Alfred Kinsey Quotes

If biologists so often forget the most universal of all biologic principles [variation], it is not surprising that men and women in general expect their fellows to think and behave according to the pattern that may fit the law-maker, or the imaginary ideals for which the legislation was fashioned, but which are ill-shaped for all real individuals who try to live under them. ~ Alfred Kinsey

Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeonholes. ~ Alfred Kinsey

The very general occurrence of the homosexual in ancient Greece, and its wide occurrence today in some cultures in which such activity is not taboo suggests that the capacity of an individual to respond erotically to any sort of stimulus, whether it is provided by another person of the same or opposite sex, is basic in the species. ~ Alfred Kinsey

Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheeps and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. ~ Alfred Kinsey

The male's difficulties in his sexual relations after marriage include a lack of facility, of ease, or of suavity in establishing rapport in a sexual situation. ~ Alfred Kinsey

The history of medicine proves that in so far as man seeks to know himself and face his whole nature, he has become free from bewildered fear, despondent shame, or arrant hypocrisy. As long as sex is dealt with in the current confusion of ignorance and sophistication, denial and indulgence, suppression and stimulation, punishment and exploitation, secrecy and display, it will be associated with a duplicity and indecency that lead neither to intellectual honesty nor human dignity. ~ Alfred Kinsey

The range of variation in the female far exceeds the range of variation in the male. ~ Alfred Kinsey

Like the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, postmodernism seeks to institutionalize dishonesty as a legitimate school of thought. The idea of truth as the ultimate goal of the intellectual is discarded. In its place, scholars are asked to pursue political objectives
so long as those political objectives are the 'correct' ones. Postmodernism is not fringe within the community of scholars. It is central. This tells us a great deal about the life of the mind today. Peruse any university course catalogue, and you find names like Foucault, Derrida, and Barthes. Scour the footnotes of scholarly books and journals and a similar story unfolds. With the primacy of philosophies
postmodernism, Critical Theory, and even the right-leaning Straussianism
that exalt dishonesty in the service of supposedly noble causes, is it at all surprising that liars like Alfred Kinsey, Rigoberta Menchu, Alger Hiss, and Margaret Sanger have achieved a venerated status among the intellectuals? ~ Daniel J. Flynn

The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform. ~ Alfred Kinsey

It is amazing to observe how many psychologists and psychiatrists have accepted this sort of propaganda, and have come to believe that homosexual males and females are discretely different from persons who respond to natural stimuli. Instead of using these terms as substantives which stand for persons, or even as adjectives to describe persons, they may better be used to describe the nature of the overt sexual relations, or of the stimuli to which an individual erotically responds. ~ Alfred Kinsey

After over six hundred hours of listening, John knew two more things: That the most profound truth lay in the labyrinths that coiled behind a green door in the interviewee's mind the very second that Alfred Kinsey said, "Tell me about your fantasies"; and, two, that with the proper information and the correct stimuli he could get carefully chosen people to break through those doors and act out their fantasies, past moral strictures and the boundaries of conscience, taking him past his already absolute knowledge of mankind's unutterable stupidity into a new night realm that he as yet was incapable of imagining. Because the night was there to be plundered; and only someone above its laws could exact its bounty and survive. ~ James Ellroy

We are the recorders and reporters of facts - not the judges of the behaviors we describe. ~ Alfred Kinsey

There is a tendency to consider anything in human behavior that is unusual, not well known, or not well understood, as neurotic, psychopathic, immature, perverse, or the expression of some other sort of psychologic disturbance. ~ Alfred Kinsey

The heterosexuality or homosexuality of many individuals is not an all-or-none proposition. ~ Alfred Kinsey

There are many actors who have inspired me: Spencer Tracy for his incredible elegance and, of course, Cary Grant. But, there's also an Italian actor I admire a great deal: Alberto Sordi. ~ Alfred Molina

Nothing is a sin when you obey the orders of a priest ~ Alfred De Musset

We have followed the general practice in referring to the nominative form as a "case" among four other cases. However, some modern grammarians have developed an account which goes back to Aristotle and according to which the term "noun" ('onoma') should be reserved for the nominative form, which names ('onomazein') simply, with no indication of a relation to other elements in the sentence. From its base (or "upright" or "straight" -- 'orthe', 'eutheia') form and function, a noun may undergo a "fall" ('ptosis', Latin 'casus', whence English 'case') or "inclination" ('klisis', from 'klino') towards other elements within the sentence. The roster of such fallings off is called a 'declension'. Although it is convenient to include the nominative form among the "cases," we shall occasionally refer to the other four as the 'oblique' cases. ~ Alfred Mollin

But, somehow or other, it is always the young and inexperienced, who are most apt to be positive and self-willed in their opinions; and so, the young Spruce-fir, thinking neither of the lessons which Nature was teaching, nor of his own limited means of judging, stuck out his branches all round him in everybody's face, right and left, and said - "Never!" It ~ Mrs. Alfred Gatty

Broad based upon her people's will, And compassed by the inviolate sea. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

The bright incarnate spirit of the Morn. ~ Alfred Austin

Of course there are depressing periods when nothing appears to be happening. But whenever anything was happening, and even when nothing was happening, it was fun just to do phage experiments. ~ Alfred Hershey

The motif must always be set down in a simple way, easily grasped and understood by the beholder. By the elimination of superfluous detail, the spectator should be led along the road that the artist indicates to him, and from the first be made to notice what the artist has felt. ~ Alfred Sisley

Intellect is the ability to avoid belaboring the obvious. ~ Alfred Bester

There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass, ... ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

We shall find in our troubled hearts, where discord reigns, two needs which seem at variance, but which merge, as I think, in a common source - the love of the true, and the love of the fabulous. ~ Alfred De Vigny

Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, 'It will be happier.' ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

The fact that you couldn't see Alfred Hitchcock's first film The Mountain Eagle, or that you couldn't see so many of F.W. Murnau's masterpieces, or that you couldn't see so many of Oscar Micheaux's really intriguing race melodramas, made with fierce independent spirit against all odds in '20s and '30s America. That stuff haunted me. They really did bring to life a sense of 20th Century history: cultural history, pop history, gender politics and race politics, socio economic history, all that stuff. It was bracing and instructive. ~ Guy Maddin

You're suspended sixty feet up in the air, you've been up there for three hours, and all the shot requires is that you have to sort of react to getting punched in the head. ~ Alfred Molina

I'm very grateful and proud of the progress Yahoo! has made over the past year. When I took the position as chairman, I told the board that my intention was to serve for one year in order to help Yahoo! during a critical time of transformation. ~ Alfred Amoroso

I like all those painters who loved and had a strong feeling for nature. ~ Alfred Sisley

Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was love. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

The madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through ... ringing throughout the house was an alarm bell that no one but Alfred and Enid could hear directly. ~ Jonathan Franzen

What is a great life but a youthful intention carried out in maturity? ~ Alfred De Vigny

Tho' much is taken, much abides; ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on. ~ Alfred Hitchcock

When success turns a man's head he faces failure ~ Alfred North Whitehead

The work of art is a stuffed crocodile. ~ Alfred Jarry

We should get into the habit of reading inspirational books, looking at inspirational pictures, hearing inspirational music, associating with inspirational friends. ~ Alfred Armand Montapert

In the first place, there is no point whatever in being able to spell anything. Shakespeare and Milton could not spell; Marie Corelli and Alfred Austen could. Spelling is thought desirable partly for snobbish reasons, as an easy way of distinguishing the "educated" from the "uneducated"; partly, like correct clothes, as a part of herd domination; partly because the devotee of natural law feels pain in the spectacle of any sphere in which individual liberty remains. ~ Bertrand Russell

Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills. Like footsteps upon wool. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.
All things must die. ~ Alfred Tennyson

You were made to soar, to crash to earth, then to rise and soar again. ~ Alfred Wainwright

Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Morning is the best part of the day for walking. The air is freshest then, the earth sweetest. The flowers preen themselves after their bath of dew, and stand erect with rare self-assurance, proud of their bright clean colours. The birds are happiest in the morning, and most lively then. They dart across the path before you, wheel and soar above the trees, swoop unerringly to their nests. They chatter and chirrup and sing in unending chorus, blithely contented and gay, and so very very glad to be alive. ~ Alfred Wainwright

We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may Yea, even when we know not, mix our spites And private hates with our defence of Heaven. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Dogmatic theology is, by its very nature, unchangeable. The same can be said in regard to the spirit of the law. Law was and is to protect the past and present status of society and, by its very essence, must be very conservative, if not reactionary. Theology and law are both of them static by their nature.

Philosophy, law and ethics, to be effective in a dynamic world must be dynamic; they must be made vital enough to keep pace with the progress of life and science. In recent civilization ethics, because controlled by theology and law, which are static, could not duly influence the dynamic, revolutionary progress of technic and the steadily changing conditions of life; and so we witness a tremendous downfall of morals in politics and business. Life progresses faster than our ideas, and so medieval ideas, methods and judgments are constantly applied to the conditions and problems of modern life. This discrepancy between facts and ideas is greatly responsible for the dividing of modern society into different warring classes, which do not understand each other. Medieval legalism and medieval morals- the basis of the old social structure-being by their nature conservative, reactionary, opposed to change, and thus becoming more and more unable to support the mighty social burden of the modern world, must be adjudged responsible in a large measure for the circumstances which made the World War inevitable. ~ Alfred Korzybski

A man had given all other bliss, And all his worldly worth for this To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

I regret that it has been necessary for me in this lecture to administer a large dose of four-dimensional geometry. I do not apologize, because I am really not responsible for the fact that nature in its most fundamental aspect is four-dimensional. Things are what they are. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

Without adventure civilization is in full decay. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

In New York's Times Square a white-clad girl clutches her purse and skirt as an uninhibited sailor plants his lips squarely on hers. ~ Alfred Eisenstaedt

Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, The love of love. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

No, 'F/X 2' was a job. I enjoyed doing it but that was definitely a job. I wrote that, I didn't direct it but 'Candyman' and the earlier horror movies I made, I was completely into horror and suspense and always have been. It's informed everything I've done, even the way scenes are shot in 'Kinsey and 'Gods and Monsters.' ~ Bill Condon

The surer of himself an admiral is, the finer the tactical development of his fleet, the better his captains, the more reluctant must he necessarily be to enter into a melee with equal forces, in which all these advantages will be thrown away, chance reign supreme, and his fleet be place on terms of equality with an assemblage of ships which have never before acted together. ~ Alfred Thayer Mahan

Perhaps it was the anticipation, that moment sustained by the drive home, when one is in a taxi with a stranger who is about to be transfigured into a lover,and there is an interval, as in music, when the chord of desire has been struck, and the chord of the fulfillment of desire hasn't; when everything remains suspended and anticipatory, and the snow falls through the air of a city whose ugliness is temporarily obscured, and the cab itself seems to exist inside a magical circle of quiet heat and togetherness and motion; and, I suppose, for that moment, it is beautiful: the snow, and everything. ~ Hayes Alfred