The Proposition Quotes

#1. It goes without saying that the Jewish people can have no other goal than Palestine and that, whatever the fate of the proposition may be, our attitude toward the land of our fathers is and shall remain unchangeable.

Theodor Herzl

#2. During the few minutes that Lewis was away, Morse was acutely conscious of the truth of the proposition that the wider the circle of knowledge the greater the circumference of ignorance.

Colin Dexter

#3. All democracies are based on the proposition that power is very dangerous and that it is extremely important not to let any one person or small group have too much power for too long a time

Aldous Huxley

#4. (R)eality TV (is) a medium dedicated to the proposition that with the help of judicious editing, carefully chosen half-wits can hold the attention of millions of their fellow half-wits for weeks on end.

Terry Teachout

#5. Communism starts with the proposition that there are no universal truths or general truths of human nature.

Richard M. Nixon

#6. Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made this century, to the proposition that" - he had gone formal, but now he reverted to plain language - "race has no place in American life or law.

Ken Follett

#7. We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express.

A.J. Ayer

#8. A scholar like myself who is not a Sinologist and yet ventures the proposition that Chinese languages should be rewritten in the Greek alphabet (or "Romanized", to use the current term) is treading on uncharted territory (for him) and does so at his peril.

Eric A. Havelock

#9. The proposition that the principal articles of the Apostles' Creed did not have the same meaning for the Christians of the earliest times as they have for Christians of our time is hereby condemned and proscribed as erroneous.

Pope Pius X

#10. When it comes to Jewish sensitivity, I don't find the proposition compelling that non-Jews have no right to comment. We all have the right to comment about each other. And I object when people say that these comments are motivated by anti-Semitism.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

#11. The graphic emphasis placed on those first lines is rather hard to square with the proposition that the monument expresses no particular religious preference.

John Paul Stevens

#12. I profoundly believe in - and teach - the proposition that photography is inherently a fiction-making process. Don't speak to me of the document; I don't really believe in it particularly now. A picture is not the world, but a new thing.

Tod Papageorge

#13. The evidence of history speaks with a single voice. I do not know any exception to the proposition that if you compare like with like, the freer the system, the better off the ordinary poor people have been.

Milton Friedman

#14. An example of this is, when the simple propositions are connected by the particle or; as, either A is B or C is D; or by the particle if; as, A is B if C is D. In the former case, the proposition is called disjunctive, in the latter, conditional: the name hypothetical was originally common to both.

John Stuart Mill

#15. Life never tires of testing the proposition that life must go on.

Robert Breault

#16. We're talking about in the Proposition 8 case fundamental rights, civil rights. I offer no apology for the position I took in Prop. 8.

Kamala Harris

#17. The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.

John Adams

#18. Of course, there is no conceivable way of getting by reason from the proposition "I am losing interest in this" to the proposition "This is false.

C.S. Lewis

#19. Conceived in mistrust, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created evil.

Harper Lee

#20. Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation in turn becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources - and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on in the future.

Alberto Moravia

#21. Definitely beats my first kiss. Seventh grade, Andrea Williams, behind the gym after school. She came over to my table at lunch, whispered the proposition in my ear, and I had a hard-on for the rest of the day.

Jay Asher

#22. An eating disorder epidemic suggests that love and disgust are being jointly marketed, as it were; that wherever the proposition might first have come from, the unacceptability of the female body has been disseminated culturally.

Rachel Cusk

#23. Surely the experience of all good men confirms the proposition that without a due measure of private devotions the soul will grow lean.

William Wilberforce

#24. Only if we accept the proposition that the state of Israel is the exclusive and legitimate representative of the Jewish people would a movement calling for divestment, sanctions and boycott against that state be understood as directed against the Jewish people as a whole.

Judith Butler

#25. ..the poem is made of sequences in which images, figures of speech and rhythm are undivided. One needs to enter this 'undivision'", and what it does, the proposition it issues, in both senses of the word, logical and erotic: "Let us call a sentence a proposition. A poem makes propositions

Michel Deguy

#26. A liberal society stands on the proposition that we should all take seriously the idea that we might be wrong. This means we must place no one, including ourselves, beyond the reach of criticism; it means that we must allow people to err, even where the error offends and upsets, as it often will.

Jonathan Rauch

#27. If history is really relevant in today's world, the proposition doesn't command much respect. Perhaps the past is a different country, but if so no one much wants to travel there.

Elizabeth Janeway

#28. Once you attach your personality to a proposition, people start reacting to the personality and stop reacting to the proposition.

Harvey MacKay

#29. The proposition that Muslims are welcome in Britain if, and only if, they stop behaving like Muslims is a doctrine which is incompatible with the principles that guide a free society.

Roy Hattersley

#30. By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.

G.K. Chesterton

#31. I accept the proposition that ... to judge is an exercise of power and because ... there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives
no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging, I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions.

Sonia Sotomayor

#32. A true proposition is a proposition belief which would never lead to such disappointment so long as the proposition is not understood otherwise than it was intended.

Charles Sanders Peirce

#33. In fact, the proposition that man's species nature is estranged from him means that one man is estranged from the other, as each of them is from man's essential nature.

Karl Marx

#34. Cyanide. On ice with a twist of lime. Or water. But I'm not budging on the lime."

Lyon, Jennifer (2013-02-22). The Proposition (The Plus One Chronicles) (Kindle Location 1365). Jennifer Lyon Books. Kindle Edition.

Jennifer Lyon

#35. The proposition of an established classification of states as slave states and free states, as insisted on by some, and into northern and southern, as maintained by others, seems to me purely imaginary, and of course the supposed equilibrium of those classes a mere conceit.

William H. Seward

#36. Ain't only three things to gambling: knowing the 60-40 end of the proposition, money management, and knowing yourself.

Puggy Pearson

#37. Gun Owners of America is a lobby group dedicated to the proposition that the National Rifle Association is a bunch of accommodationist sissies.

Timothy Noah

#38. My campaign is based upon the proposition that the answers to the problems which currently plague our cities, our towns, and our homes, are not to be found in the decisions in Washington. They are instead to be found in the hearts, minds and resources of our own people here at home.

Jerry Springer

#39. Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition, but the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency.

Bob Dylan

#40. I believe very deeply in the proposition that what we did in Iraq was the right thing to do. It was hard to do. It took a long time. There were significant costs involved.

Dick Cheney

#41. It has been sometimes argued that there is no truer criterion of the vitality of any given art-period than the power of the master-spirits of that time in grotesque; and certainly in the instance of Gothic art there is no disputing the proposition.

Thomas Hardy

#42. So the proposition that the ideal parents for any child are its biological parents is a statement with which we can all agree in the generality, but which does not apply, for one reason or another, in many particular circumstances.

Malcolm Turnbull

#43. True, most Americans give lip service to the proposition that even the most exalted among us have their flaws, but we are eager to believe that presidents manage to rise above the limitations that beset the rest of us.

Robert Dallek

#44. A truthmaker is an entity in virtue of which the proposition it makes true is true. And it is a necessary condition of being a truthmaker (though not a sufficient one) that a truthmaker necessitates the proposition it makes true.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

#45. There will be a debate on Firing Line between Buckley and Gore Vidal on the proposition: "This nation cannot survive as long as the income of 50 percent of the population is below the median." Mr. Vidal will take the affirmative.

M. Stanton Evans

#46. She believed not in divine salvation but in the proposition that we poor mortals are fully capable of saving ourselves, if conditions and inclinations are right, and the evidence of this potential is found in the smallest of gestures, like the uncertain resting of a large hand on a bony shoulder.

Jeffery Deaver

#47. The proposition of Mr. Ricardo, which states that a rise in the price of labour lowers the price of a large class of commodities, has undoubtedly a very paradoxical air; but it is, nevertheless, true, and the appearance of paradox would vanish, if it were stated more naturally and correctly.

Thomas Malthus

#48. My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me.

Abraham Lincoln

#49. We should pledge ourselves to the proposition that the irresponsible life is not worth living.

Thomas Szasz

#50. The human being is an unequal creature. That is a fact. And we start off with the proposition. All the great religions, all the great movements, all the great political ideology, say let us make the human being as equal as possible. In fact, he is not equal, never will be.

Lee Kuan Yew

#51. A willingness to engage in the give and take of argument displays a commitment to cognitive egalitarianism - the proposition that all people should be treated as intellectual equals, and that no individual can legitimately claim a privileged immunity from the burden of proof.

George H. Smith

#52. History offers no evidence for the proposition that the assignment of women to military combat jobs is the way to win wars, improve combat readiness, or promote national security.

Phyllis Schlafly

#53. The proposition that the meek (that is the adaptable and serviceable), inherit the earth is not merely a wishful sentiment of religion, but an iron law of evolution.

Kenneth E. Boulding

#54. In short, the proposition that God was in any way involved in our creation is effectively outlawed, and implicitly negated.

Phillip E. Johnson

#55. Lessons in magic from a mysterious boy who belonged to a hidden Ferisher court called the Wild - I couldn't think of anything that would horrify my parents more. Therefore, the proposition became exponentially more enticing.

Ann Aguirre

#56. You cannot evade the issue of God, whether you are talking about pigs or the binomial theory ... Things can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is false, but nothing can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is true.

G.K. Chesterton

#57. The proposition that we should encourage wickedness and violence by exposing one side of the face to blows because we have been beaten on the other is too great an absurdity.

Thomas Mellon

#58. The highest historical probability can be adduced in support of the proposition that, if it were possible to annihilate the Bible, and with it all its influences, we should destroy with it the whole spiritual system of the moral world.

Edward Everett

#59. From the Left comes the proposition that, given the slow economy, we should defer attending to the problem of mounting obligations - and the truly delusional idea that growing federal debt doesn't matter because we owe most of it to ourselves.

Steven Rattner

#60. Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Lee Child

#61. The proposition that humans have mental characteristics wholly absent in non-humans is inconsistent with the theory of evolution.

Gary L. Francione

#62. I'm very proud that we stood for the proposition that no man, woman or child should ever have to live in tyranny. We believed in democracy and promoted it.

Condoleezza Rice

#63. I was just a little taken aback. That - that wasn't the proposition I was expecting, is all. Excuse me. I fear I am become incurably low-minded." "You can't help that, I'm sure," Ethan said tolerantly. "Being female, and all that." She

Lois McMaster Bujold

#64. Romney has adopted almost every position conservatives want their candidate to espouse: He's pro-life, he wants to repeal ObamaCare, he wants to cut taxes and cut the federal budget, and he wants an unapologetic foreign policy dedicated to the proposition that this too will be the American century.

John Podhoretz

#65. One of the worst of errors would be the general admission of the proposition that a Government has no right to interfere for any purpose except for that of affording protection.

Nassau William Senior

#66. To begin with, we put the proposition: pure phenomenology is the science of pure consciousness.

Edmund Husserl

#67. Never accept the proposition that just because a solution satisfies a problem, that it must be the only solution.

Raymond E. Feist

#68. The rudeness of many Americans depressed him, a rudeness based on a solid ignorance of the whole concept of manners, and on the proposition that for social purposes, all people are more or less equal and interchangeable.

William S. Burroughs

#69. I am firmly committed to the proposition that whoever is in power is exceedingly silly ... And that goes for the opposition as well.

Calvin Trillin

#70. I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction: there is only narrative.

E.L. Doctorow

#71. No central banker would disagree with the proposition that inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. Not one of them will disagree that every inflation has been accompanied by a rapid increase in the quantity of money and every deflation by a decline in the quantity of money.

Milton Friedman

#72. We have a priori reasons for believing that in every sentence there is some one order of words more effective than any other; and that this order is the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the succession in which they may be most readily put together.

Herbert Spencer

#73. I am thus led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction: there is only narrative ... A novel is a printed circuit through which flows the force of a reader's own life.

E.L. Doctorow

#74. I can entertain the proposition that life is a metaphor for boxing-for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches, nothing determined, again the bell and again and you and your opponent so evenly matched it's impossible to see your opponent is you ...

Joyce Carol Oates

#75. Ome things were better, some were worse, and the only way one can ever learn to understand one's own youth is by accepting both halves of the proposition.

Nick Hornby

#76. The proposition that economist Ludwig von Mises was a feminist is an apodictic impossibility.

Ilana Mercer

#77. On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.

H. Allen Smith

#78. Surely, nothing can be more plain or even more trite common sense than the proposition that innovation [ ... ] is at the center of practically all the phenomena, difficulties, and problems of economic life in capitalist society.

Joseph A. Schumpeter

#79. You cannot 'rationalize' what is not rational to begin with - as if lying were called 'truthization.' There is no way to obtain more truth for a proposition by bribery, flattery, or the most passionate argument - you can make more people believe the proposition, but you cannot make it more true.

Eliezer Yudkowsky

#80. If your opponent has you by fifty pounds, winning a fight against him is a dubious proposition, at best. If your opponent has you by eight thousand and fifty pounds, you've left the realm of combat and enrolled yourself in Road-kill 101. Or possibly in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Jim Butcher

#81. From a rational standpoint, it might be expected that man should be far more willing to express financial confidence in his skills rather than risking his earnings on the mindless meanderings of chance. Experience, however, has strongly indicated the reverse proposition to hold true.

Richard Arnold Epstein

#82. There is no controversy within science over the core proposition of evolutionary theory.

Kenneth R. Miller

#83. I've always favoured proposition over opposition. But we will oppose the government when it's off track.We'll support positive suggestions that we'll bring forward and support the government when it's making progress.

Jack Layton

#84. I firmly believe that life is an 'and' proposition and not an 'or' one. If you really love something, you just have to try it. The worse that can happen is that you'll be told 'no.'

Bryan Batt

#85. That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.

David Hume

#86. [In many circumstances,] the most important thing about a proposition is not that it be true, but that it be interesting.

Alfred North Whitehead

#87. The nation was founded and "dedicated," to use Lincoln's language in the "Gettysburg Address," to equality as a "self-evident truth." But this very principle of equality, as Lincoln also noted, was a "proposition." To make it a reality remained "the unfinished work" of Americans.

Ronald Takaki

#88. It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.

Soren Kierkegaard

#89. She was almost in love with him. No, that's impossible, she thought: either you are or you aren't. Love's the only thing in this world that is unequivocal. There are different kinds of love, certainly, but it's a you-do or you-don't proposition with them all.

Harper Lee

#90. Whenever I've had to make a major decision as a doctor, cop or for a company I've worked for, I ask myself: What is the value proposition here? Will my decision bring added value to the population I have the privilege to serve?

Richard Carmona

#91. To call any proposition certain, while there is any one who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is not permitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other side.

John Stuart Mill

#92. Because of my own experience with market fluctuation, I recognize the great risks one takes on investments. This converts the Social Security safety net into a risky proposition many cannot afford to take.

Grace Napolitano

#93. Of course with John McCain out of the race, George W. Bush has to pick a running mate. Which is kind of a scary proposition when you think about it. I mean his dad picked Dan Quayle, an he isn't as smart as his dad.

Jay Leno

#94. Before you can pick a social-media strategy, you have to think of your customer and what the value proposition is for them. Social media is a way to engage customers, not to give your business a 'shout out.'

Carol Roth

#95. Our value proposition to consumers is so much more about completeness than freshness. Having the complete season is so much more valuable, in our business model, than having last night's episode.

Ted Sarandos

#96. ...to imitate Western civilization in its spirit, its mode of life and its social organization is impossible without dealing a fatal blow to the very existence of Islam as an ideological proposition.

Muhammad Asad

#97. Actually, science has determined that a flipped coin is not strictly a fifty-fifty proposition," said Ajay. "Surprisingly, the coin will return to whichever side you're holding faceup in your hand before it is flipped, exactly fifty-one percent of the time.

Mark Frost

#98. There is no other proposition in economics that has more solid empirical evidence supporting it than the Efficient Market Hypothesis ... In the literature of finance, accounting, and the economics of uncertainty, the EMH is accepted as a fact of life.

Michael Jensen

#99. That's right, but it's not a mathematical proposition. It's a sociological observation
and there is always the possibility of exceptions to such observations. - Dr. Mandamus to Dr. Kelden Amadiro

Isaac Asimov

#100. Well, because I have twin seven-year-old boys, I enjoy the gift giving stuff a great deal. We do both Hanukkah and Christmas, so it is a costly, though extremely pleasing proposition.

Fred Melamed