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Mean Quotes

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Mean Quotes

“That man is formed for social life is an observation which, upon our first inquiry, presents itself immediately to our view, and our reason approves that wise and generous principle which actuated the first founders of civil government, an institution which hat its origin in the weakness of individuals, and hath for its end the strength and security of all; and so long as the means of effecting this important end are thoroughly known and religiously attended to government is one of the richest blessings to mankind, and ought to be held in the highest veneration”

“I think that is where poetry reading becomes such an individual thing. I mean I have friend who like poets who just don't say anything to me at all, I mean they seem to me rather ordinary and pedestrian.”

Thinking Mean Seems Reading Individual Poet Ordinary Say Anything Pedestrians Poetry Reading

Author:James Laughlin

“But the further step, by means of which a civilization is given its quality or culture, is only attained by a process of cellular division, in the course of which the individual is differentiated, made distinct from and independent of the parent group.”

Mean Made Culture Courses Individual Given Process Parent Quality Steps Groups Civilization Independent Division Cellular

Book:Selected writings: poetry and criticism

Source: Selected writings: poetry and criticism

“One reason I can be more tolerant than most is that as a therapist I have the advantage of information about my patients that most people are not privy to. And I discover that we rarely if ever see the totality of another in ordinary social intercourse. When an individual appears mean and lazy, we are only seeing one part of the person, elicited by a particular set of circumstances on a particular day, and we do well to wait a while before concluding that what we see is the whole person.”

“The art music of the West has developed through out its history by means of individual geniuses, and out of the soil supporting them; non-Western musicians were born, and grew like the grasses of the field.”

Mean Art Individual Born Fields Grew Genius Musician West Western Grass Soil Art Music

Author:Toru Takemitsu

“Democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. As such it is by no means infallible or certain. Nor must we forget that there has often been much more cultural and spiritual freedom under an autocratic rule than under some democracies and it is at least conceivable that under the government of a very homogeneous and doctrinaire majority democratic government might be as oppressive as the worst dictatorship.”

“Christ delves far beyond the means of superficiality, not simply because of his immaculate love, but also because he considers the distinct cases of each individual rather than withholding a broadened perception by use of stereotypes.”

Mean Use Individual Christ Cases Perception Stereotype Superficiality Withholding Immaculate

Book:Killosophy

Source: Killosophy

“I had never thought about what it might mean to be deaf, to be deprived of language, or to have a remarkable language (and community and culture) of one’s own. Up to this point, I had mostly thought and written about the problems of individuals–here I was to encounter an entire community.”

Mean Problem Might Culture Individual Language Community Written Encounters Remarkable Deaf Deprived

Author:Oliver Sacks

“There's a choice that we have to make as people, as individuals. If you want to be great at something, there's a choice you have to make. We all can be masters at our craft, but you have to make a choice. What I mean by that is, there are inherent sacrifices that come along with that. Family time, hanging out with friends, being a great friend, being a great son, nephew, whatever the case may be. There are sacrifices that come along with making that decision.”

People Ifs Want May Mean Choices Individual Decision Cases Sacrifice Son Masters Crafts Hanging Out Inherent Great Friend Nephew Family Time Hanging Out With Friends

Author:Kobe Bryant

“The content and forms of American communications-the myths and the means of transmitting them-are devoted to manipulation. When successfully employed, as they invariably are, the result is individual passivity, a state of inertia that precludes action.”

Mean States Action America Form Individual Results Communication Myth Manipulation Devoted Employed Inertia Passivity

Author:Herbert Schiller

“I feel that women 'and men,' but I mean the 'individual,' can be totally feminine and still be totally powerful.”

Men Feels Mean Stills Individual Powerful Men And Women Feminine

Author:Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

“If "freedom" means, first of all, the responsibility of every individual for the rational determination of his own personal, professional and social existence, then there is no greater fear than that of the establishment of general freedom.”

Ifs Firsts Mean Individual Social Freedom Existence Responsibility Greater Determination Rational Establishment

Author:Wilhelm Reich

“Obasanjo has openly endorsed violence as a means of governance, embraced and empowered individuals whose avowed declarations, confessions and acts are cynically contrary to the mandate that alone upholds the legitimacy and dignity of his office.”

Mean Individual Violence Office Dignity Contrary Cynicism Confession Declaration Governance Empowered Mandates Legitimacy Cynic

Author:Wole Soyinka

“... not mere achievement, but rather the more difficult feat of handling your life efficiently. It means to be a success as a person; controlled, organized, not part of the world's problems, but part of its cure. ... of being creative individuals.”

World Mean Persons Problem Individual Difficult Creative Achievement Mere Cures Uplifting Organized Controlled Be Creative Feats

Book:The amazing results of positive thinking

Source: The amazing results of positive thinking

“The outer is easier, and the outer is objective. For example, one man, Thomas Alva Edison, discovers electricity and the whole of humanity uses it; there is no need for everyone to discover it again and again. Inner growth is a totally different phenomenon. A Gautama Buddha may become enlightened, but that does not mean that everybody else becomes enlightened. Each individual has to find the truth for him or herself.”

“Because someone is a lama or is part of a monastic order or claims to be part of a succession, doesn't really mean they know anything. Always examine the individual's consciousness, their ability to transmit light.”

Knows Mean Light Order Individual Ability Consciousness Claims Really Mean Succession Transmit Lama

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Part of the power of Emerson's individualism is his insistence, at crucial moments, that individualism does not mean isolation or self-sufficiency. This is not a paradox, for it is only the strong individual who can frankly concede the sometimes surprising extent of his own dependence.”

“One thing I fear, that you Americans will do the same thing that you did after the last war. I mean that you will pull out of here and leave Europe, then Russia will have her way. Private enterprise and individual rights will be lost just as much as under a Nazi government. Frightful!”

Way Mean War Government Lasts Individual Lost Rights One Thing Europe Russia Enterprise Nazi Individual Rights Private Enterprise

Author:Hjalmar Schacht

“We have to think and see how we can fundamentally change our education system so that we can train people to develop warm-heartedness early on in order to create a healthier society. I don't mean we need to change the whole system, just improve it. We need to encourage an understanding that inner peace comes from relying on human values like, love, compassion, tolerance and honesty, and that peace in the world relies on individuals finding inner peace.”

“I care far more how humanity lives than how long. Progress, for me, means increasing goodness and happiness of individual lives. For the species, as for each man, mere longevity seems to me a contemptible ideal.”

Men Mean Long Seems Care Happiness Humanity Individual Progress Goodness Ideals Mere Species Longevity I Care Individual Life

Author:C. S. Lewis

“I could say analogously that tolerance is the affable appreciation of qualities, views, and actions of other individuals which are foreign to one`s own habits, beliefs, and tastes. Thus being tolerant does not mean being indifferent towards the actions and feelings of others. Understanding and empathy must also be present.”

Mean Doe Feelings Action Individual Belief Understanding Views Quality Habit Taste Empathy Appreciation Tolerance Indifferent Affable

Book:Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives

Source: Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives

“Anarchists generally make use if the word "State" to mean all the collection of institutions, political, legislative, judicial, military, financial, etc., by means of which management of their own affairs, the guidance of their personal conduct, and the care of ensuring their own safety are taken from the people and confided to certain individuals, and these, whether by usurpation or delegation, are invested with the right to make laws over and for all, and to constrain the public to respect them, making use of the collective force of the community to this end.”

“Reagan's story of freedom superficially alludes to the Founding Fathers, but its substance comes from the Gilded Age, devised by apologists for the robber barons. It is posed abstractly as the freedom of the individual from government control a Jeffersonian ideal at the roots of our Bill of Rights, to be sure. But what it meant in politics a century later, and still means today, is the freedom to accumulate wealth without social or democratic responsibilities and license to buy the political system right out from everyone else.”

“It cannot be denied that Islam, regarded as an ethical ideal plus a certain kind of polity - by which expression I mean a social structure regulated by a legal system and animated by a specific ethical ideal - has been the chief formative factor in the life-history of the Muslims of India. It has furnished those basic emotions and loyalties which gradually unify scattered individuals and groups, and finally transform them into a well-defined people, possessing a moral consciousness of their own.”

Source: Speeches, Writings, and Statements of Iqbal

“Pseudo-modernists pursue individual style because they know they cannot make a name without it; but if they had lived in the eighteenth century their sole object would have been to write correctly, to conform to the manner of the period. In practice, their conforming individualism means an imitation, studiously concealed, of the eccentricities of poems which really are individual.”

Ifs Knows Writing Mean Has Beens Names Individual Practice Century Style Objects Periods Pursue Individualism Sole Imitation Conform Concealed Eccentricity Pseudo Individual Style

Author:Laura Riding

“If the 19th [century] was the century of the individual (liberalism means individualism), you may consider that this is the "collective" century, and therefore the century of the state.”

Ifs May Mean States Individual Century Liberalism Collectives Individualism 19th Century

Author:Benito Mussolini

“When an individual passes from one period of life to another a time comes when he cannot go on in senseless activity and excitement as before, but has to understand that although he has out-grown what before used to direct him, this does not mean that he must live without any reasonable guidance, but rather that he must formulate for himself an understanding of life corresponding to his age, and having elucidated it must be guided by it. And in the same way a similar time must come in the growth and development of humanity.”

Way Mean Doe Age Used Humanity Individual Understanding Growth Goes On Development Periods Activity Direct Guidance Excitement Reasonable Corresponding

Book:The Spiritual Works of Leo Tolstoy: A Confession, The Kingdom of God is Within You, What I Believe, Christianity and Patriotism, Reason and Religion, The Gospel in Brief and more: Lessons on What it Means to be a True Christian From the Greatest Russian Novelists and Author of War and Peace & Anna Karenina (Including Letter to a Kind YouthandCorrespondences with Gandhi)

Source: The Spiritual Works of Leo Tolstoy: A Confession, The Kingdom of God is Within You, What I Believe, Christianity and Patriotism, Reason and Religion, The Gospel in Brief and more: Lessons on What it Means to be a True Christian From the Greatest Russian Novelists and Author of War and Peace & Anna Karenina (Including Letter to a Kind YouthandCorrespondences with Gandhi)

“Every American travelling in England gets his own individual sport out of the toy passenger and freight trains and the tiny locomotives, with their faint, indignant, tiny whistle. Especially in western England one wonders how the business of a nation can possibly be carried on by means so insufficient.”

Mean Individual Nations Sports Wonder England Train Western Tiny Toys Passengers Insufficient Indignant Locomotives

Book:The World and the Parish: Willa Cather's Articles and Reviews, 1893-1902

Source: The World and the Parish: Willa Cather's Articles and Reviews, 1893-1902

“But progress in knowledge has made us aware of the superficiality of Plato's lumping of individuals and their original powers into a few sharply marked-off classes; it has taught us that original capacities are indefinitely numerous and variable. It is but the other side of this fact to say that in the degree in which society has become democratic, social organization means utilization of the specific and variable qualities of individuals, not stratification by classes.”

Source: Democracy And Education

“Success is in the student, not in the university; greatness is in the individual, not in the library; power is in the man, not in his crutches. A great man will make opportunities, even out of the commonest and meanest situations. If a man is not superior to his education, is not larger than his crutches or his helps, if he is not greater than the means of his culture, which are but the sign-boards pointing the way to success, he will never reach greatness. Not learning, not culture alone, not helps and opportunities, but personal power and sterling integrity, make a man great.”

“It is because the cosmos is meaningless that we must secure our individual illusions of values, direction, and interest by upholding the artificial streams which give us such worlds of salutary illusion. That is - since nothing means anything in itself, we must preserve the proximate and arbitrary background which makes things around us seem as if they did mean something.”

Ifs World Giving Mean Seems Values Individual Interest Illusion Backgrounds Secure Preserves Streams Cosmos Meaningless Artificial Arbitrary Englishmen

Author:H. P. Lovecraft

“Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. Since the relation may be either moral, physical, or ritual, it is evident that out of religion in the sense in which we take it, theologies, philosophies, and ecclesiastical organizations may secondarily grow.”

Men May Mean Philosophy Feelings Asks Individual Grows Moral Divine Solitude Organization Relation Theology Ritual Evident

Book:James and Dewey on Belief and Experience

Source: James and Dewey on Belief and Experience

“No other technique for the conduct of life attaches the individual so firmly to reality as laying emphasis on work; for his work at least gives him a secure place in a portion of reality, in the human community. The possibility it offers of displacing a large amount of libidinal components, whether narcissistic, aggressive or even erotic, on to professional work and on to the human relations connected with it lends it a value by no means second to what it enjoys as something indispensable to the preservation and justification of existence in society.”

Source: The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud

“So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational. A free discipline controls the individual by appealing to his reason and conscience, and therefore to his self-respect; while an unfree control works upon some lower phase of the mind, and so tends to degrade him. It is freedom to be disciplined in as rational a manner as you are fit for.”

Mind Mean Self Reason Use Form Individual Higher Discipline Fit Conscience Concerned Absence Rational Self Respect Phases Degrade Unfree

Book:Human Nature and the Social Order

Source: Human Nature and the Social Order

“For the fundamental fact of human psychology is that society, instead of remaining almost entirely inside the individual organism as in the case of animals prompted by their instincts, becomes crystallized almost entirely outside the individuals. In other words, social rules, as Durkheim has so powerfully shown, whether they be linguistic, moral, religious, or legal, etc., cannot be constituted, transmitted or preserved by means of an internal biological heredity, but only through the external pressure exercised by individuals upon each other.”

Humans Mean Facts Individual Social Religious Animal Moral Cases Psychology Pressure Fundamentals Instinct Etc Internals Organisms Heredity

Book:The Moral Judgement of the Child

Source: The Moral Judgement of the Child

“A book , once it is printed and published, becomes individual. It is by its publication as decisively severed from its author as in parturition a child is cut off from its parent. The book "means" thereafter, perforce, both grammatically and actually, whatever meaning this or that reader gets out of it.”

Mean Children Book Individual Parent Cutting Reader Printed Publication

Book:The Works of James Branch Cabell: Towsend of Lichfield

Source: The Works of James Branch Cabell: Towsend of Lichfield