Quotes About Passiveness

I used to work for a succession of software editing companies that would have contracts with state and federal agencies. And I would be the documenter of meetings, sometimes doing limited business analysis. I began to become quite cynical about how the world works. It works on ineptitude and inefficiency and a kind of passiveness.

One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one that will probably be a matter of astonishment to our decedents, is that doctrine which is founded upon this triple hypothesis: the radical passiveness of mankind, -the omnipotence of the law, -the infallibility of the legislature: this is the sacred symbol of the party that proclaims itself exclusively democratic.

One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one that will probably be a matter of astonishment to our descendants, is the doctrine which is founded upon this triple hypothesis: the radical passiveness of mankind—the omnipotence of the law—the infallibility of the legislator: this is the sacred symbol of the party that proclaims itself exclusively democratic.

Rousseau.—Although this politician, the paramount authority of the Democrats, makes the social edifice rest upon the general will, no one has so completely admitted the hypothesis of the entire passiveness of human nature in the presence of the lawgiver:— "If

the radical passiveness of mankind,—the omnipotence of the law,—the infallibility of the legislator:—this is the sacred symbol of the party which proclaims itself exclusively democratic.

The anything-goes passiveness of the religious and political Left is matched by the preachy moralism of the religious and political Right. The person who uncritically embraces any party line is guilty of an idolatrous surrender of her core identity as Abba's Child. Neither liberal fairy dust nor conservative hardball addresses our ragged human dignity.

It had gone far enough, this passiveness, this acceptance, absorbing the designs of others - benign, or otherwise. It was not what he was, or would allow himself to be, under the nine heavens. Perhaps he could declare that, with two swords in his hands.

What is more to the point, this passiveness, this submissiveness, to say nothing of the lack of weapons, made it easy for small bodies of hunters to draw tribute-in present-day usage 'protection money'-from much larger communities of farmers. Thus the rise of warriors, so to speak in paradox, preceded war.

Get this into your head: if violence were only a thing of the future, if exploitation and oppression never existed on earth, perhaps displays of nonviolence might relieve the conflict. But if the entire regime, even your nonviolent thoughts, is governed by a thousand-year old oppression, your passiveness serves no other purpose but to put you on the side of the oppressors.