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Exceptionalism Quotes

Browse 71 quotes about Exceptionalism.

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Exceptionalism Quotes

“We must remember with Heine that Aristophanes is the God of this ironic earth, and that all argument is apparently vitiated from the start by the simple fact that Wagner and a rooster are given an analogous method of making love. And therefore it seems impeccable logic to say that all that is most unlike the rooster is the most spiritual part of love. All will agree on that, schisms only arise when one tries to decide what does go farthest from the bird's automatic mechanism. Certainly not a Dante-Beatrice affair which is only the negation of the rooster in terms of the swooning bombast of adolescence, the first onslaught of a force which the sufferer cannot control or inhabit with all the potentialities of his body and soul. But the rooster is troubled by no dreams of a divine orgy, no carnival-loves like Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, no heroic and shining lust gathering and swinging into a merry embrace like the third act of Siegfried. It is desire in this sense that goes farthest from the animal.”

LoveDesireSexHuman NatureHuman ConditionClassicsExceptionalismHumanocentrism
Book:Lysistrata
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“We live, I suppose, in the unconfessed hope that the rules will at some point be broken, along with the normal course of things and custom and history, and that this will happen to us, that we will experience it, that we — that is, I alone — will be the ones to see it. We always aspire, I suppose, to being the chosen ones, and it is unlikely otherwise that we would be prepared to live out the entire course of an entire life, which, however short or long, gradually gets the better of us.”

OptimismDelusionExceptionalism
Book:Fever and Spear
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“People were so oversensitive to the supposed overfishing of sharks. As if it wasn't the height of hubris to decide that humanity needed to be put into the position of custodian to the height of apex predators. God had made man to fight and defeat his other creations. Why else would he have made his chosen children physically weak, but mentally strong? In the battle between man and shark, the shark should always have won. That it didn't, proved only that man was intended to be victorious and that he should be allowed to kill whatever he could before he, in turn, was killed.”

HumanityDominationSharksHubrisNatural OrderExceptionalismAnthropocentrismMoral Ambiguity
Book:Into the Drowning Deep
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“The kind life, the receivable life, errs on the side of what we're for rather than what we're against. . . . We need a firm center and soft edges. We need to tone down the saber rattling, the fit shaking, the scowled conversations, the voice raising. The way of kindness is not just having the right theology; it's being the right kind of people. It's understanding that our lives as Jesus' followers mean we have a common humanity with everyone, and therefore there's no need for exceptionalism. We ow all human beings the honor due them as beings made in the image of God.”

HumanityKindnessTheologyImage Of GodExceptionalism
Author:Barry Corey
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“My people!" he shouted in the stentorian voice. "I shall speak now of us! Who are we? We are an articulate people, yet a people of few words. We feel deeply, yet refrain from embarrassing displays of emotion. Though firm, we are never too firm, though we love fun, we never have fun in a silly way that makes us appear ridiculous, unless that is our intent. Our national coloration, though varied, is consistent. Everything about us is as it should be, for example, we can be excessive when excess is called for, and yet, even in our excess, we show good taste, although never is our taste so super-refined as to seem precious. Even the extent to which we are moderate is moderate, except when we have decided to be immoderately moderate, or even shockingly flamboyant, at which time our flamboyance is truly breathtaking in a really startling way, and when we decide to make mistakes, our mistakes are as big and grand and irrevocable as any nation's colossal errors, and when we decide to deny our mistakes, we sound just as if we are telling the truth, and when we decide to admit our errors, we do so in a way that is truly moving in its extreme frankness! Am I making sense? Am I saying this well?”

FeelingsTruthFunMistakesNationalismExcessConsistencyModerationExceptionalismFlamboyance
Book:The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
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“But what is particular to America is that many who suffered enormous loss and destruction have had to do so alone, had to marshal language to tell the story, only to find that there was no one to hear it because their suffering contradicts the story that the nation keeps telling itself—the story of American exceptionalism. America is a beacon of light, the singular enforcer of truth. Our story of exceptionalism doesn’t allow us to confront our past with open eyes. A nation that cannot see its own past cannot see the suffering it has caused, suffering that persists into the present.”

SufferingExceptionalismContradictsConfront Past
Book:See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love
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“...I believe the citizens of the United States, and the citizens of the democracies of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, should begin thinking of themselves as linked to one another and to the people who share their values inside autocracies too. They need one another, now more than ever, because their democracies are not safe. Nobody's democracy is safe. Americans, with our long history of imagining ourselves to be exceptional, would do well to remember that our domestic politics have always been connected to, and influenced by, a larger struggle for freedom and the rule of law around the world.”

FreedomDemocracyRule Of LawInterdependenceAutocracyExceptionalismAmerican ExceptionalismAutocraciesDemocracies
Book:Autocracy, Inc.
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“Paul believed American greatness and the ghosts of that greatness surrounded him. But who could publicly express such a belief and not be ridiculed as a patriotic fool? Paul believed in his fellow Americans, in their extraordinary decency, in their awesome ability to transcend religion, race, and class, but what leftist could state such things and ever hope to get laid by any other lefty?”

AmericaPatriotismGood PeopleLiberalsExceptionalismAmerican Exceptionalism
Book:War Dances
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“To evoke another great phrase of the American revolutionary heritage — widely though inconclusively attributed to Thomas Jefferson — the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Such a phrase is merely trite, however, unless we consider its deeper implications. For the French revolutionaries, as for so many regimes that have succeeded them across the world up to the present day, the call for vigilance against enemies, both external and internal, was the first step on the road to the loss of liberty, and lives. Of far more significance, and the true and tragic lesson of the epic descent into The Terror, is the summons to vigilance against ourselves — that we should not assume that we are righteous, and our enemies evil; that we can see clearly, and to others are blinded by malice or folly; that we can abrogate the fragile rights of others in the name of our own certainty and all will be well regardless. If we do not honor the message of human rights born in the revolutions of 1776 and 1786, as the French in their case most certainly failed to do, we too are on the road to The Terror.”

AmericaFreedomFrancePatriotismImperialismExceptionalismThe Terror
Book:The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France
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“It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as [inherently] exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”

RacismEqualityCorruptionIronyNationalismImperialismGovernment CorruptionExceptionalismPolitical Corruption
Author:Vladimir Putin
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“Narratives of racial exceptionality obscure the reality of ongoing institutional white control while reinforcing ideologies of individualism and meritocracy. They also do whites a disservice by obscuring the white allies behind the scenes who worked hard and long to open the field. These allies could serve as much-needed role models for other whites.”

RacismAlliesMeritocracyExceptionalismRacial EqualityExceptionalityDesegregation
Book:What Does It Mean to Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy
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“This "cargo," this group of twenty to thirty Angolans, sold from the deck of the White Lion by criminal English marauders in exchange for food and supplies, was also foundational to the American story. But while every American child learns about the Mayflower, virtually no American child learns about the White Lion. And yet the story of the White Lion is classically American. It is a harrowing tale--one filled with all the things that this country would rather not remember, a taint on a nation that believes above all else in its exceptionality. The Adams and Eves of Black America did not arrive here in search of freedom or a better life. They had been captured and stolen, forced onto a ship, shackled, writhing in filth as they suffered and starved. Some 40 percent of the Angolans who boarded that ghastly vessel did not make it across the Middle Passage. They embarked not as people but as property, sold to white colonists who were just beginning to birth democracy for themselves, commencing a four-hundred-year struggle between the two opposing ideas foundational to America. And so the White Lion has been relegated to what Bennett called the "back alley of American history." There are no annual classroom commemorations of that moment in August 1619. No children dress up as its occupants or perform classroom skits. No holiday honors it. The White Lion and the people on that ship have been expunged from our collective memory. This omission is intentional: when we are creating a shared history, what we remember is just as revelatory as what we forget.”

AmericaHistoryUnited StatesSlaveryAfrican AmericansBlacksExceptionalismExceptionalityForgotten History
Book:Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
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“The message for the American youth is that this is a great country and we need to make sure that we pass on a heritage, a lineage and a legacy of American exceptionalism to each and everyone of you so that you can enjoy all the great liberties and freedoms that all the previous generations have had.”

NeedsCountryEnjoyLibertyGenerationsYouthMessagesLegacyHeritageFreedom And LibertyGreat CountryLineageExceptionalismAmerican ExceptionalismPrevious GenerationsAmerican Youth
Author:Allen West
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“I think the American people would be compassionate and practical. But we need to be talking about assimilation as well, something that is politically incorrect, I know, to say that people should learn English, should learn American exceptionalism, shouldn't come here to use our freedoms to undermine the freedoms we give to everybody. But there's nothing wrong with saying people who want to come here should want to be Americans.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWantNeedsGivingShouldWellsUseWould BeTalkingPracticalsCompassionateAssimilationExceptionalismAmerican Exceptionalism
Author:Bobby Jindal
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“Everything that everyone is afraid of has already happened: The fragility of capitalism, which we don't want to admit; the loss of the empire of the United States; and American exceptionalism. In fact, American exceptionalism is that we are exceptionally backward in about fifteen different categories, from education to infrastructure.”

WantDifferentStatesFactsLossUnitedUnited StatesHappenedCapitalismEmpiresCategoriesFifteenBackwardsInfrastructureFragilityExceptionalismAmerican Exceptionalism
Author:James Hillman
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“Democracy is about criticism. I didn't elect Obama because he's a black; I voted for Obama because he was the right person at the time. Period. The exceptionalism of a black U.S. President is not important to me. It's what he does. And who he has at the table. And what he does to change the world - that's what's important.”

WorldPersonsDoeImportantBlackPresidentDemocracyPeriodsCriticismTablesChanging The WorldWhat's ImportantRight PersonTime PeriodsExceptionalism
Author:Danny Glover
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“People get tired of talking about American exceptionalism, but I think this is an extraordinary thing about the United States, that we are a nation of immigrants, first of all, that is built upon a pluralistic society of native people that were here to begin with. The issue of diversity is really with us from the beginning.”

PeopleThinkingFirstsStatesNationsUnitedTalkingUnited StatesIssuesDiversityBuiltTiredExtraordinaryNativeImmigrantsExtraordinary ThingsExceptionalismAmerican Exceptionalism
Author:Diana L. Eck
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“Ronald Reagan [ cite the founders] on behalf of emphasizing the faith of our founders, of limited government, of the uniqueness and exceptionalism of America, of a nation with a people facing another historic challenge beyond the American Revolution, and in contrasting the system of the United States with the system of the USSR.”

PeopleStatesGovernmentAmericaNationsChallengesUnitedUnited StatesRevolutionFoundersUniquenessBehalfHistoricAmerican RevolutionLimited GovernmentCitingUssrExceptionalism
Author:Paul Kengor
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