sycophants. The volatile essences which make literature cannot survive the clichés of a long series of story conferences.”

HeartLongStoriesLiteratureBornDecisionLonelinessAuthorityJudgmentPerfectionEssenceSeriesDefinitionsImpulseCommitteesConferencesArbitrarySycophants
Book:Raymond Chandler Speaking
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“Artists, whatever their medium, make selections from the abounding materials of life, and organize these selections into works that are under the control of the artist.... In relation to the inclusiveness and literally endless intricacy of life, art is arbitrary, symbolic and abstracted. That is its value and the source of its own kind of order and coherence.”

LifeKindArtArtistValuesOrderMaterialsSourceArt IsRelationEndlessMediumsOrganizeSelectionArbitrarySymbolicCoherenceIntricacyInclusiveness
Author:Jane Jacobs
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“One sees a trend in our political and legal cultures toward treating religious beliefs as arbitrary and unimportant, a trend supported by a rhetoric that implies that there is something wrong with religious devotion.”

ChristianPoliticalCultureBeliefReligiousDevotionTrendsRhetoricArbitraryUnimportantReligious BeliefReligious Devotion
Book:The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion
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“Virtue and vice suppose the freedom to choose between good and evil; but what can be the morals of a woman who is not even in possession of herself, who has nothing of her own, and who all her life has been trained to extricate herself from the arbitrary by ruse, from constraint by using her charms?... As long as she is subject to man's yoke or to prejudice, as long as she receives no professional education, as long as she is deprived of her civil rights, there can be no moral law for her!”

MenLongHas BeensLawEvilMoralVirtueRightsSubjectsMoralityPrejudiceVicesPossessionCivil RightsCharmGood And EvilArbitraryDeprivedConstraintsYokeMoral LawFreedom To Choose
Author:Flora Tristan
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“The lore of our fathers is a fabric of sentences. In our hands it develops and changes, through more or less arbitrary and deliberate revisions and additions of our own, more or less directly occasioned by the continuing stimulation of our sense organs. It is a pale gray lore, black with fact and white with convention. But I have found no substantial reasons for concluding that there are any quite black threads in it, or any white ones.”

ReasonFactsHandsFoundFatherBlackWhiteSentencesGrayConventionsOrgansPaleThreadContinuingFabricDeliberateArbitraryOur FatherRevisionStimulationConcluding
Book:The Ways of Paradox, and Other Essays
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“Defining and celebrating the New Father are by far the most popular ideas in our contemporary discourse on fatherhood. Father as close and nurturing, not distant and authoritarian. Fatherhood as more than bread winning. Fatherhood as new-and-improved masculinity. Fathers unafraid of feelings. Fathers without sexism. Fatherhood as fifty-fifty parenthood, undistorted by arbitrary gender divisions or stifling social roles.”

IdeasFeelingsFatherWinningSocialRolesGenderBreadContemporaryCelebrateFiftyDivisionSexismParenthoodDiscourseFatherhoodMasculinityArbitraryDefiningNurturingUnafraidStiflingNew FatherSocial Roles
Author:David Blankenhorn
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“What causes adolescents to rebel is not the assertion of authority but the arbitrary use of power, with little explanation of therules and no involvement in decision-making. . . . Involving the adolescent in decisions doesn't mean that you are giving up your authority. It means acknowledging that the teenager is growing up and has the right to participate in decisions that affect his or her life.”

GivingMeanLittlesUseCausesDecisionGrowing UpGrowingGiving UpAuthorityTeenagerExplanationDecision MakingRebelArbitraryInvolvementAssertionInvolvingUse Of Power
Author:Laurence Steinberg
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“Humankind, which discovers its capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through its own work, forgets that this is always based on God's prior and original gift of things that are. People think that they can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to their wills, as though the earth did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which human beings can indeed develop but must not betray.”

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Author:Pope John Paul II
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“We shall never want to serve God in our real and secret hearts if He looms in our subconscious mind as an arbitrary Dictator or a Spoil-sport, or as one who takes advantage of His position to make us poor mortals feel guilty and afraid. We have not only to be impressed by the "size" and unlimited power of God, we have to be moved to genuine admiration, respect, and affection, if we are ever to worship Him.”

IfsWantFeelsMindHeartRealSportsPoorSecretPositionWorshipAdvantageMovedSizeAffectionGenuineGuiltyMortalsAdmirationDictatorServing GodImpressedSubconsciousUnlimitedArbitrarySpoilPower Of GodSubconscious MindUnlimited Power
Book:Your God is too small
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“Thinking is hard. Making value judgments is difficult. It places you at pure creation, because there are so many times you'll have to say, "I don't know. I just don't know." Yet still you'll have to decide. And so you'll have to choose. You'll have to make an arbitrary choice. Such a choice - a decision coming from no previous personal knowledge - is called pure creation. And the individual is aware, deeply aware, that in the making of such decisions is the Self created.”

ThinkingKnowsInspirationalStillsSelfHardValuesChoicesIndividualDifficultReligiousDecisionCreationPureJudgmentArbitraryPersonal Knowledge
Author:Neale Donald Walsch
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“Intellect is not sexed;... strength of mind is not sexed; and ... our views about the duties of men and the duties of women, the sphere of man and the sphere of woman, are mere arbitrary opinions, differing in different ages and countries, and dependent solely on the will and judgment of erring mortals.”

MenMindDifferentCountryAgeViewsOpinionDutyJudgmentMereIntellectMortalsDependentSpheresArbitraryStrength Of MindErringDifferent Ages
Author:Sarah Moore Grimke
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“It is possible to see slavery and serfdom merely as extreme early forms of autocratic management, in which employees had no voice whatsoever in the work process and were viewed not as human beings but as alienated forms of individual wealth. Slavery, in this sense, did not die; it continues in modern dress in contemporary organizations wherever managers exercise autocratic power, unequal status, or arbitrary privileges, no matter how scientific the terminology or postmodern the image”

HumansMatterFormDiesIndividualProcessVoiceWealthHuman BeingsModernExerciseCapitalismOrganizationManagementDressesSlaveryPrivilegeExtremesContemporaryManagersEmployeeArbitraryPostmodernTerminology
Author:Kenneth Cloke
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“We might even invent laws for series or formula in an arbitrary manner, and set the engine to work upon them, and thus deduce numerical results which we might not otherwise have thought of obtaining; but this would hardly perhaps in any instance be productive of any great practical utility, or calculated to rank higher than as a philosophical amusement.”

MightLawResultsHigherPhilosophicalSeriesPracticalsInstanceProductiveFormulasEnginesAmusementArbitraryUtilityObtaining
Author:Ada Lovelace
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“What is called a republic, is not any particular form of government ... it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which means arbitrary power.”

MeanGovernmentFormPoliticalPoliticsParticularRepublicArbitraryMonarchyForms Of Government
Book:THOMAS PAINE Ultimate Collection: Political Works, Philosophical Writings, Speeches, Letters & Biography (Including Common Sense, The Rights of Man & The Age of Reason): The American Crisis, The Constitution of 1795, Declaration of Rights, Agrarian Justice, The Republican Proclamation, Anti-Monarchal Essay, Letters to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington…
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“Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it.”

MenDoePoliticalValuesPoliticsWealthExistenceMoralProducePaperStandardsGunGoldProtectionExpectedObjectivesOwnersDestroyingArbitraryMortgageDestroyersCounterfeit
Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
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“Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.”

PeopleWarStatesFreedomLibertySlaveryPropertyLibertarianObedienceEndeavorArbitraryFreedom And LibertyFreedom LibertyProperty RightsLimited GovernmentLegislatorsRights And FreedomsLimited FreedomAmerica Freedom
Book:Two Treatises of Government: With a Supplement, Patriarcha, by Robert Filmer
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“The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or limited sovereignty, or absolute power is the same [whether] in a majority of a popular assembly; an aristocratic council; or oligarchical junto and a single emperor - equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody and in every respect diabolical.”

PoliticalAbsolutesFundamentalsMajorityTyrannyArticlesCreedsBloodySovereigntyCouncilArbitraryEmperorAssemblyDespotismAbsolute PowerDiabolicalAristocratic
Author:John Adams
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“Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers and destroyers press upon them so fast that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachments is to, grow every day more encroaching; like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour.”

PeopleWayGivingGrowsHoursLibertyPressesCancerFasterPreservesVotingMaximsArbitraryBudResistingDestroyersEncroachmentDeceiver
Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“Tis a Mistake to think this Fault [tyranny] is proper only to Monarchies; other Forms of Government are liable to it, as well as that. For where-ever the Power that is put in any hands for the Government of the People, and the Preservation of their Properties, is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the Arbitrary and Irregular Commands of those that have it: There it presently becomes Tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many.”

PeopleThinkingWellsMadeEndsUseHandsGovernmentFormMistakePropertyFaultsTyrannyCommandPreservationArbitraryMonarchyForms Of GovernmentProperty RightsLiable
Book:Locke: Two Treatises of Government Student Edition
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“Set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests; in short against the gates of earth and hell.”

EarthHellRightsMankindKingsBritishPriestsGatesTyrantsAncestorInherentArbitraryUsurpers
Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“The treatment of the indeterminacy principle as absolute and final can then be criticized as constituting an arbitrary restriction on scientific theories, since it does not follow from the quantum theory as such, but rather from the assumption of the unlimited validity of certain of its features, an assumption that can in no way ever be subjected to experimental proof.”

WayDoeScienceCertainPrinciplesTheoryAbsolutesFinalsProofFeaturesAssumptionTreatmentQuantumUnlimitedMechanicArbitraryRestrictionQuantum MechanicsValidityQuantum TheoryScientific Theory
Book:Causality and Chance in Modern Physics
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“There is something on earth greater than arbitrary or despotic power. The lightning has its power, and the whirlwind has its power, and the earthquake has its power; but there is something among men more capable of shaking despotic thrones than lightning, whirlwind, or earthquake, and that is, the excited and aroused indignation of the whole civilized world.”

MenWorldWholeEarthGreaterCapableInvestingExcitedCivilizedLightningThronesArbitraryShakingEarthquakesIndignationWhirlwind
Book:THE WORKS OF DANIEL WEBSTER; VOLUME II
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