Provocation Quotes

What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the only established defense against nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. How do we prevent the use of nuclear weapons? By threatening to use nuclear weapons. And we can't get rid of nuclear weapons, because of nuclear weapons. The intransigence, it seems, is a function of the weapons themselves.

One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time.

We would welcome that, but it's going to require a commitment on the part of the North Koreans to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and pursuing a stable relationship with their neighbors. Instead, we've seen a lot of provocations and a flouting of international norms and obligations.

Museums are not normally presenting the works on the walls as provocations to work. It's more like going to a Jacuzzi.

I admit that invective is one of my pleasures. This only brings me problems in life, but that's it. I attack, I insult. I have a gift for that, for insults, for provocation. So I am tempted to use it.

By his provocations to good-natured merriment, a humorist of the first water contributes as much to the sum of happiness as the gravest philosopher.

A gentlemen is one who never strikes a woman without provocation.

With a military American base in our territory, where there could be any sort of weapons, where we have to endure every kind of provocations, we have to support and endure the flights over our territory.

The consciousness of one's physical self had to be repressed because, socially, the female body was so visible, an ongoing provocation and incitement of specular curiosity and fascination.

It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language, which are raised out of the trivialness of the street, to be perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard.

Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.

I understand the technique of eccentricity; it would be futile for a man to labor at establishing a reputation for oddity if he were ready at the slightest provocation to revert to normal action.

Funnily enough, it is the subject one dreads talking about at length one ends up talking about at length, often without the slightest provocation.

The vice named surrealism is the immoderate and impassioned use of the stupefacient image or rather of the uncontrolled provocation of the image for its own sake and for the element of unpredictable perturbation and of metamorphosis which it introduces into the domain of representation; for each image on each occasion forces you to revise the entire Universe.

At root, a pearl is a 'disturbance' a beauty caused by something that isn't supposed to be there, about which something needs to be done. It is the interruption of equilibrium that creates beauty. Beauty is a response to provocation, to intrusion. ... The pearl's beauty is made as a result of insult.

It requires real strength to love Man. And to love him despite all invitations to do otherwise, all provocations and all reasons why one should not.

Through music I either tame my demons or unleash them and allow them to be what they are. I don't want the music to be about provocation, I want the music to bring you to a place where you feel at home

Those who are determined to be 'offended' will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.

Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defence can actually be just.

Lose/Win people bury a lot of feelings. And unexpressed feelings come forth later in uglier ways. Psychosomatic illnesses often are the reincarnation of cumulative resentment, deep disappointment and disillusionment repressed by the Lose/Win mentality. Disproportionate rage or anger, overreaction to minor provocation, and cynicism are other embodiments of suppressed emotion. People who are constantly repressing, not transcending feelings toward a higher meaning find that it affects the quality of their relationships with others.

Never was sin seen to be more abominably sinful and full of provocation than when the burden of it was upon the shoulders of the Son of God...Would you, then, see the true demerit of sin?-take the measure of it from the mediation of Christ, especially his cross.

One way to cope with the provocations of novel art is to rest firm and maintain solid standards... set by the critic's long-practiced taste and by his conviction that only those innovations will be significant which promote the established direction of advanced art.

A philosopher may deplore the eternal discords of the human race, but he will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of conquest.

A warrior is always aware of what is worth fighting for. He does not go into combat over things that do not concern him, and he never wastes his time over provocations.

The chief aim of Interpretation is not instruction, but provocation.

Meditation may require a lifetime to master, but it will have been a lifetime well spent. ... If you want to judge your progress, ask yourself these questions: Am I more loving? Is my judgment sounder? Do I have more energy? Can my mind remain calm under provocation? Am I free from the conditioning of anger, fear, and greed? Spiritual awareness reveals itself as eloquently in character development and selfless action as in mystical states.

Surely what a man does when he is taken off guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is. If there are rats in a cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats; it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me ill tempered; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.

Passing too eagerly upon a provocation loses the guard and lays open the body; calmness and leisure and deliberation do the business much better.

I suppose, yes, I've been guilty of provocation but it's also just common sense marketing - put a bottle of scent in a woman's cleavage, or between her thighs - and men will notice.

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.

The ocean was waiting with grand and bitter provocations, as if it invited you to think how deep it was, how much colder than your blood or saltier, or to outguess it, to tell which were its feints or passes and which its real intentions, meaning business.

Elderly gentlemen, gentle in all respects, kind to animals, beloved by children, and fond of music, are found in lonely corners of the downs, hacking at sandpits or tussocks of grass, and muttering in a blind, ungovernable fury elaborate maledictions which could not be extracted from them by robbery or murder. Men who would face torture without a word become blasphemous at the short fourteenth. It is clear that the game of golf may well be included in that category of intolerable provocations which may legally excuse or mitigate behavior not otherwise excusable.

If you care about your longevity and health, be a socially affiliated baboon who is better than high-ranking ones at walking away from provocations.

Anything that can hurt the convictions of another, particularly religious convictions, must be avoided. Freedom of expression must be exercised in a spirit of responsibility. I condemn all manifest provocation that might dangerously fan passions.

I don't believe anything can do as much for a room as a glowing fire in an attractive fireplace. Men and dogs love an open fire - they show good sense. It is the heart of any room and should be kindled on the slightest provocation.

H. L. Mencken famously said that 'every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.' By now, however, I am no longer ashamed, because I do not identify with the government under which I live. Rather, I view it as a criminal organization that without provocation has chosen to make war on my just rights-not only mine, of course, but everyone's. Although this vile enterprise is my problem, because it robs and bullies me relentlessly and without mercy, it is not my responsibility: the nail is not the hammer.

The approval of the public is to be avoided like the plague. It is absolutely essential to keep the public from entering if one wishes to avoid confusion. I must add that the public must be kept panting in expectation at the gate by a system of challenges and provocations.

Agential realism is not a manifesto, it does not take for granted that all is or will or can be made manifest. On the contrary, it is a call, a plea, a provocation, a cry, a passionate yearning for an appreciation of, attention to the tissue of ethicality that runs through the world.

There is another serious thing to which many young men become addicted. This is anger. With the least provocation they explode into tantrums of uncontrolled rage. It is pitiful to see someone so weak. But even worse, they are prone to lose all sense of reason and do things which bring later regret.

The provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength.

A powerful Navy we have always regarded as our proper and natural means of defense; and it has always been of defense that we have thought, never of aggression or of conquest. But who shall tell us now what sort of Navy to build? We shall take leave to be strong upon the seas, in the future as in the past; and there will be no thought of offense or provocation in that. Our ships are our natural bulwarks.

Today too, the most important issue in the world is Palestine. If a war breaks out in Iraq, we believe it is due to the provocation of the Zionists. If it happens in Afghanistan, it is because of their provocation. If Sudan is oppressed, it is due to Zionist seduction. We consider all the arrogant, colonialist schemes to be inspired by the Zionists.

The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure.

These are the few ways we can practice humility: To speak as little as possible of one's self. To mind one's own business. Not to want to manage other people's affairs. To avoid curiosity. To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully. To pass over the mistakes of others. To accept insults and injuries. To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked. To be kind and gentle even under provocation. Never to stand on one's dignity. To choose always the hardest.

War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men.

War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. Though you follow the trade of the warrior, you do so in the spirit of Washington - not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our way of life justifies resort to conflict.

There are few who would not rather be taken in adultery than in provocation.

Love, to the inferior man, remains almost wholly a physical matter. The heroine he most admires is the one who offers the grossest sexual provocation; the hero who makes his wife roll her eyes is a perambulating phallus.

If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

After we have thought out everything carefully in advance and have sought and found without prejudice the most plausible plan, we must not be ready to abandon it at the slightest provocation. should this certainty be lacking, we must tell ourselves that nothing is accomplished in warfare without daring; that the nature of war certainly does not let us see at all times where we are going; that what is probable will always be probable though at the moment it may not seem so; and finally, that we cannot be readily ruined by a single error, if we have made reasonable preparations.