Provoke Quotes

Provoke your inner energy,Challenge yourself and you will achieve amazing things ~ Mohammed Sekouty

Narcissists provoke a fight, then blame you and then get mad at you when you get angry. ~ Tracy Malone

Ten years ago a book appeared in France called D'Une foi l'autre, les conversions a l'Islam en Occident. The authors, both career journalists, carried out extensive interviews with new Muslims in Europe and America. Their conclusions are clear. Almost all educated converts to Islam come in through the door of Islamic spirituality. In the middle ages, the Sufi tariqas were the only effective engine of Islamisation in Muslim minority areas like Central Asia, India, black Africa and Java; and that pattern is maintained today.

Why should this be the case? Well, any new Muslim can tell you the answer. Westerners are in the first instance seeking not a moral path, or a political ideology, or a sense of special identity - these being the three commodities on offer among the established Islamic movements. They lack one thing, and they know it - the spiritual life. Thus, handing the average educated Westerner a book by Sayyid Qutb, for instance, or Mawdudi, is likely to have no effect, and may even provoke a revulsion. But hand him or her a collection of Islamic spiritual poetry, and the reaction will be immediately more positive. It is an extraordinary fact that the best-selling religious poet in modern America is our very own Jalal al-Din Rumi. Despite the immeasurably different time and place of his origin, he outsells every Christian religious poet.

Islam and the New Millennium ~ Abdal Hakim Murad

As I work among my flowers, I find myself talking to them, reasoning and remonstrating with them, and adoring them as if they were human beings. Much laughter I provoke among my friends by so doing, but that is of no consequence. We are on such good terms, my flowers and I. ~ Celia Thaxter

Take one famous example: arguments about property destruction after Seattle. Most of these, I think, were really arguments about capitalism. Those who decried window-breaking did so mainly because they wished to appeal to middle-class consumers to move towards global exchange-style green consumerism, and to ally with labor bureaucracies and social democrats abroad. This was not a path designed to provoke a direct confrontation with capitalism, and most of those who urged us to take this route were at least skeptical about the possibility that capitalism could ever really be defeated. Many were in fact in favor of capitalism, if in a significantly humanized form. Those who did break windows, on the other hand, didn't care if they offended suburban homeowners, because they did not figure that suburban homeowners were likely to ever become a significant element in any future revolutionary anticapitalist coalition. They were trying, in effect, to hijack the media to send a message that the system was vulnerable -- hoping to inspire similar insurrectionary acts on the part of those who might be considering entering a genuinely revolutionary alliance; alienated teenagers, oppressed people of color, undocumented workers, rank-and-file laborers impatient with union bureaucrats, the homeless, the unemployed, the criminalized, the radically discontent. If a militant anticapitalist movement was to begin, in America, it would have to start with people like these: people who don't need to ~ David Graeber

The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply. ~ Samuel Johnson

Concern for the fate of the great rivers of the earth must lead us to reflect soberly on the model of development which our society is pursuing. A purely economic and technological understanding of progress, to the extent that it fails to acknowledge its intrinsic limitations and to take into consideration the integral good of humanity, will inevitably provoke negative consequences for individuals, peoples and creation itself. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Art is meant to provoke emotions, Avery. Its sole purpose is to arouse our senses, even if it disturbs. Even if it's ugly. Even if it fucking scares the living shit out of you. ~ Lara Adrian

Obviously the extremists want to provoke sectarian warfare, and I am struck by the fact that over a three-year period, leaders of the (Iraqi) communities have been quite resistant to this. The test is whether the political process continues. ~ Peter Rodman

Writing is a series of verbal suggestions designed to provoke a psychological reaction and an aesthetic experience. ~ Stewart Stafford

Some people write to please, to soothe, to console. Others to provoke, to challenge, to exasperate and infuriate. I've always found the second approach the more pleasing. ~ Edward Abbey

if someone merely wishes to provoke you, shake the dust from your feet and carry on. Fight only with a worthy opponent, and not with someone who uses trickery to prolong a war that is already over, as does sometimes happen. ~ Paulo Coelho

My garden does not whet the appetite; it satisfies it. It does not provoke thirst through heedless indulgence, but slakes it by proffering its natural remedy. Amid such pleasures as these have I grown old. ~ Epicurus

When Jennie, mother of Winston Churchill invited playwright George Bernard Shaw to lunch, he telegraphed: "Certainly not. What have I done to provoke such an attack on my well-known habits?" She replied, "Know nothing of your habits; hope they are better than your manners." ~ Anne Sebba

This is a confusing and uncertain period, when a thousand wise words can go completely unnoticed, and one thoughtless word can provoke an utterly nonsensical furor. ~ Vaclav Havel

The moon is nothing But a circumambulating aphrodisiac Divinely subsidized to provoke the world Into a rising birth-rate ~ Christopher Fry

A church that does not provoke any crisis, preach a gospel that does not unsettle, proclaim a word of God
that does not get under anyone's skin or a word of God that does not touch the real sin of the society in which
it is being proclaimed: what kind of gospel is that? ~ Oscar A. Romero

I have a feeling that someone is going to be malicious, and we may as well set them a standard. Shall we go in, lewd and rude, and provoke them? ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Only fever and poetry provoke visions.
Only love and memory. ~ Roberto Bolano

How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek (my weary travel's end)
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
"Thus far the miles are measur'd from thy friend."
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods [dully] on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee.
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side,
For that same groan doth put this in my mind:
My grief lies onward and my joy behind. ~ William Shakespeare

In attempting to understand 9/11, the first question asked by the world's elites - as exemplified by leading media and academics - was, 'What did America do to provoke such hatred?' Ten years later, the same people are still asking the same question. And it is as morally repulsive now as it was then. It was always on par with 'What did the Jews do to antagonize the Germans? Or 'What did blacks do to enrage lynch mobs?' ~ Dennis Prager

What I should like to find is a crime the effects of which would be perpetual, even when I myself do not act, so that there would not be a single moment of my life even when I were asleep, when I was not the cause of some chaos, a chaos of such proportions that it would provoke a general corruption or a distubance so formal that even after my death its effects would still be felt. ~ Marquis De Sade

I might have added, as it entered my mind to do, that some people found satisfaction in being. Being. Others in becoming. Being people have all the breaks. Becoming people are very unlucky, always in a tizzy. The Becoming people are always have to make explanations or offer justifications of the Being people. While the Being people provoke these explanations. ~ Saul Bellow

Hence the dazzling mountain scene that takes our breath away should not provoke us to try to seize and freeze the moment, but to give thanks and look ahead to the beauty of the new heaven and the new earth, of which this world's finest beauty is but a miniscule glimpse. We delight in the world's beauty as we lament its transience. ~ Daniel J. Treier

Do not provoke me," I bite out. "I told you not to provoke me." "It's not my fault you can't control your temper," she snaps. Her ~ A. Zavarelli

We do not pray in order to provoke God into action. If this is our view of prayer, then we are no different to the prophets of Baal who felt they had to manipulate their aloof, disinterested and fickle gods. Instead we pray because we have a God who has already shown himself to be always active in this world in the person of His Son Jesus, and because we have a confidence that He will continue to work for our good and His glory. ~ James Krieg

Jerome does not condemn singing absolutely, but he corrects those who sing theatrically, or who sing not in order to arouse devotion but to show off or to provoke pleasure. Hence Augustine says, When it happens that I am more moved by the voice than the words sung, I confess to have sinned, and then I would rather not hear the singer. Arousing men to devotion through preaching and teaching ~ Michael S. Horton

Where wildness and disorder are visible in the dance, there Satan, death and all kinds of mischief are likewise upon the floor. For this reason I could wish that the dance of death were painted on the walls of all ball-rooms in order to warn the dancers, not by the levity of their deportment, to provoke the God of righteousness to visit them with a sudden judgment. ~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

That was how divorced from the human scale modern warfare had become. You could smash and destroy from unthinkable distances, obliterate planets from beyond their own system and provoke stars into novae from light-years off ... and still have no good idea why you were really fighting. ~ Iain Banks

Question of "Where We Begin" turns to be not only a formal question but also a question central to the attempt to make sense of things about which it is very difficult to make any sense - illness, death, despair, suicides, cruelty, the various troubles love can provoke, our inability to really know one another when we our inner selves are walled off by our bodies. ~ Kyle Minor

With most women he would use flattery and flirtation, appealing to both their vanity and their pleasure. But Grace was no ordinary woman. With her, he knew he would have to take a more subtle approach. Less than half a minute into their acquaintance, he'd sensed her reserve, as well as her insecurity. He surmised she wasn't used to being boldly pursued by men, so any sudden, overt interest on his part would only provoke her suspicions and put her on the alert.
Instead, his approach would require a deft touch and gentle, patient persuasion. A shy doe required proper coaxing, after all. The key was to figure out what kind of inducement she liked best and be there to offer it. ~ Tracy Anne Warren

Before I read the 'Bloody Sunday' script, I have to admit I hadn't thought about it that much. There was probably even part of me which assumed there was no smoke without fire. That the Catholics who were shot must have done something to provoke such a response from the army. I was extremely ignorant of the whole situation. ~ James Nesbitt

You didn't do anything to her, did you?"
"Nothing that would provoke her to flee." Except ruin her for any other man. And offer her a marriage of the sort she found appalling. And desire her with an intensity that made his throat close up at the thought of her gone. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Blurring reality and fiction: Fiction written to provoke and to entertain ~ Ronald S. Barak

If delight may provoke men's labour, what greater delights is there then to behold the earth as apparelled with plants, as with a robe of imbroidered worke, set with orient pearles, and garnished with great diversitie of rare and costly jewels? The delight is great but the use greater, and joyned often with necessitie. ~ John Gerard

That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother? ~ Gregory Maguire

It's enough for a small betrayal, a distancing, an affirmation of independence to provoke wrath, fear and also hatred from the adult. How many husbands and boyfriends kill the woman they say they love because she has decided to leave. It's in the news every day. ~ Dacia Maraini

The constitution has broken down. We have no enemies except the ones we select and direct towards the nearest nuclear bombs. They need an enemy to provoke, a diversion. This is the mentality of tenth-rate people who are in politics because corporate America likes them. They are malleable. They give them contracts to build missile shields that will never work. It's deeply corrupt. ~ Gore Vidal

These things I continually see and feel, and am afflicted and oppressed with, yet the wisdom of God doth order them for my good; 1. They make me abhor myself; 2. They keep me from trusting my heart; 3. They convince me of the insufficiency of all inherent righteousness; 4. They show me the necessity of flying to Jesus; 5. They press me to pray unto God; 6. They show me the need I have to watch and be sober; 7. And provoke me to pray unto God, through Christ, to help me, and carry me through this world. ~ John Bunyan

He [Joseph Smith] said if one member becomes corrupt and you know it; you must immediately put it away. The sympathies of the heads of the church have induc'd them to bear with those that were corrupt; in consequence of which all become contaminated--you must put down iniquity and by your good example provoke the Elders to good works--if you do right, no danger of going too fast: he said he did not care how fast we run in the path of virtue. ~ Eliza R. Snow

You do not know me for sure, yet you feel yourself better than me.
But if you ever deliberately provoke me, in a way trying to hurt me,
I'm so worried that you will die, or injured with heart full of revenge.
The kind of revenge which you will never be able to fully retaliate,
a revenge that will only add to next innocent victims..in between you and me. ~ Toba Beta

If you have reason to suspect that a person is telling you a lie, look as though you believed every world he said. This will give him courage to go on; he will become vehement in his assertions, and in the end betray himself.

Again, if you perceive that a person is trying to conceal something from you, but with only partial success, look at though you did not believe him, this opposition on you part will provoke him into leading out his reserve of truth and bringing the whole force of it to bear upon your incredulity. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

No question. I admit, you're not what I expected, but you're exactly what I want."
"What did you expect?"
"A sweet, reserved girl who wouldn't provoke my brother into stabbing her a hundred times."
"A wilting violet? Oh, come on, Key. You'd run all over her and forget about her in a week."
"I see that now." He grinned at her. "I keep trying to run all over you, but you're just so . . . stabby. ~ Trinity Faegen

The purpose of protest to to provoke a response. Trouble is some people prefer to address the appropriateness of the protest not the issue. ~ Jeffrey G. Duarte

Parents provoke their children to anger by not practicing biblical love, not considering their children as more important than themselves, and not dying to self to become a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. ~ John C. Broger

Those who today murdered our people in an ambush not only plotted to murder some Jews but intended to provoke us ... The Arabs stand to gain from such a development. They want the country to be in a state of perpetual pogrom ... Any further bloodshed [by the Jews] will only bring political advantage to the Arabs and harm us ... Our strength is in the defense ... and this strength will give us political victory if England and the world will know that we are defending ourselves rather than attacking. ~ David Ben-Gurion

Years earlier, I might have scoffed, but I'd come to accept that, for Snowden's generation, they played no less serious a role in molding political consciousness, moral reasoning, and an understanding of one's place in the world than literature, television, and film. They, too, often present complex moral dilemmas and provoke contemplation, especially for people beginning to question what they've been taught. ~ Glenn Greenwald

However, the combination of civil resistance, of large-scale mass activities and strikes, with a certain degree of revolutionary violence, could provoke a crisis in the enemy's camp that would ultimately lead to essential changes. ~ Joe Slovo

I don't just want to sing about simplistic things all the time. It's good to have a mix of songs that have a real depth, and that provoke and challenge people, and then songs that are fun and people can enjoy. ~ Marina And The Diamonds

I try with my pictures to raise a question, to provoke a debate, so that we can discuss problems together and come up with solutions. ~ Sebastiao Salgado

Nationalism is pimped-out bigotry, designed to provoke a Stockholm Syndrome in the livestock. ~ Stefan Molyneux

A good story should provoke discussion, debate, argument ... and the occasional bar fight. ~ J. Michael Straczynski

I want all my books to provoke some kind of response in the reader, to make them think something or feel something or both, and for that to become a part of them and work into their own lives. ~ Linda Sue Park

Humans are in delusion by default, and those who conquer their delusion can understand good and evil. Morality is an arbitrary abstract, it is not good or evil and those who provoke morality a righteous act, are still at the sideways of delusion and conquer. ~ M.F. Moonzajer

Controversial daily radio host. Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence. ~ Michael Savage

I used to come up with these crazy jobs to try and provoke my parents but they said, 'You can be anything you want.' So I was like, 'I want to be a garbage man' and they were like 'That's OK, we'll still love you!' ~ Lara Stone

It is not okay for someone you like to treat you poorly and then pretend it didn't happen, making you question your own grasp on reality. This dynamic is called gaslighting. It's a common tactic of abusers to shift the focus of the blame from their bad behavior onto the person they are victimizing. One important side effect of gaslighting is having your memory "black out" after a fight (because your brain is trying to protect you from the cruelty of the abuse), which results in not being able to remember how an argument started. You may start to internalize the idea that there is something wrong with you and that you did something to provoke the situation as you're increasingly beaten down and confused. ~ Shannon Weber

Madison Avenue is full of masochists who unconsciously provoke rejection by their clients. I know brilliant men who have lost every account they have ever handled. ~ David Ogilvy

Human emotion is not a linear experience. That which provokes emotion in one may provoke little, if anything, in another. ~ A. Zavarelli

Do I provoke as a method of investigation? Of course. That's the essence of architecture. Do I do it with gusto? I do. ~ Thom Mayne

I don't think my films are going to get rid of racism or prejudice. I think the best thing my films can do is provoke discussion. ~ Spike Lee

It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide - plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions. ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Then how about because you challenge me?" he said. "You provoke me, excite me. Make me think about things I shouldn't think about, want things I thought would be impossible once I became king. ~ Chloe Jacobs

In all of my work I'm trying to create a dialogue, in which I want to provoke the recipients, stimulate them to use their own imaginations. I don't just say things recipients want to hear, flatter their egos or comfort them by agreeing with them. I have to provoke them, to take them as seriously as I take myself. ~ Michael Haneke

Creatures naturally hate their fellow-creatures, and whenever their own interest requires it, harm them. We cannot therefore avoid hatred and injuries from men, while to a great extent we can avoid their scorn. This is why there is usually little point in the respect which young people and those new to the world pay to those they come across, not through mean-mindedness or any other form of self-interest, but through a benevolent desire not to provoke enmity and to win hearts. They do not fulfill this desire, and in some ways they harm their own repute, because the person who is so respected comes to have a greater idea of himself, and he who pays the respect a lesser idea of himself. He who does not look to men for usefulness or fame, should not look for love either, since he will not obtain it. If he wants my opinion, he should preserve his own dignity completely, giving to everyone no more than his due. Thus he will be somewhat more hated and persecuted than otherwise, but not often despised. ~ Giacomo Leopardi

Factual reporting is all too often propaganda designed to provoke certain reactions from the masses. ~ James Morcan

Often someone else's words can provoke us to memories both painful and sweet, and remind us of things we should have learned, but sometimes forget. ~ Mary Morrell

Not just art for art's sake, but I want to have films out there that will provoke authentic, holistic conversations about the human condition. And not provide the easy answers, but put it out there. ~ Isaiah Washington

They wouldn't do it without a cause, would they? You must have done something to provoke them." As if that's how oppression works. But ~ Fredrik Backman

Bad Religion's tradition has always been to try and provoke people but hopefully lead them to a better sense of who they are and what they stand for. That's supposed to make them feel better. ~ Greg Graffin

Personal freedom has grown greatly within China, and that will provoke ever more points of conflict between the individual and state. ~ Milton Friedman

To provoke dreams of terror in the slumber of prosperity has become the moral duty of literature. ~ Ernst Fischer

News at Work is a vivid, inside look at the collision of print journalism and electronic media. Based on close access to the leading news organizations in Buenos Aires, Boczkowski documents how contemporary journalism is caught in the grip of emulation; this spiral of imitation exacerbated further by global news media and their intensifying homogenization. The portrait of this transformation of the news is both fascinating and deeply worrying, and is guaranteed to provoke debate. ~ Walter W. Powell

When he was present she had no eyes for any one else. Every thing he did, was right. Every thing he said, was clever. If their evenings at the park were concluded with cards, he cheated himself and all the rest of the party to get her a good hand. If dancing formed the amusement of the night, they were partners for half the time; and when obliged to separate for a couple of dances, were careful to stand together and scarcely spoke a word to any body else. Such conduct made them of course most exceedingly laughed at; but ridicule could not shame, and seemed hardly to provoke them. ~ Jane Austen

The most important thing is to illicit some reaction, good or bad. If some people are repellent to me, so be it. If some people are attracted to me, great. At the end, that's the object of entertainment - you want to provoke a reaction. ~ Michael Trucco

Public opinion is a powerful tool, if not the ultimate tool, for changing policies of the seemingly omnipotent political leaders. The greatest danger is an apathy that allows for evil to thrive when bad people rule over us and provoke nationalistic and patriotic fervor that intimidates many into compliance. ~ Ron Paul

Walking onto his terrace those first months to see in the distance the well-behaved mountain sitting under the sun might provoke a reverie about the calm that follows catastrophe. ~ Susan Sontag

I like to provoke. I'm very French. ~ Carine Roitfeld

You won't tell anyone, will you?' began Emily, knowing well that of all openings on earth this one is the most certain to provoke interest and sympathy. ~ Agatha Christie

The author of this text did not write to provoke, but merely to express a truth as he conceives it. Your own theologians have tied logic in knots to advance a doctrine addressing this very same point. What is the Virgin Birth, after all, but the fumbling of minds striving to deal with the indelicate realities of the body? We Jews are merely more forthright about such matters. ~ Geraldine Brooks

Have a culminative look at just one snippet from Ipolit's famous "Necessary Explanation" in The Idiot:

"Anyone who attacks individual charity," I began, "attacks human nature and casts contempt on personal dignity. But the organization of 'public charity' and the problem of individual freedom are two distinct questions, and not mutually exclusive. Individual kindness will always remain, because it is an individual impulse, the living impulse of one personality to exert a direct influence upon another....How can you tell, Bahmutov, what significance such an association of one personality with another may have on the destiny of those associated?"

Can you imagine any of our own major novelists allowing a character to say stuff like this (not, mind you, just as hypocritical bombast so that some ironic hero can stick a pin in it, but as part of a ten-page monologue by somebody trying to decide whether to commit suicide)? The reason you can't is the reason he wouldn't: such a novelist would be, by our lights, pretentious and overwrought and silly. The straight presentation of such a speech in a Serious Novel today would provoke not outrage or invective, but worse-one raised eyebrow and a very cool smile. Maybe, if the novelist was really major, a dry bit of mockery in The New Yorker. The novelist would be (and this is our own age's truest vision of hell) laughed out of town. ~ David Foster Wallace

People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past. ~ Milan Kundera

Consensual intercourse of the minds happens when conversation between two like minded individuals, are brought together by mutually exclusive chemistry in conversation that causes mental arousal & orgasmic stimulation which then produces ideas which provoke conscious thoughts. ~ Niedria Dionne Kenny

But the problem remains two fold: the need for recognition that low thyroid function very often can provoke menstrual problems, and the need for recognition, too, that hypothyroidism may be present despite laboratory tests suggesting it is not. ~ Broda Otto Barnes

The problem with being ravished by books at an early age is that later rereadings are often likely to disappoint. "The sharp luscious flavor, the fine aroma is fled," Hazlitt wrote, "and nothing but the stalk, the bran, the husk of literature is left." Terrible words, but it can happen. You become harder to move, frighten, arouse, provoke, jangle. Your education becomes an interrogation lamp under which the hapless book, its every wart and scar exposed, confesses its guilty secrets: "My characters are wooden! My plot creaks! I am pre-feminist, pre-deconstructivist, and pre-postcolonialist!" (The upside of English classes is that they give you critical tools, some of which are useful, but the downside is that those tools make you less able to shower your books with unconditional love. Conditions are the very thing you're asked to learn.) You read too many other books, and the currency of each one becomes debased. ~ Anne Fadiman

It'll keep you alive for another 10 years if you get yourself a laugh once a day: either provoke it, or look around in the wildest laboratory in the world, the public. ~ Jerry Lewis

Being overseas at the time it all kind of happened was perfect because I had no idea that it was going to attract so much media attention and provoke these lovely people calling in and offering up their opinions and advice. ~ Cathy Freeman

If, then, we wish to make large-scale reforms which will not stultify themselves in the process of application, we must choose our measures in such a way that no violence or, at the worst, very little violence will be needed to enforce them. (It is worth noting in this context that reforms carried out under the stimulus of the fear of violence from foreign neighbours and with the aim of using violence more efficiently in future international wars are just as likely to be self-stultifying in the long run as reforms which cannot be enforced except by a domestic terror. The dictators have made many large-scale changes in the structure of societies they govern without having had to resort to terrorism. The population gave consent to these changes because it had been persuaded by means of intensive propaganda that they were necessary to make the country safe against "foreign aggression." Some of these changes have been in the nature of desirable reforms; but in so far as they were calculated to make the country more efficient as a war-machine, they tended to provoke other countries to increase their military efficiency and so to make the coming of war more profitable. But the nature of modern was is such that it is unlikely that any desirable reform will survive the catastrophe. Thus it will be seen that intrinsically desirable reforms, accepted without opposition, may yet be self-stultifying if the community is persuaded to accept them by means of propaganda that plays upon its f ~ Aldous Huxley

Disobedience that is wholly civil should never provoke retaliation. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad. ~ Terry Pratchett

I want the word Autism to provoke an image of a wonderful and unique person. ~ Amanda Baggs

You do not have to provoke other people for them to provoke you, those who hate you will always get a way of blaming you. ~ Auliq Ice

Bring thy lust to the gospel, not for relief, but for further conviction of its guilt; look on Him whom thou hast pierced, and be in bitterness. Say to thy soul, "What have I done? What love, what mercy what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on! Is this the return I make to the Father for his love, to the Son for his blood, to the Holy Ghost for his grace? Do I thus requite the Lord? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, that the blessed Spirit has chosen to dwell in? And can I keep myself out of the dust? What can I say to the dear Lord Jesus? How shall I hold up my head with any boldness before him? Do I account communion with him of so little value, that for this vile lust's sake I have scarce left him any room in my heart? How shall I escape if I neglect so great a salvation? In the meantime, what shall I say to the Lord? Love, mercy, grace, goodness, peace, joy, consolation… I have despised them all and esteemed them as a thing of nought, that I might harbor a lust in my heart. Have I obtained a view of God's fatherly countenance, that I might behold his face and provoke him to his face? Was my soul washed, that room might be made for new defilements? Shall I endeavor to disappoint the end of the death of Christ? Shall I daily grieve that Spirit whereby I am sealed to the day of redemption?" Entertain thy conscience daily with this treaty. See if it can stand before this aggravation of its guilt. If this make it not sink in some measure and melt ~ John Owen

Chinese food tries to engage the mind, not just the palate. To provoke the intellect. ~ Nicole Mones

When others try to provoke (instigate) you and you don't get provoked, it is known as a spiritual victory. ~ Dada Bhagwan

There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there's always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason. ~ Roald Dahl

I knew it would annoy her. She'd deliberately tried to provoke me, and one cannot sass me with impunity. ~ Kevin Hearne

But the idea is to provoke and persuade, not to soothe. And the best way to make an argument is to make it, straightforwardly, honestly, passionately, without regard to whether people will like you afterward. ~ Maud Newton

But it is the job of a revolution to shock, to provoke, and to upset, not to behave or to be polite. ~ Mona Eltahawy

Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death? ~ Thomas Gray