Iain Pears Quotes
The point of civilization is to be civilized; the purpose of action is to perpetuate society, for only in society can philosophy truly take place.
Quotes to Explore
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My views on everything from welfare to a balanced budget to affirmative action can be traced to what Buddy and Helen Watts taught me as a young boy growing up poor but proud in Eufaula.
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Of course, giving is deeply emotional. But supplementing emotion with research makes it more likely that a gift can have a bigger impact. It's like any investment. After all, you wouldn't put funds into stocks or bonds without understanding the potential return. Why wouldn't you do the same when investing in society?
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Truth in our society often takes a back seat to securing gainful consequences.
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The music comes through me, and I let it come the way it comes, and it shapes itself. I just hold space for it. I don't intend to write it for a purpose, but it comes as it comes and am proud of the way it can support change because I believe strongly in what I sing about.
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Do our children now have to choose between getting an education and dying? Some of us cannot move on and accept that kind of society.
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I think rap music is brought up, gangster rap in particular, as well as video games, every other thing they try to hang the ills of society on as a scapegoat.
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Artists are political in the sense that they've subtracted themselves from the structure of the marketplace and are contributing something that's not utilitarian. Even though books get sold, and I get advances, I get to look at society and think for a living.
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Rising anti-Semitism is rarely the lone or the last expression of intolerance in a society.
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As much as I enjoy traveling and playing on stage as an artist, I really find my true sense of purpose in a room writing a song.
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As a matter of personal philosophy, I have generally said, 'Why not?' far more often than either 'Why?' or 'Not.'
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What 'Deadwood' did was to talk about how capitalism started, how civilised society came in, and how that brought its own problems.
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If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments.
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The 'Dog's Purpose' premise has gotten me so many emails and comments from people who say that their dog is so much like one they had when they were young or years before, that it seems like the truth. The idea that you would come across an old friend later in life.
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Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic change. It requires symbolic as well as practical action.
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When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled.
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In the New Yorker library, I have long been shelved between Nadine Gordimer and Brendan Gill; an eerie little space nestled between high seriousness of purpose and legendary lightness of touch.
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Labels, boxes, and politically correct terminology all seem small and irrelevant when being compared to the violent and brutal attacks on the lives of people who are different than what society says we should be.
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You can't really do a big character in an action film; you're already suspending your disbelief in the action, then to suspend your disbelief in the character is too much.
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For action has been taken within the three-way framework of the Constitution of the United States. The coordinate branches of the Government continue freely to function. The Bill of Rights remains inviolate. The freedom of elections is wholly maintained. Prophets of the downfall of American democracy have seen their dire predictions come to naught.
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Much of what sophisticates loftily refer to as the "complexityof the real world is in fact the inconsistency in their own minds.
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My mother had a very open-minded philosophy about having children: that they should be free to develop in their own way.
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It's a notion that career-oriented women often neglect their families. But we should cut them some flak; these women are doing everything for the sake of family so that it progresses. I believe when kids see their mothers working hard, they take up responsibilities at home and are far more well-turned out than other children.
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The Western man declares that in order to be beautiful, a woman must look 14 years old. If she dares to look 50, or worse, 60, she is beyond the pale. By putting the spotlight on the female child and framing her as the ideal of beauty, he condemns the mature woman to invisibility.
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The point of civilization is to be civilized; the purpose of action is to perpetuate society, for only in society can philosophy truly take place.
