Avert Quotes

When young people grow up ... they shine so much that old people want to avert their gaze. ~ Tite Kubo

we, as a species, now stand at a crossroads. We can face the possibility of our own extinction and work to avert it, or we can follow the more traditional path of earth's organisms and fall blindly over the edge. If there's one trait that characterizes human beings, it's the will to survive. This, I believe, will motivate us to work with the natural world rather than oppose it, which is all we need to do to give the children of earth - of all species - the opportunity to thrive. ~ Alexandra Morton

Unless we establish some form of world government, it will not be possible for us to avert a World War III in the future. ~ Winston Churchill

As he rounded the corner, he saw two dozen men, naked to the waist, digging a hole thirty yards square at the side of the path. For a moment he was baffled. It seemed to have no agricultural purpose; there was no more planting or ploughing to be done. Then he realized what it was. They were digging a mass grave. He thought of shouting an order to about turn or at least to avert their eyes, but they were almost on it, and some of them had already seen their burial place. The songs died on their lips and the air was reclaimed by the birds. ~ Sebastian Faulks

Looking at the turmoil of life from this standpoint we find all occupied with its want and misery, exerting all their strength in order to satisfy its endless needs and avert manifold suffering, without, however, daring to expect anything else in return than merely the preservation of this tormented individual existence for a short span of time. And yet, amid all this turmoil we see a pair of lovers exchanging longing glances - yet why so secretly, timidly, and stealthily? Because these lovers are traitors secretly striving to perpetuate all this misery and turmoil that otherwise would come to a timely end. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them. It can have almost no other useful purpose. ~ Bernard Brodie

Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck. The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by the genuine freedom-fighters; the latter the attitude held by the power-thirsty politicians. ~ Wilhelm Reich

The danger is one which democracy by itself does not suffice to avert. A democracy in which the majority exercises its power without restraint may be almost as tyrannical as a dictatorship. Toleration of minorities is an essential part of wise democracy, but a part which is not always sufficiently remembered. ~ Bertrand Russell

Since love and hate can be fierce partners in crime, it is highly recommended to trace any early indicia of the fault lines in a shaky relationship in order to avert irreparable damage. ("Mes cliques et mes claques" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

trouble was bound to come. The whole family stood together, praying to avert the destruction that awaited them. "Let us all be united in this hour of trouble about to befall upon us," echoed Tara, one of the members of the shifter clan. ~ Rosalie Young

Missing someone can hurt. But when you know they are yours forever, negativity it helps avert. ~ Trishna Damodar

This man, although he appeared so humble and embarrassed in his air and manners, and passed so unheeded, had inspired me with such a feeling of horror by the unearthly paleness of his countenance, from which I could not avert my eyes, that I was unable longer to endure it. ~ Adelbert Von Chamisso

The great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa said that to be an artist means never to avert your eyes. And that's the hardest thing, because we want to flinch. The artist must go into the white hot center of himself, and our impulse when we get there is to look away and avert our eyes. ~ Robert Olen Butler

You do realize that means you're officially off the market." I say, poking him in the hard stomach. The warm, wide palms of his hands cup my face and my breath hitches.
"Baby, I've been off the market since the moments these cheeks turned the sexiest shade of pink."
Heat flares under my skin and I avert my gaze. "And when was that?"
"When I caught you eye-fucking me."
I shove him and he lets go of my face. "I did not."
He laughs loudly and squeezes me against him. "You did. Admit it. ~ Skyla Madi

Patience lightens the burthen we cannot avert. ~ Horace

Everything beautiful is golden and strewn with pearls. Even golden people live here. But misfortune is a dark power, a monstrous, cannibalistic giant, who is, however, vanquished, because a good woman, who happily knows how to avert disaster, stands ready to help. ~ Jack D. Zipes

What makes a Man love Death, Fanny? Is it because he hopes to avert his own by watchin' the Deaths of others? Doth he hope to devour Death by devourin' Executions with his Eyes? I'll ne'er understand it, if I live to be eight hundred Years. The Human Beast is more Beast than Human, 'tis true ... ~ Erica Jong

If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know. ~ C.S. Lewis

Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue. ~ Sun Tzu

We urgently need to do - and I mean actually do - something radical to avert a global catastrophe. But I don't think we will.
I think we're fucked. ~ Stephen Emmott

This is solute, which will cause every animal killed by Halo action to instantly decay into component molecules. This will avert an ecological miasma. But it could also be construed as a way to hide a tremendous crime from later investigators. ~ Greg Bear

Only a drummer-boy in a ballad or a story could have been so in the thick of the fight. She was taken into the confidence of passions on which she fixed just the stare she might have had for images bounding across the wall in the slide of a magic-lantern. Her little world was phantasmagoric - strange shadows dancing on a sheet. It was as if the whole performance had been given for her - a mite of a half-scared infant in a great dim theatre. She was in short introduced to life with a liberality in which the selfishness of others found its account, and there was nothing to avert the sacrifice but the modesty of her youth. ~ Henry James

You can't spend the rest of your life tiptoeing around to try and avert disaster. It won't work. You'll just end up missing the life you have. ~ Kim Edwards

On Saturday, March 2, 1805, Vice President Burr took his leave of the capital with a paean to the Senate, which he called "a sanctuary; a citadel of law, of order, and of liberty; and it is here - it is here, in this exalted refuge; here, if anywhere, will resistance be made to the storms of popular frenzy and the silent arts of corruption; and if the Constitution be destined ever to perish by the sacrilegious hands of a demagogue or the usurper, which God avert, its expiring agonies will be witnessed on this floor."94 ~ Jon Meacham

Why doesn't he say something to her?
But I knew why. Because there's the creeping fear that these moments don't actually exist outside your own head. No eyes meet across a crowded room, no two people thing precisely the same thing, and if only one person actually has that moment, is it even really a moment at all?
We know this, so we say nothing. We avert our eyes, or pretend to be looking for change, we hope the other person will take the initiative, because we don't want to risk losing this feeling of excitement and possibilities and lust. It's too perfect. That little second of hope is worth something, possibly for ever, as we lie on out deathbeds, surrounded by our children, and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren, and we can't help but quickly give on last selfish, dying thought to what could have happened if we'd actually said hello to that girl in the Uggs selling CDs outside Nando's seventy-four years earlier. ~ Danny Wallace

If you think that you can sin, and then by cries avert the consequences of sin, you insult God's character. ~ Frederick William Robertson

Not only do we avert our eyes from the hardcore drug addict to avoid seeing ourselves; we do so to avoid facing our share of responsibility. As we have seen, injection drug use more often than not arises in people who were abused and neglected as young children. The addict, in other words, is not born but made. His addiction is the result of a situation that he had no influence in creating.

His life expresses the history of the multigenerational family system of which he is a part, and his family exists as part of the broader culture and society. In society, as in Nature, each microcosmic unit reflects something of the whole. In the case of drug addiction, the sins of entire societies are visited unevenly on minority populations. ~ Gabor Mate

The best description of this book is found within the title. The full title of this book is:

"This is the story my great-grandfather told my father, who then told my grandfather, who then told me about how The Mythical Mr. Boo, Charles Manseur Fizzlebush Grissham III, better known as Mr. Fizzlebush, and Orafoura are all in fact me and Dora J. Arod, who sometimes shares my pen, paper, thoughts, mind, body, and soul, because Dora J. Arod is my pseudonym, as he/it incorporates both my first and middle name, and is also a palindrome that can be read forwards or backwards no matter if you are an upright man in the eyes of God or you are upside down in a tank of water wearing purple goggles and grape jelly discussing how best to spread your time between your work, your wife, and the toasted bread being eaten by the man you are talking to who goes by the name of Dendrite McDowell, who is only wearing a towel on his head and has an hourglass obscuring his "time machine"--or the thing that he says can keep him young forever by producing young versions of himself the way I avert disaster in that I ramble and bumble like a bee until I pollinate my way through flowery situations that might otherwise have ended up being more than less than, but not equal to two short parallel lines stacked on top of each other that mathematicians use to balance equations like a tightrope walker running on a wire stretched between two white stretched limos parked on a long cloud that looks like ~ Jarod Kintz

We cannot avert our eyes without staining our souls. ~ Dennis Kucinich

And as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it - as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips - it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Lincoln's appeal to 'the better angels of our nature' failed to avert a fratricidal war. But the compassionate wisdom of Lincoln's first and second inaugurals bequeathed to the Union, cemented with blood, a moral heritage which, when drawn upon in times of stress and strife, is sure to find specific ways and means to surmount difficulties that may appear to be insurmountable ~ Felix Frankfurter

The window of opportunity to avert famine is rapidly closing and could already have closed. The real issue facing us is not whether there will be famine but how many people will actually die. ~ Catherine Bertini

We must continue to pursue peace through diplomacy, but we must also not shrink from our responsibility through the option of strength. We must take advantage of internal resistance and change from within Iran to avert this path of mutual destruction. ~ Michael McCaul

True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These sl ~ Abraham Lincoln

The point is that if you think you can pinpoint the cause, then you can fool yourself into thinking you can avert the cause. It's deeply egotistical. It's life played as a grand insurance policy. Our myth-making around cancer stems from the same impulse. Because we don't know exactly why most of it happens, we weave a makeshift wisdom around it, a false prophet, which seeps into the common story and feeds our hunger to understand why. The guilt is a byproduct, a way to assign blame and seek absolution. It's a lesser evil than the forces of randomness. And it gives us the illusion of control. ~ Alanna Mitchell

Empress of the Universe would be way too much work. I'd have to wear fancy clothes, probably including lady shoes with pointed toes, and could no longer slouch into the study in PJs and slippers. Someone would (avert!) straighten my desk. Someone would reorganize my yarn stash ... in fact, they'd assign someone else to knit my socks, thus depriving me of an excuse to rest my brain while pretending to accomplish something useful. ~ Elizabeth Moon

There was no simple riddance to the power of a dangerous political idea; no assassination possible to avert a disruptive change in technology; no natural death to be counted on to stop an economic change that ripped up ancestral estates or stirred up class discontent. ~ Robert Heilbroner

The agony of the dead is with us, and we hear their screams and walk among their ghosts. We cannot avert our eyes or plug up our ears. We must bear witness and speak for those who cannot speak. We have only one chance to get it right. ~ Ken Liu

But we believe that the Octavo must be read to avert catastrophe - otherwise why did the Creator leave it behind?" "Perhaps He was just forgetful," suggested the astrologer. ~ Terry Pratchett

There is no doubt that the time to act is now. It is now that timely action can avert disaster. It is now that with foresight and will such action can be taken without disturbing the essence of our way of life, by adjusting behaviour, but not altering it entirely. ~ Tony Blair

Dead, hung up indoors, the kingfisher
will not indicate a favoring wind,
or avert the thunderbolt. ~ Charles Olson

The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through. ~ Kumi Naidoo

I examined every detail under a magnifying glass without once finding the slightest clue. And in doing so I always felt the piercing inquiring gaze of the page boy who had come to demand his dues, who was waiting in the gray light of dawn on the empty field for me to accept the challenge and avert the misfortune lying ahead of him. ~ W.G. Sebald

It is better to go in the dark when the road must pass a lion and there is no other road. ~ Robert E. Howard

In retrospect, it seems obvious that my research about parenting was also a means to subdue my anxieties about becoming a parent.... I grew up afraid of illness and disability, inclined to avert my gaze from anyone who was too different – despite all the ways I knew myself to be different. This book helped me kill that bigoted impulse, which I had always known to be ugly. The obvious melancholy in the stories I heard should, perhaps, have made me shy away from paternity, but it had the opposite effect. ~ Andrew Solomon

As every writer has his use, every writer ought to have his patrons; and since no man, however high he may now stand, can be certain that he shall not be soon thrown down from his elevation by criticism or caprice, the common interest of learning requires that her sons should cease from intestine hostilities, and, instead of sacrificing each other to malice and contempt, endeavour to avert persecution from the meanest of their fraternity. ~ Samuel Johnson

I don't know what most people mean when they use the word love. If they haven't contorted their lives around a hope sharp enough to bleed them empty, then I think they're just kidding. A hope undoes what tiny pride you have, and makes you thankful for the undoing, so long as it promises another hour with the person who is now the world. Maybe people mean attractiveness, or affection, or pleasantness, or security. Like the nonbelievers in church who enjoy the hymns or go for the sens of community, but avert their eyes from the cross. I feel sorry for them. They are dead before their time. ~ Adam Haslett

There was a poem scribbled at the top of the Ashryver family tree, as though some student had dashed it down as a reminder while studying.
Ashryver Eyes
The fairest eyes, from legends old
Of brightest blue, ringed with gold
Bright blue eyes, ringed with gold. A strangled cry came out of him. How many times had he looked into those eyes? How many times had he seen her avert her gaze, that one bit proof she couldn't hide, from the king?
Celaena Sardothien wasn't in league with Aelin Ashryver Galathynius.
Celaena Sardothien was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir to the throne and righful Queen of Terrasen. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Harm can come about without will or action. But will and action can avert harm. ~ A.S. Byatt

At this juncture it is important to say something about Exodus 12:7. This verse implies that we are dealing with a ritual that did not involve atoning for sin, but rather was a rite of protection for God's people, a different though not unrelated matter. It involved a blood ritual to avoid God's last blow against the firstborn. Thus Passover and atonement were not originally associated, though apparently by Jesus' day there were some such associations. Notice that nothing at all is said or suggested here about Israel's sin, or about forgiveness. This ceremony is more like an insurance policy. Yes, the blood is to avert divine wrath, but it is not wrath against Israel's particular sins. In this case they simply happened to be too close to the danger zone, or in the line of fire. We must assume that this blood ritual arose before there even was a fully formed priesthood, for it is highly unusual to have such a ritual without any mention of involvement of priests. ~ Ben Witherington III

when their sarongs blew in the wind, he would avert his eyes for fear of what he might see if he looked up. ~ Anonymous

Persuasion usually came first, but military strength was always the indispensable instrument of Byzantine statecraft, without which nothing else could be of much use - certainly not bribes to avert attacks, which would merely whet appetites if proffered in weakness. The upkeep of sufficient military strength was therefore the permanent, many-sided challenge that the Byzantine state had to overcome each and every day, year after year, century after century. Two essential Roman practices that the Byzantines were long able to preserve - as the western empire could not - made this possible, if only by a very small margin at times. ~ Edward N. Luttwak

In the face of an absolutely unprecedented emergency, society has no choice but to take dramatic action to avert a collapse of civilization. Either we will change our ways and build an entirely new kind of global society, or they will be changed for us. ~ Gro Harlem Brundtland

I abhor unjust war. I abhor injustice and bullying by the strong at the expense of the weak, whether among nations or individuals. I abhor violence and bloodshed. I believe that war should never be resorted to when, or so long as, it is honorably possible to avoid it. I respect all men and women who from high motives and with sanity and self-respect do all they can to avert war. I advocate preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

No great monument has been built to honor those who served during the Cold War, who risked their lives and sometimes lost them in the name of freedom. It was ordinary men and women, not just diplomats and statesmen, who helped to avert a nuclear holocaust. Their courage and their sacrifices should be remembered. ~ Eric Schlosser

Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet. If you've been following climate science, you know what I mean: the sense that we're hurtling toward catastrophe but nobody wants to hear about it or do anything to avert it. ~ Paul Krugman

No government, no head of state, made any attempt to avert or arrest the Boer War. ~ Charles Albert Gobat

Melancholy, amorous and barbaric, these tales exalted adulterous love as the only true kind, while in the real life of the same society adultery was a crime, not to mention a sin. If found out, it dishonored the lady and shamed the husband, a fellow knight. It was understood that he had the right to kill both unfaithful wife and lover. Nothing fits in this canon. The gay, the elevating, the ennobling pursuit is founded upon sin and invites the dishonor it is supposed to avert. Courtly love was a greater tangle of irreconcilables even than usury. It remained artificial, a literary convention, a fantasy (like modern pornography) more for purposes of ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

The first thing I noticed about East Shoal High School was that it didn't have a bike rack. You know a school is run by stuck-up sons of bitches when it doesn't even have a bike rack.

I shoved Erwin behind the blocky green shrubs lining the school's front walk and stepped back to make sure the tires and handlebars were hidden. I didn't expect anyone to steal, touch, or notice him, since his rusty diarrhea color made people subconsciously avert their eyes, but I felt better knowing he was out of harm's way. ~ Francesca Zappia

We strive to further the occurrence of whatever we imagine will lead to Joy, and to avert or destroy what we imagine is contrary to it, or will lead to Sadness. ~ Baruch Spinoza

Therefore, this is a question of whether we, humans, can change our culture and begin to truly care for all Creation, nurture all Life and thereby avert our own extinction. As such, this is a deeply spiritual issue and we can begin to act today, regardless of age. But the good news is that this is not a question of whether we will change our culture, but a question of when. ~ Shailesh Rao

When you see a beautiful woman in the street, don't look at her hatefully as if you're about to kill her and don't exhibit excessive longing either; just give her a little smile, avert your eyes, and walk on [1974]. Taking ~ Orhan Pamuk

DEFENSE PESSIMISM: According to psychologist Julie Norem, positive thinking doesn't work for some people, who should try defensive pessimism. Here's how it works: in the face of an anxiety-producing task instead of psyching yourself up, psyche yourself down by consciously lowering your expectations. Rehearse everything that could go wrong, and devise strategies to avert every conceivable glitch. This will produce a sense of control and reduce anxiety, helping you to perform effectively. Or, maybe not. ~ Jon Winokur

Veterans report that service dogs help break their isolation. People will often avert their eyes when they see a wounded veteran. But when the veteran has a dog, the same people will come up and say, 'Hi' to pet the dog and then strike up a conversation. ~ Al Franken

At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of escaping it; the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and painful to think of the danger, since it is not in man's power to foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to think about what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally listens to the first voice, but in society to the second. ~ Leo Tolstoy

The sorrow in the man's grey eyes was a chill and warmth at once. It was no pleasure to know that one's death was going to cause so much grief to others when there was nothing that could be done to avert it; but all the same, he was grateful that they cared. ~ Elorin Leighton Grey

There's some sort of Soothsayers' Code that prevents soothsayers from soothsaying on a day-to-day basis, when it might, you know, avert this kind of ordinary, everyday tragedy. Something about the laws of causality being broken and the order of creation overturned, resulting in a world run amok, river running backwards, the run rising in the west, cats and dogs getting married ...
I don't know; don't ask me.
I don't pretend to understand ( ... ) But I guess it didn't rise to the standard required to break the Soothsayers' Code since no sooth was said. ~ Jacqueline Carey

The thinker who should turn aside from slang would resemble a surgeon who should avert his face from an ulcer or a wart. He would be like a philologist refusing to examine a fact in language, a philosopher hesitating to scrutinize a fact in humanity. ~ Victor Hugo

[The Universe] does not care, and even with all our science there are some disasters that we can not avert. All evil and good is petty before nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that can not be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is. ~ Vernor Vinge

Mass killing has very clearly not been eliminated, nor has the 'international community' developed a response that will avert it or bring it to a quick end. ~ Elliott Abrams

The struggle to avert catastrophic climate change is bigger than all the other struggles, whether it is slavery, democracy struggles, the woman's right to vote, and so on I would argue that if what is at stake is securing life as we know it, then there can be no bigger struggle that we face. ~ Kumi Naidoo

By measuring the proportion of children living with the same parents from birth and whether their parents report a good quality relationship we are driving home the message that social programmes should promote family stability and avert breakdown. ~ Iain Duncan Smith

One [event] is the discovery of the anesthetic properties of chloroform [in 1847] by James Simpson of Scotland. Following the reports of [William] Morton's demonstration [1846], he tried ether but, dissatisfied, searched for a substitute and came upon chlorophorm. He was an obstetrician. His use of anesthesia to alleviate the pains of childbirth was violently opposed by the Scottish clergy on the ground that pain was ordained by the scriptural command, "In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children", and that it was impious to attempt to avert it by anesthetic agents. And it was Simpson who stilled this opposition by his own famous quotation from scripture; he pointed out that when Eve was born, God cast Adam into deep sleep before performing upon him the notable costalectomy. Anesthesia was thus permissible by scriptural precedent. ~ Howard Wilcox Haggard

Propaganda campaigns in general have been closely attuned to elite interests. The Red scare of 1919-20 have served well to abort the union-organizing drive that followed World War I in the sell and other industries. The Truman-McCarthy Red scare helped inaugurate the Cold War and the permanent war economy, and it also served to weaken the progressive coalition of the New Deal years. The chronic focus on the plight of Soviet dissidents, on enemy killings in Cambodia, and on the Bulgarian Connection helped weaken the Vietnam syndrome, justify a huge arms buildup and a more aggressive foreign policy, and divert attention from upward redistribution of income that was the heart of Reagan's domestic economic program. The recent propaganda-disinformation attacks on Nicaragua have been needed to avert eyes from the savagery of the war in El Salvador and to justify the escalating U.S. investment in counterrevolution in Central America. ~ Noam Chomsky

To visit a modern Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) is to enter a world that for all its technological sophistication is still designed on seventeenth-century Cartesian principles: Animals are treated as machines - "production units" - incapable of feeling pain. Since no thinking person can possibly believe this anymore, industrial animal agriculture depends on a suspension of disbelief on the part of the people who operate it and a willingness to avert one's eyes on the part of everyone else. ~ Michael Pollan

To be an artist means never to avert one's eyes. ~ Akira Kurosawa

The New Deal is plainly an attempt to achieve a working socialism and avert a social collapse in America; it is extraordinarily parallel to the successive 'policies' and 'Plans' of the Russian experiment. Americans shirk the word 'socialism', but what else can one call it? ~ H.G.Wells

Maxilan, darling." Locke raised one eyebrow and smiled. "I knew you were driven, but I had no idea you could smoulder. Come, take me now! Jean won't mind; he'll avert his eyes like a gentleman. ~ Scott Lynch

This is the message of your life and my life - it's that nothing lasts. Heraclitus said it: Panta Rhei. All flows, nothing lasts. Not your enemies, not your fortune, not who you sleep with at night, not the books, not the house in Saint-Tropez, not even the children - nothing lasts. To the degree that you avert your gaze from this truth, you build the potential for pain into your life. Everything is this act of embracing the present moment, the felt presence of experience, and then moving on to the next felt moment of experience. It's literally psychological nomadism is what it is. ~ Terence McKenna

We called the new [fourth] quark the "charmed quark" because we were pleased, and fascinated by the symmetry it brought to the subnuclear world. "Charm" also means a "a magical device to avert evil," and in 1970 it was realized that the old three quark theory ran into very serious problems ... As if by magic the existence of the charmed quark would [solve those problems]. ~ Sheldon Lee Glashow

What astonishing changes a few years are capable of producing! I am told that even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror. From thinking proceeds speaking, thence to acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable & tremendous! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal & falacious! Would to God that wise measures may be taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend. ~ George Washington

Emily knew she was going to cry. She tried to avert it with a childhood trick that had sometimes worked before - pressing both thumbnails hard into the tender flesh beneath the nails of her index fingers, so that the self-inflicted pain might be greater than the ache of her swelling throat - but it was no use. ~ Richard Yates

I didn't want them to look at me after saying something about Black people, didn't want to have to avert my eyes so they didn't see me studying them, studying the entitlement they wore like another piece of clothing. ~ Jesmyn Ward

If, as a culture, we don't bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they don't - if they have loved too deeply, if they do wake each morning thinking, I cannot continue to live - well, then we pathologize their pain; we call their suffering a disease.
We do not help them: we tell them that they need to get help. ~ Cheryl Strayed

In Abercorn things are very profane, they do not celebrate Sundays and holy days. . . . It is a shame that Sundays are esteemed so little by most people in Christendom. Some of them drone it away loosely, others [the freethinkers] believe it is a day like other days, even though our dear God has promised to bless it if it is celebrated in the right way as, thank God, many people in Christendom and also among us can say from experience. May our dear God restrain all desecrations of the Sabbath and avert the judgments which are to come upon Christianity because of it. ~ Johann Martin Boltzius

To survive, to avert what we have termed future shock, the individual must become infinitely more adaptable and capable than ever before. We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots - religion, nation, community, family, or profession - are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust. It is no longer resources that limit decisions, it is the decision that makes the resources. ~ Alvin Toffler

What makes today's popular atheism so depressing is neither its conceptual boorishness nor its self-righteousness but simply its cultural inevitability. It is the final, predictable, and unsurprisingly vulgar expression of an ideological tradition that has, after many centuries, become so pervasive and habitual that most of us have no idea how to doubt its premises or how to avert its consequences. This is a fairly sad state of affairs, because those consequences have at times proved quite terrible. ~ David Bentley Hart

But it was too late. I had seen, and seeing then became the habit of my life. Never again was I able to avert my eyes or leave the veil that covers so many truths untouched. ~ Susan Speranza

It's not white versus black any more, it's haves versus have-nots. Unless the black middle-classes unite to promote the interests of the black underclass, tension between them is inevitable. What we, the black middle class have to do, is think of a strategy to avert that. ~ Henry Louis Gates

But the prisoner who had passed into the second stage of his psychological reactions did not avert his eyes any more. By then his feelings were blunted, and he watched unmoved. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Young man, I applaud your courage and your sincerity, but I'm afraid you need to learn a few lessons in political reality. It is simply impossible to expect the peoples of Britain and France to take up arms to deny the right of self-determination to ethnic Germans who are trapped in a foreign country they wish to leave. Against that single reality, all else fails. As for what Hitler dreams of doing in the next five years - well, we shall have to wait and see. He's been making these threats ever since Mein Kampf. My objective is clear: to avert war in the short term, and then to try to build a lasting peace for the future - one month at a time, one day at a time, if needs be. The worst act I can possibly commit for the future of mankind would be to walk away from this conference tonight. ~ Robert Harris

If we want to avert an impending calamity and a state of things which may transform this globe into an inferno, we should push the development of flying machines and wireless transmission of energy without an instant's delay and with all the power and resources of the nation. ~ Nikola Tesla

society has no choice but to take dramatic action to avert a collapse of civilization. ~ Naomi Klein

You speak as if you envied him."
"And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy."
Emma could say no more. They seemed to be within half a sentence of Harriet, and her immediate feeling was to avert the subject, if possible. She made her plan; she would speak of something totally different - the children in Brunswick Square; and she only waited for breath to begin, when Mr. Knightley startled her, by saying,
"You will not ask me what is the point of envy. - You are determined, I see, to have no curiosity. - You are wise - but I cannot be wise. Emma, I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment."
"Oh! then, don't speak it, don't speak it," she eagerly cried. "Take a little time, consider, do not commit yourself."
"Thank you," said he, in an accent of deep mortification, and not another syllable followed.
Emma could not bear to give him pain. He was wishing to confide in her - perhaps to consult her; - cost her what it would, she would listen. She might assist his resolution, or reconcile him to it; she might give just praise to Harriet, or, by representing to him his own independence, relieve him from that state of indecision, which must be more intolerable than any alternative to such a mind as his. - They had reached the house.
"You are going in, I suppose?" said he.
"No," - replied Emma - quite confirmed by the depressed manner in which he still spoke - "I should like to take ~ Jane Austen

Is it hard for the reader to believe that suicides are sometimes committed to forestall the committing of murder? There is no doubt of it. Nor is there any doubt that murder is sometimes committed to avert suicide. ~ Karl A. Menninger

I couldn't believe I'd so completely lost track of time, but I'd had monsters to fight, a police interrogation to deal with, a graveyard to search, my dad to send home, a mobster's brother's death to avert, a new job to learn, and an illegal auction to attend. It was a wonder I got anything done, really. ~ Karen Marie Moning

May I examine my mind in all actions and as soon as a negative state occurs, since it endangers myself and others, may I firmly face and avert it. ~ Dalai Lama

Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin. When I look back, it seems to me as if this almost miraculous change of inclination and will was the immediate suggestion of the guardian angel of my life - the last effort made by the spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars and ready to envelop me. ~ Mary Shelley

He was trying to pay close attention to his surroundings as a way to avert thought and anxiety. ~ David Foster Wallace