“Neither nature, experience, nor probability informs these lists of 'entitlements', which are subject to no constraints except those of the mind and appetite of their authors.”

—  Jeane Kirkpatrick

Legitimacy and Force (1988), 130. <br class="br">Jeane Kirkpatrick talking about a report of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, which she termed &quot;a letter to Santa Claus.&quot; as in A Human Rights Approach to Food and Nutrition Policies and Programmes by Peter L. Pellett http://www.unsystem.org/SCN/archives/scnnews18/ch06.htm, who quotes The Hypocrisy Of It All by Noam Chomsky (1999) http://www.middleeast.org/archives/1999_01_25.htm

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Neither nature, experience, nor probability informs these lists of 'entitlements', which are subject to no constraints …" by Jeane Kirkpatrick?
Jeane Kirkpatrick photo
Jeane Kirkpatrick11
American diplomat and Presidential advisor 1926–2006

Related quotes

John Lancaster Spalding photo

“We have no sympathy with those who are controlled by ideas and passions which we neither understand nor feel. Thus they who live to satisfy the appetites do not believe it possible to live in and for the soul.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), pp. 239-240

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues photo

“Neither the gifts nor the blows of fortune equal those of nature.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 180.

Ray Kurzweil photo

“Neither noise nor information is predictable.”

Ray Kurzweil (1948) Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (1999)

Carl R. Rogers photo

“Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience. No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me. Neither the Bible nor the prophets -- neither Freud nor research -- neither the revelations of God nor man -- can take precedence over my own direct experience. My experience is not authoritative because it is infallible. It is the basis of authority because it can always be checked in new primary ways. In this way its frequent error or fallibility is always open to correction.”

Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987) American psychologist

On Becoming a Person (1961)
Source: page 23-24

Sandra Day O'Connor photo

“[C]opyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. […] This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art.”

Sandra Day O'Connor (1930) Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991).

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo

“After knowing that the sun neither sets nor rises except for our imaginations and the limitations of our planet Earth, there can be no more mood swings in the heart and mind.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Stefan Zweig photo

“In times of exceptional stress, nature will often give people's behavior so tragical a complexion that neither a picture nor a verbal description is competent to represent its titanic energy.”

Stefan Zweig book Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman

Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman (1927)

Pliny the Elder photo

“The world, and whatever that be which we call the heavens, by the vault of which all things are enclosed, we must conceive to be a deity, to be eternal, without bounds, neither created nor subject at any time to destruction. To inquire what is beyond it is no concern of man; nor can the human mind form any conjecture concerning it.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book II, sec. 1.
Naturalis Historia

Frank Zappa photo

“The lifestyle that I have is probably neither desirable nor useful to most people.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Oui interview (1979)
Context: The lifestyle that I have is probably neither desirable nor useful to most people. Most people are probably better off getting the certification they desire and spindling their lives away the way they’re doing. I don’t think they’d enjoy living any other way. There are millions of people who acquire all sorts of wonderful feelings from watching a football game and drinking a bottle of beer. It makes them really happy. Doesn’t do shit for me. But for them it’s life itself. As long as they can believe in the beer and the football, then they’ve really got something. And it’s probably more useful to them than religion. So why take it away? Why tell them what’s really going on? Let ’em be happy.

Related topics