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Expediency Quotes

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Expediency Quotes

“Yet isn't it all—all of it, every single episode and detail of the Clinton saga—exactly like that? And isn't some of it a little bit more serious? For Sen. Clinton, something is true if it validates the myth of her striving and her 'greatness' (her overweening ambition in other words) and only ceases to be true when it no longer serves that limitless purpose. And we are all supposed to applaud the skill and the bare-faced bravado with which this is done. In the New Hampshire primary in 1992, she knowingly lied about her husband's uncontainable sex life and put him eternally in her debt. This is now thought of, and referred to in print, purely as a smart move on her part. In the Iowa caucuses of 2008, he returns the favor by telling a huge lie about his own record on the war in Iraq, falsely asserting that he was opposed to the intervention from the very start. This is thought of, and referred to in print, as purely a tactical mistake on his part: trying too hard to help the spouse. The happy couple has now united on an equally mendacious account of what they thought about Iraq and when they thought it. What would it take to break this cheap little spell and make us wake up and inquire what on earth we are doing when we make the Clinton family drama—yet again—a central part of our own politics?”

PoliticsSexUnited StatesGreatnessAmbitionLiesIraqIraq WarIowaExpediencyNew HampshireSelf PromotionHillary ClintonBill Clinton2008United States Elections 20081992Iowa CaucusesNew Hampshire Primary
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“Experience has taught me," said Peter (...) "that no situation finds Bunter unprepared. That he should have procured The Times this morning by the simple expedient of asking the milkman to request the postmistress to telephone to Broxford and have it handed to the 'bus-conductor to be dropped at the post-office and brought up by the little girl who delivers the telegrams is a trifling example of his resourceful energy.”

ExpediencyResourcefulness
Book:Busman's Honeymoon
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“With mounting excitement in his heart he called over the astrologers secretly and instructed them: 'See to it you find an early date for my departure and inform Arya Shukanasa and my father accordingly.' They replied, 'Deva, according to the configuration of your planets, it is not advisable at present for you to undertake any journey. But if the work is urgent then the time that the king decides upon becomes indeed the right time, for all work. There is really no need to look for an auspicious date now.' Chandrapida replied, 'I spoke to you because my father wished for this. For one involved in the fulfilment of unavoidable and pressing duties that come up every moment how can you fix an auspicious date and hour? So please announce that I can leave as early as tomorrow itself." Within a short time the astrologers came back and informed him softly, 'We have carried out Deva's commands thanks to Shukanasa's distracted state of mind, anxious about his son. Let the day be over tomorrow, you can leave at nightfall.' Pleased, Chandrapida thanked them warmly and rewarded them for their labours.”

ExpediencyAstrologersRoyal Command
Book:Kadambari
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“We believe in a moral code. Communism denies innate right or wrong. As W. Cleon Skousen has said in his timely book, The Naked Communist: The communist 'has convinced himself that nothing is evil which answers the call of expediency.' This is a most damnable doctrine. People who truly accept such a philosophy have neither conscience nor honor. Force, trickery, lies, broken promises are wholly justified.”

PeopleBelieveSaidBookPhilosophyLyingEvilForceAnswersAcceptingMoralBrokenHonorPromiseConscienceDenyConvincedDoctrineNakedCommunismCodeCommunistJustifiedInnateBroken PromisesTimelyExpediencyTrickeryMoral Code
Book:Title of liberty
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“Ecology movements, futurism, feminism, urbanism, protest and disarmament, personal individuation cannot alone save the world from the catastrophe inherent in our very idea of the world. They require a cosmological vision that saves the phenomenon 'world' itself, a move in soul that goes beyond measures of expediency to the archetypal source of our world's continuing peril: the fateful neglect, the repression, of the anima mundi.”

WorldIdeasSoulMovingVisionFeminismDangerMovementSourceNuclearProtestNeglectPhenomenonOur WorldInherentContinuingEcologyCatastrophePerilNot AloneRepressionSave The WorldDisarmamentExpediencyIndividuationFuturism
Book:City and Soul: Uniform Edition
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“One of the great weaknesses of the progressive, as distinct from the religious, mind, is that it has no awareness of truth as such; only of truth in terms of enlightened expediency. The contrast is well exemplified in two exact contemporaries - Simone Weil and Simone de Beauvoir; both highly intelligent and earnestly disposed. In all the fearful moral dilemmas of our time, Simone Weil never once went astray, whereas Simone de Beauvoir, with I am sure the best of intentions, has found herself aligned with apologists for some of the most monstrous barbarities and falsehoods of history.”

MindWellsTwoFoundTermReligiousMoralAwarenessWeaknessIntelligentIntentionOur TimeEnlightenedProgressiveFearfulContrastFalsehoodDilemmaMonstrousExpediencyBarbarityMoral DilemmaHighly Intelligent
Author:Malcolm Muggeridge
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“Man is naturally self-centered and he is inclined to regard expediency as the supreme standard for what is right and wrong. However, we must not convert an inclination into an axiom that just as man's perceptions cannot operate outside time and space, so his motivations cannot operate outside expediency; that man can never transcend his own self. The most fatal trap into which thinking may fall is the equation of existence and expediency.”

ThinkingMenMaySelfMotivationFallSpaceExistencePerceptionStandardsRegardSupremeTrapsEquationsTime And SpaceInclinationSelf CenteredAxiomsExpediency
Author:Abraham Joshua Heschel
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“Those who are successfully to lead their fellow-men, should have once possessed the nobler feelings. We have all known individuals whose magnanimity was not likely to be troublesome on any occasion; but then they betrayed their own interests by unwisely omitting the consideration, that such feelings might exist in the breasts of those whom they had to guide and govern: for they themselves cannot even remember the time when in their eyes justice appeared preferable to expediency, the happiness of others to self-interest, or the welfare of a State to the advancement of a party.”

MenShouldSelfStatesFeelingsMightEyeRememberIndividualInterestLeadershipJusticePartyKnownShould HaveFellowsGuidesOccasionsWelfareBreastsConsiderationPossessedBetrayedFellow ManAdvancementSelf InterestTroublesomeExpediencyMagnanimityOmitting
Book:Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
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“Our contention is not for mere toleration, but for absolute liberty. There is a wide difference between toleration and liberty. Toleration implies that somebody falsely claims the right to tolerate. Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right. Toleration is a matter of expediency, while liberty is a matter of principle.”

MatterDifferencesLibertyPrinciplesAtheismClaimsAbsolutesMerePositive AtheismWideTolerateContentionConcessionsTolerationExpediency
Author:George W Truett
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“I had to learn that there is more to the human being than material comfort, more than success, more even than national spirit or patriotism. That in any being worthy of being human there is also a demand for justice, for liberty, and that justice needs the evidence of all our lives, liberty is one and indivisible and collective, and no one can talk of justice solely for expediency's sake, nor of liberty while human beings, anywhere else on earth, are still in bondage.”

NeedsHumansStillsEarthSpiritJusticeFreedomHuman BeingsLibertyOur LivesMaterialsComfortDemandEvidenceSakeWorthyCollectivesBeing HumanBondageIndivisibleExpediency
Author:Han Suyin
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“I lay very little stress either upon asking or giving advice. Generally speaking, they who ask advice know what they wish to do, and remain firm to their intentions. A man may allow himself to be enlightened on various points, even upon matters of expediency and duty; but, after all, he must determine his course of action, for himself.”

KnowsMenGivingMayLittlesMatterActionCoursesAsksWishAdviceDutyStressAskingLaysIntentionDetermineVariousFirmEnlightenedExpediencyGiving Advice
Author:Wilhelm von Humboldt
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“I do not mean to impugn the social justice and social expediency of the redistribution of incomes aimed at by N.I.R.A. and by the various schemes for agricultural restriction. The latter, in particular, I should strongly support in principle. But too much emphasis on the remedial value of a higher price-level as an object in itself may lead to serious misapprehension as to the part which prices can play in the technique of recovery. The stimulation of output by increasing aggregate purchasing power is the right way to get prices up; and not the other way round.”

WayShouldMayMeanPlayValuesSocialJusticeLevelsPrinciplesSupportToo MuchObjectsParticularSeriousHigherSocial JusticeRoundsInvestingVariousTechniqueIncomeRecoveryLatterSchemesRight WayEmphasisRestrictionOutputStimulationPurchasingExpediencyPurchasing Power
Author:John Maynard Keynes
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“In the 17 years since I graduated from this great College of Law, I have seen that, for many of us, it becomes increasingly easy to rationalize our actions in the name of expediency when facing difficult decisions-to choose a path where the ends justify the means. I want to ask you to challenge Machiavelli's philosophy. I want to humbly suggest that you be the guardians of a more complicated truth: that the means are as important-and sometimes even more important-than the ends.”

WantYearsMeanImportantEndsSometimesPhilosophyActionLawAsksNamesEasyDifficultChallengesDecisionPathCollegeComplicatedJustifyGuardianOur ActionsRationalizeExpediencyDifficult DecisionsEnds Justify The Means
Author:Beau Biden
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“Natural justice is a compact resulting from expediency by which men seek to prevent one man from injuring others and to protect him from being injured by them.”

MenNaturalJusticeProtectOne ManInjuredCompactExpediencyNatural Justice
Book:Letters: Principles Doctrines, and Vatican Sayings Translated, with an Introd. and Notes, by Russel M. Geor. Indianapolis Merrill
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“The things a man believes most profoundly are rarely on the surface of his mind or tongue. Newly acquired notions, decisions based on expediency, the fashionable ideas of the moment are right on top of the pile, ready to be displayed in bright after dinner conversation. But the ideas that make up a man's philosophy of life are somewhere way down below.”

MenWayMindBelieveIdeasPhilosophyMomentsDecisionReadyLife PhilosophyConversationNotionDinnerTongueSurfaceFashionableExpediencyDinner Conversation
Author:Eric Johnston
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