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At the meeting I argued that the state had given us no alternative to violence. I said it was wrong and immoral to subject our people to armed attacks by the state without offering them some kind of alternative. I mentioned again that people on their own had taken up arms. Violence would begin whether we initiated it or not. Would it not be better to guide this violence ourselves, according to principles where we saved lives by attacking symbols of oppression, and not people? If we did not take the lead now, I said, we would soon be latecomers and followers to a movement we did not control.
Nelson MandelaWhat hope is there for individual reality or authenticity when the forces of violence and orthodoxy, the earthly powers of guns and bombs and manipulated public opinion make it impossible for us to be authentic and fulfilled human beings? The only hope is in the creation of alternative values, alternative realities. The only hope is in daring to redream one's place in the world - a beautiful act of imagination, and a sustained act of self becoming. Which is to say that in some way or another we breach and confound the accepted frontiers of things.
Ben OkriBut if we keep denying that there are problems with some male immigrants, then we will just drive the people into the arms of the right-wing populists. Without the ignorance or the trivialization on the part of all the political parties, there would be no Pegida or Alternative for Germany.
Alice SchwarzerTo this day, we get letters at Alternative Tentacles from young teenagers who hide their Dead Kennedys albums behind their mirror or in the mattress of their bed. Wouldn't it be better if the parents just discussed this with the kids instead of creating this culture of sneaking and dishonesty within the family? The moral of the story being, you don't hide reality from your kids because then they grow up to be smarter, more aware adults.
Jello BiafraTime pressures are a reality of business life that cannot be eliminated entirely and that even can create a beneficial focus at times, it can be powerful to set aside discrete occasions where individuals are invited to step back, to look at their projects from different vantages, to consider input not usually examined, and so on. This again encourages folks to express alternative points of view.
Mary C. GentilePeople are aware that they cannot continue in the same old way but are immobilized because they cannot imagine an alternative. We need a vision that recognizes that we are at one of the great turning points in human history when the survival of our planet and the restoration of our humanity require a great sea change in our ecological, economic, political, and spiritual values.
Grace Lee BoggsI'm so happy and relieved for the indie spirited film world because ... I don't even know if it's indie, it's just alternative cinema that's just different than what the studios are doing and it's a big variety in that category. Everyone always is complaining about the film industry but I think it's important to acknowledge when it's actually a pretty good time when that comes back around. I'd be remiss not to say, "Hey, it's a pretty good era right now for these reasons," and maybe that doesn't last or maybe it does, but I will acknowledge it.
Richard LinklaterLiberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.
John Kenneth GalbraithSpiritual models for me are the communities of Tibetans living in exile in India, or the banjars of Bali, which exist in times of difficulty, oppression. Alternative spaces-perhaps this kind of communication can take place over the Net? Probably only up to a point as the Net's controlled by the military. But the idea is to live outside multi-national, monocultural, commodification prison, outside the grey areas of power-mad, monied collusion.
Anne WaldmanIf the rewiring of the brain that yielded recursive generation of hierarchically structured expressions took place in an individual, not a group (and there seems to be no coherent alternative), then interaction must have been a later phenomenon.
Noam ChomskyA mental disease has swept the planet: banalization presented with the alternative of love or a garbage disposal unit, young people of all countries have chosen the garbage disposal unit.
Ivan ChtcheglovAny demanding high technology tends to develop influential and dedicated constituencies of those who link its commercial success with both the public welfare and their own. Such sincerely held beliefs, peer pressures, and the harsh demands that the work itself places on time and energy all tend to discourage such people from acquiring a similarly thorough knowledge of alternative policies and the need to discuss them.
Amory LovinsScience fiction invites the writer to grandly explore alternative worlds and pose questions about meaning and destiny.
Lawrence WrightWe don't have a great clash of civilizations, a clash of ideologies, a clash of alternative models, where governments thought to themselves, if we go too far, if we sort of trample unreasonably on rights, we'll give birth to a political movement which will cost us our credibility, and will possibly cost us our offices, because people will vote for the other team, the other guys.
Edward SnowdenI supported Barack Obama originally. I supported him for reelection and the alternative of a Mitt Romney is very, very clear to everybody. And I think the president has done a good job in a number of areas. But one area that has concerned me from day one has been his reliance on Wall Street type people in terms of financial matters.
Bernie SandersJesus' claims are particularly unnerving, because if they are true there is no alternative but to bow the knee to him.
Timothy KellerWhen alternative music - which is supposed to be the standard-bearer of where white rock is headed - becomes either too cute or too manufactured, that's just really not good.
Billy CorganThe story of dance in the Western world is as much an alternative vision of the events of history as is the folk history told for generations by primal people.
Jamake HighwaterWhat does it say about our country when people are so desperate for an alternative to our one-party state masquerading as a two-party state that they'll even elect a professional wrestler governor?
Jello BiafraThe only thing that will really change global warming in the long run is if we radically increase the speed with which we get alternative technologies to deal with climate change.
Bjorn LomborgI love the sounds of Latin jazz, R&B, hip-hop, alternative, all that stuff. I'm a radio kid.
Mario VazquezI'm sure there are a few things in my CD collection that might surprise people. I like classical music, the blues, and I'm a big fan of alternative rock.
Brad PaisleyIf you criticise something then you have to have an alternative, but we do have to try and improve things.
Linford ChristieI don't think he would have had any trouble answering Justice Sonia Sotomayor's excellent challenge in a case involving GPS surveillance. She said we need an alternative to this whole way of thinking about the privacy now which says that when you give data to a third party, you have no expectations of privacy. And [Louis] Brandeis would have said nonsense, of course you have expectations of privacy because it's intellectual privacy that has to be protected. That's my attempt to channel him on some of those privacy questions.
Jeffrey RosenThe market, if it can be kept honest and competitive, does provide very strong incentives for work effort and productive contributions. In their absence, society would thrash about for alternative incentives-some unreliable, like altruism; some perilous like collective loyalty; some intolerable, like coercion or oppression.
Arthur Melvin OkunOnce we have taken the backward step to an abstract view of our whole system of beliefs, evidence, and justification, and seen that it works only, despite its pretensions, by taking the world largely for granted, we are not in a position to contrast all these appearances with an alternative reality. We cannot shed our ordinary responses, and if we could it would leave us with no means of conceiving a reality of any kind.
Thomas NagelThey did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world. A mere matter of falling, yet no one ever fell. It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards.
Tim O'BrienI feel really urgent about this election. This is the first time in my voting life that I feel not only passionate about my candidate, but also that the alternative would be catastrophic. I want to help the best candidate win.
Natalie PortmanI have been working for years to promote a responsible energy policy that works to increase energy efficiency and invest in alternative and renewable energy sources.
Lois CappsSublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.
Alain de BottonTo pine for an alternative past is a waste of energy. In the pristine world of your infinite spiritual self, there is no sin or negative energy. There is only compassion, learning, and unconditional love and forgiveness. Remind yourself and those around you of this fact. In the light of God, everything is healed and seen to be perfect.
Stuart WildeI have not suggested that the emergence of language is instantaneous. Rather, that the rewiring of the brain enabling an infinite array of structured expressions was in effect instantaneous. I have never heard of an alternative to this suggestion.
Noam ChomskyMuseums have traditionally been places that protect the art object. But in the last 40 years, a new type of museum has emerged - the Kunsthalle or alternative space which only presents temporary, contemporary shows. Yet art is not just about the future - it is about the future and the present, but it also can't forget the past.
Diego CortezTo this day, America is still the abiding alternative to tyranny. This is our purpose in the world, nothing more and nothing less.
Ronald ReaganThe de industrialization of the US. economy based on the migration of corporations into third world areas where labor is very cheap and thus more profitable for these companies creates on the one hand conditions in those countries that encourage people to emigrate to the US. in search of a better life. On the other hand, it creates conditions here that send more black people into the alternative economies, the drug economies, women into economies in sexual services, and sends them into the prison industrial complex.
Angela DavisI sat there for several moments, trying to decide how best I should respond. None of the advice I'd gotten from the books or my friends really prepared me for how to handle discussions about alternative energy sources. One of the books - one I'd chosen not to finish - had a decidedly male-centric view that said women should always make men feel important on dates. I suspected that Kristin and Julia's advice right now would have been to laugh and toss my hair - and not let the discussion progress. But I just couldn't do that. "You're wrong," I said.
Richelle MeadThere are really funny alternative comics and really funny straight comics who write and perform traditionally.
David CrossEvery now and again, the alternative culture is cherished by the mainstream for what it is, rather than how it should be, like the mainstream popular music.
Thurston MooreI think Linux is a great thing, because Linux is an alternative to Windows, and because, of all the operating systems that are at all relevant today, Unix is the best of a bad lot.
Jamie ZawinskiYouโre pretty sharp, Clive. Do you believe in God?โ Clive smiled. โI donโt know, should I?โ Actually, approaching the matter from a purely logical perspective, yes. All the evidence points to the existence of a creator. The single greatest body of evidence is the dismal failure of manโs desperate attempts to come up with a reasonable alternative, beginning with evolution. Iโve always looked at the universe and seen a creator as plainly as most people who look at the ocean see water.
Ted DekkerI never fit in. I am a true alternative. And I love being the outcast. That's my role in life, to be an outcast.
Meat Loaf