Quotes about preference
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“I was offered a free villa in Hollywood, but I said no thank you, I prefer to live in Italy.”

Ennio Morricone (1928–2020) Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor

“I don’t have a job - I have a career. This may sound like semantics, (maybe it is) but to me a job is something you depend on from an employer. It’s theirs to give and theirs to take away... A career is something i have to be responsible for based on my reputation, my ability, and my preferences.”

Will Finn (1958) American animator

Why You Shouldn’t Want A Job In Animation http://willfinn.blogspot.com/2015/04/why-you-shouldnt-want-job-in-animation.html (April 1, 2015)

Dependency

“This perception—this comprehension—this right discernment of the great events and general results of universal history, is what might be termed a science of history; and I would have here preferred that term, were it not liable to much misconception, and might have been understood as referring more to special and learned inquiries, than the other name I have adopted...”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar

The Philosophy of History (1852), Lecture I.

Universe, Science, History, Learning

“So long as the figures 'now superseded' and the academic projections based upon them held sway, it was possible for politicians to shrug their shoulders. With so much of immediate and indisputable importance on their hands, why should they attend to what was forecast for the end of the century, when most of them would be not only out of office but dead and gone? … It was not for them to heed the cries of anguish from those of their own people who already saw their towns being changed, their native places turned into foreign lands, and themselves displaced as if by a systematic colonisation. For these the much vaunted compassion of the parties and politicians was not available: the parties and the politicians preferred to be busy making speeches on race relations; and if any of their number dared to tell them the truth, even less than the whole truth, about what was happening and what would happen here in England, they denounced them as racialist and turned them out of doors. They could feel safe; for they said in their hearts: 'If trouble comes, it will not be in our time; let the next generation see to it!'”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

… The explosive which will blow us asunder is there and the fuse is burning, but the fuse is shorter than had been supposed. The transformation which I referred to earlier as being without even a remote parallel in our history, the occupation of the hearts of this metropolis and of towns and cities across England by a coloured population amounting to millions, this before long will be past denying. It is possible that the people of this country will, with good or ill grace, accept what they did not ask for, did not want and were not told of. My own judgment—it is a judgment which the politician has a duty to form to the best of his ability—I have not feared to give: it is—to use words I used two years and a half ago—that 'the people of England will not endure it'.
Source: Speech to the Carshalton and Banstead Young Conservatives at Carshalton Hall (15 February 1971), from Still to Decide (1972), pp. 202-203

Time, Dead, Business, People

“The new tax bill should improve both the equity and the simplicity of our present tax system. This means the enactment of long-needed tax reforms, a broadening of the tax base and the elimination or modification of many special tax privileges. These steps are not only needed to recover lost revenue and thus make possible a larger cut in present rates; they are also tied directly to our goal of greater growth. For the present patchwork of special provisions and preferences lightens the tax load of some only at the cost of placing a heavier burden on others. It distorts economic judgments and channels an undue amount of energy into efforts to avoid tax liabilities. It makes certain types of less productive activity more profitable than other more valuable undertakings. All this inhibits our growth and efficiency, as well as considerably complicating the work of both the taxpayer and the Internal Revenue Service. These various exclusions and concessions have been justified in part as a means of overcoming oppressively high rates in the upper brackets--and a sharp reduction in those rates, accompanied by base-broadening, loophole-closing measures, would properly make the new rates not only lower but also more widely applicable. Surely this is more equitable on both counts.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Making love, Parting, Effort

“Somebody once said that a wedding is a funeral where you can smell your own flowers. Well, that's a harsh judgement in my book. I prefer to see it as a sexual relationship that is recognised by the police.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Series 1 - Twisted Romance (2 Nov 2016)
BBC Radio 4 - Dr John Cooper Clarke at the BBC (Nov 2016)

Flowers, Books, Wedding

“People are sick of fake politicians who have no core and say one thing in private and another in public, or are just obviously doing anything right before an election. My sense is that voters of all ideological persuasions prefer candidates who are just real about what they believe and what they want to do, even if it’s not necessarily the precise policy platform that you agree with. You want someone who’s wearing their values on their sleeve and not B.S.’ing*.”

Jon Ossoff (1987) American politician

Ossoff used more colorful language, but this is a family newspaper.
Quoted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Jolt: Jon Ossoff says voters want ‘someone who’s not B.S.’ing’ (5 January 2020)

Sense, People

“If all women were like as the one we have lost,
Then women would be preferred to men.
For the feminine gender is no shame for the sun,
Nor is the masculine gender an honor for the crescent moon”

Al-Mutanabbi (915–965) Arabic poet from the Abbasid era

Sun, Women, Men

“You felt something huge and marvelous of which you are part, and in the moments you described, you forgot yourself for you were one with your world and with the sky above it, and even the stars looking down. There is nothing larger or more wonderful than that. Still, there are those who would prefer self. They will accept any belief, no matter how foolish, if it guarantees them personal immortality. I know people like that. But there are others who know themselves well enough to realize how limiting that is.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: Singer from the Sea (1999), Chapter 24, “People from the Sea” (p. 382)

Personality, Star, People, Self-confidence

“I’m very introverted, I would prefer solitude to being in the middle of a crowded place. But the draw to service is definitely a draw to community.”

Ivan Camilleri (1969) bishop of the roman-catholic church

The time is now for Camilleri https://www.catholicregister.org/item/32627-the-time-is-now-for-camilleri (January 21, 2021)

Solitude, Drawing, Communication

“I don’t use the word 'pet.' I think it’s speciesist language. I prefer 'companion animal.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

For one thing, we would no longer allow breeding. People could not create different breeds. There would be no pet shops. If people had companion animals in their homes, those animals would have to be refugees from the animal shelters and the streets. You would have a protective relationship with them just as you would with an orphaned child. But as the surplus of cats and dogs (artificially engineered by centuries of forced breeding) declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship — enjoyment at a distance.
The Harper's Forum Book, Jack Hitt, ed., 1989, p. 223.
1980s

Animals, Thinking

“Now is the time for the true friend of his country to remind the masses that their present political elevation is owing to no principles less broad and noble than these—the love of liberty, of liberty for all without distinction of class, creed, or country, and the resolute preference of the interests of the whole to any interest, be it what it may, of a narrower scope.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Sir John Cowan (17 March 1894), quoted in The Times (22 March 1894), p. 8
1890s

Love, Making love, Time, Country

“What is really happening is the reinvention of family not to favour either women or men but to promote new and radical models of family as remote as, so to speak, conceivable from the normative, natural model. And the more remote, the more likely to be preferred.”

John Waters (columnist) (1955) Irish columnist

A 'Yes' to the introduction of post-parent parenting? http://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/a-yes-to-the-introduction-of-postparent-parenting-31209759.html (2015)

Family, Nature, Women, Men

“To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Benjamin Rush (12 April 1803) https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0178-0001 1800s, First Presidential Administration (1801&ndash;1805)

Sense, Sincerity

“The greatest activity is the remembrance and recollection of the Lord and after that come, in order of preference, purity of life, charity and austerity.”

Abu al-Hassan al-Kharaqani (963–1033) Iranian Sufi (963–1033)

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2002), p. 94

Life

“I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Indifference, Wisdom

“Unlike utilitarianism, republican theory does not take people's existing preferences, whatever they may be, and try to satisfy them. It seeks instead to cultivate in citizens the qualities of character necessary to the common good of self-government. Insofar as certain dispositions, attachments, and commitments are essential to the realization of self-government, republican politics regards moral character as a public, not merely private, concern. In this sense, it attends to the identity, not just the interests, of its citizens.”

Michael J. Sandel (1953) American political philosopher

Chap. 2. Rights and the Neutral States
Democracy's Discontent (1996)

Sense, People

“It is the quality of a great soul to scorn great things and to prefer that which is ordinary rather than that which is too great.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXXIX: On Noble Aspirations

Soul

“I am sure I speak for all my sisters when I say that we prefer to be known as directors, not just as women directors. To the eternal question that I am plagued with — what is the main disadvantage of being a woman director — my answer is: being endlessly harangued with this very question”

Sai Paranjpye (1938) Indian film director

FirstPost article by Chintan Girish Modi - Originally an excerpt from Sai Paranjpye's English Autobiography titled "A Patchwork Quilt: A Collage of My Creative Life", published by HarperCollins India - In A Patchwork Quilt, renowned filmmaker Sai Paranjpye reflects on her creative practice, flaws, and failures https://www.firstpost.com/art-and-culture/in-a-patchwork-quilt-renowned-filmmaker-sai-paranjpye-reflects-on-her-creative-practice-flaws-and-failures-9087461.html - 8 December 2020 - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20210901095737/https://www.firstpost.com/art-and-culture/in-a-patchwork-quilt-renowned-filmmaker-sai-paranjpye-reflects-on-her-creative-practice-flaws-and-failures-9087461.html Quotes from Sai Paranjpye

Question, Sister, Women

“We now prefer the fantasy…We find comfort in the lies. I was the victim of that for so long. I imbibed everything. It led to a place where I became extremely unhappy. And now I question everything. I believe it’s a responsibility to do it.”

Gabriel Byrne (1950) Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator

On how people forgo truthful living for lies in “Gabriel Byrne: 'There’s a shame about men speaking out. A sense that if you were abused, it was your fault'” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/08/gabriel-byrne-its-an-obscenity-to-tell-innocent-children-theyre-going-to-hell in The Guardian (2020 Nov 8)

Question

“If I'm not working, I'll go on my boat and have a few drinks. Most of my friends are outside the movie business. It's too much to mix with other celebrities. When I go out I prefer no one talk about movies. I'd rather talk about waterskiing, the sea, beaches, seafood...”

Tony Leung (1962) Hong Kong actor

"I Told Kar-wai I Couldn't Move, Couldn't Breathe" in TIME Asia (11 October 2000) http://edition.cnn.com/ASIANOW/time/features/interviews/2000/10/11/int.tony_leung.html

Sea, Drink, Business

“[I]t is not only men who may be harmed by preferences and quotas. In a number of ways, women could be harmed as well. To begin with, such policies could cast a shadow of doubt over women’s genuine accomplishments.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: Men, Women and STEM: Why the Differences and What Should be Done? (with Lewis G. Halsey; 2021), p. 22

Women, Way, Men

“There is a certain class of people who prefer to say that their fathers came down in the world through their own follies rather than to boast that they rose in the world through their own industry and talents.”

William Winwood Reade (1838–1875) British historian

The Martyrdom of Man (1872)

People, World

“Those who have a spark of self-respect left, prefer open defiance, prefer crime to the emaciated, degraded position of poverty.”

Emma Goldman book Anarchism and Other Essays

Anarchism and Other Essays (1910), Prisons: A Social Crime and Failure

“No data is preferable to poor data.”

Robert L. Forward book Dragon's Egg

Source: Dragon's Egg (1980), Chapter 2, “Pulsar” Section 3 (p. 26)

“Freedom lies in expressing your own determinism, not somebody else’s. It is not the determinism that makes a difference, but the ownership. If freedom is what we prefer, then it is preferable to be determined by forces that originate in ourselves and not in others.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 22 “Free Will” (p. 313)

Freedom

“Cruelty in cinema can give us perspective and insight but I’m not a fan of horror as an adrenaline rush or a desensitizing mechanism, I prefer horror movies that elucidate the human condition.”

Julie Carmen (1954) actress, dancer turned psychotherapist

“Most people are too indifferent or lazy to acquire facts with which to think accurately. They prefer to act on "opinions" created by guesswork or snap-judgments.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938) p.88

Indifference, People, Thinking

“I have spent most of my life preferring books to people. Just because I like a few specific people doesn’t change anything.”

Genevieve Cogman (1972) novelist and game designer

Source: The Burning Page (2016), Chapter 24 (p. 322)
Context: “I have spent most of my life preferring books to people,” Irene said sharply. “Just because I like a few specific people doesn’t change anything.”

People, Books, Change, Life

“An Ahmadi boy, an Ahmadi man, a woman and a girl who had accepted Promised Messiah (peace be on him) they have taken oath that they will give preference to the religion above the worldly affairs. And it can happen only when they will act upon the commandments of the religion.”

Mirza Masroor Ahmad (1950) spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

Eid and Friday Sermons Source: Striving for Moral Excellence: The Islamic Teachings https://www.alislam.org/friday-sermon/2017-01-13.html, Friday Sermon 13th January 2017

Girl, Boy, Peace, Religion

“While some bishops may travel with someone to help with the driving, I go by myself. I prefer it that way. I like the solitude. I don't listen to music. I pray and say the Rosary, or think about things. It gives me a lot of time to myself. Not everyone would like it.”

Peter F. Christensen (1952) Catholic bishop

Source: 6 Bishops on Their Favorite Saints, Spirituality https://www.ncregister.com/blog/6-bishops-on-their-favorite-saints-spirituality (21 January 2020)

Time, Help, Music, Thinking

“The models... (I) separated and divided powers; (II) implied limitations of government; (III) settled expectations; (IV) governmental regularity (V) preferred rights; (VI) equal protection; and (VII) structural justice.”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

American Constitutional Law (1978), Approaches to Constituitonal Analysis

Justice

“It was one long scene of unrelieved misery; not the sort of thing a man of his position should ever be subjected to. One knew that these things happened in war, of course; they were regrettable but necessary. But one preferred not to experience them at first hand.”

Margaret Ball (1515–1584) Lady Mayoress of Dublic and Catholic martyr

Source: Lost in Translation (1995), Chapter 11 (p. 201)

War

“A garden that one makes oneself becomes associated with one's personal history and that of one's friends, interwoven with one's tastes, preferences, and character, and constitutes a sort of unwritten, but withal manifest autobiography. Show me your garden, provided it be your own, and I will tell you what you are like.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: The Garden That I Love (1894), p. 112.

History, Personality

“I always wanted to be a priest and missionary. But God has always caught me off guard. I am nostalgic for what I left behind, but I accepted everything without bitterness and never got my head in the various roles I took on. Personally, I would have preferred to go on the mission, but the Pope asked me to be a missionary here in Setúbal. The mission today is in Europe and a challenge for the Church.”

José Ornelas Carvalho (1954) Portuguese catholic bishop

Source: Making the church a laboratory of humanization https://www.dehoniani.org/en/making-the-church-a-laboratory-of-humanization/ (9 November 2020)

God, Personality

“Where is a self-revelation of this sort achieved? In Life, as its essence, since Life is nothing other than that which reveals itself – not something that might have an added property of self-revealing, but the very fact of self-revealing, self-revelation as such. Everywhere that something like a self-revelation is produced there is Life. Everywhere there is Life, this self-revelation is produced. If, then, the Revelation of God is a self-revelation that owes nothing to the truth of the world, and if we ask where such a self-revelation is achieved, the answer is unequivocal: in Life and in Life alone. Therefore we are in the presence of the first fundamental equation of Christianity: God is Life – he is the essence of Life, or if one prefers, the essence of Life is God. Saying this we already know what God is, but we do not know it through the effect of some knowledge or learning – we do not know it through thought, against the background of the truth of the world. Rather we know it, and we can know it, only in and through Life itself. We can know the essence of God only in God. But this observation is premature.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Books on Religion and Christianity, I am the Truth. Toward a philosophy of Christianity (1996)
Source: Michel Henry, I am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, translated by Susan Emanuel, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 27-28

Knowledge, Life, God, Learning

“There is a certain indolence in us, a wish not to be disturbed, which tempts us to think that when things are quiet, all is well. Subconsciously, we tend to give the preference to 'social peace,' though it be only apparent, because our lives and possessions seem then secure. Actually, human beings acquiesce too easily in evil conditions; they rebel far too little and too seldom. There is nothing noble about acquiescence in a cramped life or mere submission to superior force.”

A. J. Muste (1885–1967) Christian pacifist and civil rights activist

"Pacifism and Class War" in The Essays of A. J. Muste (1967) edited by Nat Hentoff p. 179-85; also quoted in American Power and the New Mandarins (2002) by Noam Chomsky, p. 160.

Evil, Peace, Thinking, Life

“Were Women all like those whom here I name,
Woman to man I surely would prefer;
The Sun is feminine, nor deems it shame;
The Moon, though masculine, depends on her.”

Jami (1414–1492) Persian poet

Alluding to Rabia of Basra, Nafahat al-Uns, as quoted in A Literary History of Persia https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Literary_History_of_Persia/q_n1DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA299 by E. G. Browne, p. 299.

Dependency, Sun, Women

“I am friendly with all the players of badminton but on court our attitude change as we prefer not to lose because of these relations.”

Sania Nehwal (1990) Indian badminton player

"Saina Nehwal Interview: 'The Last Year Has Been The Toughest Time Of My Life'" in The Huffington Post https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/saina-nehwal-_n_7246612 (23 May 2015)

Change

“I have camped where the grizzly bears were plentiful. It is nice that they are on the planet and all that, but I prefer my grizzlies shy, not too hungry, and far enough away to be picturesque.”

Jordan Peterson book Beyond Order

Source: Books, Beyond Order (2021), p. 315

“I would prefer fighting foreign fighters to show the true power of Lethwei against other martial arts.”

Dave Leduc (1991) Canadian Lethwei fighter (born 1991)

As quoted by Anadolu Agency https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/ethnic-muslim-fighter-eyes-myanmar-s-kickboxing-crown/1325639 (November 30, 2018) On Lethwei

Art, Fight

“Satan's getting jealous of the wolves, demons say they preferring us.”

Tyler, The Creator (1991) American rapper, record producer, music video director and designer from California

Goblin (2011)

“You must teach me a small part of what you know," said Dantes, "if only to prevent your growing weary of me. I can well believe] that so learned a person as yourself would prefer absolute [[solitude to being tormented with the company of one as ignorant and uninformed as myself. If you will only agree to my request, I promise you never to mention another word about escaping.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 17 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo/Chapter_17 The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846)

Personality, Learning, Solitude, Parting

“Avoid contention and hostility when it only drives you to trouble, but never let others intimidate you just because you prefer peace and quiet.”

Titon Rahmawan

Peace, Hostility