Quotes about reject
page 6

J.B. Priestley photo
Andreas Schelfhout photo

“You can't sell anything to the museum nowadays. If one presents something now, one is partly rejected because they have no money in cash. Yes Friend, that's how things are going... It's going very bad here with the old arts in The Hague., I hardly hear of anything. How are things going in Rotterdam? I believe that also there is not much moving.”

Andreas Schelfhout (1787–1870) Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch, citaat van Schelfhout, uit zijn brief:) Aan het museum [ver]koop men tans niets. Als men iets tans presanteert, wort men daar mede afgewezen, daar is geen geld bij kas. Ja Vriend, zo gaat het.. .Het is tans zeer dwaas met de oude kuns bij ons [in Den Haag]., ik hoor bijna van niets. Hoe gaat het te Rott.m? Ik geloof dat daar ook niet veel beweeging er mede is.
Quote from Schelfhout's letter to J. Immerzweel, 8 Jan. 1825; original text from the letter in the collection of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library), The Hague, no. 133 C12

Isaac Barrow photo
John Milton photo
Madonna photo

“Rejection is the greatest aphrodisiac.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

(Lyric from "Forbidden Love", Bedtime Stories).

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Paul Cézanne photo
Aron Ra photo
Northrop Frye photo

“The "flow of information," which is mostly misinformation, is actually a presentation of myths. And people are increasingly rejecting the prescribed myths & developing their own counter-myths.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), p. 97

Hillary Clinton photo
John Bright photo
Yanis Varoufakis photo

“…negotiations will be an exercise in futility and frustration. Barnier’s two-phase negotiation announcement amounts to a rejection of the principle of … negotiation. He is, effectively, saying to you: First you give me everything I am asking for unconditionally (Phase 1) and only then will I hear what you want”

Yanis Varoufakis (1961) Greek-Australian political economist and author, Greek finance minister

Phase 2
Source: My message to Theresa May: listen and learn from our Greek tragedy http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/my-message-to-theresa-may-listen-and-learn-from-our-greek-tragedy-a3536551.html, The Evening Standard 12 May 2017

Joseph Beuys photo
Alexander Maclaren photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Józef Piłsudski photo

“(About Russians) They are all more or less disguised imperialists, including revolutionists. The trait of these minds, always longing for the absolute, is a vivid centralism. They loathe varieties, cannot conciliate dissonances - such things dull their will and imagination to the extent that they cannot combine varieties into one whole; they reject even the idea of conscious social organizations. […] Let everything happen by itself, vividly - that is the wisest solution according to them, because it is the simplest and the easiest. Which is why there are so many anarchists among them. A strange thing, but I have never met any republicans among Russians!”

Józef Piłsudski (1867–1935) Polish politician and Prime Minister

Wacław Sieroszewski, Józef Piłsudski, Piotrków: 1915, p. 19.
Attributed
Source: Polish: "Wszyscy oni są mniej lub więcej zakapturzeni imperialiści, nie wyłączając rewolucjonistów. Żywiołowy centralizm jest cechą tych umysłów, wiecznie tęskniących do absolutu. Nie znoszą rozmaitości, nie umieją godzić sprzeczności – nużą one ich wolę i wyobraźnię do tego stopnia, że nie mogą stopić rozmaitości w jedną całość, odrzucają zupełnie nawet potrzebę świadomych społecznych organizacji. [...]. Niech się dzieje wszystko samo przez się, żywiołowo – to rozwiązanie według nich jest najmądrzejsze, bo najprostsze i najłatwiejsze. Dlatego to pośród nich tak dużo jest anarchistów. Dziwna jednak rzecz, że nie spotkałem wcale wśród Rosjan republikanów!"

Henry Jacob Bigelow photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Camille Paglia photo

“Feminism has exceeded its proper mission of seeking political equality for women and has ended by rejecting contingency, that is, human limitation by nature or fate.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 3

Hippolytus of Rome photo
Fernand Léger photo
Warren Farrell photo
Ayman al-Zawahiri photo

“We have endured a lot of harm from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his brothers, and we preferred to respond with as little as possible, out of our concern to extinguish the fire of sedition. But Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his brothers did not leave us a choice, for they have demanded that all the mujahideen reject their confirmed pledges of allegiance, and to pledge allegiance to them for what they claim of a caliphate.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri (1951) Egyptian physician, Islamic theologian and leader of al-Qaeda

As quoted in "Al Qaeda 'declares war' on ISIS as 9/11 terror group boss blasts rival for declaring himself leader of all Muslims" http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/al-qaeda-declares-war-isis-6422015, The Mirror (11 September 2015)

George W. Bush photo

“In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over. A hopeful day has arrived. All Iraqis can now come together and reject violence and build a new Iraq.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Remarks on the Capture of Saddam Hussein (December 2003)

Susie Bright photo
Thomas D'Arcy McGee photo
Rebecca West photo
Ilana Mercer photo
Theodosius Dobzhansky photo

“According to Goldschmidt, all that evolution by the usual mutations—dubbed "micromutations"—can accomplish is to bring about "diversification strictly within species, usually, if not exclusively, for the sake of adaptation of the species to specific conditions within the area which it is able to occupy." New species, genera, and higher groups arise at once, by cataclysmic saltations—termed macromutations or systematic mutations—which bring about in one step a basic reconstruction of the whole organism. The role of natural selection in this process becomes "reduced to the simple alternative: immediate acceptance or rejection." A new form of life having been thus catapulted into being, the details of its structures and functions are subsequently adjusted by micromutation and selection. It is unnecessary to stress here that this theory virtually rejects evolution as this term is usually understood (to evolve means to unfold or to develop gradually), and that the systematic mutations it postulates have never been observed. It is possible to imagine a mutation so drastic that its product becomes a monster hurling itself beyond the confines of species, genus, family, or class. But in what Goldschmidt has called the "hopeful monster" the harmonious system, which any organism must necessarily possess, must be transformed at once into a radically different, but still sufficiently coherent, system to enable the monster to survive. The assumption that such a prodigy may, however rarely, walk the earth overtaxes one's credulity, even though it may be right that the existence of life in the cosmos is in itself an extremely improbable event.”

Genetics and the Origin of Species (1941) 2nd revised edition

Miklós Horthy photo
John Gray photo
Maithripala Sirisena photo

“Mathripala Sirisena: Let me explain the facts. First, let's look at my brother who is Chairman of the Telecom company. You have to differentiate between nepotism, and members of the family getting involved in governance. When you take the telecom institution, it's a mix of state and private sector. Importantly, it comes under a different ministry: it's an institution that comes under a different minister. My brother hasn't been involved in governance in any instance. On the other side, you mentioned my son-in-law, he has in no way been given a powerful position. He has only a minor position on my personal staff. Then you mention my son. Usually, we all know that when you go to the UN General Assembly, there are a certain number of seats allocated to each country's delegation. It's only in accordance with that allocation that government representatives from here attended. I must very clearly say: my son was not included in that number. I totally reject describing this as nepotism. Because in politics, we also need to look at people's understanding, our culture. So within these issues, we have to look at the way the government acted, before I came to power and how we act today. So I must clearly say no member of family has been involved in governance at any point.”

Maithripala Sirisena (1951) Sri Lankan politician, 7th President of Sri Lanka

Talk to Al Jazeera - Sri Lankan president: No allegations of war crimes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udGmG-eqJ6o

Aron Ra photo
James Madison photo

“This idea of reserving right to withdraw was started at Richmd. & considered as a conditional ratification which was itself considered as worse than a rejection.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

1780s, Letter to Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Herbert Marcuse photo
Jeffrey Tucker photo

“It represents a conscious rejection of the failed experience of the entire boomer generation, one that exalted tackiness above beauty, and sexual freedom above the liturgy of courtship.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: "Saved by Swing" by Jeff Tucker, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, August 1998, UNZ.org, 2016-05-22 http://www.unz.org/Pub/RothbardRockwellReport-1998aug-00004,

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed photo

“lt should not be forgotten that we are carrying on the Government in the province under an irresponsible centre, and almost under the shadow of the scheme of the All India Federation which has been rejected not only by the National Congress but also by other political organizations and the Princes and the people of the States.”

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (1905–1977) the fifth President of India and a politician

In:Suresh K. Sharma: Documents on North-East India: Assam (1936-1957) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=LxqMU0dv2O4C&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105, Mittal Publications, 2006, p. 99
In the Assam Assembly presenting the Budget in 1939

Dorothy Day photo
Michael Moorcock photo
Aisha photo

“Whoever innovates something in this matter of ours that is not part of it, will have it rejected.”

Aisha (605–678) Muhammad's wife

Hadith 5 Sunan Ibn Majah

Vladimir Lenin photo
Daniel De Leon photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Philip Pullman photo
Naomi Klein photo
Edward Hopper photo

“In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

Hopper quoted this from Ralph Waldo Emerson's book Self Reliance, the book he loved throughout his life
1941 - 1967
Source: 'How Edward Hopper Saw the Light', by Joseph Phelan, at Artcyclopedia online

Aron Ra photo
Merrick Garland photo

“Because nothing has transpired in the last half-century to suggest that the national interest in public disclosure of lobbying information is any less vital than it was when the Supreme Court first considered the issue, we reject that challenge.”

Merrick Garland (1952) American judge

[2009, National Association of Manufacturers v. Taylor, Merrick Garland]; quote then cited in:
March 18, 2016, The BLT, Appeals Court Rejects Challenge to Lobbying Disclosures, September 8, 2009, Mike Scarcella http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/09/appeals-court-rejects-challenge-to-lobbying-disclosures.html,; and also excerpted quote from this source, next cited in:
[March 18, 2016, The Quotable Merrick Garland: A Collection of Writings and Remarks, http://www.nationallawjournal.com/home/id=1202752327128/The-Quotable-Merrick-Garland-A-Collection-of-Writings-and-Remarks, Zoe Tillman, The National Law Journal, March 16, 2016, 0162-7325]
Court opinions and media comments

George W. Bush photo
Russell L. Ackoff photo
John Gray photo
Peter Sloterdijk photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“The Pennsylvania legislature, who, on a proposition to make the belief in God a necessary qualification for office, rejected it by a great majority, although assuredly there was not a single atheist in their body. And you remember to have heard, that when the act for religious freedom was before the Virginia Assembly, a motion to insert the name of Jesus Christ before the phrase, "the author of our holy religion," which stood in the bill, was rejected, although that was the creed of a great majority of them.”

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

Letter to Albert Gallatin (16 June 1817). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 12 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-12_Bk.pdf, p. 73
1810s

Jason Brennan photo

“When we are rejected in the world, we will recover only as we begin to realize that we must hold on to our sense of who we are and not be defeated by outside evaluations.”

Dr. Rose Marie Toussaint http://haiti.org/dt_team/dr-rose-marie-toussaint/, Pearls of Excellence Exhibit, Haitian Embassy

“When you begin to read a poem you are entering a foreign country whose laws and language and life are a kind of translation of your own; but to accept it because its stews taste exactly like your old mother's hash, or to reject it because the owl-headed goddess of wisdom in its temple is fatter than the Statue of Liberty, is an equal mark of that want of imagination, that inaccessibility to experience, of which each of us who dies a natural death will die.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"The Obscurity of the Poet," Harvard University lecture (15 August 1950) delivered at the Harvard University Summer School Conference on the Defense of Poetry (August 14-17, 1950); reprinted in Partisan Review, XVIII (January/February 1951) and published in Poetry and the Age (1953)
General sources
Variant: When you begin to read a poem you are entering a foreign country whose laws and language and life are a kind of translation of your own; but to accept it because its stews taste exactly like your old mother's hash, or to reject it because the owl-headed goddess of wisdom in its temple is fatter than the Statue of Liberty, is an equal mark of that want of imagination, that inaccessibility to experience, of which each of us who dies a natural death will die.

Jean Paul Sartre photo
Julian (emperor) photo
Steve King photo
Kurt Schuschnigg photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Max Horkheimer photo
Lester B. Pearson photo
Tertullian photo
Amir Taheri photo

“The promised “Pure Mohammadan Islam” is based on three rejections… The first rejection is of traditional Islamic tolerance for Christians and Jews — who, labeled “People of the Book,” could live in a caliphate by paying protection money (jizyeh). The idea is that the “protection” offered by Mohammad belonged to the early phase of Islam when the “Last Prophet” wasn’t strong enough. Once Mohammad had established his rule, the Daeshites note, he ordered the massacre of Jews and the expulsion of Christians from the Arabian Peninsula… The second rejection is aimed against “Infidel ideologies,” especially democracy — government of men by men rather than by Allah… Daesh’s third rejection is aimed against what is labeled “diluted” (iltiqati) forms of Islam — for example, insisting that Islam is a religion of peace. In Daesh’s view, Islam will be a religion of peace only after it has seized control of the entire world. Until then, the world will be divided between the House of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the House of War (Dar al-Harb). There can never be peace between Islam and whatever that is not Islam. At best, Muslims can make truce (solh) with non-Muslims while continuing to prepare for the next war. Daesh also rejects the “aping of Infidel institutions” such as a presidential system, a parliament and the use of such terms as “republic.””

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

The only form of government in “Pure Mohammadan Islam” is the caliphate; the only law is sharia.
"The ugly attractions of ISIS’ ideology" http://nypost.com/2014/11/02/the-ugly-attractions-of-isis-ideology/, New York Post (November 2, 2014).
New York Post

Amy Tan photo
Max Boot photo
Nick Zedd photo
Jacques Chirac photo

“Never make up with extremism, racism, antisemitism or rejecting whoever is different”

Jacques Chirac (1932–2019) 22nd President of France

Ne composez jamais avec l'extrémisme, le racisme, l'antisémitisme ou le rejet de l'autre.
Statement in Le Monde http://www;lemonde.fr, dated mars 13th 2007, p. 10

Karl Mannheim photo
Amartya Sen photo
Georg Brandes photo
John Stuart Mill photo
Hippolytus of Rome photo

“A gladiator or a trainer of gladiators, or a huntsman, or anyone connected with these shows … must desist or be rejected.”

Hippolytus of Rome (170–235) 3rd-century theologian in the Christian Church

Apostolic Tradition

Bruce Fein photo

“Congress should reject that cynicism in defense of historical truth.”

Bruce Fein (1947) American lawyer

Armenian crime amnesia? (2007)

George Mason photo

“Our All is at Stake, and the little Conveniences and Comforts of Life, when set in Competition with our Liberty, ought to be rejected not with Reluctance but with Pleasure.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Letter to George Washington (5 April 1769)

George Peacock photo
Michael Chabon photo
J. C. R. Licklider photo
Shimon Peres photo

“We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. It is a tragedy what the Armenians went through but not a genocide […] Israel should not determine a historical or philosophical position on the Armenian issue. If we have to determine a position, it should be done with great care not to distort the historical realities.”

Shimon Peres (1923–2016) Israeli politician, 8th prime minister and 9th president of Israel

As quoted in "The Holocaust and Armenian Case: Highlighting the Main Differences" by Ibrahim Kaya http://www.turkishweekly.net/articles.php?id=61, in Turkish Weekly (10 April 2001)

Mario Cuomo photo