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Provocative Quotes

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Provocative Quotes

“Is this what you imagined I'd be like, back in your rooms at Hollow Hall, when you thought of me and hated it? Is this how you pictured my eventual surrender?' He looks absolutely mortified, but there's no disguising the flush of his cheeks, the shine of his eyes. 'Yes,' he says, sounding like the word was dragged out of him, his voice rough with desire. 'Then what did I do?' I ask, my voice low. I reach out to press my hand against his thigh. His gaze shimmers with a sharp spike of heat. There's a wariness in his face, though, and I realise he believes i might be asking him all this because I'm angry. Because I want to see him humiliated. But he keeps speaking anyway. 'I imagined you telling me to do with you whatever I liked.' 'Really?' I ask, and the surprised laugh in mny voice makes him meet my gaze. 'Along with some begging on your part. A little light grovelling.' He gives me an embarrassed smile. 'My fantasies were rife with overweening ambition.”

DesireHolly BlackThe Folk Of The AirCardan GreenbriarCardanProvocativeThe Queen Of NothingFantasies
Book:The Queen of Nothing
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“So, apart from casting runes, what other hobbies do you have? Forbidden rituals, human sacrifices, torturing? –”

TruthRomanceDeathGirlMagicSacrificeMysteryDangerousDangerDivineFutureHumanRomanticFortuneAncientYoung AdultMysteriousSuspenseTortureRitualWitchDeadLieTormentForbiddenMagicianGothicMedievalStraightforwardOccultYoung Adult RomanceProvocativeSinisterRiteBoyHauntedGothOminousPredictionFlirtGothic RomanceSacrificesOccultismHauntWiccaFortune TellingRunesDivinationFortune TellerPredictProvokeRuneForbidDruidYoung Adult Gothic RomanceTormentingTormentorTorturingCasting RunesCast RunesTell The Fortune
Book:Nightmarish Sacrifice
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“A culture can be thought of as ever-evolving software that sits on top of—and synergistically interacts with—both biological hardware and firmware, addressing flaws our biology hasn’t had sufficient evolutionary time to address. To go further with this analogy: Biological evolution provides some basic coding, much like a low-level programming language might for a given hardware, whereas cultural evolution manipulates the high-level, object-oriented code that lets us program highly nuanced behaviors.”

HumanityMankindHuman NatureEntertainingProvocativeBetter FuturePragmatismCulturesPreserveWide Ranging
Book:The Pragmatist's Guide to Governance: From high school cliques to boards, family offices, and nations: A guide to optimizing governance models
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“When a person gets severe radiation poisoning, some time passes before they feel the adverse effects. Their DNA has functionally been scrambled; their cells can’t divide; the person is dead—they just don’t know it yet. Many wildly popular cultural movements are currently in this state. It may be easier to coax a caged panda to reproduce than it would be to convince a cosmopolitan progressive to raise their own kid.”

ReligionHumanityMankindHuman NatureEntertainingProvocativeBetter FuturePragmatismCulturesWide Ranging
Book:The Pragmatist's Guide to Governance: From high school cliques to boards, family offices, and nations: A guide to optimizing governance models
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“Almost all hard cultures have some ritual focused on voluntary self-denial, such as Ramadan, Lent, or the Fast of the Firstborn. The question is, why? Why do cultures that practice something that makes membership less pleasant historically outcompete cultures that encourage people to indulge in whatever they want? This question becomes more pointed when we look at how common it is for pop cultures to emotionally reward people for succumbing to their base desires, as is seen in pop culture outputs like the Intuitive Eating Movement, which entails telling people they are being healthy by eating whatever they want whenever they want in an age in which we’re surrounded with an abundance of foods that are designed to be highly addictive. Movements telling people to indulge in their immediate desires have been around since the ancient Greeks. These movements resurface during every civilization’s brief golden age and only seem to be successful in the short run. While the pop cultures that produce them consistently die, stodgy hard cultures persist. Why?”

ReligionHumanityMankindEntertainingProvocativeBetter FutureGuidePragmatismCulturesWide Ranging
Book:The Pragmatist's Guide to Governance: From high school cliques to boards, family offices, and nations: A guide to optimizing governance models
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“Society can be thought of as a collection of overlapping nodal networks (things like companies and cultivars), with each node representing a person and their connections to other people. Historically, pop cultures, simple memetic viruses, evolved to target single nodes. These cultures would flip target nodes (convert them) by offering individuals an easy life and positive emotional subsets. While these viruses lowered the birth rates among the individual nodes they flipped and could sometimes lead to wild outbreaks, those outbreaks were always contained within single or closely-related nodal networks, meaning they were never really an existential threat to our species. . . .The supervirus evolved a new strategy. Instead of flipping individual nodes, it works to flip entire nodal networks. Instead of selling the promise of minimizing emotional suffering within a single node, it entices nodal systems with the prospect of minimizing negative emotion across the entire network.”

ReligionHumanityMankindEntertainingProvocativeBetter FutureGuidePragmatismCulturesWide Ranging
Book:The Pragmatist's Guide to Governance: From high school cliques to boards, family offices, and nations: A guide to optimizing governance models
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“Upon hearing about an Indian caste system comprised of five main castes, each of which is divided into about 3,000 sub-castes based on occupation, most foreigners contextualize the concept as being quite alien. People of Anglo-Saxon descent may come to this conclusion forgetting that many of their brethren still walk around with names like Smith and Tailor attached to them—names that hail from a similar caste system. That’s right: In the medieval period, families often maintained specialist trades passed down from one generation to the next. While the Anglo-Saxon caste system was never as strict as that which ultimately developed in India, it wasn’t profoundly less strict than its pre-British Indian counterpart. . . .  What is fascinating about caste systems, and likely a core reason they evolved in so many cultures, is that they allow for the genetic concentration of skills within certain specialties. As offensive as this concept is, the genetic vortices created by castes are so strong that their effects can be seen centuries after they dissolved. A study  conducted in the U.K. in 2015 found that people with the surname Smith (descended from the smith caste) had higher physical capabilities and an above-average aptitude for strength-related activities, while those with the surname Tailor (descended from the tailor caste) had a higher-than-average aptitude for dexterity-related tasks.”

ReligionHumanityMankindEntertainingProvocativeRebuildingGuidePragmatismCulturesWide Ranging
Book:The Pragmatist's Guide to Governance: From high school cliques to boards, family offices, and nations: A guide to optimizing governance models
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“The first time the extent of this problem was obvious to me was when I was hanging out with a small group of people in which one unironically said, “I would not consider dating someone who was not regularly seeing a psychologist”—and others in the group agreed with them. It was at that point I realized that some psychologists were convincing their patients that no person could be mentally healthy without regularly visiting them. They had so thoroughly incepted a dependency in their patients that they had created a cultural identity around that dependency.”

ReligionMankindEntertainingProvocativeRebuildingGuidePragmatismCulturesTraditional CulturesWide Ranging
Book:The Pragmatist’s Guide to Crafting Religion: A playbook for sculpting cultures that overcome demographic collapse & facilitate long-term human flourishing
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“Hey! look at us We're digging and digging Into stubborn, ancient earth; We're discovering Where we came from, and how we came. "but where are you going?" Hey! look at us We're learning and learning Into stubborn laws Of nature and space And non-nature and non-space; We're discovering All there is to know. "but where are you going?" Hey! look at us We're planning and planning Into stubborn years Of education and training And hopes and dreams; We're discovering How not to waste any time. "but where are you going?" Hey! look at us We're shiny and bright And clever and sophisticated And witty and well-read; We're discovering How to really fill up This old life. "but where are you going?" where? "Yes; where?”

LifeInspirationalChristianCultureReligiousDeep ThoughtProvocativeMakes You ThinkLois A Cheney
Book:God is No Fool
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“And what if you try to kill me? Or worse: to kiss me?”

LovePlayBeautifulYoungGirlRelationshipsSinSecretBeautyRelationshipWorstDangerousDangerRomanticFemaleYoung AdultSexyGoodTemptationKissManWomanAttractiveWhat IfBestHandsomeBadTemptedKill MeGothicBetterKillGameYoung Adult RomanceTeaseKiss MeProvocativeTemptingMaleBoyGothSecretiveWorseYouthfulSinfulPlayfulAttractProvokeCardewFreyaTemptYoung Adult Gothic Romance
Book:Nightmarish Sacrifice
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“If you'd like to meet some fully realized characters while learning some specifics of Zimbabwe's postcolonial struggles, as I did, you're likely to come away with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. If you're willing to settle for first-rate writing and provocative meditations on memory, corruption and loss, they are all here in abundance.”

IfsWritingFirstsCharacterFeelingsMemoriesLossStruggleMeditationWillingRateCorruptionSettlingAbundanceVagueDissatisfactionProvocativeZimbabweSpecifics
Author:Jabari Asim
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“For 30 years I have used my platform in provocative ways to encourage a healthy dialogue about important issues, including HIV/AIDS, war, and homelessness. I'm well aware of the risks that come with this approach, and if this encourages further awareness and discussion about critical issues then all-the-better.”

IfsWayYearsWellsImportantWarUsedIssuesRiskAwarenessHealthyApproachIncludingCriticalAidsDialogueDiscussionPlatformsHomelessnessHivProvocativeImportant IssuesHiv Aids
Author:Kenneth Cole
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“Provocative. Striking. Rachel Resnick is a virtuoso on the page. Her fearless examination of the desperate thirst to find love is guaranteed to break your heart. Yet her cool-eyed analysis of the roots of this addiction inspires hope that through committed self-understanding, maybe each of us can change toxic patterns, whatever they may be.”

HeartMaySelfUnderstandingLove IsBreakInspirePagesRootsAddictionPatternsCommittedFearlessAnalysisDesperateToxicThirstExaminationFinding LoveProvocativeBreak Your HeartSelf UnderstandingVirtuoso
Author:Samantha Dunn
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“Obama has already demonstrated an extraordinary ability to change the limits of what one can say publicly. His greatest achievement up to now is that, in his refined non-provocative way, he has introduced into public speech topics which had hitherto been de facto unsayable: the continuing importance of race in politics, the positive role of atheists in public life, the necessity to talk with "enemies" like Iran or Hamas, and so on. This is just what US politics needs today more than anything, if it is to break out of its gridlock: new words which will change the way we think and act.”

IfsThinkingWayNeedsTodayAbilityRaceEnemyRolesBreakLimitsSpeechAchievementImportanceExtraordinaryAtheistIranContinuingTopicsPublic LifeRefinedProvocativeBreak OutHamasGreatest AchievementNew WordsAbility To ChangeGridlock
Author:Slavoj Žižek
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“Peter Watts has taken the core myths of the First Contact story and shaken them to pieces. The result is a shocking and mesmerizing performance, a tour-de-force of provocative and often alarming ideas. It is a rare novel that has the potential to set science fiction on an entirely new course. Blindsight is such a book.”

FirstsBookIdeasStoriesCoursesForceResultsFictionNovelTakenPiecesPerformancesScience FictionMythCoreContactPeterShockingProvocativeFirst ContactMesmerizing
Author:Karl Schroeder
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“Etiquette is about all of human social behavior. Behavior is regulated by law when etiquette breaks down or when the stakes are high - violations of life, limb, property and so on. Barring that, etiquette is a little social contract we make that we will restrain some of our more provocative impulses in return for living more or less harmoniously in a community.”

HumansLittlesLawSocialCommunityBreakReturnBehaviorPropertyMannersImpulseContractsStakesBreaking DownLimbsEtiquetteViolationProvocativeSocial ContractSocial BehaviorLiving More
Author:Judith Martin
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“It is frequently said that speech that is intentionally provocative and therefore invites physical retaliation can be punished or suppressed. Yet, plainly no such general proposition can be sustained. Quite the contrary.... The provocative nature of the communication does not make it any the less expression. Indeed, the whole theory of free expression contemplates that expression will in many circumstances be provocative and arouse hostility. The audience, just as the speaker, has an obligation to maintain physical restraint.”

DoeSaidWholeResponsibilityAudienceRightsExpressionTheoryCommunicationCircumstancesIntegritySpeechContraryObligationInvitesSpeakersContemplatingRestraintPropositionsHostilityProvocativeRetaliationFree Expression
Author:Thomas I. Emerson
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“A horse perceives eye contact as provocative, as if it and its status in the herd are not being respected. If it cannot avoid eye contact, it will react in a different way, by rebelling for example. In dressage you don't get anywhere by not showing respect, however superior your species might be. Any animal trainer can tell you that. In the mountains in Argentina there's a wild horse which will jump off the nearest precipice if any human tries to ride it.”

IfsWayTryingHumansDifferentMightEyeAnimalExampleMountainHorseSpeciesSuperiorsContactPerceiveDifferent WaysHerdsTrainersProvocativeArgentinaPrecipiceEye ContactWild HorsesDressage
Book:The Oslo Trilogy: The Redbreast, Nemesis and The Devil's Star
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“I've always had a desire to be provocative and to make people think, but it wouldn't be any challenge for me just to be shocking. That is where it begins for me, not where it stops. And I could be much more shocking. I think I've adopted a sense of subtlety. I don't sit around wondering how I can make myself even stranger to the world. I've simply evolved into the monster I created, and I'm quite happy with it.”

PeopleThinkingWorldI CanDesireChallengesWonderStrangerMonstersShockingAdoptedSubtletyProvocative
Author:Marilyn Manson
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“Notable American Women is an enchanting and moving novel. Like Italo Calvino and Lewis Carrol, Ben Marcus reconfigures the world that we might see ourselves in a cultural and moral landscape that is disturbingly familiar, yet entirely new. As though granted a new beginning, Marcus renames the creatures of our world, questions who we are and who, as men and women, we might be. Notable American Women is a wonder book, pleasurable and provocative.”

MenWorldBookMightMovingWonderMoralNovelCreaturesMen And WomenFamiliarGrantedLandscapeWho We AreOur WorldNew BeginningsNotableProvocativeAmerican WomanEnchanting
Author:Maureen Howard
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