Quotes about permission

A collection of quotes on the topic of permission, doing, people, use.

Georgia Ulrich quote: “Hang on to your humor. Do not ask for permission, just do it! Make everything fun.”

Quotes about permission

“I live and work with three basic assumptions, 1) There is no problem in science that can be solved by a man that cannot be solved by a woman. 2) Worldwide, half of all brains are in women. 3) We all need permission to do science, but, for reasons that are deeply ingrained in history, this permission is more often given to men than to women.”

Vera Rubin (1928–2016) American astronomer

As quoted in NPR obituary http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/26/507022497/vera-rubin-who-confirmed-existence-of-dark-matter-dies-at-88

Women, Men, History, Problem

“I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well …. I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showing-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 … only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done … except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters

God, Age, World, Education

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles" (1992), Ch. 7 : Work, §3 : Personal Power, p. 190 (p. 165 in some editions). This famous passage from her book is very often erroneously attributed to Nelson Mandela. About the mis-attribution Williamson said, "Several years ago, this paragraph from A Return to Love began popping up everywhere, attributed to Nelson Mandela's 1994 inaugural address. As honored as I would be had President Mandela quoted my words, indeed he did not. I have no idea where that story came from, but I am gratified that the paragraph has come to mean so much to so many people."

Variant which appears in the film Coach Carter (2005): "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Variant which appears in the film Akeelah and the Bee (2006), displayed in a picture frame on the wall, attributing it to Mandela: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

God, Light, Children, People

“Hang on to your humor. Do not ask for permission, just do it! Make everything fun.”

Georgia Ulrich

“It is better to ask for an apology than to ask for permission.”

Christopher Paolini book Eragon

Variant: I always say, better ask forgiveness than permission.
Source: Eragon

“I am thankful that the President of the United States has given me permission to tell my story. I hope that he and those in authority under him will read my story and judge whether my people have been rightly treated.”

Geronimo (1829–1909) leader of the Bedonkohe Apache

Geronimo's Story of His Life (1907)

People, Hope, Reading

“Glorified art Thou, O God my God! I indeed testify to Thee and all-things at the moment when I am in Thy presence in pure servitude, upon this, that verily Thou art God, no other God is there besides Thee! Thou art unchanged, O my God, within the elevation of Grandeur and Majesty, and shall be unalterable, O my desirous boon, within the pinnacle of power and perfection inasmuch as nothing shall frustrate Thee and nothing shall extinguish Thee! Thou art unchanged as Thou art the Capable above Thy creation and Thou art unalterable as Thou indeed shall be as from before inasmuch as nothing is with Thee of anything and nothing is in Thy rank of anything! Thou accomplisheth and willeth and doeth and desireth! Glorified art Thou, O God my God, with Thy praise, salutations be upon the Primal Point, the Chemise of Thy Visage and the Light of Thy direction and the Luminosity of Thy Beinghood and the Clarity of Thy Selfhood and the Ocean of Thy Power by all that which Thou hath bestowed upon Him of Thy Stations and Thy Culminations and Thy Foundations, for nothing shall frustrate Thee of anything and nothing shall extinguish Thee of anything! No other God is There besides Thee, for verily Thou art the Lord of all the worlds! And blessings, O God my God, be upon the one who was the first to believe in Thee, the Visage of Thy Selfhood and the Decree of Thy direction; and upon the one who was the last to believe in Thee, the Essence of Thy direction and the Visage of Thy Holiness; and upon those whom Ye have made martyrs/witnesses (shuhadá’) unknown except by Thy Command nor restrained except by Thy Wisdom; then upon those to whom Ye have promised that Ye shall make Him manifest on the Day of Resurrection and He whom Ye will upraise on the Day of the Return by all which Thou will bestow upon Him of Thy Power and Thy Strength, for nothing shall extinguish Thee and nothing shall frustrate Thee! Ye determine all-things, for verily Thou art powerful over whatsoever Thou willeth! And I indeed testify, O my God, between Thy hands that verily there is no other god besides Thee and that He whom Ye shall make manifest on the Day of Resurrection is the Chemise of Thy Creativity and the Visage of Thy Manifestation and the direction of Thy Victory and the substance of Thy Pardoning and the branch of Thy Singularity and the clarity of Thy Unicitarianism and the Pen [of the Letter] Nún (al-qalam al-nún) within Thy Beinghood and the setting of the Cause-Command within Thy Essentiality inasmuch as there is no difference between Him and Thee except that He is Thy servant in Thy grasp, such that whatsoever is in the Heavens and the earth and what is between them will then be filled by His Name and by His Light until it be made apparent that no other god is there besides Thee and no Beloved is there like unto Thee and no Desired One is there other than Thee and no Dread is there of Thy like and no Justice of Thy equal! No other god is there besides Thee! Glorified art Thou, O God, and by Thy praise, blessings, O my God, be upon the Guide to the Throne of the Hidden Cloud and the Path to Thy Presence in the Sina'i of Authorization and the Caller by Thy Logos-Self and the Crier of Thy Permission between Thy Hands and the Ariser of Thy Attendance by Thy Command; then the Triumph, O my God, by all that which Thou will bestow upon Him of Thy Power, then that which will be made manifestly apparent of the Word upon the earth and what is upon it by Thy grandeur, and also in this that nothing shall ever put out His Light! Verily nothing shall frustrate Thee of anything and nothing shall extinguish Thee of anything! Thy mercy encompasseth all-things and verily Thou art powerful over what Ye have willed; and to the one who prays to Thee, Hearing, Answering, for verily Thou art Observant over us, and verily Thou art High, Praised beyond that which the inner hearts can comprehend!”

Subh-i-Azal (1831–1912) Persian religious leader

Ethics of the Spirituals

Wisdom, God, World, Justice

“The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief. A man who saw clearly and with open eyes and was then living could see how this miracle took place and how the whole of a society could, in a single day, be transformed. In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented.”

Ivo Andrič book The Bridge on the Drina

Source: The Bridge on the Drina (1945), Ch. 22

Courage, Law, History, Business

“Don't ask permission. If it does not work, you can apologize later.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

God

“In the battle that is philosophy all the techniques of war, including looting and camouflage, are permissible.”

Louis Althusser (1918–1990) French political philosopher

Source: Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists: And Other Essays

War

“No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Third State of the Union Address (7 December 1903)
1900s

Law

“It is the media that controls the boundaries of what is politically permissible, so better to change the media. Profit motives work against it, but if we can have the audience understand that most other forms of journalism are not credible, then it may be a forced move.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

Source: [Peter, Farquhar, http://www.news.com.au/technology/ipad/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-adamant-his-site-broke-collateral-murder-encryption/story-fn5knrwy-1225868870785, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange adamant his site broke Collateral Murder encryption, News.com.au, May 19, 2010, 2010-06-17]

Motivation, Understanding, Change

“Boyle was among the first who recognized that the withdrawal of sympathy licenses conduct that would not be permissible within an animistic vision of nature. …The vision that he and his scientific colleagues were creating was fast becoming a mathematical abstraction lacking color, odor, texture, and personality. …The task of the natural philosopher, we are told, is to "probe," "penetrate," and "pierce" nature in all her "mysterious," secret," and "intimate recesses."”

Theodore Roszak (1933–2011) American social historian, social critic, writer

Source: The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science (1999), Ch.7 The Rape of Nature

Secret, Color, Mathematics, Nature

“The plea is, in a great measure, false; they had no permission to catch and enslave people who never injured them.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)

People, Falseness

“We must learn to give ourselves permission to blunder, to fail, and to make fools of ourselves every day for the rest of our lives. We do so in any case.”

Sheldon Kopp (1929–1999) American psychotherapist

Source: Even a stone can be a teacher (1985), p. 85

Fools, Learning

“I'm not a Starfleet commander, or T. J. Hooker. I don't live on Starship NCC-170… [some audience members say "1"], or own a phaser. I don't know anybody named Bones, Sulu, or Spock [picture of Dr. Benjamin Spock is shown on screen behind him]. And no, I've never had green alien sex, but I'm sure it'd be quite an evening. [Pomp and Circumstance begins playing. ] I speak English and French, not Klingon! I drink Labatt's, not Romulan Ale! And when someone says to me 'live long and prosper', I seriously mean it when I say, 'get a life'. My doctor's name is not McCoy, it's Ginsberg [nude picture of Dr. Ginsberg shown on screen]. And tribbles were puppets, not real animals. PUPPETS! And when I speak, I never, ever talk like Every. Word. Is. Its. Own. Sentence. I live in California, but I was raised in Montreal. And I believe in Priceline. com, where you never have to pay full price for airline tickets, hotels, and car rentals! I've appeared on stage at Stratford, at Carnegie Hall, Albert Hall, and the Monkland Theatre in NDG. And, yes, I've gone where no man has gone before, but… I was in Mexico and her father gave me permission! My name is William Shatner, and I am Canadian!”

William Shatner (1931) Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author, and film director

From a Just for Laughs appearance in a parody of the popular Molson "I Am Canadian" commercials (21 July 2007) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1648058156561008324&q=i+am+canadian.

Life, Sex, Cars, Drink

“A very important factor which is making it almost impossible for Hindu-Muslim unity to become an accomplished fact is that the Muslims can not confine their patriotism to any one country. I had frankly asked (the Muslims) whether in the event of any Mohammedan power invading India, they (Muslims) would stand side by side with their Hindu neighbours to defend their common land. I was not satisfied with the reply I got from them… Even such a man as Mr. Mohammad Ali (one of the famous Ali brothers, the leaders of the Khilafat Movement-the compiler) has declared that under no circumstances is it permissible for any Mohammedan, whatever be his country, to stand against any Mohammedan.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Rabindranath Tagore, Interview of Rabindranath Tagore in `Times of India', 18-4-1924 in the column, `Through Indian Eyes on the Post Khilafat Hindu Muslim Riots http://hindusamhati.blogspot.com/2013/05/thoughts-of-rabindranath-tagore-on.html Also in A. Ghosh: "Making of the Muslim Psyche" in Devendra Swamp (ed.), Politics of Conversion, New Delhi, 1986, p. 148. And in S.R. Goel, Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987).

Country

“Some sixty years ago, Pope Pius XII, in a memorable address to anaesthesiologists and intensive care specialists, stated that there is no obligation to have recourse in all circumstances to every possible remedy and that, in some specific cases, it is permissible to refrain from their use… The specific element of this criterion is that it considers “the result that can be expected, taking into account the state of the sick person and his or her physical and moral resources”. It thus makes possible a decision that is morally qualified as withdrawal of “overzealous treatment”.
Such a decision responsibly acknowledges the limitations of our mortality, once it becomes clear that opposition to it is futile. “Here one does not will to cause death; one’s inability to impede it is merely accepted” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2278). This difference of perspective restores humanity to the accompaniment of the dying, while not attempting to justify the suppression of the living. It is clear that not adopting, or else suspending, disproportionate measures, means avoiding overzealous treatment; from an ethical standpoint, it is completely different from euthanasia, which is always wrong, in that the intent of euthanasia is to end life and cause death.
The anguish associated with conditions that bring us to the threshold of human mortality, and the difficulty of the decision we have to make, may tempt us to step back from the patient. Yet this is where, more than anything else, we are called to show love and closeness, recognizing the limit that we all share and showing our solidarity.
Let each of us give love in his or her own way—as a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, a brother or sister, a doctor or a nurse. But give it!”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Message of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Participants in the European Regional Meeting of the World Medical Association, From the Vatican, 7 November 2017 https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2017/documents/papa-francesco_20171107_messaggio-monspaglia.html 2010s, 2017

Love, Life, Death, Way

“He let out a yell of joy. They danced round the room. Pressure of population was such that reproduction had to be strict, controlled. Childbirth required government permission. For this moment, they had waited four years. Incoherently they cried their delight.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Super-Toys Last All Summer Long

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (1969)

Waiting, Joy, Dance

“When I'm on a mission, I rebuke my condition.
If you're a strong female you don't need permission.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Scheiße, written by Lady Gaga and RedOne
Song lyrics, Born This Way (2011)

Strong

“No brother should preach contrary to the form and regulation of the holy Church nor unless he has been permitted by his minister. The minister should take care not to grant this permission to anyone indiscriminately. All the Friars, however, should preach by their deeds.”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order

Orthodox Order of Friars Minor http://www.apostle1.com/oofm-rule-of-life.htm/, Rule XII Disputed, Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.

“Paul calleth the Galatians foolish and bewitched, comparing them to children, to whom witchcraft doth much harm. As though he should say: It happeneth to you as it doth to children, whom witches, sorcerers, and enchanters are wont to charm by their enchantments, and by the illusions of the devil. Afterwards, in the fifth chapter, he rehearseth sorcery among the works of the flesh, which is a kind of witchcraft, whereby he plainly testifieth, that indeed such witchcraft and sorcery there is, and that it may be done. Moreover, it cannot be denied but that the devil, yea, and reigneth throughout the whole world. Witchcraft and sorceru therefore are the works of the devil; whereby he doth not only hurt men, but also, by the permission of God, he sometimes destroyeth them. Furthermore, we are all subject to the devil, both in body and goods; and we be strangers in this world, whereof he is the prince and god. Therefore the bread which we eat, the drink which we drink, the garments which we wear, yea, the air, and whatsoever we live by in the flesh is under his dominion.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

A Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians https://books.google.com/books?id=zeCWncYgGOgC&pg=PA37&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false by Martin Luther, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Tischer, Samuel Simon Schmucker Chapter 3, p. 286 Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535)

Men, God, Children, World

“Is it always permissible to speak of the extension of a concept, of a class? And if not, how do we recognize the exceptional cases? Can we always infer from the extension of one concept's coinciding with that of a second, that every object which falls under the first concept also falls under the second?”

Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) mathematician, logician, philosopher

Vol. 2, p. 127. Replying to Bertrand Russell's letter about Russell's Paradox; quoted in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell-paradox/ Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, 1893 and 1903

“They're lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle-class and tame
I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"You Want It Darker"
You Want It Darker (2016)

“Here we have values which by supposition we are reluctant to lose. Neither scientific observation nor sober sense can preserve them. It is surely permissible to ask what will.”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Theism and humanism
Context: Romantic love goes far beyond race requirements. From this point of view it is as useless as aesthetic emotion itself. And, like aesthetic emotion of the profounder sort, it is rarely satisfied with the definite, the limited, and the immediate. It ever reaches out towards an unrealised infinity. It cannot rest content with the prose of mere fact. It sees visions and dreams dreams which to an unsympathetic world seem no better than amiable follies. Is it from sources like these—the illusions of love and the enthusiasms of ignorance—that we propose to supplement the world-outlook provided for us by sober sense and scientific observation?
Yet why not? Here we have values which by supposition we are reluctant to lose. Neither scientific observation nor sober sense can preserve them. It is surely permissible to ask what will.

Sense

“Life has improved, and now as never before the doors to a happy and cultured life for all the peoples of our Union stand wide open. We are already enjoying the first fruits of our victory and we see that an unparalleled rise in the standard of living and culture of all the peoples of the Soviet Union awaits us. And in spite of all this, we have not yet seen the last of people who in their blind hatred of the new world are planning the seizure and dismemberment of the Soviet Union. Well, what shall we say to them? It is true that we appeared in the world without the permission of these gentlemen, and undoubtedly against their wishes.... This means that the time has come when the old world must make way for the new.”

Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986) Soviet politician and diplomat

Speech (10 January 1930) as quoted in The Communist International (1936) Vol. 13

Time, Victory, People, Appearance

“If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts…That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused. That purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape. That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth. That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack. That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work. That 99% of compulsive thinkers’ thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are never good. In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. That it is possible to make rather tasty poached eggs in a microwave oven. That some people’s moms never taught them to cover up or turn away when they sneeze. That the people to be the most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable. That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid. That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear. That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish. That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene. That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it. That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way or form trying to get credit for it, it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz. That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused. That it is permissible to want. That everybody is identical in their unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse. That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest (1996)

Hurt, Imagination, Housing, Personality

“One does not have freedom if anyone else (especially a large organization) has power over one, no matter how benevolently, tolerantly and permissively that power may be exercised. It is important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"The Nature of Freedom", paragraph 94
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

Freedom, Exercises

“Nothing worse than a hypocrite
Change, he ain't really different
He ain't even try to get permission
Ask for advice and they dissed him
Said I'm finna do a gospel album
What have you been hearing from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it feel like nobody love me.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Hands On
Lyrics, Jesus Is King (2019)

Change, Love, Feeling

“Just make sure you're gone by the time we get to Miles's. It creeps me out to see you sitting in his lap without his permission.”

Alyson Nöel book Evermore

Source: Evermore

Time

“It's easier to ask forgiveness than to beg for permission.”

Lora Leigh (1965) American writer

Source: Lion's Heat

Forgiveness

“Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

(Lyrics from Justify My Love).

Pleasure, Dependency

“The most temptation I'd experienced had been with Tomas, the Senate's spy who had been feeding off me without permission, and Mircea, who was probably plotting some nefarious scheme. I have no taste in men.”

Karen Chance book Touch the Dark

Source: Touch the Dark

Men

“It was a bitter moment for us. We weren't two mature parents. We were just two kids playing grown-up. We still needed Mommy and Daddy's permission, blessings, and money to survive.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Money, Parent

“I suspect the most we can hope for, and it's no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love.”

Elizabeth Strout book Abide with Me

Source: Abide with Me

Love, Hope

“Who has been unhooking the stars without my permission, and putting them on the table in the guise of candles?”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Star

“Angel says that rich people don't like to tolerate much. Money gives you permission to just walk away from everything that isn't pretty and perfect. You can't put up with anything less than lovely. You spend your life running, avoiding, escaping.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Diary

Source: Diary

Love, Life, Money, People

“Don't be a sexist. They could find me a female instructor."
"In that case you have my permission to make out with her, as long as I can watch.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“I have permission to live off campus.” She didn’t say from whom, because it was primarily herself.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: The Dead Girls' Dance

“If there was one truth Evie had learned in her short life, it was that forgiveness was easier to seek than permission. She didn’t plan to ask for either one.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

Life, Truth, Forgiveness, Learning

“You simply collapsed, sir. In layman's terms, your body revoked its permission for you to continue heaping abuse upon it.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora

“Not like a heart, which let people in without permission, held them in a special place she never had any say in and then yearned for them to remain there longer than they planned.”

Cecelia Ahern book If You Could See Me Now

Source: If You Could See Me Now

People, Heart

“Change isn't made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later.”

Seth Godin (1960) American entrepreneur, author and public speaker

Source: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

Forgiveness, Change

“My peer would have to be dark-haired and handsome, a wonderful dancer… and he would never ask permission before he kissed me." -Lillian Bowman”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Secrets of a Summer Night

Kiss

“Give yourself permission to allow this moment to be exactly as it is, and allow yourself to be exactly as you are.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

“The average american spends six months of his or her life waiting for red lights to turn green. six months wasted, waiting for permission to move on.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Life, Light, Waiting

“To get to a place where you could love anything you chose--not to need permission for desire--well now _that_ was freedom.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Beloved (1987)

Love, Freedom

“People around the world are confusing the therapeutic value of self-expression with permission to manipulate others with their wounds.”

Caroline Myss (1952) author from the United States

People, World

“Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.”

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) German late baroque era composer

God, Music, Soul

“You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't owe them any courtesy. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

taken from 'Brandalism' in the book 'Cut It Out' (inspired from Sean Tejaratchi's piece in Crap Hound No.6, July 1999.) Source http://readingfrenzy.com/ledger/2012/03/taking_the_piss_conclusion Other sources Source: Wall and Piece Context: People are taking the piss out of you every day. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.

World

“It's just so out of control. Life, I mean. The way it flies off in all these different directions without your permission.”

Sara Zarr (1970) American children's writer

Source: How to Save a Life

Life, Way

“Things happen to you they happen. They dont ask first. They dont require your permission.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

Source: No Country for Old Men

“Hope does not leave without being given permission.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Hope, Hope

“He caught her by the wrist, brought her hand to his bare chest. Splayed her fingers over his heart. It beat against her palm, like a fist punching its way through his sternum. 'Break my heart,' he said. 'Break it in pieces. I give you permission.”

Cassandra Clare book Lord of Shadows

Source: Lord of Shadows

Way, Heart

“We crave permission openly to become our secret selves.”

Salman Rushdie book The Moor's Last Sigh

Source: The Moor's Last Sigh

Secret

“It was more exciting when I didn't know I had permission.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

“Mad people = People who stand alone and burn.
I'm attracted to them because they give me permission to do the same.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

People, Madness

“I should’ve been very cross with Anubis. Kissing me without permission—the nerve!”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

Kiss

“Love makes you want to be a better man—right, right. But maybe love, real love, also gives you permission to just be the man you are.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Love

“People who enter the United States without our permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who enter the United States legally.”

Chuck Schumer (1950) U.S. Senator from the State of New York

Speech on immigration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdL2k8jbnAs (24 June 2009), quoted in "Schumer talks tough on immigration reform issue" https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/schumer-talks-tough-on-immigration-reform-issue-1.1868825 by Tom Brune, Newsday.com (18 April 2010)

People

“Our time is fixed, and all our days are number'd;
How long, how short, we know not this we know,
Duty requires we calmly wait the summons,
Nor dare to stir till Heaven shall give permission.”

Robert Blair The Grave

Part I, line 417.
The Grave (1743)

Time, Waiting

“Do not fall for the "permissive" school of psychology which says discipline will harm human development. Such thinking produces hoodlums with maladjusted personalities who are likely to fall for every "ism" that comes along. A child needs to know that he lives in an orderly world. Discipline is part of it- not extreme harshness but a reasonable and consistent enforcement of the rules.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

World, School, Thinking, Parting

“Father-dominated people who form father-dominated cultures have father-religions: a male deity, an authoritative scripture, a strong central government, an intolerance for inquiry and research, a repressive sexual attitude, a deep conservatism (for one does not change what Father built), a rigid demarcation, in dress and conduct, between the sexes, and a profound horror of homosexuality.
Mother-dominated people who form mother-dominated cultures have mother religions: a female deity served by priestesses, a liberal government—one which feeds the masses and succors the helpless—a great tolerance for experimental thought, a permissive attitude toward sex, a hazy boundary between the insignes of the sexes, and a dread of incest.”

Theodore Sturgeon book Venus Plus X

Section 43 (pp. 131-132)
Venus Plus X (1960)

People, Religion, Sex, Strong

“I don't crop. Photography is like diamond cutting. If you miss you miss. There is no difference with painting. If you don't cut you have to accept the whole image. You wait until life is in the frame, then you have the permission to click. I like the adventure of waiting until the whole frame is full.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

1980's, I don't necessarily desire a perfect photography,' 1981

Life, Waiting, Painting

“In the struggles for the Islamic order, all means are permissible except one: crime. No one has the right to defile the good name of Islam by the uncontrolled and superfluous use of force. The Islamic community should once more confirm that justice is one of its keystones… Formula: the aim justifies the means has become the cause of numberless crimes. A noble aim cannot command unworthy means.”

Alija Izetbegović (1925–2003) Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Source: The Islamic Declaration (1970), p. 49.

Justice, Communication

“Only the prayer which one prays as the observance of a Mitzvah is religiously significant. The spontaneous prayer ("when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before God") a man prays of his own accord is, of course, halakhically permissible, but, like the performance of any act which has not been prescribed, its religious value is limited. As a religious act it is even faulty, since he who prays to satisfy his needs sets himself up as an end, as though God were a means for promotion of his welfare.”

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994) israeli intellectual

"Judaism, Human Values and the Jewish State" (1995)

God

“Philosophy establishes itself as a discourse by opposition to the authority of received opinion, especially the opinions sedimented as cult and as law. Philosophy puts into question the authority of what has been handed down. It is not just that there is a critique of philosophic authorities; rather, philosophy appears to be characterized by rejection of intellectual authority as such. How is philosophy to distinguish, then, a permissible authority from those many impermissible authorities which it must reject if it is to survive?
Perhaps it would be better to avoid the quandary altogether by dismissing authority in order to consider only the "content" of the claims under consideration, regardless of their pretensions. The dismissal fails for at least two reasons. The first is that there are no claims in philosophic texts that are wholly free at least from the implicit constructions of authority. If criticism takes only the content, then it ends up with something other than the texts that have constituted the discourse of philosophy. There is no Platonic "theory of Forms" dissociable from the Platonic pedagogy, that is, from the teaching authority of the Platonic Socrates. The second reason for not being able to dismiss authority altogether is that the very criticism that wants to look only at contents will impose itself as an authority in its choice of procedure. One will still have authority, but an authority that refuses to raise any question about authority.
Perhaps the question about legitimate authority could be avoided, again, by replying that the obvious criterion for claims in philosophy is the truth. The assumption here is that access to the truth is had entirely apart from the authority of philosophical traditions. Yet it is a biographical fact that one is brought into philosophy by education. First principles are learned most often not by simple observation or by the natural light of reason, but under the tutelage of some authoritative tradition.”

Mark D. Jordan (1953)

Authority and persuasion in philosophy (1985)

Truth, Education, Law, Question

“Well, moving swiftly sideways into cognitive neuroscience…In the past twenty years we’ve made huge strides, using imaging tools, direct brain interfaces, and software simulations. We’ve pretty much disproved the existence of free will, at least as philosophers thought they understood it. A lot of our decision-making mechanics are subconscious; we only become aware of our choices once we’ve begun to act on them. And a whole lot of other things that were once thought to correlate with free will turn out also to be mechanical. If we use transcranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt the right temporoparietal junction, we can suppress subjects’ ability to make moral judgements; we can induce mystical religious experiences: We can suppress voluntary movements, and the patients will report that they didn’t move because they didn’t want to move. The TMPJ finding is deeply significant in the philosophy of law, by the way: It strongly supports the theory that we are not actually free moral agents who make decisions—such as whether or not to break the law—of our own free will.
“In a nutshell, then, what I’m getting at is that the project of law, ever since the Code of Hammurabi—the entire idea that we can maintain social order by obtaining voluntary adherence to a code of permissible behaviour, under threat of retribution—is fundamentally misguided.” His eyes are alight; you can see him in the Cartesian lecture-theatre of your mind, pacing door-to-door as he addresses his audience. “If people don’t have free will or criminal intent in any meaningful sense, then how can they be held responsible for their actions? And if the requirements of managing a complex society mean the number of laws have exploded until nobody can keep track of them without an expert system, how can people be expected to comply with them?”

Charles Stross book Rule 34

Source: Rule 34 (2011), Chapter 26, “Liz: It’s Complicated” (pp. 286-287)

People, Law, Way, Idea

“You may have trouble getting permission to aero or lithobrake asteroids on Earth.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[8k830g$f20$1@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca, 2000]
2000s

“Growing terrorism, permissive societies, democracy collapsing through lack of law and order. If things continue on their present track, the disintegration of Western societies will occur much sooner than you think under the hammer blows of fascism and communism. Freedom is not something that does not have a breaking point, and your enemies would like you to reach that point.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

As quoted in Jimmy Carter (1995), Keeping faith: memoirs of a president, page 444
Attributed

Law, Democracy, Communication, Thinking

“The information about an Azeri military airplane entering the territory of the Armenian air border does not correspond with reality. The Armenian anti air defense system would not allow any country to enter the border line of the RA without permission. Armenia has one of the most modern technologies when it comes to the air military aspect in the region, and Azeri airplanes became more active in recent days due to general military exercises carried out by the Azeri side. They do not violate our border but are conducting maneuvers. Azerbaijan is aware that Armenia possesses the best anti-aircraft system in the region. No one can violate our border. Our military will perfectly perform the task they are charged with.”

Mikael Harutyunyan (1946) Armenian general

Quoted in article "Azeri jet didn’t violate Armenian border." panarmenian.net [February 15, 2008]

Exercises, Reality, Country

“In our attitude towards the war, which under the new government of Lvov and Co. unquestionably remains on Russia’s part a predatory imperialist war owing to the capitalist nature of that government, not the slightest concession to “revolutionary defencism” is permissible.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

April Thesis (1917)

War, Nature, Parting

“We did it with their government’s foreknowledge and permission, of course—and there were no civilian casualties, equally of course. Once they’re dead they’re rebels.”

Joe Haldeman book Forever Peace

Source: Forever Peace (1997), p. 27

Dead

“Saying "Ameen" is permissible after reciting the Surah of al-Hamd in the Salat (but it's still not part of the Salat) especially with the intention of supplication.”

Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010) Lebanese faqih

al-Masa'il al-Faqhiyyah, vol.1, p. 92.

Parting

“The sun cakes on my desk were taken, my cakes in the refrigerator are also missing. Flower baskets sent by my friends to congratulate me on my recent promotion were trampled. My colleague lost a NT$1,000 bill that he left in his office. In a democratic society, people can express their own views to gain public support, but taking away other people's possessions without permission is not a way to make a case.”

Hsiao Chia-chi (1961) Taiwanese politician

Hsiao Chia-chi (2014) cited in " Netizens ridicule official over stolen sun cakes issue http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/03/26/2003586548/1" on Taipei Times, 26 March 2014

People, Way, Flowers, Support

“In recent years, the studies of the effects of drugs on the behavior of animals have been playing an increasingly important role. Animal studies have been an advantage over studies with human subjects because better control of experimental variables and a possibility of using a wider range of the doses. It is also permissible to administer toxix compounds to animals. One can interfere surgically with various parts of the central nervous system while investigating the effects of the drugs. The whole field of comparative psychopharmacology has been recently reviewed”

Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) Canadian psychologist

Weckowicz (1967) "Chapter VI - Animal Studies of Hallucinogenic Drugs" in: Abram Hoffer, Humphry Osmond (1967) The hallucinogens. p. 555

Behavior, Study, Animals, Parting

“And then there is all this highly improper manipulation of time, these indecent dealings, sneaking into its mechanism at the back and tampering dangerously with its precarious secrets. Sometimes, one wants to bang on the table and shout at the top of one’s voice, “Enough of this! Keep your hands off time! Time is untouchable! It is not permissible to aggravate time! Space is for man. In space you may go where you please; you may turn somersaults, fall head over heels, leap from star to star… But for the love of God, leave time alone!””

Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) Polish novelist and painter

“The Sanatorium at the Sign of the Hourglass” http://www.schulzian.net/translation/sanatorium/sanatorium1.htm His father, Time

Love, God, Secret, Star

“Remember Marxism? It used to be a sour sort of fun to tease Marxists about the contradictions in some of their pet ideas. The revolution of the proletariat was inevitable, good Marxists believed, but if so, why were they so eager to enlist us in their cause? If it was going to happen anyway, it was going to happen with or without our help. But of course the inevitability that Marxists believe in is one that depends on the growth of the movement and all its political action. There were Marxists working very hard to bring about the revolution, and it was comforting to them to believe that their success was guaranteed in the long run. And some of them, the only ones that were really dangerous, believed so firmly in the rightness of their cause that they believed it was permissible to lie and deceive in order to further it. They even taught this to their children, from infancy. These are the "red-diaper babies," children of hardline members of the Communist Party of America, and some of them can still be found infecting the atmosphere of political action in left-wing circles, to the extreme frustration and annoyance of honest socialists and others on the left.Today we have a similar phenomenon brewing on the religious right: the inevitability of the End Days, or the Rapture, the coming Armageddon that will separate the blessed from the damned in the final day of Judgment. Cults and prophets proclaiming the imminent end of the world have been with us for several millennia, and it has been another sour sort of fun to ridicule them the morning after, when they discover that their calculations were a little off. But, just as with the Marxists, there are some among them who are working hard to "hasten the inevitable," not merely anticipating the End Days with joy in their hearts, but taking political action to bring about the conditions they think are the prerequisites for that occasion. And these people are not funny at all. They are dangerous, for the same reason that red-diaper babies are dangerous: they put their allegiance to their creed ahead of their commitment to democracy, to peace, to (earthly) justice — and to truth. If push comes to shove, some of the are prepared to lie and even to kill…”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Children, People, Truth, Lie

“But the cards are stacked against us. Scurrilous and abusive rhetoric is spewed by politicians and so-called religious leaders, who cloak themselves by turning the Constitution on its head and claim protection and permission to demonize and denigrate us. Hiding behind the perversion of the concepts of religious freedom and political speech, those people have carved out a special right to impose their bigotry and hatred for us.”

Jeffrey Montgomery (1953–2016) American LGBT rights activist and public relations executive

America...You Kill Me
Variant: We want to be able to move freely and safely in our daily lives, free from the threat of random hate violence. themselves by turning the Constitution on its head and claim protection and permission to demonize and denigrate us. Hiding behind the perversion of the concepts of religious freedom and political speech, those people have carved out a special right to impose their bigotry and hatred for us.

People, Freedom

“You don't have permission to disrespect yourself.”

Martin de Maat (1949–2001) American theatre director

The Mysterious Martin de Maat (2001)

“Our challenge is to create the kind of economic background which enables private initiative and private enterprise to flourish for the benefit of the consumer, employee, the pensioner, and society as a whole…I believe we should judge people on merit and not on background. I believe the person who is prepared to work hardest should get the greatest rewards and keep them after tax. That we should back the workers and not the shirkers: that it is not only permissible but praiseworthy to want to benefit your own family by your own efforts”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech at Young Conservative Conference (8 February 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102484 Shadow Secretary for Environment

People, Family, Effort, Personality

“There is no pure visualization in the sense of a priori philosophies; every visualization is determined by previous sense perceptions, and any separation into perceptual space and space of visualization is not permissible, since the specifically visual elements of the imagination are derived from perceptual space. What led to the mistaken conception of pure visualization was rather an improper interpretation of the normative function… an essential element of all visual representations. Indeed, all arguments which have been introduced for the distinction of perceptual space and space of visualization are base on this normative component of the imagination.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Imagination, Sense

“As I have your Excellency's permission, I shall order General Stephen on as far as Aquackanock, at least. That is an important pass. I am fortifying it as fast as possible.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (9 October 1776)

“My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody.”

U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher

Copyright release found in this and several other publications of his conversations (note: copyright restrictions apply)
The Mystique of Enlightenment (1982)

“Yes, it is absurd [to say that without God, murder is permissible], because even according to your sacred fables Moses murdered an Egyptian and then looked around to make sure no one saw him before trying to conceal the body, and the same goes for the myth of Cain and Abel, where Cain lied about killing his brother. Both of these characters obviously already knew that murder was wrong a long time before the story of the Ten Commandments, and this might be because Hammurabi had already established the code of law many centuries earlier than these myths found their way into the Bible, or it might be that, like most social animals, even superstitious savages understood that you shouldn't kill or maim other members of your own society (unless your religion commands it). One minute, God supposedly says "thou shalt not kill", and the next minute He orders His own people to kill every man and his brother, except of course for Moses's brother who really should have been the only one who was killed in that story. But somehow he was spared and promoted to priest instead; saved by nepotism. Then God told them all to kill all their neighbors, every man, woman and child, including the infants and the unborn. But the fact is that murder is still wrong, regardless of what God has to say about it, and there is still no justification when God allegedly commands His prophets to plunder communities and commit genocide.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, The Damn Commandments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u3z69YpLx0 (January 7, 2015)

God, People, Religion, Law

“With Allah's permission, I have been on the throne for 57 years. Even though various events I witness throughout my reign, I never felt this worry with the relations between race and religion that is becoming frail. … If the people love peace like me, whereupon use these opportunity and collective rights with gentility.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

2016 Sultan of Kedah 87th birthday http://www.utusan.com.my/berita/nasional/hubungan-kaum-agama-semakin-rapuh-1.49543#ixzz5NDUW59jY, 18/1/2015

Love, People, Peace, Religion

“When Hajjaj, the governor of Iraq, asked the Caliph for permission to send another expedition, the Caliph wrote back: “This affair will be a source of great anxiety and so we must put it off, for every time an army goes, [vast] numbers of Mussalmans are killed. So think no more of such a design.” But Hajjaj was a very tenacious imperialist. He spent the next four years in equipping an army more formidable than any which had so far been sent against Sindh. While sending off his nephew as well as son-in-law, Muhammad bin Qasim, with this army in AD 712, Hajjaj said: “I swear by Allah that I am determined to spend the whole wealth of Iraq, that is in my possession, on this expedition.””

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Ram Gopal, Indian Resistance to Early Muslim Invaders Upto 1206 A.D., 1983, quoted from S.R. Goel, (1994) Heroic Hindu resistance to Muslim invaders, 636 AD to 1206 AD. ISBN 9788185990187

Law, Thinking, Time, Wealth

“If General Omar el Bashir's government gives me permission to pursue Kony beyond the red line, it will only take me 30 minutes to finish him and his fighters.”

Yoweri Museveni (1944) President of Uganda

As quoted in "Uganda's 19-year-old rebellion nears end: military" https://web.archive.org/web/20150923022403/http://en.people.cn/200509/09/eng20050909_207440.html (23 September 2005), People's Daily, China: People's Daily Online 2000s

“In attempted justification of the statute, it is said that it deals not with publication per se, but with the "business" of publishing defamation. If, however, the publisher has a constitutional right to publish, without previous restraint, an edition of his newspaper charging official derelictions, it cannot be denied that he may publish subsequent editions for the same purpose. He does not lose his right by exercising it. If his right exists, it may be exercised in publishing nine editions, as in this case, as well as in one edition. If previous restraint is permissible, it may be imposed at once; indeed, the wrong may be as serious in one publication as in several. Characterizing the publication as a business, and the business as a nuisance, does not permit an invasion of the constitutional immunity against restraint. Similarly, it does not matter that the newspaper or periodical is found to be "largely" or "chiefly" devoted to the publication of such derelictions. If the publisher has a right, without previous restraint, to publish them, his right cannot be deemed to be dependent upon his publishing something else, more or less, with the matter to which objection is made. Nor can it be said that the constitutional freedom from previous restraint is lost because charges are made of derelictions which constitute crimes. With the multiplying provisions of penal codes, and of municipal charters and ordinances carrying penal sanctions, the conduct of public officers is very largely within the purview of criminal statutes. The freedom of the press from previous restraint has never been regarded as limited to such animadversions as lay outside the range of penal enactments. Historically, there is no such limitation; it is inconsistent with the reason which underlies the privilege, as the privilege so limited would be of slight value for the purposes for which it came to be established.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions

Exercises, Business, Freedom, Dependency

“Giving ourselves permission to imagine allows us to access a huge resource of cognitive capacity that we often ignore.”

Tim Hurson (1946) Creativity theorist, author and speaker

Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking

Imagination

“Your teachers are always telling you [high school students] to behave like adults. I wonder if they'd like it if you did. You may be loud and disorganized, but you're very docile compared to adults…. Imagine the reaction of an FBI agent or taxi driver or reporter to being told they had to ask permission to go the bathroom, and only one person could go at a time.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"What You'll Wish You'd Known", January 2005

School, Imagination, Teachers, Time

“The days and weeks before a true commitment to Jesus can be terrible and lonely. I think I was feeling bitter about the human experience. I never asked to be human. Nobody can to the womb and explained the situation to me, asking for my permission to go into the world and live and breathe and eat and feel joy and pain. I started thinking about how odd it was to be human, how we are stuck inside this skin, forced to be attracted to the opposite sex, forced to eat food, and use the rest room and then stuck to the earth by gravity. I spent an entire week feeling bitter because I couldn't breathe underwater. I told God I wanted to be a fish. I also felt a little bitter about sleep. Why do we have to sleep? I wanted to be able to stay awake for as long as I wanted, but God had put me in this body that had to sleep. Life no longer seemed like and experience of freedom.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Life, God, Pain, World

“Surrealist methods would, moreover, demand to be heard. Everything is valid when it comes to obtaining the desired suddenness from certain associations. The pieces of paper that Picasso and Braque (in this quote Breton refers to the early collage art of the two Cubists, ed.) insert into their work have the same value as the introduction of a platitude into a literary analysis of the most rigorous sort. It is even permissible to entitle POEM what we get from the most random assemblage possible (observe, if you will, the syntax) of headlines and scraps of headlines cut out of the newspapers.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)

Art, Quotes

“A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2004 memorandum to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, D.C.
2003

Evil

“The functional validity of a working hypothesis is not a priori certain, because often it is initially based on intuition. However, logical deductions from such a hypothesis provide expectations (so called prognoses) as to the circumstances under which certain phenomena will appear in nature. Such a postulate or working hypothesis can then be substantiated by additional observations or by experiments especially arranged to test details. The value of the hypothesis is strengthened if the observed facts fit the expectation within the limits of permissible error.”

Reinout Willem van Bemmelen (1904–1983) Dutch geologist

Source: "The Scientific Character of Geology," 1961, p. 454; As cited in: Alberta Research Council, ‎Research Council of Alberta (1964), Bulletin - Alberta Research Council. Vol. 15-17, p. 31

Error, Nature, Appearance

“When you're eight or nine years old and you look at the TV set men are landing on the moon — anything is possible. And that is something we need to not lose sight of, is that the inspiration and permission to dream is immense.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

… It's important to have specific dreams.
The Last Lecture (2007)

Men, Dreams

“Evidently there are plenty of people in journalism who have neither got what they liked nor quite grown to like what they get. They write pieces they do not much enjoy writing, for papers they totally despise, and the sad process ends by ruining their style and disintegrating their personality, two developments which in a writer cannot be separated, since his personality and style must progress or deteriorate together, like a married couple in a country where death is the only permissible divorce.”

Claud Cockburn (1904–1981) Irish journalist

Pages 224-5
A Discord of Trumpets (1956)

Death, People, Sadness, Personality

“Look, I am a Palestinian elected representative from Jericho. If a Palestinian wants to sell his fruit anywhere in the West Bank, he goes to the Israeli civil administration. If a Palestinian sick person wants to leave a hospital, he goes through the Israeli civil administration. Nobody can leave or enter my constituency without Israeli permission. Israel is, in effect, resuming the occupation.”

Saeb Erekat (1955) Palestinian diplomat

Israel putting services in place in West Bank, Gaza, www.cnn.com, December 27, 2002 http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/12/26/israeli.administration/index.html,

Personality

“When you buy a song file what you are buying is not a stamped product, but permission. Permission to copy a track from a sanctioned vendor. But it is just as easy if not easier from people to copy from one another. Who needs a middle man unless they offer an added value and do it at a motivating price point?”

Richard Menta American journalist

Source Record Industry Digital Growth Doomed by Mechanical Rates http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/8002/mechanicals.htm - 10/05/2008 Quotes from the MP3 Newswire

People, Motivation