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Misrepresentation Quotes

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Misrepresentation Quotes

“Causing any damage or harm to one party in order to help another party is not justice, and likewise, attacking all feminine conduct [in order to warn men away from individual women who are deceitful] is contrary to the truth, just as I will show you with a hypothetical case. Let us suppose they did this intending to draw fools away from foolishness. It would be as if I attacked fire -- a very good and necessary element nevertheless -- because some people burnt themselves, or water because someone drowned. The same can be said of all good things which can be used well or used badly. But one must not attack them if fools abuse them.”

MenTruthWomenWaterFireDangerMoralityArgumentAbusePrejudiceIndividualityGenderHarmDamageHypocrisyMisogynyFoolishnessStereotypesSocial NormsDouble StandardsConductPerceptionsMisrepresentationClichésGeneralizationsOne Sidedness
Book:The Book of the City of Ladies
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“Yet if women are so flighty, fickle, changeable, susceptible, and inconstant (as some clerks would have us believe), why is it that their suitors have to resort to such trickery to have their way with them? And why don't women quickly succumb to them, without the need for all this skill and ingenuity in conquering them? For there is no need to go to war for a castle that is already captured. (...) Therefore, since it is necessary to call on such skill, ingenuity, and effort in order to seduce a woman, whether of high or humble birth, the logical conclusion to draw is that women are by no means as fickle as some men claim, or as easily influenced in their behaviour. And if anyone tells me that books are full of women like these, it is this very reply, frequently given, which causes me to complain. My response is that women did not write these books nor include the material which attacks them and their morals. Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence. But if women had written these books, I know full well the subject would have been handled differently. They know that they stand wrongfully accused, and that the cake has not been divided up equally, for the strongest take the lion's share, and the one who does the sharing out keeps the biggest portion for himself.”

MenWomenBooksMoralityPerceptionPrejudiceInjusticeGenderInequalityHypocrisyDeceitMisogynySeductionSlanderStereotypesSuppressionSocial NormsUnfairnessDouble StandardsMisrepresentationClichésFicklenessOne SidednessReceived OpinionDefenselessness
Book:Der Sendbrief vom Liebesgott / The Letter of the God of Love
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“[Women] complain about many clerks who attribute all sorts of faults to them and who compose works about them in rhyme, prose, and verse, criticizing their conduct in a variety of different ways. They then give these works as elementary textbooks to their young pupils at the beginning of their schooling, to provide them with exempla and received wisdom, so that they will remember this teaching when they come of age ... They accuse [women] of many ... serious vice[s] and are very critical of them, finding no excuse for them whatsoever. This is the way clerks behave day and night, composing their verse now in French, now in Latin. And they base their opinions on goodness only knows which books, which are more mendacious than a drunk. Ovid, in a book he wrote called Cures for Love, says many evil things about women, and I think he was wrong to do this. He accuses them of gross immorality, of filthy, vile, and wicked behaviour. (I disagree with him that they have such vices and promise to champion them in the fight against anyone who would like to throw down the gauntlet ...) Thus, clerks have studied this book since their early childhood as their grammar primer and then teach it to others so that no man will undertake to love a woman.”

MenLoveWomenTeachingBooksMoralityPerceptionEmpowermentPrejudiceGenderHypocrisyInstructionFalsehoodMisogynySlanderStereotypesSocial NormsDouble StandardsMisrepresentationClichésReceived Opinion
Book:Der Sendbrief vom Liebesgott / The Letter of the God of Love
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“History, and ghost stories, function for us as a kind of mediumship. We humbly ask questions of the dead to see the deeper meaning in their stories. We seek out the facts of their stories to the absolute best of our ability, as much as historical research allows. We come to inquire, to reveal, to listen, and to share these women's often forgotten, sometimes misrepresented stories. We are glad you are here on this journey with us. And to you we say the same thing we say to the ghosts who allow us to share these stories: Thank you.”

WomenGhostsMisrepresentation
Book:A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts
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“I have learned that all these people are more newsworthy than we have been told all along. Do you know why? Because these people are us. I am all of these people. You are all of these people. But the media seldom represents our worthiness fairly in the news. The media may only decide we are newsworthy when using us as bait stories to go to wars, to put the show of a fake democracy as part of the big lie called “voting” and “electing” the next liar to commit more crimes in our names, by killing more innocent people in the next selected ‘evil’ country in the world.”

InspirationalSocietyMediaNewsPropagandaMisinformationMainstream MediaMisrepresentation
Author:Louis Yako
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“With DID patients, if they feel hostility or aggression they take it out on themselves with self-harm... They’re self-destructive and repeatedly suicidal, more so than any other psychological disorder. So that's what's typical – not this wild aggression, or stalking women [or robbery]. - Dr Bethany Brand, on Billy Milligan and Multiple Personality Disorder (DID)”

SuicideMental IllnessInsanitySuicidalDissociative Identity DisorderMisconceptionStigmaStereotypesMultiple Personality DisorderSelf HarmMultiple PersonalitiesMental DisorderSelf InjuryMisrepresentationSplit PersonalitySuicidalityBilly MilliganThe Crowded Room
Author:Bethany Brand
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“Well before she became famous — or infamous, depending on where you cast your vote — Loftus's findings on memory distortion were clearly commodifiable. In the 1970s and 1980s she provided assistance to defense attorneys eager to prove to juries that eyewitness accounts are not the same as camcorders. "I've helped a lot of people," she says. Some of those people: the Hillside Strangler, the Menendez brothers, Oliver North, Ted Bundy. "Ted Bundy?" I ask, when she tells this to me. Loftus laughs. "This was before we knew he was Bundy. He hadn't been accused of murder yet." "How can you be so confident the people you're representing are really innocent?" I ask. She doesn't directly answer. She says, "In court, I go by the evidence.... Outside of court, I'm human and entitled to my human feelings. "What, I wonder are her human feelings about the letter from a child-abuse survivor who wrote, "Let me tell you what false memory syndrome does to people like me, as if you care. It makes us into liars. False memory syndrome is so much more chic than child abuse.... But there are children who tonight while you sleep are being raped, and beaten. These children may never tell because 'no one will believe them.'" "Plenty of "Plenty of people will believe them," says Loftus. Pshaw! She has a raucous laugh and a voice with a bit of wheedle in it. She is strange, I think, a little loose inside. She veers between the professional and the personal with an alarming alacrity," she could easily have been talking about herself.”

TruthLawMurderSexual AbuseRapeJudgeSexual AssaultSurvivorsLegalVictimsSerial KillersMisrepresentationTed BundyFalse MemoryFalse Memory Syndrome FoundationFalsely AccusedFmsfAbuse DeniersFalse AccusationsConvictedDefense ExpertExpert WitnessCourt CaseElizabeth LoftusElizabeth F LoftusFalse ImpressionsLoftusSocietal DenialRichard Ofshe
Book:Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century
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“Paine suffered then, as now he suffers not so much because of what he wrote as from the misinterpretations of others... He disbelieved the ancient myths and miracles taught by established creeds. But the attacks on those creeds - or on persons devoted to them - have served to darken his memory, casting a shadow across the closing years of his life. When Theodore Roosevelt termed Tom Paine a 'dirty little atheist' he surely spoke from lack of understanding. It was a stricture, an inaccurate charge of the sort that has dimmed the greatness of this eminent American. But the true measure of his stature will yet be appreciated. The torch which he handed on will not be extinguished. If Paine had ceased his writings with 'The Rights of Man' he would have been hailed today as one of the two or three outstanding figures of the Revolution. But 'The Age of Reason' cost him glory at the hands of his countrymen - a greater loss to them than to Tom Paine. I was always interested in Paine the inventor. He conceived and designed the iron bridge and the hollow candle; the principle of the modern central draught burner. The man had a sort of universal genius. He was interested in a diversity of things; but his special creed, his first thought, was liberty. Traducers have said that he spent his last days drinking in pothouses. They have pictured him as a wicked old man coming to a sorry end. But I am persuaded that Paine must have looked with magnanimity and sorrow on the attacks of his countrymen. That those attacks have continued down to our day, with scarcely any abatement, is an indication of how strong prejudice, when once aroused, may become. It has been a custom in some quarters to hold up Paine as an example of everything bad. The memory of Tom Paine will outlive all this. No man who helped to lay the foundations of our liberty - who stepped forth as the champion of so difficult a cause - can be permanently obscured by such attacks. Tom Paine should be read by his countrymen. I commend his fame to their hands. {The Philosophy of Paine, June 7, 1925}”

GreatnessPrejudiceMemoryAtheistInventorAmericanMisrepresentationPaineRooseveltTheodore RooseveltThomas PaineTeddy RooseveltDraught BurnerHollow CandleIron Bridge
Book:Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison
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“The Hollywood storylines almost always go something like: the Russians are dangerous spies planning to invade us, the Chinese are trying to pull the carpet from under our feet, the people of the Middle East are terrorists, and on and on goes the list of malicious and intentional misrepresentations. At the end of the storyline, the American heroes always win and save America and the world from ‘evil’. What is quite ironic – and often goes unnoticed by many – in these Hollywood storylines is that, while the American culture is engineered to dismiss valid and genuine critique of American life and foreign policies as being ‘conspiracy theories’, America’s relationships with the outside world is strongly based on threats, punishment, sanctioning, wars, and revenge, all done under pretexts like ‘they hate us’, ‘they hate our freedoms and values’, and other such nonsense. It never occurs to many Americans that representing the outside world as constantly ‘hating’ us or wanting to destroy our nation and values (unless, of course, they do as we say), is in fact nothing short of conspiracy theory. Overall, Hollywood’s storylines ensure keeping the myth of exceptionalism alive.”

HateRacismPropagandaForeign PolicyColonialismAmerican PoliticsConspiracy TheoriesMisrepresentationRepresentation Of MinoritiesHolywood
Author:Louis Yako
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“The only way to escape misrepresentation is never to commit oneself to any critical judgement that makes an impact - that is, never to say anything. I still, however think that the best way to promote profitable discussion is to be as clear as possible with oneself about what one sees and judges, to try and establish the essential discriminations in the given field of interest, and to state them as clearly as one can (for disagreement, if necessary).”

IfsThinkingWayTryingStillsStatesGivenInterestClearFieldsJudgingEssentialsImpactOneselfCriticalDiscriminationBest WayCommitDiscussionJudgementSay AnythingProfitableDisagreementMisrepresentation
Author:F. R. Leavis
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“As I conceive this doctrine to be a gross misrepresentation of the character and moral government of God, and to affect many other articles in the scheme of Christianity, greatly disfiguring and depraving it; I shall show, ... that it has no countenance whatever in reason, or the Scriptures; and, therefore, that the whole doctrine of atonement, with every modification of it, has been a departure from the primitive and genuine doctrine of Christianity.”

Has BeensReasonWholeCharacterShowsGovernmentMoralChristianityAtheismPositive AtheismScriptureGenuineDoctrineArticlesPrimitiveSchemesGrossAtonementDepartureCountenanceModificationMisrepresentation
Author:Joseph Priestley
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“One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings, which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those, who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.”

HeartTogetherPartyOpinionToo MuchInfluenceParticularOughtSpringAimBoundsAffectionAliensBurningAcquireShieldsMisrepresentationFraternal
Book:The Complete Works of George Washington: Military Journals, Rules of Civility, Writings on French and Indian War, Presidential Work, Inaugural Addresses, Messages to Congress, Letters & Biography
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“Of course, there is some truth in advertising. There's yeast in bread, but you can't make bread with yeast alone. Truth in advertising is like leaven, which a woman hid in three measures of meal. It provides a suitable quantity of gas, with which to blow out a mass of crude misrepresentation into a form that the public can swallow.”

FormThreeCoursesMassBlowBreadAdvertisingMealsGasQuantitySuitableCrudeMisrepresentationYeast
Book:Murder Must Advertise
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“I would have government defend the life and property of all citizens equally; protect all willing exchange; suppress and penalize all fraud, all misrepresentation, all violence, all predatory practices; invoke a common justice under law; and keep the records incidental to these functions. Even this is a bigger assignment than governments, generally, have proven capable of. Let governments do these things and do them well. Leave all else to men in free and creative effort.”

MenWellsGovernmentLawPoliticsJusticeCommonEffortPracticeCreativeRecordsViolenceWillingCitizensProtectLetting GoCapableFunctionBiggerPropertyFraudProvenAssignmentsInvokePredatoryMisrepresentation
Author:Leonard Read
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“I have characterized Ross as exemplifying an extreme position among theistic scientists. However, he is not so extreme as to promote the scientifically unsound notions of the young-Earth creationists and other anti-evolutionists ... They are so far off the scale that their scientific claims need not be taken seriously. Their distortions and misrepresentations of the scientific facts are not consistent with their self-righteous claims of acting to protect all that is good and moral.”

NeedsSelfFactsEarthYoungActingMoralTakenPositionProtectScientistClaimsNotionScaryExtremesScalesConsistentRighteousDistortionSelf RighteousScientific FactsMisrepresentation
Author:Victor J. Stenger
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“Invention despoils observations, insinuation invalidates memory. A stewpot of bad habits, all of it - so that imaginative writers wind up, by and large, a shifty crew, sunk in distortion, misrepresentation, illusion, imposture, fakery.”

MemoriesWindHabitIllusionInventionObservationCrewImaginativeDistortionBad HabitsMisrepresentation
Book:Portrait of the Artist as a Bad Character: And Other Essays on Writing
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“My arm is paralyzed; my voice that once could be heard all along the line, is gone; I can scarcely speak above a whisper; my hearing is very much impaired, and sometimes I feel as if I wished the end would come; but I have some misrepresentations of my battles that I wish to correct, so as to have my record correct before I die.”

IfsFeelsI CanEndsSometimesDiesSpeakWishVoiceLinesGoneRecordsHeardArmsBattleHearingParalyzedBefore I DieMisrepresentation
Author:James Longstreet
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“To generate any appreciable degree of long-term affluence requires scrupulous honesty and the willingness to honor long-term agreements with employers, suppliers, partners, and especially customers. The flimflam artist may generate a few quick bucks through fraud or misrepresentation, but no successful and lasting business enterprise was ever founded on such principles.”

MayLongArtistTermPrinciplesSuccessfulHonestyHonorDegreesCustomersPartnersLong TermEnterpriseAgreementLastingWillingnessFraudEmployersBucksAffluenceMisrepresentationSuppliers
Book:Resentment Against Achievement: Understanding the Assault Upon Ability
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“The gravest error a thinking person can make is to believe that one particular version of history is absolute fact. History is recorded by a series of observers, none of whom is impartial. The facts are distorted by sheer passage of time and thousands of years of humanity's dark ages, deliberate misrepresentations by religious sects, and the inevitable corruption that comes from an accumulation of careless mistakes. The wise person, then, views history as a set of lessons to be learned, choices and ramifications to be considered and discussed, and mistakes that should never again be made.”

ThinkingShouldYearsBelievePersonsMadeFactsAgeHumanityChoicesReligiousDarkViewsMistakeWiseParticularLessonsAbsolutesErrorsSeriesCorruptionVersionsInevitablePassagesSheerObserversDeliberateAccumulationCarelessDark AgesSectsPassage Of TimeWise PersonMisrepresentationRamificationsLessons To Be LearnedReligious SectsThinking Person
Author:Frank Herbert
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“For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us.”

LyingInterestBehindsClassDemocracyEventsTrainingWesternCurrentsIdeologyMinoritiesLeisurePrivilegedVeilsFacilityDistortionMisrepresentation
Book:American Power and the New Mandarins
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“Referring to professor Muller's Berkely Earth Surface Temperature Project, "The Best project's treatment of science and of the public has been shoddy. That so many so-called reporters in the mainstream media should have been so uncritical and accepting of what was clearly misrepresentation is shocking. Once again they have been found to be supporters and advocates for a particular point of view when they should have been critical commentators and journalists. Climate science is important. It deserves better.”

ShouldHas BeensImportantEarthFoundViewsAcceptingMediaParticularProjectsDeserveShould HaveClimateCriticalSurfacePoint Of ViewJournalistTreatmentProfessorsMainstreamReportersSupporterShockingTemperatureShould Have BeenCommentatorsReferringMainstream MediaMisrepresentationDeserve Better
Author:David Robert Whitehouse
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“In ordinary life, the phenomenology of embodied emotions is an excellent example for dynamic changes between transparency and opacity: You can "directly perceive" that your wife is cheating you, or you can become aware of the possibility that maybe it is you who has a problem, that your "immediate" emotional representation of social reality might actually be a misrepresentation.”

ProblemRealityMightSocialEmotionWifeExamplePossibilityEmotionalOrdinaryExcellentPerceiveCheatingRepresentationTransparencyOrdinary LifePhenomenologyMisrepresentation
Author:Thomas Metzinger
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“Barack Obama thinks he's universally loved and adored because of that approval rating, which is a lie or a misrepresentation. It's mainly people that don't have the guts to tell a pollster that they disapprove of the job because of the racial component, because whenever Obama's policies are on the ballot, they get skunked! If he's on ballot with them, not so bad.”

PeopleIfsThinkingJobsLyingPolicyBarackGutsApprovalComponentsRatingBallotsMisrepresentationApproval Rating
Author:Rush Limbaugh
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“Animal rights activists talk about cruelty and torture, some backing their assertions by publishing out-of-date photographs of "experiments" banned long ago. This is a misrepresentation. The work we do is performed with compassion, care, humanity and humility. I have never seen an animal suffer pain.”

LongCarePainSufferingHumanityAnimalCompassionRightsHumilityPhotographExperimentsCrueltyTortureActivistAnimal RightsPublishingLong AgoAssertionBannedMisrepresentationAnimal Rights Activists
Author:Robert Winston
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“Don't make misrepresentations to anyone you deal with. If you believe the other person may have misunderstood you, correct any misunderstanding you find exists. Honesty is integral to ethical behavior, and trustworthiness is essential for good, lasting relationships.”

IfsBelieveMayPersonsBeliefDealsHonestyEssentialsBehaviorLastingEthicalMisunderstandingMisunderstoodIf You BelieveTrustworthinessMisrepresentationEthical BehaviorLasting Relationship
Author:Buck Rodgers
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“As for your doctrines I am prepared to go to the Stake if requisite ... I trust you will not allow yourself to be in any way disgusted or annoyed by the considerable abuse & misrepresentation which unless I greatly mistake is in store for you... And as to the curs which will bark and yelp - you must recollect that some of your friends at any rate are endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often & justly rebuked it) may stand you in good stead - I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness.”

IfsWayMayScienceMistakeAmountCriticismAbusePreparedRateStoresDoctrineStakesAnnoyedPublicationBarkReadinessClawsDisgustedI Trust YouSharpeningMisrepresentationBeaks
Author:Thomas Huxley
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