Deliberation Quotes

The guest thought long and hard and then said, with deliberation: Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper. ~ Terry Pratchett

When he began to move, it wasn't with the urgency she expected given their rushed beginnings. It was with a slow deliberation that would destroy her. ~ Cherrie Lynn

After much deliberation, and after reviewing the legal, public policy and civil-rights questions presented, I support marriage equality for same-sex couples and believe that DOMA should be repealed. ~ Bob Casey, Jr.

As neoliberalism wages war on public goods and the very idea of a public, including citizenship beyond membership, it dramatically thins public life without killing politics. Struggles remain over power, hegemonic values, resources, and future trajectories. This persistence of politics amid the destruction of public life and especially educated public life, combined with the marketization of the political sphere, is part of what makes contemporary politics peculiarly unappealing and toxic - full of ranting and posturing, emptied of intellectual seriousness, pandering to an uneducated and manipulable electorate and a celebrity-and-scandal-hungry corporate media. Neoliberalism generates a condition of politics absent democratic institutions that would support a democratic public and all that such a public represents at its best: informed passion, respectful deliberation, aspirational sovereignty, sharp containment of powers that would overrule or undermine it. ~ Wendy Brown

Tocqueville saw that the life of constant action and decision which was entailed by the democratic and businesslike character of American life put a premium upon rough and ready habits of mind, quick decision, and the prompt seizure of opportunities - and that all this activity was not propitious for deliberation, elaboration, or precision in thought. ~ Richard Hofstadter

Meaning coming from feeling, feeling coming from within, you absorb a massive amount of information, it goes through your whole body, a little bit of it floats up to your head where there is deliberation. You are conditioned by the way your whole body is responding to what is going on. ~ Bill Henson

Doomed and knew it, accepted the doom without either seeking or fleeing it. Loved her brother despite him, loved not only him but loved in him that bitter prophet and inflexible corruptless judge of what he considered the family's honor and its doom, as he thought he loved but really hated in her what he considered the frail doomed vessel of its pride and the foul instrument of its disgrace, not only this, she loved him not only in spite of but because of the fact that he himself was incapable of love, accepting the fact that he must value above all not her but the virginity of which she was custodian and on which she placed no value whatever: the frail physical stricture which to her was no more than a hangnail would have been. Knew the brother loved death best of all and was not jealous, would (and perhaps in the calculation and deliberation of her marriage did) have handed him the hypothetical hemlock. Was two months pregnant with another man's child which regardless of what its sex would be she had already named Quentin after the brother whom they both (she and her brother) knew was already the same as dead... ~ William Faulkner

The masters represent "the national interest," like those who applauded themselves for leading the country to war "after the utmost deliberation by the more thoughtful members of the community" had reached its "moral verdict. ~ Noam Chomsky

As long as we see ourselves as rational beings who can think logically and make carefully reasoned decisions about our daily lives, then education indeed should be about the promotion of reasoned deliberation and the gaining of knowledge that will enhance our ability to reason. But suppose this conception we have of ourselves and our ability to reason logically is simply wrong? ~ Roger C. Schank

Add a sprinkling of folly to your long deliberations. ~ Horace

Or I could go ahead alone and lie to Dad about it. After four seconds of intense deliberation, I was on my way. * ~ Ransom Riggs

Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years. ~ Edmund Burke

The Persians are very fond of wine ... It is also their general practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk; and then in the morning, when they are sober, the decision to which they came the night before is put before them by the master of the house in which it was made; and if it is then approved they act on it; if not, they set it aside. Sometimes, however, they are sober at their first deliberations, but in this case they always reconsider the matter under the influence of wine. ~ Herodotus

The Constitution is ... the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen ~ John Adams

LE CHIFFRE looked incuriously at him, the whites of his eyes, which showed all round the irises, lending something impassive and doll-like to his gaze. He slowly removed one thick hand from the table and slipped it into the pocket of his dinner-jacket. The hand came out holding a small metal cylinder with a cap which Le Chiffre unscrewed. He inserted the nozzle of the cylinder, with an obscene deliberation, twice into each black nostril in turn, and luxuriously inhaled the benzedrine vapour. ~ Ian Fleming

Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy. ~ Jesse Jackson

The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness. ~ Julia Ward Howe

Let your life continuously unfold & evolve your thought process, awareness & perceptions so that you can enjoy deeper understanding of the universe, your trueself & your aspects of life. Let each moment serve you suffiently & remind you of who you really are, your abilities & your divine purpose. Let everyday & every moment your life be a journy from unconsciousness to higher consciousness. Let you remain committed to aristocracy, goodness, kindness, to be a non-judgemental personality & to be the best version of yourself. Let prime objective of your life be to positive influence & affect the energy & feelings of your world in every moment. Let you be so much more than what you think you are & gain more & more opportunities to tune your body, mind & spirit to sustain your existence & remain fulfilled. Let your each choice, resolve, deliberation & action bring forth the joy, peace, aliveness & success you so deeply long for. Stay Sincere, Open, Affirmative & Blessed! ~ Rajesh Goyal

From this outer edge of his life, looking back, there was only one remorse, and that was only that he wished to go on living. Did all dying people feel this way, as if they had never lived? Did life seem that short, indeed, over and done before you took a breath? Did it seem this abrupt and impossible to everyone, or only to himself, here, now, with a few hours left to him for thought and deliberation? ~ Ray Bradbury

People are moderately more likely to favor approaches that involve reflection and deliberation. ~ Cass R. Sunstein

Moments of reflection occur with calm deliberation and careful thought. Imagine the thoughts which would come to you if you would simply allow them. By giving intentional consideration to a situation, you will gain clarity which you may not have achieved otherwise. ~ Susan C. Young

After much deliberation and research, we have defi ned employee engagement as: The degree to which a person commits to an organization and the impact that commitment has on how profoundly they perform and their length of tenure . It is important to note that engagement is not an on/off switch. It is a continuum, and we will have employees who fall in various places on the continuum. The key to engagement is to move employees further along that continuum over time, as seen in Figure 1.7 . ~ Anonymous

It is not that we would oust the little people from the world,' he said, 'in order that we, who are no more than one step upwards from their littleness, may hold their world forever. It is the step we fight for an not ourselves... We are here, Brothers, to what end? To serve the spirit and the purpose that has been breathed into our lives. We fight not for ourselves - for we are but the momentary hands and eyes of the Life of the world... This earth is no resting place... We fight not for ourselves but for growth - growth that goes on forever. Tomorrow, whether we live or die, growth will conquer through us. That is the law of the spirit for ever more. To grow according to the will of God! To grow out of these cracks and crannies, out of these shadows and darknesses, into greatness and the light! Greater,' he said, speaking with slow deliberation, 'greater, my Brothers! And then - still greater. To grow, and again - to grow. To grow at last into the fellowship and understanding of God. Growing... Till the earth is no more than a footstool... Till the spirit shall have driven fear into nothingness, and spread...' He swung his arm heavenward: - 'There! ~ H.G. Wells

If this fails to convince, I being out my secret weapon, announcing with portentous deliberation that Barbara. Damn. Walters. Does. Not. Drive. Heard of her?
This sort of accusatory conversion of course almost never goes down with native New Yorkers, people who, like Barbara Walters, live in that barbaric third world country that is Manhattan, and thus have yet to hear of newfangled American Advances like automobiles, happiness, and yards. ~ Sarah Vowell

Cold allowed precision, heat threw caution aside and plunged in rampantly. Cold was the process of deliberation and planning, heat the result of unbridled passion. Passion was fine, but only when controlled and channeled properly. ~ Steve Perry

The misapprehension about gender performativity is this: that gender is a choice, or that gender is a role, or that gender is a construction that one puts on, as one puts on clothes in the morning, that there is a 'one' who is prior to this gender, a one who goes to the wardrobe of gender and decides with deliberation which gender it will be today. ~ Judith Butler

We must curb ourfury, and allow sadness to diminish, and speak our stories with coolness and deliberation. ~ Matthew Tobin Anderson

In art, in taste, in life, in speech, you decide from feeling, and not from reason ... If we were obliged to enter into a theoretical deliberation on every occasion before we act, life would be at a stand, and Art would be impracticable. ~ William Hazlitt

There is a stream, a succession of states, or waves, or fields (or whatever you please to call them), of knowledge, of feeling, of desire, of deliberation, etc., that constantly pass and repass, and that constitute our inner life. ~ William James

Oranges and unicorns say the bells of St. . . ." She looked to Harriet for inspiration.
"Clunicorns?"
"Somehow I don't think so."
"Moonicorns."
Sarah cocked her head to the side. "Better," she judged.
"Spoonicorns? Zoomicorns."
And . . . that was enough. Sarah turned back to her book. "We're done now, Harriet."
"Parunicorns."
Sarah couldn't even imagine where that one had come from. But still, she found herself humming as she read.
Oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clements.
Meanwhile, Harriet was muttering to herself at the desk. "Pontoonicorns xyloonicorns . . ."
You owe me five farthings say the bells of St. Martins.
"Oh, oh, oh, I have it! Hughnicorns!"
Sarah froze. This she could not ignore. With great deliberation, she placed her index finger in her book to mark her place and looked up. "What did you just say?"
"Hughnicorns," Harriet replied, as if nothing could have been more ordinary. She gave Sarah a sly look. "Named for Lord Hugh, of course. He does seem to be a frequent topic of conversation. ~ Julia Quinn

Unfortunately, oppression does not automatically produce only meaningful struggle. It has the ability to call into being a wide range of responses between partial acceptance and violent rebellion. In between you can have, for instance, a vague, unfocused dissatisfaction; or, worst of all, savage infighting among the oppressed, a fierce love-hate entanglement with one another like crabs inside the fisherman's bucket, which ensures that no crab gets away. This is a serious issue for African-American deliberation.
To answer oppression with appropriate resistance requires knowledge of two kinds: in the first place, self-knowledge by the victim, which means awareness that oppression exists, an awareness that the victim has fallen from a great height of glory or promise into the present depths; secondly, the victim must know who the enemy is. He must know his oppressor's real name, not an alias, a pseudonym, or a nom de plume! ~ Chinua Achebe

Nowadays not even a suicide kills himself in desperation. Before taking the step he deliberates so long and so carefully that he literally chokes with thought. It is even questionable whether he ought to be called a suicide, since it is really thought which takes his life. He does not die with deliberation but from deliberation. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

We live in a world that assumes that the quality of a decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it ... We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible an depending as much time as possible in deliberation. We really only trust conscious decision making. But there are moments, particularly in times of stress, when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions can offer a much better means of making sense of the world. The first task of Blink is to convince you of a simple fact: decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

From these activists we can learn a crucial lesson: without citizens creating the institutions necessary for facilitating the growth of public deliberation, democracy will be a meaningless term. Without political leaders articulating this idea and acting upon it, public life and citizenship will continue to stagnate. ~ Kevin Mattson

The relatively thin distance runners ate more than you would expect (Cassidy loaded his tray with three scrambled eggs, two pancakes, sausage, nearly a quart of milk, and two doughnuts for later). A colossus like Mobley, however, simply ate with a vengeance. With unswerving deliberation and concentration, he sat and consumed. ~ John L. Parker Jr.

The sense of it may come with watching a flock of cedar waxwings eating wild grapes in the top of the woods on a November afternoon. Everything they do is leisurely. They pick the grapes with a curious deliberation, comb their feathers, converse in high windy whistles. Now and then one will fly out and back in a sort of dancing flight full of whimsical flutters and turns. They are like farmers loafing in their own fields on Sunday. Though they have no Sundays, their days are full of sabbaths. ~ Wendell Berry

However few people can successfully demonstrate a principle in common ethics when their deliberation is festered with emotionalism. ~ Truman Capote

Perhaps the greatest scientific deception of the IPCC is the abuse and misuse of computer climate models. They allow them to make their reports and deliberations appear credible. They allow them to bamboozle the public because computer models are a complete mystery to most people. ~ Timothy Ball

Haley and I would talk for hours about which member of 'N Sync we'd want to marry. After long deliberation, the answer was always J. C. Chasez. Joey
Fatone's last name was going to be "Fat One" no matter how great he was, and even though they didn't know at their
age that Lance Bass was gay outright, they sensed he'd make a better good friend and confidante. As for Justin Timberlake, well, JT was the coolest and hottest, but too flashy, so we couldn't trust him to be faithful. J. C. Chasez was the smart compromise. ~ Mindy Kaling

These two rational faculties may be designated the Scientific Faculty and the Calculative Faculty respectively; since calculation is the same as deliberation, and deliberation is never exercised about things that are invariable, so that the Calculative Faculty is a separate part of the rational half of the soul. ~ Aristotle.

Destroying oneself, he thought ruefully, should always be done at a deliberate pace. ~ Mark Beauregard

We Americans are world leaders and we must lead by example - particularly in times that require careful deliberation before any precipitous action - lest we fail to walk in the shoes of those we might injure. ~ Peter Yarrow

In all common ordinary cases, we see intuitively at first view what is out duty, what is the honest part. This is the ground of the observation, that the first thought is often the best. In these cases, doubt and deliberation is itself dishonesty; as it was in Balaam upon the second message. ~ Joseph Butler

He's one of those smart, drifty young people who, after certain deliberations, decides he wants to do Something in the Arts but won't, possibly can't, think in terms of an actual job; who seems to imagine that youth and brains and willingness will simply summon an occupation, the precise and perfect nature of which will reveal itself in its own time. ~ Michael Cunningham

Generals have gone to war with far less deliberation than she gave to the choice between the pear tart or the vanilla soufflé. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Passing too eagerly upon a provocation loses the guard and lays open the body; calmness and leisure and deliberation do the business much better. ~ Jeremy Collier

So with truth - there is a certain moment when one can say, this is the truth and here I put a dot, a stop, and I go to another thing. A judge has to put an end to a deliberation. But for a historian, there's never an end to the past. It can go on and on and on. ~ A. B. Yehoshua

The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. ~ Samuel Adams

The Red Cross in its nature, it aims and purposes, and consequently, its methods, is unlike any other organization in the country.It is an organization of physical action, of instantaneous action, at the spur of the moment; it cannot await the ordinary deliberation of organized bodies if it would be of use to suffering humanity,[ellipsis in original] it has by its nature a field of its own. ~ Clara Barton

Deliberation is a function of the many; action is the function of one. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Paradigms are not corrigible by normal science at all. Instead, as we have already seen, normal science ultimately leads only to the recognition of anomalies and to crises. And these are terminated, not by deliberation and interpretation, but by a relatively sudden and unstructured event like the gestalt switch. Scientists then often speak of the "scales falling from the eyes" or of the "lightning flash" that "inundates" a previously obscure puzzle, enabling its components to be seen in a new way that for the first time permits its solution. On other occasions the relevant information comes in sleep. No ordinary sense of the term 'interpretation' fits these flashes of intuition through which a new paradigm is born. Though such intuitions depend upon the experience, both anomalous and congruent, gained with the old paradigm, they are not logically or piecemeal linked to particular items of that experience as an interpretation would be. Instead, they gather up large portions of that experience and transform them to the rather different bundle of experience that will thereafter be linked piecemeal to the new paradigm but not to the old. ~ Thomas S. Kuhn

Achievement is the entirety of little deliberations, rehashed all the live long day. ~ Robert Collier

Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours. ~ Thucydides

Be not too slow in the breaking of a sinful custom; a quick, courageous resolution is better than a gradual deliberation; in such a combat he is the bravest soldier that lays about him without fear or wit. Wit pleads, fear disheartens; he that would kill Hydra had better strike off one neck than five heads: fell the tree, and the branches are soon cut off. ~ Francis Quarles

Marriage, I have always held, is a serious affair, to be entered into only after long deliberation and forethought, and suitability of tastes adn inclinations is the most important consideration. ~ Agatha Christie

230Our Internet debates ... tend to be dominated by a form of openness fundamentalism, whereby "openness" is seen as a fail-safe solution to virtually any problem. Instead of debating how openness may be fostering of harming innovation, promoting or demoting justice, facilitating or complicating deliberation - the kinds of debates we are likely to have about the uses of openness in the messy world that we live in - "openness" in networks and technological systems is presumed to be always good and its opposite ... is always bad. ~ Evgeny Morozov

I am mistaken if a single epigram included fails to preserve at least some faint thrill of the emotion through which it had to pass before the Muse's lips let it fall, with however exquisite deliberation. ~ Arthur Quiller-Couch

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests. ~ George Washington

A bizarrerie of fires, cunabulum of light, it moved with a deft, almost dainty deliberation, phasing into and out of existence like a storm-shot piece of evening; or perhaps the darkness between the flares was more akin to its truest nature swirl of black ashes assembled in prancing cadence to the lowing note of desert wind down the arroyo behind buildings as empty yet filled as the pages of unread books or stillnesses between the notes of a song. ~ Roger Zelazny

Motives are symptoms of weakness, and supplements for the deficient energy of the living principle, the law within us. Let them then be reserved for those momentous acts and duties in which the strongest and best-balanced natures must feel themselves deficient, and where humility no less than prudence prescribes deliberation. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

No man must encroach upon my province, nor I upon his. He may advise me, moderately and without pertinaciousness, but he must not expect to dictate to me. He may censure me freely and without reserve; but he should remember that I am to act by my deliberation and not his. I ought to exercise my talents for the benefit of others; but that exercise must be the fruit of my own conviction; no man must attempt to press me into the service. ~ William Godwin

I've become convinced that our lives are shaped less by the mistakes we make than when we make them. There is less elasticity now. Less time to bounce back. And so I heed the urgent whisper and move with greater and greater deliberation. ~ Dani Shapiro

The more details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation. ~ William James

Mindfulness of self: personal moderation to escape mass consumerism Mindfulness of work: the balancing of work and leisure Mindfulness of knowledge: the cultivation of education Mindfulness of others: the exercise of compassion and cooperation Mindfulness of nature: the conservation of the world's ecosystems Mindfulness of the future: the responsibility to save for the future Mindfulness of politics: the cultivation of public deliberation and shared values for collective action through political institutions Mindfulness of the world: the acceptance of diversity as a path to peace This ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

A jury of inquest was impaneled, and after due deliberation and inquiry they returned the inevitable American verdict which has been so familiar to our ears all the days of our lives - "NOBODY TO BLAME. ~ Mark Twain

Cesar is not a philosophical man. His life has been one long flight from reflection. At least he is clever enough not to expose the poverty of his general ideas; he never permits the conversation to move toward philosophical principles. Men of his type so dread all deliberation that they glory in the practice of the instantaneous decision. They think they are saving themselves from irresolution; in reality they are sparing themselves the contemplation of all the consequences of their acts. Moreover, in this way they can rejoice in the illusion of never having made a mistake; for act follows so swiftly on act that it is impossible to reconstruct the past and say that an alternative decision would have been better. They can pretend that every act was forced on them under emergency and that every decision was mothered by necessity ~ Thornton Wilder

Industrial capitalism brought representative democracy, but with a weak public mandate and inert citizenry. The digital age offers a new democracy based on public deliberation and active citizenship. ~ Don Tapscott

Bra already forgotten, he was working on her pants, and he kissed every inch he bared, from her waist to her knees, then to her ankles, then her toes, one by one. he laid a path of kisses down on leg, then up the other, then he placed a long, lingering kiss at her center, through her panties, She was already wet for him.
Not that he hurried. All the impatience he'd shown earlier seemed to have evaporated. Doris could have crocheted a pair of panties in the amount of time it took Hunter to remove Gabi's.
She squirmed under him. "I thought they teach speed in the military."
"When warranted. There are times that call for careful deliberation."
"You're going to deliberate me to death," she warned, just as he finally parted her hot flesh, a move that immediately silenced her.
But he didn't touch her further. He blew on her clit.
She nearly jackkifed off the couch. He pushed her knees up until her heels touched her butt, then he pushed her knees out until she was spread wide open just inches from his face.
And then he just looked.
Good grief. What was there to look at?
"Touch me!" she snapped when she couldn't stand the suspense any longer. "Touch me, you torturous bastard. That's an order."
He laughed deeply and heartily. "And what are you going to do if I don't?"
"I'll arrest you."
"I think that's what they call an abuse of power." His eyes glinted darkly. "But the idea of handcuffs does have considerable merit. ~ Dana Marton

That is neoliberal democracy in a nutshell: trivial debate over minor issues by parties that basically pursue the same pro-business policies regardless of formal differences and campaign debate. Democracy is permissible as long as the control of business is off-limits to popular deliberation or change; i.e. so long as it isn't democracy. ~ Noam Chomsky

Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance. ~ Michel De Montaigne

It might feel, at least to some of us, that our opinions about issues such as abortion and the death penalty are the products of careful deliberation and that our specific moral acts, such as deciding to give to charity or visit a friend in the hospital - or for that matter, deciding to shoplift or shout a racist insult out
of a car window - are grounded in conscious decision-making. But this is said to be mistaken. As Jonathan Haidt argues, we are not judges; we are lawyers, making up explanations after the deeds have been done. Reason is impotent. "We celebrate rationality," agrees de Waal, "but when push comes to shove we assign it little weight. ~ Paul Bloom

In Plato's Republic, Socrates expresses great fear about democracy because it is, in his mind, synonymous with freedom. The result is tyranny. But modern times have brought us a different understanding of democracy as an ideal. It is how to give the appearance of democracy yet deny it in practice, ensuring that democracy in its false form gives consent by the people to a small group, the oligarchs. This is accomplished through a combination of the people's silence and a rigged system that changes a working democracy of public participation and deliberation to a charade. ~ Noam Chomsky

I have seen slower people than I am and more deliberate ... and even quieter, and more listless, and lazier people than I am. But they were dead. ~ Mark Twain

Deliberation is not a particular type of speech, but a political act of collective decision-making in consideration of consequences. ~ F. David Mathews

Opportunity is lost by deliberation. ~ Publilius Syrus

When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities. ~ David Hume

He who acts under an emotional impulse also acts. What distinguishes an emotional action from other actions is the valuation of input and output. Emotions disarrange valuations. Inflamed with passion, man sees the goal as more desirable and the price he has to pay for it as less burdensome than he would in cool deliberation. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Pimps make the best librarians. Psycho killers, the worst. Ditto conmen. Gangsters, gun runners, bank robbers – adept at crowd control, at collaborating with a small staff, at planning with deliberation and executing with contained fury – all possess the librarian's basic skill set. Scalpers and loan sharks certainly have a role to play. But even they lack that something, the je ne sais quoi, the elusive it. What would a pimp call it? Yes: the love. ~ Avi Steinberg

Though they play an important role in the early stages, the techniques should not be too mechanical, complex, or restrictive. Remember, you are expressing the techniques and not doing the techniques. When attacked, your response is not technique 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
rather you simply move in like sound and echo, without any deliberation. React as when I throw something to you, you catch it. Nothing else. ~ Bruce Lee

I am a congenital optimist about America, but I worry that American democracy is exhibiting fatal symptoms. DC has become an acronym for Dysfunctional Capital: a swamp in which partisanship has grown poisonous, relations between the White House and Congress have paralyzed basic functions like budgets and foreign agreements, and public trust in government has all but disappeared. These symptoms are rooted in the decline of a public ethic, legalized and institutionalized corruption, a poorly educated and attention-deficit-driven electorate, and a 'gotcha' press - all exacerbated by digital devices and platforms that reward sensationalism and degrade deliberation. Without stronger and more determined leadership from the president and a recovery of a sense of civic responsibility among the governing class, the United States may follow Europe down the road of decline. ~ Graham Allison

The possible solutions to a given problem emerge as the leaves of a tree, each node representing a point of deliberation and decision. ~ Niklaus Wirth

These people came into the world and left it bound to their soil, proliferating on their own dung-hills with slow deliberation like the uncomplicated soul of trees which scatter their seed about their feet, with little conception of any larger world beyond the dun rocks among which they vegetated. ~ Emile Zola

government is legitimate not so much because it represents the 'general will', but because its policies are, ideally and counterfactually, the result of the public deliberation of all who are concerned by the decision ~ Frederic Vandenberghe

It is graceful in a man to think and to speak with propriety, to act with deliberation, and in every occurrence of life to find out and persevere in the truth. On the other hand, to be imposed upon, to mistake, to falter, and to be deceived, is as ungraceful as to rave or to be insane. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

I get to the back of the house, I damn near tear the door off the hinges. It isn't an act of fury, fury isn't part of it anymore. It's more deliberate than fury yet more instinctive than deliberation. ~ Steve Erickson

He is greatly honored by the time we take to weigh with mature deliberation matters having to do with his service, as are all those with which we deal. ~ Vincent De Paul

What do we tell our children? Haste makes waste. Look before you leap. Stop and think. Don't judge a book by its cover. We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible and spending as much time as possible in deliberation. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

We pass our life in deliberation, and we die upon it. ~ Pasquier Quesnel

We fish rest quietly, on all sides supported, within an element which all the time accurately and unfailingly evens itself out. An element which may be said to have taken over our personal experience, in as much as, regardless of individual shape and whether we be flat fish or round fish, our weight and body and calculated according to the quantity of our surroundings which we displace ... We run no risks. For our changing of place in existence never creates, or leaves after it, what man calls a way, upon which phenomenon - in reality no phenomenon but an illusion - he will waste inexplicable passionate deliberation. Man, in the end, is alarmed by the idea of time, and unbalanced by incessant wanderings between past and future. ~ Karen Blixen

As any organizer of focus groups will tell you, people's views on highly emotional subjects, from immigration to abortion to drugs, will change just 30 minutes into a face-to-face discussion with people of differing views, provided that they are all given the same information and ground rules that enforce civility. One of the problems of pluralism, then, is the assumption that interests are fixed and that the role of the legislator is simply to act as a transmission belt for them, rather than having his own views that can be shaped by deliberation. ~ Anonymous

Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on. ~ Ambrose Bierce

The example of changing a constitution by assembling the wise men of the state, instead of assembling armies, will be worth as much to the world as the former examples we had give them. The constitution, too, which was the result of our deliberation, is unquestionably the wisest ever yet presented to men. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Study without reflection is a waste of time; reflection without study is dangerous. ~ Confucius

The cerebral processing of that visceral input as a signal of death was accurate. Without the kinds of therapy that had been developed over the decades, this cancer would have been fatal. Hope, then, is constructed not just from rational deliberation, from the conscious weighing of information; it arises as an amalgam of thought and feeling, the feelings created in part by neural input from the organs and tissues. ~ Jerome Groopman

I have argued in favor of a reformulation of First Amendment law. The overriding goal of the reformulation is to reinvigorate processes of democratic deliberation, by ensuring greater attention to public issues and greater diversity of views. ~ Cass Sunstein

A product should be made intentionally ~ Sunday Adelaja

no mathematical formula or econometric estimate can tell us exactly what tax rate ought to be applied to what level of income. Only collective deliberation and democratic experimentation can do that. ~ Thomas Piketty

With many countries on the verge of redefining a basic social institution, What Is Marriage? issues an urgent call for full deliberation of what is at stake. The authors make a compelling secular case for marriage as a partnership between a man and a woman, whose special status is based on society's interest in the nurture and education of children. ~ Mary Ann Glendon

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent. ~ Samuel Johnson

I am sorry they began their deliberations by so abominable a precedent as that of tying up the tongues of their members. Nothing can justify this example but the innocence of their intentions and ignorance of the value of public discussions. I have no doubt that all their other measures will be good and wise. It is really an assembly of demigods. ~ Thomas Jefferson