Avowed Quotes

Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee ... ~ Howard Zinn

I avowed that I was not mad at God. In fact, I felt God's presence at that time more than I ever had. I was never angry, and that didn't make sense to many people. But I knew that God didn't do this. We as humans have free choice, and when people make bad choices, other humans suffer. It doesn't make sense, and we can ask why God didn't fix it or change it. The fact is we do not have the mind of God; as smart as we think we are, we know nothing in terms of what God knows. ~ Abby Rike

Its avowed purpose is to excite sexual desire, which, I should have thought, is unnecessary in the case of the young, inconvenient in the case of the middle aged, and unseemly in the old. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

When emotions turn and stay sour, when thoughts become cynical and judgmental, good and compassionate treatment is on the line. Helpers who become sour and cynical tend to begrudge their high need clients for their neediness. There is a risk that helpers become too well-practiced at taking a bleak view of those they have avowed to assist. There is a temptation to begin to blame clients for their failure to improve. If treatment ends pre-maturely, with either a client never returning to treatment or a helper 'firing' them out of frustration, there is a tendency for the client to take the fall. Of course what we are talking about here are signs of burnout. ~ Scott E. Spradlin

In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot–I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to anyone. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation."

Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantelpiece with his eyes fixed on her face, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than surprise. His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance of his mind was visible in every feature. He was struggling for the appearance of composure, and would not open his lips till he believed himself to have attained it. The pause was to Elizabeth's feelings dreadful. At length, with a voice of forced calmness, he said:

And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance."

I might as well inquire," replied she, "why with so evident a desire of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you lik ~ Jane Austen

This we can all bear witness to, living as we do plagued by unremitting anxiety . It becomes more and more imperative that the life of the spirit be avowed as the only firm basis upon which to establish happiness and peace. ~ Dalai Lama

The avowed goal of most college students today is preprofessional training or professional credentialing, even if they have no idea what their profession is likely to be. ~ Thomas Leitch

He himself, on the other hand, with characteristic humility, avowed his belief that if Providence should see fit to remove him, it would be because of his own unworthiness to perform its humblest mission here on earth. With all this difference of opinion as to the cause of his decline, there could be no question of the fact. His form grew emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over his heart with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

An avowed homosexual, that would never be accepted in hockey - never! Because it's a milieu where everyone is often naked. ~ Pat Burns

Love rather than fear ... this radical philosophy is coming from me, an avowed misanthrope ... surely there is hope for us all. ~ Bill Hicks

The creative side of the female operates imperceptibly: its province is the potential man. When its play is unrestricted the level of the race is raised. One can always gauge the level of a period by the status of its womankind. Something more than freedom and opportunity are here involved because Woman's true nature never expressed itself in demands. Like water, woman always finds her own level. And like water also, she mirrors faithfully all that passes in the soul of man. What is called truly feminine therefore is only the deceptive masquerade which the uncreative male blindly accepts as the real show. It is the flattering substitute which the thwarted female offers in self-defense. It is the homosexual game which Narcissus exacts. It is most flagrantly revealed when the partners are extremely masculine and feminine. It can be mimicked most successfully in the shadow play of the avowed homosexuals. It reaches its blind culmination in the Don Juan. Here the pursuit of the unattainable reaches the burlesk proportions of a Chaplinesque pursuit. The end is always the same: Narcissus drowning in his own image. ~ Henry Miller

Religion cannot sink lower than when somehow it is raised to a state religion ... It becomes then an avowed mistress. ~ Heinrich Heine

Possibly there are few imaginative writers who have not a leaning, secret or avowed, to the occult. The creative gift is in very close relationship with the Great Force behind the universe; for aught we know, may be an atom thereof. It is not strange, therefore, that the lesser and closer of the unseen forces should send their vibrations to it occasionally; or, at all events, that the imagination should incline its ear to the most mysterious and picturesque of all beliefs ~ Gertrude Atherton

Ren moved just a smidgen closer to me. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then…waited. When I opened my eyes, he was still staring at me. He really was waiting for permission. There was nothing, and I mean nothing I wanted more in the world at that moment than to be kissed by this gorgeous man. But, I ruined it. For some reason, I fixated on the word permission.
I nervously rambled, "What…umm…what do you mean you want my permission?"
He looked at me curiously, which made me feel even more panicky. To say I had no experience with kissing would be an understatement. Not only had I never kissed a boy before, I'd never even met a guy I wanted to kiss until Ren. So, instead of kissing him like I wanted to, I got flustered and started coming up with reasons to not do it.
I babbled, "Girls need to be swept off their feet, and asking permission is just…just…old-fashioned. It's not spontaneous enough. It doesn't scream passion. It screams old fogy. If you have to ask, then the answer is…no."
What an idiot! I thought to myself. I just told this beautiful, kind, blue-eyed, hunk of a prince that he was an old fogy.
Ren looked at me for a long moment, long enough for me to see the hurt in his eyes before he cleared his face of expression. He stood up quickly, formally bowed to me, and avowed softly, "I won't ask you again, Kelsey. I apologize for being so forward."
Then he changed into a tiger and quickly ran off into the jungle, leaving me alone to be ~ Colleen Houck

Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth. ~ Mary Shelley

Perhaps it would be better for science, that all criticism should be avowed. ~ Charles Babbage

To me Amazon is a story of a brilliant founder who personally drove the vision," says Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google and an avowed Amazon competitor who is personally a member of Amazon Prime, its two-day shipping service. "There are almost no better examples. Perhaps Apple, but people forget that most people believed Amazon was doomed because it would not scale at a cost structure that would work. ~ Brad Stone

Cant is always rather nauseating; but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it is the tribute paid by men of leather to men of God, and that the acting of the part of someone better than oneself may actually commit one to a course of behavior perceptibly less evil than what would be normal and natural in an avowed cynic. ~ Aldous Huxley

What the patriarch did early in the morning, after the family festivities, it will be well for the believer to do for himself before he rests tonight. Amid the cheerfulness of household gatherings, it is easy to slide into sinful levities, and to forget our avowed character as Christians. It ought not to be so - but so it is - that our days of feasting are very seldom days of sanctified enjoyment - but too frequently degenerate into unhallowed mirth ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I would like to say that, as the protester finished his shower, I was disturbed by the contradiction between my avowed political materialism and my inexperience with this brand of making, of poeisis, but I could dodge or dampen that contradiction via my hatred of Brooklyn's boutique biopolitics, in which spending obscene sums and endless hours on stylized food preparation somehow enabled the conflation of self-care and political radicalism. ~ Ben Lerner

They had never before avowed their inclination so openly, and Ethan, for a moment, had the illusion that he was a free man, wooing the girl he meant to marry. He looked at her hair and longed to touch it again, and to tell her that is smelt of the woods; but he had never learned to say such things. ~ Edith Wharton

Her ravings were so crowded with recriminations and insults and petitions, with weeping and caterwauling and wild expressions of love, that it seemed bewildering to Bob and Charley that Jesse remained there for minutes, let alone hours; yet he did. She was four inches taller than Jesse, a giant of a woman, but she made him seem even smaller, made him seem stooped and spiritless. She made him kiss her on the mouth like a lover and rub her neck and temples with myrtleberry oil as he avowed his affection for her and confessed his frailties and shortcomings. ~ Ron Hansen

I'm really not an avowed heterosexual. I'm no more proud of it than of being white or tall. ~ George Weinberg

I remain your pledged man," Tark avowed, touching a fist to his chest. "What are your orders?"
Jason turned to the stocky musician. "Do your best to help Galloran win this war."
"I swear it."
"And keep an eye on Rachel. See if you can get her to stop telling me she's going to see me again. I think she's jinxing us."
Rachel punched Jason's arm.
Tark eyed Rachel uncertainly. She saw a hint of disapproval in his gaze, along with a little wariness.
Jason smiled. "That's assault. Tark, take her out. ~ Brandon Mull

In those days, in Far Rockaway, there was a youth center for Jewish kids at the temple ... Somebody nominated me for president of the youth center. The elders began getting nervous, because I was an avowed atheist by that time ... I thought nature itself was so interesting that I didn't want it distorted like that. And so I gradually came to disbelieve the whole religion. ~ Richard P. Feynman

Mannerism is not character, and affectation is the avowed enemy of grace. Every dancer ought to regard his laborious art as a link in the chain of beauty, as a useful ornament for the stage, and this, in turn, as an important element in the spiritual development of nations. ~ August Bournonville

I was an avowed professional revolutionary by the time I was 15. ~ Boots Riley

A government with all this mass of favours to give or to withhold, however free in name, wields a power of bribery scarcely surpassed by an avowed autocracy, rendering it master of the elections in almost any circumstances but those of rare and extraordinary public excitement. ~ John Stuart Mill

True religion, indeed, is that which does not have to be avowed in order to provide the solace that at times ... if only rarely ... you cannot do without. ~ Italo Svevo

Never harbor regrets. Such useless emotions detract from an avowed purpose. Spare neither tears nor sentiment, which sap strength and energy. Rather, shake the dust of encumbering people and places from your feet and march bravely into the future. We are the women of the world, and we will not be denied. ~ Mary Daheim

Third Reich was a term that was never used by Adolf Hitler. The term 'Third Reich' is used by so-called scholars and news journalists (and Wikipedia posters) to hide the fact that Hitler called his regime 'Socialism.' Scholars, journalists (and wakipedia) cite no example of Hitler ever using the term 'Third Reich.' Other writers use the terms 'Nazi' and 'Fascist' and 'Third Reich' as if Hitler tossed them around all the time. Those terms were not used as self-identifiers by the self-avowed socialist Hitler. ~ Rex Curry

but we did not come into India, as they did, at the head of great armies, with the avowed intention of subjugating the country. We crept in as humble barterers, whose existence depended on the bounty and favour of the lieutenants of the kings of Delhi; and the 'generosity' we have shown was but a small acknowledgement of the favours his ancestors had conferred to our race. ~ William Dalrymple

Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue. On the other hand, when the manners of a nation are pure, when true religion and internal principles maintain their vigour, the attempts of the most powerful enemies to oppress them are commonly baffled and disappointed. . . .

[H]e is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy to God, I scruple not to call him an enemy to his country. Do not suppose, my brethren, that I mean to recommend a furious and angry zeal for the circumstantials of religion, or the contentions of one sect with another about their peculiar distinctions. I do not wish you to oppose any body's religion, but every body's wickedness. Perhaps there are few surer marks of the reality of religion, than when a man feels himself more joined in spirit to a true holy person of a different denomination, than to an irregular liver of his own. It is therefore your duty in this important and critical season to exert yourselves, every one in his proper sphere, to stem the tide of prevailing vice, to promote the knowledge of G ~ John Witherspoon

It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

You try getting any sympathy when you tell your best friends how much the self-avowed sadist broke your heart, how much pain she put you through. - Ivan E. Coyote to --------, 2004 (age 35) ~ David Eso

while people go on chatting about a million and one things
I mostly sit and observe with ascended understandings
as they bring up the topic of death and of a person dying
I listen quietly while often accidentally smiling
at the absurdity of anybody ever believing in death
I don't mean to be insensitive towards a body's last breath
a higher Reality laid bare, bodily expiration is of no account
with this revelation incalculable life fears we surmount
the Sage is notorious for finding strange things funny
giggling at horrors and ridiculous events not so sunny
sometimes a straight face is merely for show
but spy the glint in his eye about a truth you don't know
an unfounded assumption is that we only live once
not a Mystic throughout history has avowed this occurrence
Christian ones may not have mentioned being reborn again
they also didn't deny it - their teaching was kept plain
just as the Buddha intentionally avoided the God concept
ultimately not essential, under the rug reincarnation is swept ~ Jarett Sabirsh

Progress in human affairs, whether in science or in history or in society, has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests ~ Edward Hallett Carr

It is necessary above all that the citizens, who have rallied round the constitution, should be assured that the rights it guarantees will be respected with such a scrupulous fidelity as will reduce to despair its enemies, hidden or avowed. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

Proof then, has retreated in the face of belief. Science, once heralded as the arbiter of truth, has had its facade of objectivity punctured. Intellectuals may point to the uncertainty of Heisenberg, but generally this has more to do with the growing distrust of statistics and the knowledge that scientists in the pay of governments and multi-nationals are no more objective than their masters. Science, once the avowed enemy of religion, now sees books BT Christian physicists and Taoist mathematicians. Science sells washing powders and status symbols and comes in the form of icons of technological nostalgia. ~ Phil Hine

On Individualism:

"Because I say Republicans are stupid, and hold that liberty, equality, and fraternity are exploded bubbles, does not make me a socialist," Martin said with a smile. "Because I question Jefferson and the unscientific Frenchmen who informed his mind, does not make me a socialist. Believe me, Mr. Morse, you are far nearer socialism than I who am its avowed enemy."

"Now you please to be facetious," was all the other could say.

"Not at all. I speak in all seriousness. You still believe in equality, and yet you do the work of corporations, and the corporations, from day to day, are busily engaged in burying equality. And you call me a socialist, because I deny equality, because I affirm just what you live up to. The Republicans are foes to equality, though most of them fight the battle against equality with the very good word on their lips. In the name of equality they destroy equality. That is why I called them stupid. As for myself, I am an individualist, and individualism is the hereditary and eternal foe of socialism."

"But you frequent socialist meetings," Mr. Morse challenged.

"Certainly, just as spies frequent hostile camps. How else are you to learn about the enemy? Besides, I enjoy myself at their meetings. They are good fighters, and, right or wrong, they have read the books. Any one of them knows more about sociology and all the other ologies than the average captain of industry. Yes, I have been t ~ Jack London

The avowed aim of all utopian movements is to put an end to history and to establish a final and permanent calm. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Nothing in Chomsky's account acknowledges the difference between intending to kill a child, because of the effect you hope to produce on its parents (we call this "terrorism"), and inadvertently killing a child in an attempt to capture or kill an avowed child murderer (we call this "collateral damage"). In both cases a child has died, and in both cases it is a tragedy. But the ethical status of the perpetrators, be they individuals or states, could not be more distinct ... For Chomsky, intentions do not seem to matter. Body count is all. ~ Sam Harris

Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object of the American Union. ~ James Madison

He who would valiant be against all disaster; let him in constancy follow the Master. There's no discouragement shall make him once relent; his first avowed intent to be a pilgrim. ~ John Buchan

To escape the power of the unknown, to prove to yourself that you don't believe in it, you accept its spells. Like an avowed atheist who sees the Devil at night, you reason: He certainly doesn't exist; this is therefore an illusion, perhaps a result of indigestion. But the Devil is sure that he exists, and believes in his upside-down theology. What, then, will frighten him? You make the sign of the cross, and he vanishes in a puff of brimstone. ~ Umberto Eco

Avowed work, even when uncongenial, is far less trying to patience than feigned pleasure. ~ Philip Gilbert Hamerton

There are twelve good reasons for failure. The first one is the avowed intention of doing no more than one is paid to do, and the person who makes this avowal may see the other eleven by stepping before a looking glass. ~ Napoleon Hill

It's the homiest spot I ever saw-it's homier than home avowed Philippa Gorden, looking about her with delighted eyes. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Sometimes, two people are made for each other. They may come from opposite ends of the earth. Their nations may be sworn to destroy one another. They may be avowed enemies from the very beginning. And it doesn't matter. They belong together. ~ Caitlin Brennan

Although upon doctrines of grace our views differ from those avowed by Arminian Methodists, we have usually found that on the great evangelical truths we are in full agreement, and we have been comforted by the belief that Wesleyans were solid upon the central doctrines. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

It was also during my tenure of office that the Japanese Government agreed to the conclusion of a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and signed it, pursuing a policy in harmony with the avowed desire of the people. ~ Eisaku Sato

A girl's body was a prize. It had to be more than asked for. It had to be earned, worshipped, and avowed. ~ Leanna Renee Hieber