Being An Asshat Quotes

If the first words out of your mouth are to cry 'political correctness!', … chances are very, very high that you are in fact part of the problem. ~ N.K. Jemisin

When your own thoughts are forbidden, when your questions are not allowed and our doubts are punished, when contacts with friendships outside of the organization are censored, we are being abused, for the ends never justify the means. When our heart aches knowing we have made friendships and secret attachments that will be forever forbidden if we leave, we are in danger. When we consider staying in a group because we cannot bear the loss, disappointment and sorrow our leaving will cause for ourselves and those we have come to love, we are in a cult ... If there is any lesson to be learned it is that an ideal can never be brought about by fear, abuse, and the threat of retribution. When family and friends are used as a weapon in order to force us to stay in an organization, something has gone terribly wrong. ~ Deborah Layton

Young children are for the most part just and moral. They love preachy stories because they do in fact understand that actions have consequences. Yet they turn to adults for the mercy and subtlety that they themselves can't yet summon. And who can blame them? They are still little and vulnerable, uncompromising to a fault. . . . they want an adult's protection from their own rough justice. This, I think, is the one true story of early childhood, the yin and yang of being a small person.

It's confusing emotional terrain for children to inhabit, and we must guide them gently through it. Is it intimacy you want, or freedom? Protection or power? Childhood is a kind of enslavement, but it's a liberation, too. Young children's emotions are all about this basic conflict. Feed me. Hold me. Comfort me. Fix me. I hate you! I can do it myself. ~ Erika Christakis

I look at an audience kind of like meeting my in-laws for the first time. You want to be yourself, but you still want to be somebody that they like. When I go on the stage each night, I try my best to outguess my audience. ~ B.B. King

If you really believe the number one priority of our government is the protection of our people, then the idea of being defenseless against an intercontinental ballistic missile or any other type of weapon system that puts us in jeopardy is not acceptable. ~ Don Nickles

I don't have a lot of pressure on myself to be successful. I'm more of an artist. I just try to make myself more a part of the most beautiful painting as possible. And enjoy it. ~ Dean Potter

Grades really cover up failure to teach. A bad instructor can go through an entire quarter leaving absolutely nothing memorable in the minds of his class, curve out the scores on an irrelevant test, and leave the impression that some have learned and some have not. But if the grades are removed the class is forced to wonder each day what it's really learning. The questions, What's being taught? What's the goal? How do the lectures and assignments accomplish the goal? become ominous. The removal of grades exposes a huge and frightening vacuum. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

Some Americans appear to believe that there would be no arts in America were it not for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an institution created in 1965. They cannot imagine things being done any other way, even though they were done another way throughout our country's existence, and throughout most of mankind's history. While the government requested $121 million for the NEA in 2006, private donations to the arts totaled $2.5 billion that year, dwarfing the NEA budget. The NEA represents a tiny fraction of all arts funding, a fact few Americans realize. Freedom works after all. And that money is almost certainly better spent than government money: NEA funds go not necessarily to the best artists, but to people who happen to be good at filling out government grant applications. I have my doubts that the same people populate both categories. ~ Ron Paul

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! ... The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. Rumi ~ Tara Brach

Lillian moved forward to meet her, studying her with curiosity. They had met before, on infrequent occasions, and she found it strange to see Dagny Taggart wearing an evening gown. It was a black dress with a bodice that fell as a cape over one arm and shoulder, leaving the other bare: the naked shoulder was the gown's only ornament. Seeing her in the suits she wore, one never thought of dagny taggart's body. The black dress seemed excessively revealing – because it was astonishing to discover that the lines of her shoulder were fragile and beautiful, and that the diamond band on the wrist of her naked arm gave her the most feminine of all aspects: the look of being chained. ~ Ayn Rand

It may be that the only reason childhood memories act on us so strongly is that, being the most remote we possess, they are the worst remembered and so offer the least resistance to that process by which we mold them nearer and nearer to an ideal which is fundamentally artistic, or at least nonfactual. ~ Gene Wolfe

Raising children with an emphasis on intrinsic rewards is not a technique, a method or a trick to get them to do what the parent wants them to by subtler means, but a way of life, a way of living with children with real respect for their intelligence and for their being. ~ Mamie Van Doren

The natural sciences are sometimes said to have no concern with values, nor to seek morality and goodness, and therefore belong to an inferior order of things. Counter-claims are made that they are the only living and dynamic studies ... Both contentions are wrong. Language, Literature and Philosophy express, reflect and contemplate the world. But it is a world in which men will never be content to stay at rest, and so these disciplines cannot be cut off from the great searching into the nature of things without being deprived of life-blood. ~ Cyril Norman Hinshelwood

I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes.

It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say "this is good, this is bad," you have already jumped onto the thought process.

It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.

And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.

That's the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being. ~ Osho

If you want to transform yourself into an upbeat, positive, energetic, and passionate human being, you can - by becoming what you say you are. Say that you're happy. Say that you're beautiful. Say that you can do whatever you need to do, whether it's losing weight or exercising more. Tell yourself you are what you want to become and you will become it. Then practice it. ~ Dolvett Quince

When we say there is a GOD, we mean that there is an intelligent designing cause of what we see in the world around us, and a being who was himself uncaused. ~ Joseph Priestley

Grinning, Cooper leaned over and kissed the top of my head. "I like your shampoo."
"You're being weird."
"I'm just horny as hell. You were naked in the next room and I wanted you naked in here."
"I'm not having sex with you."
"Tonight," he said with an exasperated sigh. "You keep forgetting to end your declarations with the word 'tonight. ~ Bijou Hunter

Being rational is extremely easy for those who try to recognize an absence of the soul. ~ Alpha Jan

All of my books have an element of a man who is in love with somebody and needs them desperately, not just for procreation but for being able to fully unbosom himself. He only feels comfortable discussing things with women. Which is funny, because 80 percent of readers are women! ~ Gary Shteyngart

Dude. Whoa."
I looked up to find Miles staring at me openmouthed in astonishment. Around him was a crowd of Vanaheim warriors. A few shifted and murmured uneasily.
The dark-haired girl in the bikini top moved forward. "They're . . . dead." A tear traced down her cheek.
It occurred to me then that while she, Miles, and the rest of Freya's chosen were technically warriors, they might never have seen an actual battle, let alone been in one.
"Well, yes, they're dead," I said carefully. "But if they'd succeeded in charbroiling and eating me, then I'd be dead. For good."
The girl looked at me blankly.
"Because I'm an einherji."
The girl still looked puzzled.
"If I die outside Valhalla, I stay dead. Unlike the dragons who, being mythical creatures, will vanish into Ginnungagap and eventually be reborn."
The girl's face cleared. "The dragons will be reborn?" She grabbed her friend's hands and started jumping up and down and squealing. "We'll have baby dragons here soon. Soooo cute!" She beamed at me. "Thank you so much for killing them! ~ Rick Riordan

Very often we claim to know something. We get an idea about what to do or not do, yet, for some reason our behavior doesn't change. At times, we just can't seem to do what we know. This is known as mental healing. Something has shifted in your thinking, but it has not reach the other levels of your being - the heart and the spirit. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

It was an experience being on a Beatles tour. They weren't very good. The singing was great, but the playing was a bit weak. ~ Robin Trower

An action from a confused and suffering being in the past doesn't represent what that being is forever; it is only an expression of that being's suffering. And if we cling to resentment over past hurts, we simply increase our own suffering. ~ Noah Levine

The reason why the musketeers regiment is so important for Porthos is that it is the only family he's ever known. There's an amazing amount of passion and pride for Porthos in being a musketeer. The Fleur De Lis that he wears on his shoulder guard means the world to him. That brotherhood. Fraternity, loyalty, equality - those things are very important to Porthos. ~ Howard Charles

'I Just Might Pray' by The David Mayfield Parade has an upbeat tempo without being sugary sweet. 'I Just Might Pray' is an enjoyable track and is easily listened to. As a side note, the video for 'I Just Might Pray' is absolutely adorable. ~ Ben Lovett

Peter of Jerusalem told his followers that they should be prepared to give an account (logos) of the hope that is in them (I Pt 3: 15). The logos that Peter referred to is, in the final instance, a Person, the eternal Word of God, the ultimate explanation of our life, our movement, and our being. ~ Francis George

I feel no shame at being found still owning a share when the bottom of the market comes ... I would go much further than that. I should say that it is from time to time the duty of a serious investor to accept the depreciation of his holdings with equanimity and without reproaching himself. ... An investor ... should be aiming primarily at long-period results, and should be solely judged by these. ~ John Maynard Keynes

It's the hard things that break; soft things don't break. It was an epiphany I had today and I just wonder why it took me so very, very long to see it! You can waste so many years of your life trying to become something hard in order not to break; but it's the soft things that can't break! The hard things are the ones that shatter into a million pieces! ~ C. JoyBell C.

Along with the sight-clouding dizziness, nausea makes me balk at that milk cream, separates me from the mother and the father who proffer it. "I" want none of that element, sign of their desire; "I" do not want to listen, "I" do not assimilate it. "I" expel it. But since the food is not an "other" for "me," who am only in their desire, I expel myself, I spit myself out, I abject myself with the same motion through which "I" claim to establish myself. That detail, perhaps an insignificant one, but one that they ferret out, emphasize, evaluate, that trifle turns me inside out, guts sprawling; it is thus that they see the "I" am in the process of becoming an other at the expense of my own death, During that course I'm which "I" become, I give birth to myself amid the violence of sobs, of vomit. Mute protest of the symptom, shattering the violence of a convulsion that, to be sure, is inscribed in a symbolic system, but in which, without either wanting or being able to become integrated in order to answer to it, it abreacts. It abjects ~ Julia Kristeva

Nervous states of the worst sort control me without pause. Everything that is not literature bores me and I hate it. I lack all aptitude for family life except, at best, as an observer. I have no family feeling and visitors make me almost feel as though I were maliciously being attacked. ~ Franz Kafka

But there is an unbounded pleasure to be had in the possession of a young, newly blossoming soul! It is like a flower, from which the best aroma evaporates when meeting the first ray of the sun; you must pluck it at that minute, breathing it in until you're satisfied, and then throw it onto the road: perhaps someone will pick it up! I feel this insatiable greed, which swallows everything it meets on its way. I look at the suffering and joy of others only in their relation to me, as though it is food that supports the strength of my soul. I myself am not capable of going mad under the influence of passion. My ambition is stifled by circumstances, but it has manifested itself in another way, for ambition is nothing other than a thirst for power, and my best pleasure is to subject everyone around me to my will, to arouse feelings of love, devotion and fear of me - is this not the first sign and the greatest triumph of power? Being someone's reason for suffering while not being in any position to claim the right - isn't this the sweetest nourishment for our pride? And what is happiness? Sated pride. If I considered myself to be better, more powerful than everyone in the world, I would be happy. If everyone loved me, I would find endless sources of love within myself. Evil spawns evil. The first experience of torture gives an understanding of the pleasure in tormenting others. An evil idea cannot enter a person's head without his wanting to bring it into reality: ideas are organic ~ Mikhail Lermontov

So how did Roe v. Wade help trigger, a generation later, the greatest crime drop in recorded history? As far as crime is concerned, it turns out that not all children are born equal. Not even close. Decades of studies have shown that a child born into an adverse family environment is far more likely than other children to become a criminal. And the millions of women most likely to have an abortion in the wake of Roe v. Wade - poor, unmarried, and teenage mothers for whom illegal abortions had been too expensive or too hard to get - were often models of adversity. They were the very women whose children, if born, would have been much more likely than average to become criminals. But because of Roe v. Wade, these children weren't being born. ~ Steven D. Levitt

Rome was not the first state of organized gangsterdom, nor was it the last; but it was the only one that managed to bamboozle posterity into an almost universal admiration. Few rational men admire the Huns, the Nazis or the Soviets; but for centuries, schoolboys have been expected to read Julius Caesar's militaristic drivel ("We inflicted heavy losses upon the enemy, our own casualties being very light") and Cato's revolting incitements to war. They have been led to believe that the Romans had attained an advanced level in the sciences, the arts, law, architecture, engineering and everything else. It is my opinion that the alleged Roman achievements are largely a myth; and I feel it is time for this myth to be debunked a little. What the Romans excelled in was bullying, bludgeoning, butchering and blood baths. Like the Soviet Empire, the Roman Empire enslaved peoples whose cultural level was far above their own. They not only ruthlessly vandalized their countries, but they also looted them, stealing their art treasures, abducting their scientists and copying their technical know-how, which the Romans' barren society was rarely able to improve on. No wonder, then, that Rome was filled with great works of art. But the light of culture which Rome is supposed to have emanated was a borrowed light: borrowed from the Greeks and the other peoples that the Roman militarists had enslaved. ~ Petr Beckmann

Contemplative prayer is not so much a type of prayer as something that should be a component of all prayer. It is the silence and space for stillness before God that supports genuine presence and openness to God . . . Sadly, it is this contemplative dimension that is most lacking from prayer. Communal prayer seldom leaves sufficient space for stillness before God in silence. Even liturgical prayer often leaves inadequate space for silence, and nonliturgical worship experiences are, of course, usually infamously devoid of silence. Intentional times of personal prayer are often rushed and reduced to the basics of petitions, intercession and possibly an expression or two of gratitude. All this is certainly worthy of being called prayer. But lacking the contemplative dimension, it is not holistic prayer and it will not be transformational. ~ David G. Benner

Sorrow and profound fatigue are at the heart of Dewey's silence. It had been his ambition to learn "exactly what happened in that house that night." Twice now he'd been told, and the two versions were very much alike, the only serious discrepancy being that Hickock attributed all four deaths to Smith, while Smith contended that Hickock had killed the two women. But the confessions, though they answered
questions of how and why, failed to satisfy his sense of meaningful design. The crime was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act; the victims might as well have been killed by lightning. Except for one thing: they had experienced prolonged terror, they had suffered. And Dewey could not forget their sufferings. Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger - with, rather, a measure of sympathy - for Perry Smith's life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another. Dewey's sympathy, however, was not deep enough to accommodate either forgiveness or mercy. He hoped to see Perry and his partner hanged - hanged back to back. ~ Truman Capote