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Generations Quotes

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Generations Quotes

“And it may be that a crowd at a particular moment of history creates the object to justify its gathering, as it did at the first Human Be-In and Monterey Pop and Woodstock. Or it may be that two generations of war and surveillance had left people craving the embodiment of their own unease in the form of a lone, unsteady man on a slide guitar.”

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Book:A Visit From the Goon Squad
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“In issues of recent ethnic wars and genocides - particularly if you look at Darfur - one of the most remarkable things is our inability to act, still, despite the years of analyzing and re-analyzing what it does to subsequent generations. We still find a massive inability to step in and step up to the plate, when genocide is happening as we speak.”

IfsYearsLooksDoeStillsWarSpeakStepsIssuesGenerationsHappeningsDespiteRemarkableMassiveGenocidePlatesInabilityStep UpAnalyzingDarfur
Author:Stephen Daldry
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“There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the money touch, but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.”

MenSaidWarGovernmentCertainNationsPeaceLinesPowerfulLeaderGenerationsIdealsEssenceDemocratGiftedVery PowerfulAbsolutely NothingAristocracyPlutocracy
Book:The days of Armageddon, 1900-1914
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“I myself hate that old Hemingwayesque paradigm of the writer as prizefighter and I have tried hard to create an alternate one for myself. When Anne Sexton admonished me, "We are all writing God's poem," I took it to mean there should be no competition between writers because we are all involved in a common project, a common prayer. But to Gore's and Norman's generation, particularly those male writers who served in the second world war, the prizefighter paradigm remains.”

WorldShouldWritingMeanWarHardHatePrayerCommonGenerationsInvolvedProjectsRemainsCompetitionMalesWar Of The WorldsParadigmGoreSecond World WarSelf Hate
Author:Erica Jong
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“War is a culture, bellicosity is addictive, defeat for a community that imagines itself to be history's eternal victim can be as intoxicating as victory. How long will it take for the Serbs to realize that the Milosevic years have been an unmitigated disaster for Serbia, the net result of Milosevic's policies being the economic and cultural ruin of the entire region, including Serbia, for several generations? Alas, one thing we can be sure of, that will not happen soon.”

YearsLongHas BeensWarHappensCultureRealizingCommunityResultsImagineGenerationsOne ThingEconomicPolicyVictoryEternalVictimIncludingDefeatDisasterRuinsRegionsAlasSerbia
Author:Susan Sontag
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“There comes a terrible moment to many souls when the great movements of the world, the larger destinies of mankind, which have lain aloof in newspapers and other neglected reading, enter like an earthquake into their own lives--when the slow urgency of growing generations turns into the tread of an invading army or the dire clash of civil war, and grey fathers know nothing to seek for but the corpses of their blooming sons, and girls forget all vanity to make lint and bandages which may serve for the shattered limbs of their betrothed husbands.”

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Book:Daniel Deronda
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“At this season of the year we draw close to Good Friday. All the eyes of the world will turn back to "a green hill far away, without a city wall," where the founder of Christianity was crucified by those forces of selfishness, greed, and lust for gain that are still at work in the world. It seems to me that unless we do something in Canada about the question of the export of war materials there will be another crucifixion - the crucifixion of a generation of young men, crucified upon a cross of nickel.”

MenWorldYearsStillsWarSeemsEyeYoungTurnsForceCitiesChristianityGenerationsMaterialsWallDrawsGainsCrossesSeasonsGreenGreedLustHillsSelfishnessYoung ManCanadaFar AwayFoundersFridayCrucifixionNickelsGood FridayCity WallsGreen Hills
Author:Tommy Douglas
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“Anyway everyboy (sorry) knows that what women have done that is really important is not to constitute a great, cheap labor force that you can zip in when you're at war and zip out again afterwards but to Be Mothers, to form the coming generation, to give birth to them, to nurse them, to mop floors for them, to love them, cook for them, clean for them, change their diapers, pick up after them, and mainly sacrifice themselves for them. This is the most important job in the world. That's why they don't pay you for it.”

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Author:Joanna Russ
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“I think that women as a group are so powerful. I still don't think we are able to embrace our power well enough yet. We think we live in a man's world and we have to follow their rules, and yet, we're so different, and our rules are so different. I wish that we could come together more as a political force. If women ran the world, I don't believe that there would be war. I really don't.... We understand the bigger picture. We understand our impact on the environment, on the world. We understand the generations that will go after us because we gave birth to them.”

IfsThinkingMenWorldBelieveWellsStillsDifferentWarEnoughWould BeAbleTogetherPoliticalForceWishWomenPowerfulEnvironmentGenerationsGroupsBirthBiggerImpactEmbraceDon't BelieveRanBigger Picture
Author:Kyra Sedgwick
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“The crystal ball has a question mark in its center. There are some fundamental choices to be made. We will either choose to continue to wage a hopeless war to preserve the existing architecture for copyright by upping the stakes and using better weapons to make sure that people respect it. If we do this, public support for copyright will continue to weaken, pushing creativity underground and producing a generation that is alienated from the copyright concept.”

PeopleIfsMadeWarChoicesCreativitySupportGenerationsWeaponsConceptsBallsMarkFundamentalsArchitecturePreservesPushingHopelessStakesCrystalsCopyrightQuestion MarkCrystal Ball
Author:Lawrence Lessig
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“You can't beat your enemy anymore through wars; instead you create an entire generation of people revenge-seeking. [...] Our opponents are going to resort to car bombs and suicide attacks because they have no other way to win. I believe (Rumsfeld) thinks this is a war that can be won, but there is no such thing anymore. We can't beat anyone anymore.”

PeopleThinkingWayBelieveWarMatterWinningI BelieveEnemyGenerationsCarRight NowBeatsSuicideSeekingRevengeThese DaysOpponentsBombsResorts
Author:George Clooney
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“As we get older it is our short term memory that fades rather than our long term memory. Perhaps we have evolved like this so that we are able to tell the younger generation about the stories and experiences that have formed us which may be important to subsequent generations if they are to thrive.I worry though, about what might happen to our minds if most of the stories we hear are about greed, war, and atrocity”

IfsMindMayLongImportantWarStoriesMightHappensAbleTermMemoriesWorryGenerationsGreedLong TermThriveFadesShort TermAtrocitiesYounger GenerationShort Term Memory
Book:How to Stay Sane
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“The [Vietnam War Memorial] Wall became a magnet for citizens of every generation, class, race, and relationship to the war perhaps because it is the only great public monument that allows the anesthetized holes in the heart to fill with a truly national grief.”

HeartWarGriefRaceClassGenerationsWallCitizensHolesVietnamMemorialMonumentVietnam WarMagnet
Book:What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition)
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“No technological achievements can mitigate the disappointment of modern man, his loneliness, his feeling of inferiority, and his fear of war, revolution and terror. Not only has our generation lost faith in Providence but also in man himself, in his institutions and often in those who are nearest to him.”

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Book:Aspects of I.B. Singer
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“When a new post-war generation has grown to puberty and to youth and to manhood and womanhood, it should read, and it should be realistically told, of the futility, the idiocy, the utter depravity of war. For that matter, this instruction could begin at the age of six with the taking of those toy guns out of those toy holsters and throwing them in the ash-cans where they belong.”

ShouldWarMatterAgeGenerationsYouthSixGunPostsThrowingInstructionToysAshesWomanhoodManhoodFutilityDepravityPubertyIdiocyPost WarToy Guns
Author:Edna Ferber
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“My dad was a member of the Greatest Generation that achieved victory in World War II. This was the generation that saved the world from fascism, came home and built the great American middle class, led the way in the civil rights movement, protected our environment, and created great programs like Medicare.”

WorldWayWarHomeClassEnvironmentRightsGenerationsMiddleMovementVictoryDadMembersBuiltProgramMy DadSavedCivil RightsWar Of The WorldsMiddle ClassFascismWorld War IiWorld War IProtectedOur EnvironmentCivil Rights MovementMedicareGreat AmericanGreatest Generation
Author:John F. Kerry
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“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.”

TwoWarSometimesStatesPoliticalAnswersSecretGenerationsHappenedCostResourcesFunctionCongressEmpoweringPresidencyEquationsDeliberateDroppingTotal WarAutonomousCost Of War
Author:Rachel Maddow
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“These missiles [Cruise and Pershing II] represent a new generation of missiles whose deployment will help give NATO first-strike capability. With this first-strike strategy, the West believes it could attack Russian military installations with such effectiveness that serious retaliation would be impossible.”

GivingFirstsBelieveWarHelpingWould BePeaceImpossibleGenerationsMilitarySeriousStrategyWestStrikesCapabilityEffectivenessMissilesNew GenerationNatoCruiseDeploymentRetaliationInstallationRussian Military
Author:Petra Kelly
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“One of the things that is most striking about the young generation is that they never talk about their own futures, there are no futures for this generation, not any of them and so naturally they never think of them. It is very striking, they do not live in the present they just live, as well as they can, and they do not plan. It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for a future, none at all.”

ThinkingWellsWarWholeYoungPlansGenerationsDespairProjectsExtraordinaryPopulationLive In The PresentThis GenerationJust LiveYoung Generation
Book:Wars I have seen
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“Now let's make two things clear: ISIL is not 'Islamic.' No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL's victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state. It was formerly al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria's civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border. It is recognized by no government, nor the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.”

PeopleWayHas BeensTwoWarStatesRealityGovernmentReligionPoliticsSidesCommunityLeadershipSimpleVisionClassTakenClearViolenceGenerationsPolicyPureEthicsGainsAdvantageOrganizationVictimMajorityStrategyUnityKillingHuman RightsIraqTerrorismTerroristIdeologyBordersCivil WarTwo ThingsIslamicAlsTerritoryForeign PolicySyriaStrifeBoth SidesSlaughterAl QaedaIsilIslamic TerrorismTaken Advantage
Author:Barack Obama
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“The greater part of our best years has been passed for our generation in these two great worldconvulsions. All will be changed after this war, which spends in one month more than nations earned before in yearsthere is no more security in our time than in those of the Reformation or the fall of Rome.”

YearsHas BeensTwoWarHumanityFallNationsGreaterGenerationsSecurityChangedMonthsDestructionOur TimeRomeReformationOur GenerationBest YearFall Of Rome
Author:Stefan Zweig
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“We all accuse Vladimir Putin of Cold War nostalgia, but Washington's elites - politicians and intellectuals - miss the old days as well. They wish for the world in which the United States was utterly dominant over its friends, its foes were to be shunned entirely, and the challenges were stark, moral, and vital. Today's world is messy and complicated. China is one of our biggest trading partners and our looming geopolitical rival. Russia is a surly spoiler, but it has a globalized middle class and has created ties in Europe.”

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Author:Fareed Zakaria
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“In battle, combatants engaged in war against America get no due process and may lawfully be killed. But citizens not in a battlefield - however despicable - are guaranteed a trial by our Constitution. No one argues that Americans who commit treason shouldn't be punished. The maximum penalty for treason is death. But the Constitution specifies the process necessary to convict.”

MayWarRealityAmericaFatherPoliticsProcessCommunityJusticeHistoryTechnologyDemocracyViolenceGenerationsPolicyCitizensBattleEqualEthicsConstitutionHuman RightsTerrorismDuesArguingTrialsCommitIdeologyEngagedFree SpeechPenaltiesMaximumEqual RightsDeath PenaltyBattlefieldsTreasonDespicableConvictsDue Process
Author:Rand Paul
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“What drives me mad in evangelical circles, including some young Reformed circles, is that there is often a sit-on-the-couch-and-wait-for-God-to-do-something mentality that is unbiblical and wicked. It's probably been true of every generation, but I can see it most clearly in the younger crowd. There seems to be so little war when it comes to sin.”

LittlesI CanWarSeemsYoungWaitingSinGenerationsMadIncludingCrowdsCirclesWickedMentalityCouchesEvangelical
Author:Matt Chandler
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“There was a generation of kids who were just kind of emulating distant heroes and wearing peace symbols, and parents who were thinking of themselves as liberal and removed from barbarity, but it also was the era of Vietnam. I very much was influenced - and I think the whole country was kind of in a state of shock - for the first time seeing the horror and cruelty of war.”

ThinkingFirstsKindWarCountryStatesWholeKidsParentSeeingGenerationsHeroHorrorFirst TimeCrueltySymbolsErasShockVietnamBarbarity
Author:Wes Craven
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“I have seen lonely people of advancing age, yet as constant as angels, keeping faith to those they loved who fell in wars that current generations, not having known them, cannot even forget. The sight of them moving hesitantly among the tablets and crosses is enough to break your heart.”

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Author:Mark Helprin
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