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Function Quotes

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Function Quotes

“I never view aesthetic ideas as having an existence purely of their own but as a function they have in connection with political or moral values.”

Ideas Political Values Views Existence Moral Connections Function Aesthetic Moral Values

Author:Antoni Tapies

“Institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions.”

Ends Government School Political Individual Church Direct Organization Function Institutions Zen Motorcycle Maintenance

Author:Robert M. Pirsig

“The notion of anarchy ...means that once industrial functions have taken over from political functions, then business transactions and exchange alone produce the social order.”

Mean Political Order Social Taken Produce Function Notion Anarchy Anarchism Transactions Social Order

Author:Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

“A political system seeking to function amongst ignorant, illiterate and barbaric people could have marvelous principles but could only succeed in being ignorant, illiterate and barbaric unless one addressed the people one by one and cured the ignorance, illiteracy and barbarism of each citizen.”

People Political Principles Ignorance Citizens Succeed Function Seeking Ignorant Marvelous Political Systems Barbarism Illiterate Illiteracy Barbaric Being Ignorant

Author:L. Ron Hubbard

“Where cultural representations do not reach out beyond themselves, there is the danger that they will function as the surrogates for activism, that they will constitute both the beginning and the end of political practice.”

Ends Political Practice Danger Function Activism Reach Out Representation Surrogates

Author:Angela Davis

“The two party electoral system performs the essential function of helping to legitimate the existing social order.”

Two Helping Political Order Social Party Essentials Function Social Order Electoral Systems

Author:Michael Parenti

“Just as there can be little doubt that labor unions are a significant political force, neither can there be much question that this political force is a by-product of the purely industrial activities that unions regard as their major function.”

Littles Political Force Doubt Products Activity Majors Labor Function Regard Unions Significant Labor Union

Book:THE LOGIC OF COLLECTIVE ACTION

Source: THE LOGIC OF COLLECTIVE ACTION

“Some conservatives have expressed outrage that the views of professors are at odds with the views of students, as if ideas were entitled to be represented in proportion to their popularity and students were entitled to professors who share their political or social values. One of the more important functions of college that it exposes young people to ideas and arguments they have not encountered at home is redefined as a problem.”

People Ifs Important Ideas Problem Home Young Political Values Social Views Share Students College Argument Function Proportion Professors Odds Popularity Entitled Outrage Social Values

Author:Ellen Willis

“For Stirner, the social axiom of conservative, liberal, and socialist schools of political thought alike is in itself repressive: it disguises as potentially redemptive an order whose central function is inhibitory of the individual's interests.”

School Political Order Individual Social Interest Function Conservative Disguise Socialist Axioms

Book:Break-Out from the Crystal Palace: The Anarcho-Psychological Critique: Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky

Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace: The Anarcho-Psychological Critique: Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky

“I assure this committee that, if I am confirmed, I will be strictly independent of all political influences... essential to that institution's ability to function effectively and achieve its mandated objectives.”

Ifs Political Ability Economy Influence Achieve Essentials Function Independent Institutions Objectives Committees Political Influence

Author:Ben Bernanke

“The soldier's business is to take life. For that he is paid by the State, eulogized by political charlatans and upheld by public hysteria. But woman's function is to give life, yet neither the State nor politicians nor public opinion have ever made the slightest provision in return for the life woman has given.”

Giving Made States Political Given Opinion Return Politician Function Paid Soldier Public Opinion Provision Hysteria Charlatans

Book:Anarchy and the Sex Question: Essays on Women and Emancipation, 1896–1926

Source: Anarchy and the Sex Question: Essays on Women and Emancipation, 1896–1926

“Resistance, which is the function of conservatism, is essential to orderly advance.”

Political Change Party Essentials Function Resistance Political Parties Conservatism Orderly

Book:Points of Friction

Source: Points of Friction

“after a generation or two of shedding the deliberate political encumbrances to war ... of dropping Congress from the equation altogether, of super-empowering the presidency with total war-making power and with secret new war-making resources that answer to no one but him, of insulating the public from not only the cost of war but sometimes even the knowledge that it's happened - war making has become almost an autonomous function of the American state. It never stops.”

Two War Sometimes States Political Answers Secret Generations Happened Cost Resources Function Congress Empowering Presidency Equations Deliberate Dropping Total War Autonomous Cost Of War

Author:Rachel Maddow

“We women are callow fledglings as compared with the wise old birds who manipulate the political machinery, and we still hesitate to believe that a woman can fill certain positions in public life as competently and adequately as a man. For instance, it is certain that women do not want a woman for President. Nor would they have the slightest confidence in her ability to fulfill the functions of that office. Every woman who fails in a public position confirms this, but every woman who succeeds creates confidence.”

Source: What I Hope to Leave Behind: The Essential Essays of Eleanor Roosevelt

“Music can be a distraction and an escape. Sometimes a welcome escape. You need it. But music can also serve a very important social function because music can do things that mere prose, mere ordinary political agitation can't do.”

Needs Important Sometimes Political Social Can Do Ordinary Function Mere Welcome Prose Distraction Agitation

Author:Howard Zinn

“My stories usually begin with the characters and some elements of how power (personal, political, magical) functions in the world. The rest develops as I write, and research helps a great deal with that. If you're going to write about an agrarian economy, research agrarian economies. If your main character is starving, then you should know what it means for a malnourished body to break down.”

Ifs Knows World Should Writing Mean Character Helping Stories Body Political Deals Break Economy Elements Research Function Breaking Down Starving Main Characters

Author:Leigh Bardugo

“It's easy to talk about our system not functioning. It's actually functioning exactly the way we've designed it to function by giving so much power to the political parties, which all of our, you know, leading founders - Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison - all said don't create political parties like the ones we have now. We did it, and we're paying a very high price for it.”

Knows Way Giving Said Political Easy Party Function Founders Political Parties Madison High Prices

Author:Mickey Edwards

“If the decline of Christianity created the modern political zealot - and his crimes - so the evaporation of religious faith among the educated left a vacuum in the minds of Western intellectuals easily filled by secular superstition. There is no other explanation for the credulity with which scientists, accustomed to evaluating evidence, and writers, whose whole function was to study and criticize society, accepted the crudest Stalinist propaganda at its face value. They needed to believe; they wanted to be duped.”

“Why ... do the myths of America the Hateful take such powerful hold? Because anti-Americanism provides a useful emotional function which goes beyond logic and reaches deep into the darker recesses of the European soul. In centuries past those on the Left who wished to personalise their hatred of capitalism, who sought to make it emotionally resonant by fastening an envious political passion on to a blameless scapegoat people, embraced anti-Semitism. It was the socialism of fools. Which is what anti-Americanism is now.”

“[in 1998] I know my political ideas affect what I write but I've tried to follow the facts wherever they land. Every topic I've written about begins as a question. How do police departments behave? Why do bureaucracies function the way they do? What moral intuitions do people have? How do courts make their decisions? What do blacks want from the political system? I can honestly say I didn't know the answers to those questions when I began looking into them.”

“I can't marry myself to one idea or one form of doing politics or one form of understanding politics. I believe that we have to play the game of strategy, and understand how to move the pieces because this is how the political spectrum functions.”

Believe I Can Ideas Play Moving Form Political Games I Believe Understanding Pieces Function Strategy Spectrum Political Spectrum

Author:Bocafloja

“Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects.”

Giving Government Political Liberty Principles Subjects Citizens Limits Authority Function Constitution Instruments Broads

Book:The Papers of Andrew Johnson: February-August 1867

Source: The Papers of Andrew Johnson: February-August 1867

“When you have a liberal class that no longer functions, when those people who traditionally defend and care about a civil society no longer do so, then you cede power to very frightening, deformed figures, all of which we are watching leap up around the fringes of our political establishment - this lunatic fringe, which has largely taken over the Republican Party.”

People Care Political Party Class Taken Figures Republican Function Leap Establishment Frightening Republican Party Fringe Lunatic Civil Society

Author:Chris Hedges

“All political organizations tend to function like a machine, to eliminate the unpredictable factor of affect - emotion.”

Political Emotion Machines Organization Function Factors Unpredictable

Author:William S. Burroughs

“Groupings of people that get together, think things through, come out to plan and so on, like unions or true political organizations, they've disintegrated. And people tend to be atomized - you get down to a society based on social units based on an atom - an atomic element - which is a person and their computer. Not a society that is going to be able to function freely and democratically. The tendency is there; it doesn't have to be, but its something to worry about.”

People Thinking Persons Able Together Political Social Worry Plans Elements Computer Organization Function Unions Tendencies Atoms Units Get Together

Author:Noam Chomsky

“Economic policy and decision making do not function in a political vacuum.”

Political Decision Economic Policy Function Decision Making Vacuums Economic Policy

Author:Manmohan Singh

“Part of what we have to do a better job of, if our democracy is to function in a complicated diverse society like this, is to teach our kids enough critical thinking to be able to sort out what is true and what is false, what is contestable and what is incontestable. And we seem to have trouble with that. And our political system doesn't help.”

Ifs Thinking Enough Helping Seems Kids Able Jobs Political Teach Democracy Trouble Function Complicated Critical Diverse Critical Thinking Political Systems Better Jobs Diverse Society

Author:Barack Obama

“I think the press, by and large, is what we call "liberal". But of course what we call "liberal" means well to the right. "Liberal" means the "guardians of the gates". So the New York Times is "liberal" by, what's called, the standards of political discourse, New York Times is liberal, CBS is liberal. I don't disagree. I think they're moderately critical at the fringes. They're not totally subordinate to power, but they are very strict in how far you can go. And in fact, their liberalism serves an extremely important function in supporting power.”

“In my opinion, mature political action is the type of action that that involves a program of re-education and information that will enable the black people in the black community to see the fruits that they should be receiving from the politicians who are over them and, thereby, they are then able to determine whether or not the politician is really fulfilling his function.”

“Most of those Negroes have been given those jobs by the white political machine, and they serve no other function other than to, as window dressing.”

Has Beens Jobs Political Given White Window Machines Function Dressings Window Dressing

Author:Malcolm X

“The very function of creativity, of the elaboration of the human condition only enlarges the human spirit and, I mean, as a writer I don't want to read political literature all the time. It would be terribly boring and, you know, abrasive, but just reading the insights, you know, partaking of the insights of a writer into phenomena, into society, into human relationships, both on a micro level and on a macro level, is already a function.”

“I attend many functions, go to different areas, you wouldn't have heard any political comment from me. If I go to a government function, I talk about government related topics. If I attend a Railway's function I talk about railways, if water then water, if water bodies, then water bodies. My focus is on governance.”

Ifs Different Body Government Political Water Focus Heard Areas Function Related Comment Topics Governance Railway

Author:Narendra Modi

“Why shouldn't I be interested in politics? That is to say, what blindness, what deafness, what density of ideology would have to weigh me down to prevent me from being interested in what is probably the most crucial subject to our existence, that is to say the society in which we live, the economic relations within which it functions, and the system of power which defines the regular forms and the regular permissions and prohibitions of our conduct. The essence of our life consists, after all, of the political functioning of the society in which we find ourselves.”

Form Political Existence Our Lives Economic Subjects Essence Function Relation Ideology Crucial Permission Blindness Prohibition Density Deafness

Author:Michel Foucault

“People will find some ways of identifying themselves, becoming associated with others, taking part in something. They're going to do it some way or other. If they don't have the options of participation in labor unions, political organizations that actually function, they'll find other ways. Religious fundamentalism is a classic example.”

People Ifs Way Political Religious Example Becoming Labor Organization Function Unions Classic Fundamentalism Participation Identifying Religious Fundamentalism Labor Union

Author:Noam Chomsky

“The European Union is effectively a union dominated by the German political and economic elite. Its main function is to serve as a nucleus for financial capitalism and to ease the road for that capitalism. The other functions just irritate everyone: it's undemocratic; decisions are not made by parliament; the European Parliament is not sovereign.”

Made Political Decision Economic Capitalism Function Unions Financial Ease Elites Sovereign Parliament European Union Nucleus

Author:Tariq Ali

“All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”

Reality Political Given Power Subjects Perception All Things Function Interpretation Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Cognitive Therapy Truth Prevails

Author:Friedrich Nietzsche

“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).”

Source: The Virtue of Selfishness

“A vibrant civil society can challenge those in power by documenting corruption or uncovering activities like the murder of political enemies. In democracies, this function is mostly performed by the media, NGOs or opposition parties.”

Political Challenges Party Enemy Democracy Media Activity Function Murder Corruption Opposition Civil Society Uncovering Opposition Parties Political Enemies

Author:Evgeny Morozov

“The government is merely a servant―merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.”

Government Political Order Politics Function Determine Servant Temporary Patriot Prerogative

Book:The Bible According to Mark Twain

Source: The Bible According to Mark Twain

“The political function of 'the right of free speech' is to protect dissenters and unpopular minorities from forcible suppression - not to guarantee them the support, advantages, and rewards of a popularity they have not gained.”

Political Support Protect Speech Advantage Function Rewards Guarantees Minorities Free Speech Popularity Suppression

Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

Source: The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

“Politics is something similar to the lower physiological functions, with the unpleasant difference that political functions are unavoidably carried out in public.”

Political Differences Function Physiological

Author:Maxim Gorky

“Revealingly, the central function of the Constitution as law--the supreme law--was to impose limitations not on the behavior of ordinary citizens but on the federal government. The government, and those who ran it, were not placed outside the law, but expressly targeted by it. Indeed, the Bill of Rights is little more than a description of the lines that the most powerful political officials are barred from crossing, even if they have the power to do so and even when the majority of citizens might wish them to do so.”

“My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest... no country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak... Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted fascism... true democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village.”

“But science is the great instrument of social change, all the greater because its object is not change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid the din of political and religious strife, is the most vital of all the revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilisation.”

“During my span of life science has become a matter of public concern and the l'art pour l'art standpoint of my youth is now obsolete. Science has become an integral and most important part of our civilization, and scientific work means contributing to its development. Science in our technical age has social, economic, and political functions, and however remote one's own work is from technical application it is a link in the chain of actions and decisions which determine the fate of the human race. I realized this aspect of science in its full impact only after Hiroshima.”

“Contemporary political theorists continue this type of thinking about democracy by arguing that the development of "public judgment" among regular citizens should be made the central concern of modern politics. Public judgment, in the words of Benjamin Barber, is a function of commonality that can be exercised only by citizens interacting with one another in the context of mutual deliberation and decision.”

Source: Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy During the Progressive Era

“The intellectual's hostility to the businessman presents no mystery, as the two have, by function, wholly different standards. While the businessman's motto is the customer is always right, the intellectual's task is to preserve his perceived standards against the weight of popular opinion.”

Two Different Philosophy Political Opinion Mystery Intellectual Standards Economics Tasks Weight Function Customers Preserves Businessman Motto Hostility Popular Opinion

Author:Bertrand de Jouvenel

“The aim of the popularization of economic studies is not to make every man an economist. The idea is to equip the citizen for his civic functions in community life.”

Men Ideas Philosophy Political Community Study Economic Citizens Economics Function Aim Every Man Economist Civics

Book:Bureaucracy

Source: Bureaucracy

“Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.”

Different Government Political Rights Dangerous Capacity Function Constitution Perceive Department Annoying Judiciary Political Rights

Book:The Federalist on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788, with an Appendix Containing the Letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the Proclamation of Neutrality of 1793

Source: The Federalist on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788, with an Appendix Containing the Letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the Proclamation of Neutrality of 1793

“I don't consider this younger generation to be lost, quite the opposite, they must continue. It is up to them. The old political system no longer functions.”

Political Lost Generations Opposites Function Political Systems Younger Generation

Author:Enki Bilal