PathologicalHandwaving > PathologicalHandwaving's Quotes

“Justice is not only about the right way to distribute things. It is also about the right way to value things.”
― Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

“It is said that the Puritans banned bearbaiting, not because of the pain it caused the bears but because of the pleasure it gave the onlookers.”
― Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

“Those who are greatest in civic excellence—not the wealthiest, or the most numerous, or the most handsome—are the ones who merit the greatest share of political recognition and influence.”
― Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

“Putting aside the issue of how compelling her need for money may have been, and how significant her understanding of the consequences, we suggest that her consent is irrelevant. There are, in a civilized society, some things that money cannot buy.41”
― Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

“Whenever my behavior is biologically determined or socially conditioned, it is not truly free. To act freely, according to Kant, is to act autonomously. And to act autonomously is to act according to a law I give myself—not according to the dictates of nature or social convention.”
― Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

“air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts . . . the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud to be Americans.40”
― Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

“the self-satisfaction and material preoccupations of his time was independent of his point about the injustices of poverty, the Vietnam War, and racial discrimination. But he saw them as connected. To reverse these injustices, Kennedy thought it necessary to challenge the complacent way of life he saw around him. He did not hesitate to be judgmental. And yet, by invoking Americans’ pride in their country, he also, at the same time, appealed to a sense of community.”
― Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

“They defined one benefit of a higher speed limit as a quicker commute to and from work, calculated the economic benefit of the time saved (valued at an average wage of $20 an hour) and divided the savings by the number of additional deaths. They discovered that, for the convenience of driving faster, Americans were effectively valuing human life at the rate of $1.54 million per life. That was the economic gain, per fatality, of driving ten miles an hour faster.15”
― Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

“Honesty is the best policy. It’s also the most profitable.”
― Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

“Conformity, in Mill’s account, is the enemy of the best way to live.”
― Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

“The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used . . . He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties.21”
― Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do

“Cause if you shoot a bullet someone dies. If you drop a bomb many die. You hit a woman, love dies. But if you say the F-word... nothing actually happens.”
― Richard Curtis

“Taking up marriage is a good excuse for taking up cursing."
These is my words”
― Nancey E. Turner

“It's not safe to know how to swear but not how to deal with people," Dovie said. "It's like walking around with your mouth loaded and the safety off.”
― Katie Kennedy, Learning to Swear in America

“Cussing like a commoner wasn't something I was tested on. I picked that habit up outside of high school.”
― S.A. Tawks, Misadventurous

“The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or a lack of verbal interest is just a fucking lunatic.”
― Stephen Fry

“If you want to get rid of the perceived meaning of curse words, you’ll have to get rid of the feelings which bring their use, and that’s not going to happen.”
― Orlando Winters, Stop Being a F***ing Idiot

“There are no dirty words in this book, except for 'hell' and 'God', in case someone is fearing that an innocent child might see 1...Perhaps the only precept taught me by Grandfather Wills that I have honoured all my adult life is that profanity and obsceny entitle people who don't want unpleasant information to close their eyes and ears to you.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus

“I have known some people of very modern views driven by their distress to the use of theological terms to which they attached no doctrinal significance, merely because a drawer was jammed tight and they could not pull it out.”
― G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered

“Swearing relieves the feelings - that is what swearing does. I explained this to my aunt on one occasion, but it didn't answer with her. She said I had no business to have such feelings.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

“Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

“It's not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it.”
― Terry Pratchett

“No! Please! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" the man yelled.
"Really?" said Vimes. "What's the orbital velocity of the moon?"
"What?"
"Oh, you'd like something simpler?”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you.”
― Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites