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Passivity Quotes

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Passivity Quotes

“New pressures are causing ever more people to find their main satisfaction in their consumptive role rather than in their productive role. And these pressures are bringing forward such traits as pleasure-mindedness, self-indulgence, materialism, and passivity as conspicuous elements of the American character.”

PeopleSelfCharacterPleasureRolesElementsPressureSatisfactionProductiveMaterialismTraitsConsumerismIndulgenceOverconsumptionPassivitySelf IndulgenceAmerican Character
Author:Vance Packard
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“The study of letters is the study of the operation of human force, of human freedom and activity; the study of nature is the study of the operation of non-human forces, of human limitation and passivity. The contemplation of human force and activity tends naturally to heighten our own force and activity; the contemplation of human limits and passivity tends rather to check it. Therefore the men who have had the humanistic training have played, and yet play, so prominent a part in human affairs, in spite of their prodigious ignorance of the universe.”

MenHumansPlayScienceUniverseForceEducationStudyIgnoranceHe ManActivityLimitsTrainingLettersAffairChecksLimitationOperationsContemplationSpiteProminentPassivityHuman FreedomHumanisticProdigious
Book:Schools and Universities on the Continent
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“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”

GivingBookReasonWould BeTruthWantedReadingFearSeaInformationNo ReasonReading BooksDrowningReducingConcealedBansEgoismPassivityDeprivingHuxleyIrrelevanceBrave New World TechnologyBrave New World Consumerism
Author:Neil Postman
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“In the days before machinery men and women who wanted to amuse themselves were compelled, in their humble way, to be artists. Now they sit still and permit professionals to entertain them by the aid of machinery. It is difficult to believe that general artistic culture can flourish in this atmosphere of passivity.”

MenWayBelieveStillsWantedArtistCultureDifficultMen And WomenHumbleAidsArtisticAtmospherePermitCompelledMachineryPassivity
Book:Complete Essays: 1930-1935
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“The ordinary person senses the greatness of the odds against him even without thought or analysis, and he adapts his attitudes unconsciously. A huge passivity has settled on industrial society. For people carried about in mechanical vehicles, earning their living by waiting on machines, listening much of the waking day to canned music, watching packaged movie entertainment and capsulated news, for such people it would require an exceptional degree of awareness and an especial heroism of effort to be anything but supine consumers of processed goods.”

PeoplePersonsWaitingEffortAttitudeAwarenessGreatnessHugeListeningDegreesNewsOrdinaryMachinesEntertainmentSensesConsumersAnalysisGoodsWakingVehicleHeroismOddsEarningExceptionalPassivityOrdinary Person
Author:Marshall McLuhan
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“The male dares to be different to the degree that he accepts his passivity and his desire to be female, his fagginess. The farthest out male is the dragqueen, but he, although different from most men, is exactly like all other dragqueens; like the functionalist, he has an identity - a female; he tries to define all his troubles away - but still no individuality. Not completely convinced that he's a woman, highly insecure about being sufficiently female, he conforms compulsively to the man-made feminine stereotype, ending up as nothing but a bundle of stilted mannerisms.”

MenTryingMadeStillsDifferentDesireAcceptingTroubleIdentityDegreesFemaleMalesIndividualityDareConvincedFeminineStereotypeConformInsecureBundlesPassivityMannerismsDare To Be Different
Book:SCUM Manifesto
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“Lacan , Derrida and Foucault are the perfect prophets for the weak, anxious academic personality, trapped in verbal formulas and perennially defeated by circumstances. They offer a self-exculpating cosmic explanation for the normal professorial state of resentment, alienation, dithering passivity and inaction.”

SelfStatesPerfectPersonalityCircumstancesOffersNormalWeakExplanationProphetFormulasAnxiousCosmicAcademicResentmentTrappedDefeatedAlienationInactionPassivityLacanDerrida
Author:Camille Paglia
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“1) Différance is the systematic play of differences, of the traces of differences, of the spacing by means of which elements are related to each other. This spacing is the simultaneously active and passive (the a of différance indicates this indecision as concerns activity and passivity, that which cannot be governed by or distributed between the terms of this opposition) production of the intervals without which the "full" terms would not signify, would not function.”

MeanPlayTermDifferencesActivityElementsConcernFunctionProductionsActiveRelatedOppositionPassiveSystematicIntervalsIndecisionPassivitySpacing
Author:Jacques Derrida
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“The church of Jesus needs to wake up from the exile of passivity and embrace liminality and adventure or continue to remain a religious ghetto for culturally co-opted, fearful, middle-class folk.”

NeedsJesusChurchReligiousClassMiddleAdventureWake UpEmbraceFolksMiddle ClassFearfulExileGhettoPassivity
Book:The Faith of Leap (Shapevine): Embracing a Theology of Risk, Adventure & Courage
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“Why is it that nobody cries out, nobody spits in their faces, nobody jumps at their throats? We doff our caps to the S.S. men returning from the little wood; if our name is called out we obediently go with them to die, and we do nothing. We starve, we are drenched by rain, we are torn from our families. What is this mystery? This strange power of one man over another? This insane passivity that cannot be overcome? Our only strength is our great number; the gas chambers cannot accommodate all of us.”

IfsMenLittlesFacesDiesNamesNumbersMysteryCryStrangeRainOvercomingWoodsInsaneOur FamilyGasOne ManThroatTornChamberCapsSpitAccommodatePassivityPower Of OneGas Chambers
Author:Tadeusz Borowski
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“The genuflection toward 'fairness' is a familiar newsroom piety, in practice the excuse for a good deal of autopilot reporting and lazy thinking but in theory a benign ideal. In Washington, however, a community in which the management of news has become the single overriding preoccupation of the core industry, what 'fairness' has often come to mean is a scrupulous passivity, an agreement to cover the story not as it is occurring but as it is presented, which is to say as it is manufactured.”

ThinkingMeanStoriesCommunityDealsPracticeTheoryIndustryNewsIdealsManagementExcuseCoreFamiliarLazyAgreementFairnessPietyPreoccupationBenignPassivityAutopilotLazy Thinking
Author:Joan Didion
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“All of the evidence highlights the implicit bargain that is offered to citizens: pose no challenge and you have nothing to worry about. Mind your own business, and support or at least tolerate what we do, and you'll be fine. Put differently, you must refrain from provoking the authority that wields surveillance powers if you wish to be deemed free of wrongdoing. This is a deal that invites passivity, obedience, and conformity. The safest course, the way to ensure being “left alone,” is to remain quiet, unthreatening, and compliant.”

IfsWayMindCoursesLeftWishChallengesDealsWorrySupportFineCitizensQuietAuthorityEvidenceObedienceConformityInvitesTolerateProvokingSurveillanceBargainsRefrainOwn BusinessLeft AloneHighlightsPassivityImplicitWrongdoingMind Your Own BusinessMind Your Own
Author:Glenn Greenwald
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“We spoke of ourselves as "emancipated" when we got the vote. Yet we are still slaves to the superficial and the superfluous. We are concerned with the length of our skirts, with the latest lipstick, with the newest thrill in hats. We are impressed by advertisements that insist we must be alluring; we must adopt a time-consuming coiffure, we must spend hours with the "beautician," we must attend fashion shows. As long as women are preoccupied with nonessentials we shall be afflicted with infantilism, passivity, and the eventual disillusionment that results from trivial, unproductive lives.”

LongStillsShowsHoursResultsFashionConcernedVoteSlaveHatsSpokesLengthNarcissismImpressedSuperficialThrillConsumingSkirtsLipstickAdvertisementsDisillusionmentSuperfluousPassivityAlluringTime ConsumingUnproductiveFashion ShowBeauticians
Author:Mary Barnett Gilson
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“What eleven- to thirteen-year-old boys fear is passivity of any kind. When they do act passively we can be fairly certain that it is an act of aggression designed to torment a parent or teacher. . . . Mischief at best, violence at worst is the boy's proclamation of masculinity.”

YearsKindCertainParentBoysTeacherViolenceWorstAggressionMasculinityTormentElevenMischiefThirteenPassivityProclamationThirteen Year Olds
Book:Adolescence: The Farewell to Childhood
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“Across all Cinderella versions it was clear that the 21st century was not very much in evidence, particularly in the character of Cinderella so it seemed, it felt actually as though it hadn't been done for quite some time, not with the kind of lushness that we could do it with, with an absolute removal of the passivity of Cinderella and finding an amusing way, a lighthearted but significant way of making her proactive and not a girl who's life is about waiting for a bloke.”

WayKindDoneCharacterLife IsGirlFeltWaitingClearCenturyFindingsEvidenceAbsolutesSignificantVersions21st CenturyAmusingRemovalProactivePassivityBlokes
Author:Kenneth Branagh
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“Think about every time you've seen someone being objectified, abused, enslaved. We see it constantly on the TV, in magazines, on the Internet. We've become numb, so we do nothing. The accumulation of passivity might make reading about that exploitation uncomfortable. And sometimes when I'm writing, I think of it like this: "People seem to like garbage, so here is what garbage smells like..."”

PeopleThinkingWritingSometimesSeemsMightReadingTvsInternetSmellMagazinesUncomfortableExploitationGarbageAccumulationNumbPassivity
Author:Ottessa Moshfegh
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“The soul journey inward is when we are invited to cast aside beliefs and behaviors that no longer serve us and release all tendencies toward victimhood, stagnation, passivity, and self-destruction that keep us disempowered or cause frustration and suffering to ourselves and others. This is no easy task, and one in which we can use all the divine support possible to help us on our way. It is a time to pray.”

WaySoulSelfHelpingUseSufferingBeliefCausesEasySupportJourneyDivinePrayingBehaviorTasksDestructionCastsTendenciesReleaseFrustrationInwardInvitedSelf DestructionStagnationPassivityVictimhoodEasy Tasks
Author:Sonia Choquette
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“Every public space is like a billboard, with messages from the collective subconscious of the nation. There one can read passivity, rage indifference, fear, double standards, subversion, bad economy, a twisted definition of 'public' itself, the whole Weltanschauung - an entire range of emotions and attitudes is exposed.”

WholeNationsSpaceEmotionAttitudeEconomyMessagesStandardsDefinitionsRageRangeIndifferenceCollectivesExposedSubconsciousTwistedPassivityDouble StandardBillboardsSubversionRange Of Emotions
Author:Slavenka Drakulic
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“Today's banalities apparently gain in profundity if one states that the wisdom of the past, for all its virtues, belongs to the past. The arrogance of those who come later preens itself with the notion that the past is dead and gone. The modern mind can no longer think thought, only can locate it in time and space. The activity of thinking decays to the passivity of classifying.”

IfsThinkingMindStatesTodayPastSpaceGoneVirtueModernActivityGainsNotionArroganceDecayTime And SpacePassivityBanalityProfundityClassifying
Author:Russell Jacoby
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“Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bittersweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply being hurt and take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself.”

GivingMayDoeSelfPainHurtLove IsResponsibilityGiving UpPreparedOneselfPainfulDamageUnrequited LoveBe PreparedUnrequitedBittersweetPassivityBeing Hurt
Book:On Love: A Novel
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