Quotes on Absolutes

Absolute truth is not dependent upon public opinion or popularity. Now what is this truth? It is His gospel. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.

Great men are almost always bad men.

Only since the turn of the century has abstraction again become recognized as an artistic means of representation. It was then that one returned to the recognition of the immense role abstraction plays in the human mind by its power of concentration upon absolute essentials.

I'm not afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid I will compete — that's what scares me. That's why I quit the Theatre Department. Just because I'm so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else's values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn't make it right. I'm ashamed of it. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash.

How strange that excision – female circumcision, with several languages using the same term for both kinds of mutilation – of little girls should revolt the westerner but excite no disapproval when it is performed on little boys. Consensus on the point seems absolute. But ask your interlocutor to think about the validity of this surgical procedure, which consists of removing a healthy part of a nonconsenting child’s body on nonmedical grounds – the legal definition of… mutilation.

Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.

Soldiers, when committed to a task, can't compromise. It's unrelenting devotion to the standards of duty and courage, absolute loyalty to others, not letting the task go until it's been done.

Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.

I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies.

It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey, for silence is a fragile thing, one loud noise, and its gone. But the people are so cowed and disorganised. A few might take the opportunity to protest, but it'll just be a voice crying in the wilderness. Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations, Evey and it is much, much louder than they care to remember.

The feeling of being happy or unhappy rarely depends on our absolute state, but on our perception of the situation, on our capacity to be satisfied with what we have.

Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.

The man who only loves beautiful things is dreaming, whereas the man who knows absolute beauty is wide awake.

For contemplation he and valour formed; / For softness she and sweet attractive grace, / He for God only, she for God in him: / His fair large front and eye sublime declared / Absolute rule.

There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy.

Everything passes, and what remains of former times, what remains of life, is the spiritual. In everything we do, the claim of the Absolute is unchanging.

Only stilted pedants can conceive the idea that there are absolute norms to tell what is beautiful and what is not. They try to derive from the works of the past a code of rules with which, as they fancy, the writers and artists of the future should comply. But the genius does not cooperate with the pundit.

Absolute freedom of the press to discuss public questions is a foundation stone of American liberty.

You haven't yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior's way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability--to the world, to life, and to the Presence you felt. All along I've shown you by example that a warrior's life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is a warrior's sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death.

Dedication, absolute dedication, is what keeps one ahead!