Permissive Quotes

No men were allowed, and a nurse who smuggled one in would be dismissed if she was caught. Student nurses could not marry. All this was to repress our sexuality, yet we were dressed up like sex kittens. With exquisite irony, in today's permissive society, when anything goes and nurses can do whatever they like sexually, the uniform has changed beyond all recognition, and the average nurse now looks like a sack of potatoes tied in the middle, often wearing trousers rather than sexy black stockings. ~ Jennifer Worth

The student who invades an administration building, roughs up a dean, rifles the files and issues 'non-negotiable demands' may have some of his demands met by a permissive university administration. But the greater his 'victory' the more he will have undermined the security of his own rights. ~ Richard M. Nixon

It was monks who first taught the art of reading in silence. During the Dark Ages. Augustine, perhaps, was first. And silence was a tongue Elena understood. Silence was her idiom for support and caring. Silence was permissive and contemplative and nonconfrontational and there was melody to it. It was both earth and ether. ~ Rick Moody

Where are you going?"
"Out. Like you."
He raised an eyebrow, but he didn't press for more information. "One should always make one's own mistakes, instead of the mistakes of others, amira."
"Out like me, then."
"Dressed like that?"
"And what's wrong with it?"
"It looks like you chose the pieces by throwing darts. And you are terrible at darts. Besides, it's much too short." He pointed vaguely toward my ankles and winked. "The whole world can see the top of your foot. You look like a hussy."
I grabbed my skirt and flashed him my knees. He pretended to swoon. "Don't worry. This is late Victorian, not early. More permissive. ~ Heidi Heilig

Shara was aware throughout that they were playing reversed roles, considering their nationalities: for she was the staunch, mistrustful conservative, zealously advocating the proper way of living and building a disciplined, useful life; and he was the permissive libertine, arguing that if someone wished to do something, and if it hurt no one, and moreover if they had the money to pay for it, then why should anyone interfere? ~ Robert Jackson Bennett

Parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done. I tried to find the balance between the strict, traditional Chinese way I was raised, which I think can be too harsh, and what I see as a tendency in the West to be too permissive and indulgent. If I could do it all again, I would, with some adjustments. ~ Amy Chua

On, those ever-changing moods of Moscow! How swiftly they go from black to white, from one extreme to another, from friendship to accusations, from adoration to hatred, from the permissive 'da' to that annihilating 'nyet.' Those eternal swings from a thaw to a freeze, whims that disregard their own rules, norms, and regulations! ~ Svetlana Alliluyeva

There are things I'm doing with 'The After' that would've never flown on 'The X-Files' and on network television, so it's more permissive. That's not to say that you want to abuse that. I think that a show like 'The X-Files' actually worked better as a network show with the restraints put on it, the censorship that was applied. ~ Chris Carter

I love America, it's a much more permissive place. ~ Amy Winehouse

My parents were very permissive when it came to animals. As long as we earned the money to buy them and built whatever structure it was they were going to live in, we could have any kind of pet we wanted. They would have let us have a rhinoceros if we could have afforded it. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to
present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a
candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion
and/or euthanasia. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

But then why is it so terrible for me to be with the girl I love? Everyone one is permitted to have what they want, express their love as they please, without fear of harassment, ostracism, persecution, or even the law. Even emotionally abusive, adulterous relationships are often tolerated, despite the harm they cause others. In our progressive, permissive society, all these harmful, unhealthy types of "love" are allowed
but not ours. ~ Tabitha Suzuma

No one can learn tolerance in a climate of irresponsibility, which does not produce democracy. The act of tolerating requires a climate in which limits may be established, in which there are principles to be respected. That is why tolerance is not coexistence with the intolerable. Under an authoritarian regime, in which authority is abused, or a permissive one, in which freedom is not limited, one can hardly learn tolerance. Tolerance requires respect, discipline, and ethics. ~ Paulo Freire

A streak of Puritanism runs deep within American society. Permissive and pioneering as we may be on the one hand, we are strict and conservative on the other. As much as we may be a country of mavericks and entrepreneurs, we are also a country of finger waggers and name-callers. As much as we may be a country of compassion for the underdog, we are also a country that believes in self-reliance. ~ Edward M. Hallowell

Permissiveness cannot sustain true liberty for long ... In Sodom they probably had absolute free speech, but nothing worth saying! On the other hand, an otherwise permissive society, which tolerates almost everything, usually will not tolerate speech that challenges its iniquity. Evil is always intolerantly preoccupied with its own perpetuation. ~ Neal A. Maxwell

In Amsterdam there lives a maid (Mark well what I do say) In Amsterdam there lives a maid. And she is the mistress of her trade: I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid! A-roving, a-roving, since roving's been my ru-eye-in, I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid! British seaman's songearly seventeenth centuryMost seamen's songs and chanties, from the sixteenthcentury on, were highly "permissive" when read aright.They were much bowdlerised in the nineteenth century,and many lost their original honesty and delight. Thisone, innocent except to the seamen's ears, survived.("Torove," is the sailor's term for the weft in canvas. It means"to insert" - "to pass through." "Trade," in English, hasalways had a sexual connotation.) ~ Tristan Jones

this approach was permissive only in the sense that all feelings were permitted. For example, "I can see that you're having fun making designs in the butter with your fork." But that doesn't mean that you have to permit a child to behave in a way that's unacceptable to you. As you remove the butter, you can also let the young "artist" know that "Butter is not for playing with. If you want to make designs, you can use your clay. ~ Adele Faber

We live in far too permissive a society. Never before has pornography been this rampant. And those films are so badly lit! ~ Woody Allen

Growing terrorism, permissive societies, democracy collapsing through lack of law and order. If things continue on their present track, the disintegration of Western societies will occur much sooner than you think under the hammer blows of fascism and communism. Freedom is not something that does not have a breaking point, and your enemies would like you to reach that point. ~ Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

You have to listen to your own voice. Not your heart, not your instincts, not any of that self-permissive psycho-babble stuff. No, none of that. If it was just about instincts and bright ideas it wouldn't need to be a voice. It's about words. You hear them, read them, then you write. But mostly read. Read the bloody poems. ~ Fleur Adcock

Jesus indicated that there will be a permissive society just before He comes back ... the world today is on an immoral binge such as has not been known since the days of Rome. We are in a hedonistic society, and what we are seeing is human nature expressing itself without God. ~ Billy Graham

By no amount of agile exercising of a wistful imagination could my mother have been called lenient. Generous she was; indulgent never. Kind, yes, permissive, never. In her world, people she accepted paddled their own canoes, pulled their own weight, put their own shoulders to their own plows and pushed like hell. ~ Maya Angelou

Most people who refer to an epidemic of permissive parenting just assume that this is true, that everyone knows it, and therefore that there's no need to substantiate that claim. My efforts to track down data -- by combing both scholarly and popular databases as well as sending queries to leading experts in the field -- have yielded absolutely nothing. I'm forced to conclude that no one has any idea how many parents could be considered permissive, how many are punitive, and how many are responsive to their children's needs without being permissive or punitive. (The tendency to overlook that third possibility is a troubling and enduring trend in its own right.) In short, there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim that permissiveness is the dominant style of parenting in our culture, or even that it's particularly common. ~ Alfie Kohn

The morality taught by Paul and demonstrated by his converts was in stark contrast to the old, permissive morality of the ancient world. It was unconventional: It showed a love of man irrespective of his race, showed forgiveness instead of resentment for wrong, joy instead of grim endurance of adversity or oppression. ~ John Charles Pollock

When you are very pretty, people tend to remark on your looks. They smile at you more easily. They are more permissive of your faults. Soon, you come to believe that your prettiness matters, and that you are better because you are pretty, and that all it takes to get through life is a batting of your eyelashes and a twisting of your hair around your little finger, and that you can scream and pout and shout and tease because everyone will still like you anyway because you are so unbelievably pretty. This is what many very pretty people think.
Beware, then, for this is how monsters are made. ~ Adam Gidwitz

Darling found that permissive parents don't actually learn more about their child's lives. "Kids who go wild and get in trouble mostly have parents who don't set rules or standards. Their parents are loving and accepting no matter what the kids do. But the kids take the lack of rules as a sign their parents don't actually care - that their parent doesn't really want this job of being the parent. ~ Po Bronson

The mystery of God's providence is a most sublime consideration. It is easy to let our reason run away with itself. It is at a loss when it attempts to search into the eternal decrees of election or the entangled mazes and labyrinths in which the divine providence walks. This knowledge is too wonderful for us. Man can be very confident that God exercises the most accurate providence over him and his affairs. Nothing comes to pass without our heavenly Father. No evil comes to pass without his permissive providence, and no good without his ordaining providence to his own ends. ~ Ezekiel Hopkins

I love America because it is a confused, chaotic mess - and I hope we can keep it this way for at least another thousand years. The permissive society is the free society. ~ Edward Abbey

It is as if, in today's permissive society, transgressive violations are allowed only in a "privatized" form, as a personal idiosyncrasy deprived of any public, spectacular, or ritualistic dimension. We can thus publicly confess all our weird private practices, but they remain simply private idiosyncrasies. Perhaps we should also invert here the standard formula of fetishistic disavowal: "I know very well (that I should obey the rules), but nonetheless ... (I occasionally violate them, since this too is part of the rules)." In contemporary society, the predominant stance is rather: "I believe (that repeated hedonistic transgressions are what make life worth living), but nonetheless ... (I know very well that these transgressions are not really transgressive, but are just artificial coloring serving to re-emphasize the grayness of social reality). ~ Slavoj Zizek

Authentic love is obviously something good. When we love we become most fully human. But people often consider themselves loving when actually they are possessive or manipulative. People sometimes treat others as objects to satisfy their own needs. How easy it is to be deceived by the many voices in our society that advocate a permissive approach to sexuality, without regard for modesty, self-respect or the moral values that bring quality into human relationships! This is worship of a false god; instead of bringing life, it brings death. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Stop ... stop, that's the next generation of fans ... How dare you pass judgment on those 12-year-old girls who like vampires! They need to be encouraged because in six years they'll be 18-year-old girls who like vampires and are into all sorts of goth-permissive and whatnot. Don't Poo-poo it. There's a plan, and it's working. ~ Kevin Smith

The notion that Western religions are more rigid than those of Asia is overdrawn. Ours is the most permissive society history has ever known - almost the only thing that is forbidden now is to forbid - and Asian teachers and their progeny play up to this propensity by soft-pedaling Hinduism's, Buddhism's, Sufism's rules. ~ Huston Smith

A resource-rich world is more permissive, with more
opportunities for innovation, Vermeij argues. ~ Daniel W. McShea

I can't for the life of me see that by being permissive you actually assist anyone. ~ Jenny Shipley

We too worried about being permissive. But gradually we began to realize that this approach was permissive only in the sense that all feelings were permitted. ~ Adele Faber

If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments. ~ Zig Ziglar

It is an almost infallible rule that the more permissive a person is on social and moral issues the more in favour they are of strict gun control. ~ Michael Coren

The permissive society has been allowed to become a dirty phrase. A better phrase is the civilised society. ~ Roy Jenkins

[Satan] has hundreds of agents writing pornographic literature and producing sex movies to pollute [the mind]. He has intellectuals in high positions teaching a hedonistic and permissive philosophy ... They lack an anchor for their real self. ~ Billy Graham

A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources. ~ B.F. Skinner

It's the strangest thing about this church - it is obsessed with sex, absolutely obsessed. Now, they will say we, with our permissive society and rude jokes, are obsessed. No. We have a healthy attitude. We like it, it's fun, it's jolly; because it's a primary impulse it can be dangerous and dark and difficult.
It's a bit like food in that respect, only even more exciting. The only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese, and that in erotic terms is the Catholic Church in a nutshell. ~ Stephen Fry

Turkey has in interest in finding agreement on more permissive visa requirements, it wants to be recognized as a safe country of origin and it wants to finally return to constructive EU accession negotiations. We Europeans decide all of those things together. ~ Martin Schulz

True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace. ~ Pope John Paul II

The gait most congenial to agrarian thought and sensibility is walking. It is the gait best suited to paying attention, most conservative of land and equipment, and most permissive of stopping to look or think. Machines, companies, and politicians "run". Farmers studying their fields travel at a walk. ~ Wendell Berry

Oh, those lapses, darling. So many of us walk around letting fly with "errors." We could do better, but we're so slovenly, so rushed amid the hurly-burly of modern life, so imprinted by the "let it all hang out" ethos of the sixties, that we don't bother to observe the "rules" of "correct" grammar.

To a linguist, if I may share, these "rules" occupy the exact same place as the notion of astrology, alchemy, and medicine being based on the four humors. The "rules" make no logical sense in terms of the history of our language, or what languages around the world are like.

Nota bene: linguists savor articulateness in speech and fine composition in writing as much as anyone else. Our position is not - I repeat, not - that we should chuck standards of graceful composition. All of us are agreed that there is usefulness in a standard variety of a language, whose artful and effective usage requires tutelage. No argument there.

The argument is about what constitutes artful and effective usage. Quite a few notions that get around out there have nothing to do with grace or clarity, and are just based on misconceptions about how languages work.

Yet, in my experience, to try to get these things across to laymen often results in the person's verging on anger. There is a sense that these "rules" just must be right, and that linguists' purported expertise on language must be somehow flawed on this score. We are, it is said, permissive - perhaps a ~ John McWhorter

Every first-rate editor I have ever heard of reads, edits and rewrites every word that goes into his publication ... Good editors are not 'permissive'; they do not let their colleagues do 'their thing'; they make sure that everybody does the 'paper's thing.' A good, let alone a great editor is an obsessive autocrat with a whim of iron, who rewrites and rewrites, cuts and slashes, until every piece is exactly the way he thinks it should have been done. ~ Peter Drucker