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Ownership by delegation is a contradiction in terms. When men say, for instance (by a false metaphor), that each member of the public should feel himself an owner of public property-such as a Town Park-and should therefore respect it as his own, they are saying something which all our experience proves to be completely false. No man feels of public property that it is his own; no man will treat it with the care of the affection of a thing which is his own.
Hilaire BellocThe procrastinator is not only indolent and weak, but commonly, false, too; most of the weak are false.
Johann Kaspar LavaterMany theories of the ancient world seem terribly childish today, a hodge-podge of fables and false comparisons.But our theories will seem childish five-hundred years from now.Every theory is based on some analogy, and sooner or later the theory fails because the analogy turns out to be false. A theory in its day helps to solve the problems of the day.
Jacob BronowskiAnd our conception that the way we can mitigate the fact that people don't have retirement savings can be more work, or working longer, or just sort of staying in the game for longer is really a false hope. And it's a false promise.
Teresa GhilarducciTake the particular trick of false names. It seems to us particularly odious. We think when we show our contempt for those who use this subterfuge that we are giving them no more than they deserve. It is a meanness which we associate with criminals and vagabonds; a piece of crawling and sneaking...Men whose race is universally known, will unblushingly adopt a false name as a mask, and after a year or two pretend to treat it as an insult if their original and true name be used in its place.
Hilaire BellocNobody has ever, ever, in the history of politics received the kind of negative advertising that I have. Record, record. By the way mostly false, I wouldn't say 100 percent but about 90 percent. Mostly false, vicious, horrible.
Donald TrumpMost anglers, especially tyros, false cast too often. Three false casts should be sufficient for any throw and two is better. One is perfect.
Joe BrooksIt's not so much religion per se, it's false certainty that worries me, and religion just has more than its fair share of false certainty or dogmatism. I'm really concerned when I see people pretending to know things they clearly cannot know.
Sam HarrisTal told me he loved me, and told me and told me, but you don't tell someone that and then tell them they're not experienced enough in bed and should read a book or something to learn, or they should try wearing deep-red lipstick and tight skirts to look hot like their best friend once in a while. If Tal hadn't lied to me when he said he loved me, I might not be without a future right now, a sucker who was so chickenshit she allowed herself to believe a false dream from a false god. I'm not sure I ever even liked Tal, much less loved him.
Rachel CohnI would love to be able to get along with Russia. Now, you've had a lot of presidents that haven't taken that tack. Look where we are now. Look where we are now. So, if I can - now, I love to negotiate things, I do it really well, and all that stuff. But - but it's possible I won't be able to get along with Putin. Maybe it is. But I want to just tell you, the false reporting by the media, by you people, the false, horrible, fake reporting makes it much harder to make a deal with Russia.
Donald TrumpThe creative phase of an idea coincides with the period during which it insists, cantankerously, on its boundaries, on what makes it different; but an idea becomes false and impotent when it seeks reconciliation, at cut-rate prices, with other ideas.
Susan SontagEverybody knows that orthopaedic science provides beautiful false noses for those who have lost their noses naturally or as the result of an operation.
Gaston LerouxThere is no learned man but will confess be hath much profited by reading controversies,--his senses awakened, his judgment sharpened, and the truth which he holds firmly established. If then it be profitable for him to read, why should it not at least be tolerable and free for his adversary to write? In logic they teach that contraries laid together, more evidently appear; it follows then, that all controversy being permitted, falsehood will appear more false, and truth the more true; which must needs conduce much to the general confirmation of an implicit truth.
John MiltonThe truth, of course, is that a billion falsehoods told a billion times by a billion people are still false.
Travis WaltonYou have heard of the new chemical nomenclature endeavored to be introduced by Lavoisier, Fourcroy, &c. Other chemists of this country, of equal note, reject it, and prove in my opinion that it is premature, insufficient and false. These latter are joined by the British chemists; and upon the whole, I think the new nomenclature will be rejected, after doing more harm than good. There are some good publications in it, which must be translated into the ordinary chemical language before they will be useful.
Thomas JeffersonBut, indeed, words are very rascals, since bonds [vows] disgraced them." Viola: "Thy reason, man?" Feste: "Troth [Truthfully], sir, I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false, I am loathe to prove reason with them.
William ShakespeareI was never directly pressured by peers, but by surrounding myself with others who were experimenting with smoking provided a certain false comfort.
Christy TurlingtonThe Iraq war that I signed up for was launched on false premises. The American people were misled. Now, whether that was due to bad faith or simply mistakes in intelligence, I can't say for sure. But I can say it shows the problem of putting too much faith in intelligence systems without debating them in public.
Edward SnowdenWe've witnessed a fire sale of American liberties at bargain basement prices, in return for the false promise of more security... The America being designed right now won't resemble the America we've been defending... The danger isn't that Big Brother may storm the castle gates. The danger is that Americans don't realize that he is already inside the castle walls.
Wayne LaPierreOne of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.
Francis CrickThe scientist who yields anything to theology, however slight, is yielding to ignorance and false pretenses, and as certainly as if he granted that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake.
H. L. MenckenI once made the mistake of going for a whole row of false eyelashes, which was just wrong as it gave me a sad, puppy-eyed look.
Sienna MillerThere is nothing that can be said by mathematical symbols and relations which cannot also be said by words. The converse, however, is false. Much that can be and is said by words cannot successfully be put into equations, because it is nonsense.
Clifford TruesdellIn my mind the job of a natural scientist is to bend over backwards to say something which can be demonstrated to be true or at least which is not of such a nature that there's no way to demonstrate that it's false.
Richard LewontinIn today's distorted world of 'human rights,' truth takes a back seat to ideology, and false claims - especially those that 'support' radical ideologies - persist even after they have been exposed.
Alan DershowitzIf we were to abandon concern for what is true, what is false, and what remains indeterminate, the world would be totally chaotic. Even those who deny the importance of truth, on the one hand, are quick to jump on anyone who is caught lying.
Howard GardnerWhatever a theologian regards as true must be false: there you have almost a criterion of truth.
Friedrich NietzscheWe haven't been happy with the way the war has been handled. The president has changed his reasons for being over there every time a reason is proven false or an objective reached.
Cindy SheehanThere is usually a clock in our heads regarding decisions we make and the course of our lives. Sometimes this clock is helpful in that it get us to move rather than put off key actions. Other times, it creates us false sense of urgency that can cause us to overreact, lost patience and make poor decisions. In raising this issue in my book, I want people to be aware of the clock in their heads and question whether that clock is helping or hindering the quality of each particular decision.
Robert S. KaplanThat would be the death of anyone - to recognize false hopes with a certainty. One mustn't know that. If it is offered, refuse!
Jesse BallMen and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable, and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity.
William Duncan SilkworthOne comes to believe whatever one repeats to oneself sufficiently often, whether the statement be true or false.
Robert CollierYou'll find that marriage is a good short cut to the truth. No, not quite that. A way of doubling back to the truth. Another thing you'll find is that the years of illusion aren't those of adolescense, as the grown-ups try to tell us; they're the ones immediately after it, say the middle twenties, the false maturity if you like, when you first get thoroughly embroiled in things and lose your head. Your age, by the way, Jim. That's when you first realize that sex is important to other people besides yourself. A discovery like that can't help knocking you off balance for a time.
Kingsley AmisPractically every false doctrine comes from getting things out of order. God's divine order is salvation, then change; not change and then salvation! If one has to be changed to be saved, that's salvation by works. It is also salvation by the flesh. The truth is, one is cleansed from the sins of the flesh just as he is saved; by yielding to the Holy Spirit and letting Him do His work.
Jack HylesI will never again go to people under false pretenses even if it is to give them the Holy Bible. I will never again sell anything, even if I have to starve. I am going home now and I will sit down and really write about people.
Henry MillerMy forces are not enfeebled, I find no decay in my strength; my provisions are not cut off, I find no abhorring in mine appetite; my counsels are not corrupted nor infatuated, I find no false apprehensions to work upon mine understanding; and yet they see that invisibly, and I feel that insensibly, the disease prevails.
Bill VaughanReading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree (for all forbid us to steal, murder, plunder, or bear false witness), and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality.
Thomas JeffersonIn this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that he aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down. It's the drowning out of false voices.
Don DeLilloHow comfortable some of us become as we nestle in the web of procrastination. It is a false haven of rest for those who are content to live without purpose, commitment, or self-discipline.
Marvin J. Ashton