Top 100 Quotes About Provoke
#1. You've got to honor your relationship with your audience - that they sit down because they want to be entertained. And that doesn't mean you can't provoke them and antagonize them and challenge them in the course of the entertainment as long as you keep the entertainment part of the equation alive.
David E. Kelley
#2. Hate is able to provoke disorders, to ruin a social organization, to cast a country into a period of bloody revolutions; but it produces nothing.
Georges Sorel
#3. What did religion do to people, to provoke such obstinancy, such hysteria - how did it push people to the stage of torturing themselves and killing each other?
Manil Suri
#4. As history shows, childless women in America eventually provoke hysteria.
Michelle Goldberg
#5. Other nations of different habits are not enemies: they are godsends. Men require of their neighbours something sufficiently akin to be understood, something sufficiently different to provoke attention, and something great enough to command admiration. We must not expect, however, all the virtues.
Alfred North Whitehead
#7. The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply.
Samuel Johnson
#8. During high school, I would purposely lose tennis and squash matches to escape the agony of anxiety that competitive situations would provoke in me.
Scott Stossel
#9. What I want is to create a discussion about what is happening around the world and to provoke some debate with these pictures. Nothing more than this.
Sebastiao Salgado
#10. History warns us. Legend fascinates us. Imagination drives us. Authors take these and create worlds that entertain, provoke and warn. Ultimately, even fiction is about the Story we all find ourselves in. And history makes sure no one forgets.
Darrick Dean
#11. Teaching is a creative profession, not a delivery system. Great teachers do [pass on information], but what great teachers also do is mentor, stimulate, provoke, engage.
Ken Robinson
#12. I know I will be breaking a taboo. But I'm sure that it will provoke a new discussion. It's time things change. I feel 30 and want to look that way again.
Brigitte Nielsen
#13. When Jennie, mother of Winston Churchill invited playwright George Bernard Shaw to lunch, he telegraphed: "Certainly not. What have I done to provoke such an attack on my well-known habits?" She replied, "Know nothing of your habits; hope they are better than your manners."
Anne Sebba
#14. If we desire to live securely, comfortably, and quietly, that by all honest means we should endeavor to purchase the good will of all men, and provoke no man's enmity needlessly; since any man's love may be useful, and every man's hatred is dangerous.
Isaac Barrow
#15. I love that you can be laughing one minute and crying the next, and then be shocked the next. I like things that provoke emotions to such extremes.
Courteney Cox
#16. I am a director because I believe in my own impulses and my own point of view, and that belief encourages me to tell stories that will move, provoke, and change people. But I became a director because I wanted to be a part of the world.
Anna D. Shapiro
#17. I want all my books to provoke some kind of response in the reader, to make them think something or feel something or both, and for that to become a part of them and work into their own lives.
Linda Sue Park
#18. But the idea is to provoke and persuade, not to soothe. And the best way to make an argument is to make it, straightforwardly, honestly, passionately, without regard to whether people will like you afterward.
Maud Newton
#19. The only difference between the narrator of contemporary affairs and the ordinary historian is that moral judgments about the present provoke fiercer reactions and have more immediately practical implications than moral judgments about the past.
Geoffrey Barraclough
#20. You do not have to provoke other people for them to provoke you, those who hate you will always get a way of blaming you.
Auliq Ice
#21. She had uttered these words simply in order to provoke a reply in certain other words, which she seemed, indeed, to wish to hear spoken, but, from prudence, would let her friend be the first to speak.
Marcel Proust
#22. The most important thing is to illicit some reaction, good or bad. If some people are repellent to me, so be it. If some people are attracted to me, great. At the end, that's the object of entertainment - you want to provoke a reaction.
Michael Trucco
#23. I try with my pictures to raise a question, to provoke a debate, so that we can discuss problems together and come up with solutions.
Sebastiao Salgado
#24. If Mason had half a brain he would shut up, sit down, and not provoke Caleb any more than possible. But something told him Quinn didn't have half a brain and even less patience
Alex Morgan
#25. But folks always underestimate what the promise of a lifetime of starvation, powerlessness, and humiliation can provoke in a young person's character.
Junot Diaz
#26. That was how divorced from the human scale modern warfare had become. You could smash and destroy from unthinkable distances, obliterate planets from beyond their own system and provoke stars into novae from light-years off ... and still have no good idea why you were really fighting.
Iain Banks
#27. Nationalism is pimped-out bigotry, designed to provoke a Stockholm Syndrome in the livestock.
Stefan Molyneux
#28. Successful leaders have learned that no failure is final, whether his own failure or someone else's. No one is perfect, and we cannot be right all the time. Failures and even feelings of inadequacy can provoke humility and serve to remind a leader who is really in charge.
J. Oswald Sanders
#29. My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.
Joyce Carol Oates
#30. In function, Jesus's aphorisms are very much like his parables - provocative and invitational forms of speech. They provoke thought, lead people to reconsider their taken-for-granted assumptions, and invite them to see life differently.
Marcus J. Borg
#31. Don't try to provoke me, you won't win because of few words... I will be just quite because you are under my level!
Deyth Banger
#32. I think to many people the term 'activist film' implies a film with a single point of view - something designed to provoke outrage and urge action on a particular issue - sort of the film equivalent of a rally. 'If a Tree Falls' is not that kind of film.
Marshall Curry
#33. Many men provoke others to overreach them by excessive suspicion; their extraordinary distrust in some sort justifies the deceit.
Seneca The Younger
#34. Do I provoke as a method of investigation? Of course. That's the essence of architecture. Do I do it with gusto? I do.
Thom Mayne
#35. Obviously the extremists want to provoke sectarian warfare, and I am struck by the fact that over a three-year period, leaders of the (Iraqi) communities have been quite resistant to this. The test is whether the political process continues.
Peter Rodman
#36. The strips about the military do seem to provoke moving and thoughtful responses. It's nice when the strip resonates, but more importantly, I need to know when I'm getting something wrong. The last thing I want to do is contribute to the suffering that wounded warriors already endure.
Garry Trudeau
#37. I think a writer's job is to provoke questions. I like to think that if someone's read a book of mine, they've had - I don't know what - the literary equivalent of a shower. Something that would start them thinking in a slightly different way, perhaps. That's what I think writers are for.
Doris Lessing
#38. Words are miraculous things. They describe, captivate, provoke, vivify, encompass, pervade, inspire, preserve, and comfort. So much more than that, in fact, so as to leave me at a loss of ... words.
Julian Whitaker
#39. Rewards and punishments, to speak frankly, are the desk of the soul, that is, a means of enslaving a child's spirit, and better suited to provoke than to prevent deformities.
Maria Montessori
#40. I mean that the book had better make life better better in at least six or seven definite ways immediately. Also, there had better be somewhere in it a method for handling fortune and chance so as to best provoke the most complicated, involved, and glorious refractions of what's possible.
Jesse Ball
#41. I would like to provoke ambiguous responses in my readers.
James Ellroy
#42. Being overseas at the time it all kind of happened was perfect because I had no idea that it was going to attract so much media attention and provoke these lovely people calling in and offering up their opinions and advice.
Cathy Freeman
#43. Works of art imitate and provoke other works of art, the process is the source of art itself.
Edward Hirsch
#44. I don't think most of my opinions, political or social, are so far outside of the mainstream that they'd cause massive outrage on a scale liable to provoke death threats or referrals to prosecutors for outraging public decency, so why worry?
Charles Stross
#45. Since governmental quotas expand bureaucratic power, provoke a backlash and are unfair to individuals, we need to find a better way to increase minority opportunities.
Marvin Olasky
#47. If you are situated at a great distance from the enemy, and the strength of the two armies is equal, it is not easy to provoke a battle, and fighting will be to your disadvantage.
Sun Tzu
#48. Music oft hath such a charm
To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.
William Shakespeare
#49. Not just art for art's sake, but I want to have films out there that will provoke authentic, holistic conversations about the human condition. And not provide the easy answers, but put it out there.
Isaiah Washington
#50. But the problem remains two fold: the need for recognition that low thyroid function very often can provoke menstrual problems, and the need for recognition, too, that hypothyroidism may be present despite laboratory tests suggesting it is not.
Broda Otto Barnes
#51. Give us a genuine Christianity that may provoke persecution, but will not provoke contempt.
A.C. Dixon
#52. If I wanted to make a quick buck, there's far easier ways of doing it. What I want is to provoke people. If you want a hit song, all you need to do is rewrite an old song. It might have been proven to work, but you won't be remembered the same way.
Avicii
#53. Man can commit atrocities, or incite others to commit them, not because of a personality disorder, but because of his belief in ideas that provoke and justify atrocities.
Branimir Anzulovic
#54. However, the combination of civil resistance, of large-scale mass activities and strikes, with a certain degree of revolutionary violence, could provoke a crisis in the enemy's camp that would ultimately lead to essential changes.
Joe Slovo
#55. Why do you do that?" he whispered, after a few minutes.
"Do what?"
"Provoke me."
"I don't ... I ... I'm not provoking you. I'm stating a fact."
"Nevertheless, it is extremely provocative. Every time I try to have a conversation with you like a normal person, you provoke me.
Sylvain Reynard
#56. [I provoke] the system [to] show its true face ... so that through its own acts of terrorism ... the masses will rise against it.
Ulrike Meinhof
#57. Spurgeon used his wit to provoke laughter in private and in public. He said in one of his sermons, "If by a laugh I can make men see the folly of an error better than in any other way, they shall laugh.
Randy Alcorn
#58. I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.
Paulo Coelho
#59. When we have many things within ourselves which are neither known nor accepted, then such things complicate our lives horrifyingly, and in fact provoke all sorts of situations which could be avoided through knowledge of ourselves.
Samael Aun Weor
#60. Herr Schroder has conducted two electoral campaigns, and he is doing it again now, by not telling people what is really necessary. He keeps avoiding the difficult and uncomfortable issues, those that imply changes and therefore provoke discussions.
Angela Merkel
#61. I doubt you even know what duty is," she retorted. A risky response - such flippancy of the tongue - and it might provoke them, but showing fear would invite a response. Half of combat is causing your opponent to think you are stronger than you are, Gansukh had told her. Scarface
Neal Stephenson
#62. I look for interesting titles that are curious and make people think. A lot of people are always so caught up in their lives. But if I make them smile through my titles or provoke them a little bit then maybe they will think about things and read the book and take something away from it.
Robin Sharma
#63. I like poems that affect me emotionally and also provoke me to further, deeper thought. I enjoy challenge, but not, I think, for its own sake.
James Arthur
#64. Disobedience that is wholly civil should never provoke retaliation.
Mahatma Gandhi
#65. I think the last thing you want to do as a writer, as a storyteller, is to create indifference. I don't necessarily go out of my way to provoke, but I would much rather have a song that triggers a whole myriad of reactions than a song that inspires a shrug of the shoulder.
Dan Hill
#66. Personal freedom has grown greatly within China, and that will provoke ever more points of conflict between the individual and state.
Milton Friedman
#67. I feel like great TED Talks are ones that are a little bit subject to interpretation, that do provoke further conversation - and potentially controversy.
Damon Lindelof
#68. Words should not seek to please, to hide the wounds in our bodies, or the shameful moments in our lives. They may hurt, give us pain, but they can also provoke us to question what we have accepted for thousands of years.
Nawal El Saadawi
#69. Proving that you are hot, worthy of lust, and - necessarily - that you seek to provoke lust is still exclusively women's work.
Ariel Levy
#70. I am concerned with facts of quite unverifiable intrinsic value, but which, by their absolutely unexpected violently fortuitous character, and the kind of associations of suspect ideas they provoke.
Andre Breton
#71. Trouble is another word for fate; what troubles us the most is what we are fated to one day face. What troubles us in youth will return at each crossroad in life because it secretly seeks to provoke a deep awakening to the unique way that we are intended to live.
Michael Meade
#72. The moon is nothing But a circumambulating aphrodisiac Divinely subsidized to provoke the world Into a rising birth-rate
Christopher Fry
#73. Terrorism, like theater, is a competition for audience. Shocking events are designed to capture attention, polarize, and provoke overreactions from their targets.
Joseph S. Nye Jr.
#74. Value judgments have value only to the extent that they provoke opposition.
Marty Rubin
#75. [Arabs are] a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.
Edward Gibbon
#76. I believe that all the people who stand to profit by a war and who help provoke it should be shot on the first day it starts by accredited representatives of the loyal citizens of their country who will fight it.
Ernest Hemingway,
#77. After that he turned to the question of invading England. Hitler said that during the previous year he could not afford to risk a possible failure; apart from that, he had not wished to provoke the British, as he hoped to arrange peace talks.
Kurt Student
#78. Can storied urn, or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Thomas Gray
#79. Laugh until you cry;
never let your eyes look dry
This is not a matter of joke;
this is all to provoke
our sense of humour
Life is its own consumer!
Munia Khan
#80. Difficult things provoke all your irritations and bring your habitual patterns to the surface. And that becomes the moment of truth. You have the choice to launch into your lousy habitual patterns, or to stay with the rawness and discomfort of the situation and let it transform you.
Pema Chodron
#81. To inquire into the intricacies of a distant landscape, then, is to provoke thoughts about one's own interior landscape, and the familiar landscapes of memory. The land urges us to come around to an understanding of ourselves.
Barry Lopez
#82. The most serious disorders may be provoked by the injection of living organisms into the bloodinto a medium not intended for them may provoke redoubtable manifestations of the gravest morbid phenomena.
Antoine Bechamp
#85. Humans are in delusion by default, and those who conquer their delusion can understand good and evil. Morality is an arbitrary abstract, it is not good or evil and those who provoke morality a righteous act, are still at the sideways of delusion and conquer.
M.F. Moonzajer
#87. Russia. I speak not only to fathers here, but to all fathers I cry out: 'Fathers, provoke not your children!' Let us first fulfill Christ's commandment ourselves, and only then let us expect the same of our children.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#88. There is something about a roused woman: especially if she add to all her other strong passions, the fierce impulses of recklessness and despair; which few men like to provoke. The
Charles Dickens
#89. Have fun in Idaho. Don't provoke any potato farmers," he says.
"Right. Because that would be bad
Cynthia Hand
#90. But it is the job of a revolution to shock, to provoke, and to upset, not to behave or to be polite.
Mona Eltahawy
#91. if someone merely wishes to provoke you, shake the dust from your feet and carry on. Fight only with a worthy opponent, and not with someone who uses trickery to prolong a war that is already over, as does sometimes happen.
Paulo Coelho
#92. Some people write to please, to soothe, to console. Others to provoke, to challenge, to exasperate and infuriate. I've always found the second approach the more pleasing.
Edward Abbey
#93. I knew it would annoy her. She'd deliberately tried to provoke me, and one cannot sass me with impunity.
Kevin Hearne
#94. NUM14.11 And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?
Anonymous
#95. Even then, she still held a secret passion for Mozart. When he died in 1791, her grief made her provoke the people into starting the French Revolution. Stepping up to the guillotine herself, she ordered the executioner to behead her, thereby committing assisted suicide.
Yasutaka Tsutsui
#96. And it will fall out as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore, you will provoke another; and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others.
Thomas More
#97. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide - plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
#98. I've had these demons for years, maybe for my whole life. Then you came along to provoke them, expose them, and eventually rid me of them, because I believe you're the only human that can.
Crystal Woods
#99. Wherefore, we would to God that we could persuade all men not to rebel against God, to provoke him to anger, but that all men would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world;
Joseph Smith Jr.
#100. Rules, whether they govern sexual morality or financial probity, regardless of whether they are justifiable or undesirable, always provoke bold recalcitrants to devise clever, defiant ways to breach them.
Richard Davenport-Hines
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