Quotes About Pretext

The thinner the excuse, the fatter the reason for it.

The State, that immune betrayer, which embezzles billions and jails anyone who defrauds it of as much as five marks, would find some pretext for not paying.

'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.

At the end of the afternoon she tore herself away from the story to go and buy some tobacco. This would be tricky on a holiday, but never mind, it was mainly a pretext so the story could settle and she'd have the pleasure of meeting up with her new friend again a bit later on.

on war and conquest: in the realm of human affairs one also needs a pretext. it is important to give it the rank of a universal imperative or of a divine commandment. The range of choices is not great; either it is that we must defend ourselves, or that we have an obligation to help others, or that we are fulfilling heaven's will. the optimal pretext would link all three of the motives.

I think that any photographer is an investigator. Photography is a pretext to know the world, to know life. To know yourself.

In its attempt to crush the Black Panthers, the FBI engineered frequent arrests on the flimsiest of pretexts.

As often is the case with addictions, the fanciful notion of a gradual discontinuance only provided a comforting pretext for more sustained indulgence.

Convertido en sociedad de la información, buena parte del orbe está menos expuesto que antes a pueblos elegidos por Dios o autócratas terrenales, aunque se renueven sin pausa los pretextos para defender la discordia, y convertir complejos de inferioridad en supremacismo.

Organisations find no rationale to increase the salary of the employees, but get often reasons to deduct some amount from it under one or the other pretext.

Over the years, there have been a series of concepts developed to justify the use of force in international affairs for a long period. It was possible to justify it on the pretext, which usually turned out to have very little substance, that the U.S. was defending itself against the communist menace. By the 1980s, that was wearing pretty thin.

They use the pretext of avoiding war, to make you swallow any kind of peace, said Paul. They use the pretext of a revolution to involve us in any kind of war, said Jardinet.

I refer to calls for humanitarian intervention in the affairs of another state - a new idea, this - even when they are made under the pretext of defending human rights and freedoms.

But the thing is that it has provided Mrs Scorrier with a pretext for saying what, I own, has quite sunk my spirits. She told me that Charlotte has a horror of *deformity*, which makes her wish that just now, when she is in a delicate situation, it might have been possible for Aubrey to visit friends.

In his book The Indelible Image, New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III reiterates a common piece of interpretive wisdom: "A text without a context is just a pretext for what we want it to mean.

How convenient does it prove to be a rational animal, that knows how to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination to do!

Philosophical theories can in this way become a destructive venture, confusing matters with false choices and sterile power schemes the cruel are only too happy to accept. In hostile hands, they become a pretext for doing nothing, for brushing off real and urgent moral duties in the care of animals.

Many scholars in "science studies" devote their careers to recondite analyses of how the whole institution is just a pretext for oppression.

El joven no necesita razones para vivir; sólo necesita pretextos

What the Nazis themselves claimed to be their chief discovery—the role of the Jewish people in world politics—and their chief interest—persecution of Jews all over the world—have been regarded by public opinion as a pretext for winning the masses or an interesting device of demagogy.

If the program goes off track again due to recession, this should not become a pretext for the imposition of more austerity measures.

In the first place, when there is a policy of intentional aggression, inspired by a desire to get possession of the territory or the trade of another country, right or wrong, a pretext is always sought.

Menschen brauchen einen Vorwand, um sich miteinander beschäftigen zu können.

Democrats can hardly stand on principle regarding election year nominations when they were more than willing to engage in a partisan, election-year impeachment fiasco based on a contrived pretext that had no chance of prevailing.