Teacher
Quotes about alternative
A collection of quotes on the topic of alternative, other, use, doing.
Quotes about alternative
“Avoid using cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs as alternatives to being an interesting person.”

As quoted in Flipside (1992-03).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print

“When we understand this we see clearly that the subject round which the alternative senses play must be twofold. And we must therefore consider the subject of this work [the Divine Comedy] as literally understood, and then its subject as allegorically intended. The subject of the whole work, then, taken in the literal sense only is "the state of souls after death" without qualification, for the whole progress of the work hinges on it and about it. Whereas if the work be taken allegorically, the subject is "man as by good or ill deserts, in the exercise of the freedom of his choice, he becomes liable to rewarding or punishing justice."”
Hiis visis, manifestum est quod duplex oportet esse subiectum circa quod currant alterni sensus. Et ideo videndum est de subiecto huius operis, prout ad litteram accipitur; deinde de subiecto, prout allegorice sententiatur. Est ergo subiectum totius operis, litteraliter tantum accepti, status animarum post mortem simpliciter sumptus. Nam de illo et circa illum totius operis versatur processus. Si vero accipiatur opus allegorice, subiectum est homo, prout merendo et demerendo per arbitrii libertatem iustitie premiandi et puniendi obnoxius est.
Letter to Can Grande (Epistle XIII, 23–25), as translated by Charles Singleton in his essay "Two Kinds of Allegory" published in Dante Studies 1 (Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 87.
Epistolae (Letters)

“Max, for some people there are no victories, just alternate forms of losing.”

As quoted in Paul Robeson, The Whole World in His Hands (1981) by Susan Robeson, p. 60

“So-called alternative medicine either hasn’t been tested or it has failed its tests.”
The Enemies of Reason (August 2007)
Context: If any remedy is tested under controlled scientific conditions and proved to be effective, it will cease to be alternative and will simply become medicine. So-called alternative medicine either hasn’t been tested or it has failed its tests.

The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)


“There is an alternative to war. It's staying in bed and growing your hair.”

Source: "Money and Finance in the Macro-Economic Process" (1982), p. 12

Concepts

Religion had important place in his life is indicated in his admonishing Professor Selby (also a professor in the Deccan College) notes on a published ”Notes of Lectures on Butelr’s Anaology and Sermons" quoted in pages=105-106

Source: 1910s, Our Knowledge of the External World (1914), p. 8

Remarks by President Obama at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit at United Nations Compound in Nairobi, Kenya (July 25, 2015) https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/25/remarks-president-obama-global-entrepreneurship-summit
2015

“The only alternative to coexistence is codestruction.”
As quoted in The Observer [London] (29 August 1954)

Sermon on the Martyrs (de Martyribus), ch. 8, in, The Cure of Pagan Maladies (Cure of the Pagan Diseases; Cure for Hellenic Maladies; Cure of Greek Maladies; Cure of Pagan Ills). [Graecorum affectionum curatio, Graecarum affectionum curatio, Graecarum affect. Curatio, Graec. Aff. cur.], (ante A.D. 449)
The Faith of the Early Fathers, 1998, W. A. Jurgens, Liturgical Press, ISBN 9780814610213 ISBN 9780814610213vol. 3, p. 241. http://books.google.com/books?id=rkvLsueY_DwC&pg=PA241&dq=%22ambassadors+before+the+Master+of+the+universe%22&hl=en&ei=5X4TTpjVG6OmsQL9m-TUDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22ambassadors%20before%20the%20Master%20of%20the%20universe%22&f=false
The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History, 2009, James J. O'Donnell, Ecco, ISBN 0060787414 ISBN 9780060787417p. 319. http://books.google.com/books?id=MEd-_14ZZmEC&pg=PT332&dq=%22honor+them+as+protectors+of+cities+and+guardians%22&hl=en&ei=1NUjTvf4EbSLsALVp62fAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22honor%20them%20as%20protectors%20of%20cities%20and%20guardians%22&f=false More variants http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=%22call+them+saviors+of+souls+and+bodies%22&btnG=Search+Books#sclient=psy&hl=en&tbo=1&tbm=bks&source=hp&q=%22saviours+of+souls%22+theodoret&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=69360d7032f70ec5&biw=1270&bih=696
Greek and Latin text in, in J.P. Migne, PL vol. 83 (vol. 4 of Theodoret’s works), col. 1011. http://books.google.com/books?id=fb8UAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1011&dq=%22corpora+non+singula%22+monumenta&hl=en&ei=U8EUToTbJ8eusAKIiuDUDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22corpora%20non%20singula%22%20monumenta&f=false
Note that the Protestant Reformers Heinrich Bullinger and John Calvin believed that Christians ministers, through the operation of grace, may legitimately be called "saviors." http://books.google.com/books?id=McQogZjrU0AC&pg=PA95&dq=%22For+this+cause+ministers+are+called+saviours%22&hl=en&ei=2zEnTp2XNKqHsgLvwsA7&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22For%20this%20cause%20ministers%20are%20called%20saviours%22&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=YyJVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA424&dq=%22minister+of+the+word+is+said+in+some+way+to+save+those+whom+he+leads+to+the+obedience+of+faith%22&hl=en&ei=PS8nTt7fNZKCsQOAwYHjCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22minister%20of%20the%20word%20is%20said%20in%20some%20way%20to%20save%20those%20whom%20he%20leads%20to%20the%20obedience%20of%20faith%22&f=false.

Can biology do better than faith?, NewScientist.com, 2 November 2005, 2010-10-26 http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8254-can-biology-do-better-than-faith.html,

As quoted in [Astronomer Vera Rubin—The Doyenne of Dark Matter, Discover Magazine, http://discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/breakdialogue] (1 June 2002)
Berkley Science Review (Spring 2006), 2008-11-23 http://sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles.php?issue=10&article=evolution,
2000s

The Castle in the Air.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“As I have already said, there are but two alternatives, the way to Rome, and the way to Atheism.”
Apologia Pro Vita Sua [A defense of one's own life] (1864)

Habermas (2006) "Conversation about God and the World." Time of transitions. Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 150-151.

Elitist Art, Unpopular Art and Popular Art http://scaruffi.com/phi/syn157.html

"Rational expectations and the dynamics of hyperinflation." 1973

Source: 1930s-1950s, "The Nature of the Firm" (1937), p. 388

Whig Circular (1843), reported in Richard Watson Gilder and Daniel Fish Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 1 (1905)
1840s

Source: 1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913), Ch. VII : The War of American and the Unready

2014, Address to the United Nations (September 2014)

Source: The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1977), p.38
George A. Kelly, "Man's construction of his alternatives." Assessment of human motives (1958): 33-64.

Letter to Mr. George William Fairfax (31 May 1775) George Washington Papers http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mgw:@field(DOCID+@lit(gw030206)) at the Library of Congress
1770s

Attacking William Gladstone's Liberal Government
Source: Speech to the Conservatives of Manchester (3 April 1872), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), pp. 530-531.

As quoted in "Tesla Says Edison Was an Empiricist", The New York Times (19 Oct 1931), 25.

Letter to his brother, as quoted in The Age of Napoleon (2002) by J. Christopher Herold, p. 8

1900s, Letter to Winfield T. Durbin (1903)

Then your life is useless and meaningless, and you're full of self contempt and nihilism, and that's not good. And so that's what I think is going on at a deeper level with regard to men needing this direction. A man has to decide that he's going to do something. He has to decide that."
Concepts

Malcolm X, in conversation with Coretta Scott King (February 1965), as quoted in My life with MLK, Jr. (1969), page 256
Attributed

Thomas J. Sargent, "The Ends of Four Big Inflations" (1981).

Joint news conference with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra at Government House, Bangkok, Thailand on November 18, 2012 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/11/18/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-shinawatra-joint-press-confer
2012

The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World (1994)
Gaming the vote: why elections aren't fair (and what we can do about it), William Poundstone, p. 50, ISBN 0-8090-4893-0.

"On the Propagation of Electric Waves by Means of Wires" (1889) Wiedemann's Annalen. 37 p. 395, & pp.160-161 of Electric Waves
Electric Waves: Being Researches on the Propagation of Electric Action with Finite Velocity Through Space (1893)

Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, (8/5/1986), transcript https://web.archive.org/web/20060213232846/http://a255.g.akamaitech.net/7/255/2422/22sep20051120/www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh99-1064/31-110.pdf at pp. 51-52).
1980s

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

“"Legacy code" often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling.”
Bjarne Stroustrup's FAQ: What is "legacy code"?, 2007-11-15 http://www.stroustrup.com/bs_faq.html#legacy,

2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)

"Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency" http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1892-02-03.htm an address to the Institution of Electrical Engineers, London (February 1892)

“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.”
Part I (p. 1)
Murphy (1938)

1860s, "If Slavery Is Not Wrong, Nothing Is Wrong" (1864)

“We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon — no alternative.”
As quoted in LIFE magazine (3 October 1969), p. 32
Context: We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon — no alternative. The Egyptians could run to Egypt, the Syrians into Syria. The only place we could run was into the sea, and before we did that we might as well fight.

2000s, The Sacred Warrior (2000)
Context: He stepped down from his comfortable life to join the masses on their level to seek equality with them. "I can't hope to bring about economic equality... I have to reduce myself to the level of the poorest of the poor."
From his understanding of wealth and poverty came his understanding of labor and capital, which led him to the solution of trusteeship based on the belief that there is no private ownership of capital; it is given in trust for redistribution and equalization. Similarly, while recognizing differential aptitudes and talents, he holds that these are gifts from God to be used for the collective good.
He seeks an economic order, alternative to the capitalist and communist, and finds this in sarvodaya based on nonviolence (ahimsa).
He rejects Darwin's survival of the fittest, Adam Smith's laissez-faire and Karl Marx's thesis of a natural antagonism between capital and labor, and focuses on the interdependence between the two.
He believes in the human capacity to change and wages Satyagraha against the oppressor, not to destroy him but to transform him, that he cease his oppression and join the oppressed in the pursuit of Truth.
We in South Africa brought about our new democracy relatively peacefully on the foundations of such thinking, regardless of whether we were directly influenced by Gandhi or not.

Speech to a joint session of the US Congress (12 March 1947), outlining what became known as The Truman Doctrine
Context: At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.
One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.
The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.
I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)
Context: The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

Playboy interview (1973)
Context: I've often thought there ought to be a manual to hand to little kids, telling them what kind of planet they're on, why they don't fall off it, how much time they've probably got here, how to avoid poison ivy, and so on. I tried to write one once. It was called Welcome to Earth. But I got stuck on explaining why we don't fall off the planet. Gravity is just a word. It doesn't explain anything. If I could get past gravity, I'd tell them how we reproduce, how long we've been here, apparently, and a little bit about evolution. I didn't learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It's also a source of hope. It means we don't have to continue this way if we don't like it.

1940s, The Bomb and Civilization http://personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Philosophy/RBwritings/bombCivilization.htm (1945)

My Point... And I Do Have One. New York: Bantam Books, 1995
“Anger - a better alternative to caffeine.”
Source: Magic Rises

“So do flux and reflux--the rhythm of change--alternate and persist in everything under the sky.”
Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Source: The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church

“The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.”
“Mary frowned. A vampire doctor. Talk about exploring your alternative therapies.”
Source: Lover Eternal

“It's not the cheating. It's the hunger for an alternative. The refusal to accept unhappiness.”
Source: Little Children

“Americans Will Always Do the Right Thing — After Exhausting All the Alternatives.”
This is a modification of a March 1967 quote by Israeli politician Abba Eban who said, "Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources." Eban used various versions of this quote over the years. In 1979 he said, "My experience teaches me this: Men and nations do act wisely when they have exhausted all the other possibilities." http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/
In a 1970 Congressional hearing, a version of the quote first referenced Americans. It was attributed to an unnamed Irishman. "And indeed, we often know how to do things by the philosophy that was expounded by another Irishman I know. He said that you can depend on Americans to do the right thing when they have exhausted every other possibility." http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/
The earliest known attribution of the quote to Churchill occurred in 1980. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/
Misattributed

“We have to joke about it because the alternative is to be scared”

“I know that if you don't look for an alternative, Sophos, you certainly won't find one.”
Source: A Conspiracy of Kings

“The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.”