“I think what drove me away from being a reporter was an inability to accept that the world came in neat stories. Every story you have to report is just part of something bigger. The news isn't what happened last night - it's some cumulative thing that's happened over centuries. I found it hard to think of one event and drag it out of a bubbling pot and present it as the story that explains it all.” ThinkingWorldHardStoriesLastsNightFoundAcceptingHappenedCenturyEventsNewsBiggerReportsPotDragReportersInabilityLast NightNeatCumulative Author:Terry Pratchett
“Contemporary Christianity, diverse and complex as we find it, actually may show more unanimity than the Christian churches of the first and second centuries. For nearly all Christians since that time, Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox, have shared three basic premises. First, they accept the canon of the New Testament; second, they confess the apostolic creed; and third, they affirm specific forms of church institution. But every one of these - the canon of Scripture, the creed, and the institutional structure - emerged in its present form only toward the end of the second century.” FirstsMayEndsShowsChristianFormReligionThreeChurchAcceptingChristianityCenturyThirdsCatholicInstitutionsStructureComplexesScriptureContemporaryOrthodoxCreedsDiverseTestamentPremisesNew TestamentProtestantsChristian ChurchCanonApostolicUnanimity Author:Elaine Pagels
“Among Negroes of my generation there was not only little direct acquaintance or consciously inherited knowledge of Africa, but much distaste and recoil because of what the white world taught them about the Dark Continent. There arose resentment that a group like ours, born and bred in the United States for centuries, should be regarded as Africans at all. They were, as most of them began gradually to assert, Americans. My father's father was particularly bitter about this. He would not accept an invitation to a 'Negro' picnic. He would not segregate himself in any way.” WorldWayShouldLittlesStatesFatherBornDarkWhiteUnitedAcceptingUnited StatesGenerationsGroupsCenturyTaughtDirectBitterResentmentContinentsAcquaintanceInvitationsMy GenerationPicnicsDistasteRecoil Author:W. E. B. Du Bois
“We alter and customize the thing every century, every generation, every day - both in the courts and in our own homes. And marriage accepts our modifications gracefully. Marriage adapts, evolves and (in a manner that I find miraculous and kind of inspiring) somehow keeps chugging along.” KindHomeAcceptingGenerationsCenturyCourtEvolveMiraculousModification Author:Elizabeth Gilbert
“I decline to accept Hebrew mythology as a guide to twentieth-century science.” AcceptingAtheismCenturyPositive AtheismGuidesMythologyDeclineTwentieth CenturyHebrew Author:Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“With a full century of contrary proof in our possession and despite our demonstrated capacity for cooperative teamwork, some among us seem to accept the shibboleth of an unbridgeable gap between those who hire and those who are employed. We miserably fail to challenge the lie that what is good for management is necessarily bad for labor; that for one side to profit, the other must be depressed. Such distorted doctrine is false and foreign to the American scene where common ideals and purpose permit us a common approach toward the common good.” SeemsLyingPurposeSidesChallengesCommonAcceptingFailingCenturySceneApproachCapacityIdealsLaborManagementProfitPossessionProofContraryDoctrineDespiteGapsTeamworkPermitEmployedEmployersCommon GoodCooperatives Author:Dwight D. Eisenhower
“We have imagined ourselves a special creation, set apart from other humans. In the last twentieth century, we see that our povertyis as absolute as that of the poorest nations. We have attempted to deny the human condition in our quest for power after power. It would be well for us to rejoin the human race, to accept our essential poverty as a gift, and to share our material wealth with those in need.” NeedsHumansWellsWould BeLastsNationsWealthRaceAcceptingPovertyShareSpecialConditionsCenturyCreationMaterialsEssentialsAbsolutesDenyHuman RaceHuman ConditionQuestsTwentieth CenturyPoorestThose In NeedMaterial Wealth Author:Robert Neelly Bellah
“The most important domestic challenge facing the U.S. at the close of the twentieth century is the re-creation of fatherhood as avital social role for men. At stake is nothing less than the success of the American experiment. For unless we reverse the trend of fatherlessness, no other set of accomplishments--not economic growth or prison construction or welfare reform or better schools--will succeed in arresting the decline of child well-being and the spread of male violence. To tolerate the trend of fatherlessness is to accept the inevitability of continued social recession.” MenWellsChildrenImportantSchoolSocialGrowthChallengesAcceptingRolesViolenceEconomicCenturyCreationSucceedPrisonMalesSpreadExperimentsReformWell BeingWelfareAccomplishmentTrendsStakesConstructionDeclineTolerateReverseFatherhoodTwentieth CenturyEconomic GrowthRecessionsInevitabilityArrestingWelfare ReformSocial RolesFatherlessness Author:David Blankenhorn
“It was during the eighteenth century - a period of boastful satisfaction with the nice balances within the English constitution - that Englishmen came to accept the Whig view of the utility of an armed citizenry. The armed citizen was not only affirmed to be protecting himself but, together with his fellows, provided the ultimate check on tyranny.” TogetherViewsAcceptingNiceCenturyBalanceCitizensPeriodsUltimateConstitutionFellowsSatisfactionTyrannyChecksUtilityEnglishmenSecond AmendmentCitizenryArmed Citizens Author:Joyce Lee Malcolm
“Marriage is an ongoing, centuries-long social experiment that is mostly controlled by the individuals in the relationships who insist on determining what the relationship terms are going to be. And that's why the terms of marriage change with every century and decade. We're shaping it from the inside. Marriage endures because it evolves. Obviously it does. None of us would accept marriage on its 13th century terms, not even the most conservative people...” PeopleLongDoeIndividualSocialTermAcceptingCenturyEndureConservativeDecadesExperimentsEvolveControlledOngoing Author:Elizabeth Gilbert
“During the centuries-long process of Reformation and Enlightenment, Christian churches had to accept some things they didn't like. Islam will have to do the same; otherwise it isn't part of Europe.” LongChristianProcessChurchAcceptingCenturyEnlightenmentEuropeIslamReformationChristian Church Author:Wolfgang Schauble
“The human brain finds it extremely hard to cope with a new level of abstraction. This is why it was well into the eighteenth century before mathematicians felt comfortable dealing with zero and with negative numbers, and why even today many people cannot accept the square root of minus-one as a genuine number.” PeopleHumansWellsHardTodayFeltLevelsNumbersBrainAcceptingCenturyComfortableNegativeRootsGenuineZeroSquaresMathematicianAbstractionHuman BrainMinusSquare Roots Author:Keith Devlin
“The constants all through the centuries will be the same; wine, women and song. Other than that, life will be very different technologically. In the year 3000 the universe will be expanding as it will forever, infinitely. We will probe outer space but never find life as evolutionized as ours. We were not created by a deity. We created the deity in OUR image. Life began on this planet when the first amoeba split. Mankind will still be seeking God, not accepting that God is a spirit; can't see it, touch it, only feel it. It's called LOVE.” FeelsYearsFirstsStillsDifferentSpiritSongUniverseSpaceAcceptingForeverMankindCenturyPlanetsWineSeekingSplitsExpandingDeitiesOuter SpaceSeeking GodAmoeba Author:Phyllis Diller