Quotes on Participants

There is no extrahistorical or eternalist or abstractivistically pure standpoint where we can get oriented in the absolute Truth per se before dealing with the concrete lineaments of how we happen exist in this time and place. We are participants in a dynamic system and we know its profile only by its action in organizing how we interact together and how we see our own selves. "The truth is the whole," and the whole is a system of living energy: our life as human and historical spirits.

Society is joint action and cooperation in which each participant sees the other partner's success as a means for the attainment of his own.

Why does a public discussion of economic policy so often show the abysmal ignorance of the participants?

By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future.

The notion of looking on at life has always been hateful to me. What am I if I am not a participant? In order to be, I must participate.

Statistics are the lifeblood of baseball. In no other sport are so many available and studied so assiduously by participants and fans. Much of the game's appeal, as a conversation piece, lies in the opportunity the fan gets to back up opinions and arguments with convincing figures, and it is entirely possible that more American boys have mastered long division by dealing with batting averages than in any other way.

Civic participants don't aim to make life better merely for members of the group. They want to improve even the lives of people who never participate.

Without knowledge and understanding, one tends to become a passive spectator rather than an active participant in the great decisions of our time.

Sports constantly make demands on the participant for top performance, and they develop integrity, self-reliance and initiative. They teach you a lot about working in groups, without being unduly submerged in the group.

In drama, I think, the audience is a willing participant. It's suspending a certain kind of disbelief to try to get something out of a story.

Control of thought is more important for governments that are free and popular than for despotic and military states. The logic is straightforward: a despotic state can control its domestic enemies by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from interfering with public affairs, which are none of their business… the public are to be observers, not participants, consumers of ideology as well as products.

It is essential that we enable young people to see themselves as participants in one of the most exciting eras in history, and to have a sense of purpose in relation to it.

The ultimate aim of Karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants.

Culture hides more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants.

Self-interest is not myopic selfishness. It is whatever it is that interests the participants, whatever they value, whatever goals they pursue. The scientist seeking to advance the frontiers of his discipline, the missionary seeking to convert infidels to the true faith, the philanthropist seeking to bring comfort to the needy - all are pursuing their interests, as they see them, as they judge them by their own values.

The civil rights movement was based on faith. Many of us who were participants in this movement saw our involvement as an extension of our faith. We saw ourselves doing the work of the Almighty. Segregation and racial discrimination were not in keeping with our faith, so we had to do something.

Religion is defined as social systems whose participants avow a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought.

To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.

...along with the other animals, the stones, the trees, and the clouds, we ourselves are characters within a huge story that is visibly unfolding all around us, participants within the vast imagination, or Dreaming, of the world.

We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.

You are not an observer, you are a participant.