Quotes about rethinking

A collection of quotes on the topic of rethinking, doing, use, time.

Quotes about rethinking

“I still stand by what I said. Do you want me to lie about it?' he asks.
'No, I want you to rethink it and come up with the right opinion,' I tell him.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Lie

“Every time I think that it’s not worth it – that the people in it deserve the misery of their lives – I come across someone who makes me rethink that.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

People, Thinking, Time

“You might wanna rethink that, boy. 'Cause if I'm going to get sued for offensively touching you, I'm going to make it worth my while.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Boy

“To me, making a tape is like writing a letter – there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again, and I wanted it to be a good one.”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

“In the case of Islam, our effort aims at raising the dialogue from the street level to the level of scholarly platforms. For a long time, Hindus have been flattering Muslims by seeing nothing wrong in the doctrine of Islam. For a long time, Muslims have been taking to the streets and shedding blood whenever and wherever Hindus object to their behaviour pattern. Muslims have never been asked by Hindus to reflect on the dogmas of Islam, and revise them wherever they go against peaceful coexistence. We are appealing to Hindus to start asking some questions about Islam so that Muslims are made to rethink. If asking questions with a view to holding a dialogue is provoking violence, we plead guilty again. Hindus had a long tradition of asking questions even about their own cherished doctrines. I wonder if you are well-acquainted with our acharyas - Brahmanic, Buddhist and the rest. It was only with the advent of Islam and, later on, Christianity that Hindus were terrorised into the habit of remaining silent when faced with wild claims and not asking any questions. We are trying to revive the ancient Hindu tradition.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

Peace, Question, Effort, Time

“As translators, we must be courageous, free and passionate about what we are doing. We must constantly strive to enrich our own cultural and linguistic repertoire. We must read, we must write. We must be prepared to rethink, to revise, to rewrite, constantly. We must have endless time and patience. Deadlines are there to be ignored, to be kept alive. Above all we must play with words, ideas and feelings. Delight in them. We must never lose sight of the playfulness and creative licence that are the lifeblood of art and literature, and hence of translation.”

John Minford (1946) New Zealand sinologist

Public Lecture (2018)

Art, Feeling, Literature, Idea

“If you've got a religious belief that withers in the face of observations of the natural world, you ought to rethink your beliefs — rethinking the world isn't an option.”

PZ Myers (1957) American scientist and associate professor of biology

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/the_man_with_two_duhs_in_his_n.php
The man with two 'duh's in his name
Pharyngula
2008-04-03

World, Nature

“Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed.”

Michael Hammer (1948–2008) American academic

Source: Reengineering the Corporation, 1993, p. 32

Business, Speed

“The latest chapter of the venerable slasher film saga represents the tenth movie to use the title (although only the ninth with Myers); it's a sequel to the remake but not necessarily a remake of the sequel. It is also a complete and utter abomination. The film is so bad that it may make me rethink my stance on installment #6 (The Curse of Michael Myers) as the worst entry. That one, at least by all accounts, was severely compromised as a result of distributor interference. This one represents Rob Zombie's "vision."”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

That being the case, he's blind. Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1780 of Halloween II (2009). Half-star reviews

“There have always been two aspects to my work: formal innovation and strong content. That goes for Steve’s tape pieces as well. To make a work together, we had to be engaged by the subject matter, and we shared an interest in technology as it has advanced. Looking back at the Hindenburg and Bikini Atoll, and forward in “Dolly” to new technologies, was a way of rethinking and understanding the soup in which we swim. We call this a theater of ideas, but its success as a work depends on the strength of the video and the music.
“Hindenburg” itself begins with the crash of the zeppelin in 1937 and ends with a view of its burnt-up carcass on the landing field in Lakehurst, New Jersey, taken from an airplane. What interested us here in viewing the archival material and listening to recordings of the period was the overwhelming conviction that technology was the sure way to progress. Naturally, after the atom bomb, a darker view of progress began to appear.”

Beryl Korot (1945) American artist

Beryl Korot, in: " Steve Reich and Beryl Korot by Julia Wolfe http://bombmagazine.org/article/2521/steve-reich-and-beryl-korot," BOMB 81, Fall 2002

Music, Way, Idea, Understanding

“We need to have a total rethink of what we do in our prisons to tackle extremism. And we need our internet companies to go further in helping us identify potential terrorists online. Many of their commercial models are built around monitoring platforms for personal data, packaging it up and selling it on to third parties. And when it comes to doing what’s right for their business, they are happy to engineer technologies to track our likes and dislikes. But when it comes to doing what’s right in the fight against terrorism, we too often hear that it’s all too difficult.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2015, Speech on (20 July 2015)

Happiness, Business, Help, Fight

“Yes, cannabis is dangerous, but no more than other perfectly legal drugs. It's time for a rethink, and the Tory party - the funkiest, most jiving party on Earth - is where it's happening.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

"No one obeys the speed limit except a motorised rickshaw", Daily Telegraph, 12 July 2001, p. 27.
2000s, 2001

Time

“I no longer recommend dairy products after the age of two years. … Of course, there was a time when cow's milk was considered very desirable. But research, along with clinical experience, has forced doctors and nutritionists to rethink this recommendation. It is an area where there are still disagreements among scientists, but there are several points that most everyone agrees on. First of all, other calcium sources offer many advantages that dairy products do not have. Most green leafy vegetables and beans have a form of calcium that is absorbed as well as or even a bit better than that in milk. Along with this calcium come vitamins, iron, complex carbohydrates, and fiber. Calcium-enriched soy or rice drinks are just as tasty on cereal as cow's milk (once you get used to them), and they are free of animal proteins and cholesterol. These beverages, as well as calcium-enriched orange and other juices, provide as much calcium, ounce per ounce, as cow's milk. Vegetables and legumes can provide a healthy source of calcium, along with many other nutritional advantages.”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care

Source: Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (1945), Seventh edition (1998), pp. 331-332

Age, Drink, Time, Animals

“Cynthia: To be honest, I've been rethinking things lately. I mean, I'm still a Christian, but I'm definitely transitioning.
Janis: Really? Is your mom letting you do hormones? Mine won't.”

Alison Bechdel book Dykes to Watch Out For

#457, "Son Goddess" (2005), collected in Invasion of the DTWOF (2005).
Dykes to Watch Out For

Moms

“Most lawyers are used to trying to win a case on some kind of technical or evidentiary ground. We had to teach them to rethink death cases. Most capital defendants are guilty.”

Morris Dees (1936) American activist

1990 Interview with Morris Dees https://www.jstor.org/stable/29759412?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Litigation (American Bar Association)

Death

“If you're not spending every waking moment of your life radically rethinking the nature of the world - if you're not plotting every moment boiling the carcass of the old order - then you're wasting your day.”

Douglas Coupland book Girlfriend in a Coma

Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)

Life, World, Nature

“The enlightenment idea of privacy is breaking apart under the strain of new technologies, social tools and the emergence of the database state. We cannot hold back the tide, but we can use it as an opportunity to rethink what we understand by 'personality', how we engage and interact with others and where the boundaries can be put between the public and private. Those of us who are ahead of the curve when it comes to the adoption and use of technologies that undermine the old model of privacy have much to teach those who will come after us, and can offer advice and support to those who might be unhappy to have their movements, eating habits, friendships and patterns of media consumption made available to all. But every Twitterer, Tumblr, Dopplr or Brightkite user at Lift is sharing more data with more people than even the FBI under Hoover or the Stasi at the height of its powers could have dreamed of. And we do so willingly, hoping to benefit in unquantifiable ways from this unwarranted - in all senses - disclosure. I'll argue that we are in the vanguard of creating not just new forms of social organisation but new ways of being human.”

Bill Thompson (1960) English technology writer, born 1960

" The Death of Privacy and Why We Should Welcome It http://liftconference.com/death-privacy-and-why-we-should-welcome-it," January 18, 2009. (Remarks made during the Lift Conference)

Friendship, People, Dreams, Hope

“We have to realize that the way of thinking that got us to this place no longer holds. We have to rethink elements as basic as space and time, to go all science fictiony [sic] on you in this sense.”

Justin Trudeau (1971) 23rd Prime Minister of Canada; eldest son of Pierre Trudeau

Source: Speaking to university students in September 2014. http://www.torontosun.com/2014/09/21/justin-is-beyond-infinity

Way, Thinking, Sense, Science

“I urge the Bush Administration to rethink its priorities. We can't talk about community values without being prepared to invest in those very same communities.”

Joe Lieberman (1942) politician from the United States

Communication

“Historically Tcl has always stored all intermediate results as strings. (With 8.0 they're rethinking that. Of course, Perl rethought that from the start.)”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

Usenet postings, 1997

“Certainly, self-righteous anti-vivisection societies had been hollering, "Abolition! All or Nothing!" But that didn't help the laboratory animals, since while the anti-vivisection groups had been hollering, the number of animals used in United States laboratories had zoomed from a few thousand to over 70 million. That was a pitiful track record, and it seemed a good idea to rethink strategies which have a century-long record of failure.”

Henry Spira (1927–1998) American activist

Idea, Failure, Help, Animals

“Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Usenet signatures

Faith, Failure, Study

“On the other hand, the constructive and often scholarly criticism is almost always helpful in thinking about or rethinking decisions. It is my view that constructive criticism goes with the turf, especially when the stakes are so high and the cases arouse passions and emotions. And, in a free society, the precious freedom of speech and the strength of ideas, we at the court could not possibly claim exemption from such criticism. Moreover, we are not infallible, just final.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Idea, Thinking, Decision, Freedom

“One way to clarify the origin and character, if not the justification, of the ideal inspiring our programmatic institutional ideas is to say that our program arises from the generalization of aims broadly shared by the great secular doctrines of emancipation of the recent past—both liberal and socialist—and by the social theories that supported them. At the heart of each of these doctrines lay the belief that the weakening of social divisions and hierarchies would reveal deeper commonalities and liberate productive and creative powers. The theoretical and practical consequences of this belief were drastically constricted by dogmatic assumptions about the possible forms of social change and their possible institutional expressions. We have attacked the second set of constraints and therefore, by implication, the first. The result is a more generalized or radicalized version of the social ideal. Our attack on these constraints has led us to rethink the content of the progressive cause.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: The Critical Legal Studies Movementː Another Time, A Greater Task (2015), p. 104-5

Way, Idea, Support, Change

“When it comes to the all-too-human problem of recessions and depressions, economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly. The vision that emerges as the profession rethinks its foundations may not be all that clear; it certainly won’t be neat; but we can hope that it will have the virtue of being at least partly right.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?", The New York Times (September 2, 2009)
The New York Times Columns

Hope, Problem

“While liberals appeared to be safely in power, feminists could perhaps afford the luxury of defining Larry Flynt or Roman Polanski as Enemy Number One. Now that we have to cope with Jerry Falwell and Jesse Helms, a rethinking of priorities seems in order.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"Lust Horizons: Is the Woman's Movement Pro-Sex?" (1981), No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays (1992)

Appearance

“In the end, what is really needed is a fundamental rethinking of the notion that the state rather than private markets must monopolize the provision of justice and security. This is the fatal conceit. No power granted to the state goes unabused. This power, among all possible powers, might be the most important one to take away from the state.”

Lew Rockwell (1944) American libertarian author and editor

As quoted in "The Police State Abolishes the Trial" http://mises.org/library/police-state-abolishes-trial, (30 September 2011), Mises Daily, The Ludwig von Mises Institute. 2010s

Justice

“It’s time to rethink the whole system of HMOs and managed care. This entire unnecessary level of corporatism rakes off profits and worsens the quality of care. But HMOs did not arise in the free market; they are creatures of government interference in health care dating to the 1970s. These non-market institutions have gained control over medical care through collusion between organized medicine, politicians, and drug companies, in an effort to move America toward “free” universal health care.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Diagnosing our Health Care Woes, September 25, 2006 http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst092506.htm 2000s, 2006-2009

Health, Effort, Universe, Time

“This is the first time in history that we’ve had this level of luxury, so we have a new opportunity to rethink the way we approach God.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Interview by Jonathan Robinson (1994), p. 115.

God, Way, History, Time

“Star Trek represented, and still does represent, the future we can have, a future that is beyond the petty squabbles we are dealing with here on Earth, now as much as ever, and are able to devote ourselves to the betterment of all human kind by doing what we do so well: explore. This kind of a future isn't impossible - and we need to all rethink our priorities to really bring that vision to life.”

Nichelle Nichols (1932) American actress, singer and voice artist

Uhura Fest: 'Star Trek' legend Nichelle Nichols talks Wizard World Philly and transcending race http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/geek/Uhura-Star-Trek-Nichelle-Nichols-Wizard-World-Philly.html (May 29, 2017)

Life, Star, Future

“As we find ourselves in jobless economies, societies in which small minorities consume while the masses starve, we find ourselves forced to rethink the rationale of our current globalization and to ponder the Gandhian alternative.
At a time when Freud was liberating sex, Gandhi was reining it in; when Marx was pitting worker against capitalist, Gandhi was reconciling them; when the dominant European thought had dropped God and soul out of the social reckoning, he was centralizing society in God and soul; at a time when the colonized had ceased to think and control, he dared to think and control; and when the ideologies of the colonized had virtually disappeared, he revived them and empowered them with a potency that liberated and redeemed.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

2000s, The Sacred Warrior (2000)

God, Sex, Soul, Thinking

“If growth in East Asia is indeed running into diminishing returns, however, the conventional wisdom about an Asian-centered world economy needs some rethinking.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Pop Internationalism (1996), Asia's Miracle (1994)

Wisdom, World

“Indian Marxists, notwithstanding their claims to originality, have always been faithful followers of Western intellectual trends, often long after these were dated in the west. Thus, well after Western academics expounded upon European feudalism, Indian Marxists continue to search for point-by-point parallels between post-Gupta India and the West. Similarly the once-in-vogue notion of 'imagined' communities continues to bewitch our Marxist brethren who remain committed to fitting the history of the subcontinent to this maxim. Only the western rethinking on old patriotisms underpinning the new nationalisms has yet to win the allegiance of Indian Marxists.”

Meenakshi Jain Indian historian

Review of Romila Thapar's "Somanatha, The Many Voices of a History" by Meenakshi Jain, in The Pioneer 21st March 2004

Faith, Imagination, History, Search

“The most powerful way to prevail in global competition is still invisible to many companies. During the 1980s, top executives were judged on their ability to restructure, declutter, and delayer their corporations. In the 1990s, they'll be judged on their ability to identify, cultivate, and exploit the core competencies that make growth possible - indeed, they'll have to rethink the concept of the corporation itself.”

Gary Hamel (1954) American management expert

Source: "The Core Competence of the Corporation," 1990, p. 2; Lead paragraph

Way

“Mo: Thanks for the lentils! I have to go home now and rethink my priorities!”

Alison Bechdel book Dykes to Watch Out For

#3, "High Anxiety" (1987), collected in More DTWOF (1988).
Dykes to Watch Out For

Home

“Making art means not only using languages, but also creating new ones. To do this, new tools are indispensable. Even returning to more traditional languages such as linear poetry or narration, after being enriched by the experience of hypertext, hypermedia and multimedia, allows us to rethink the older forms of expression and transfer the lessons of the new media into even the more traditional modalities of language, such as narrative, for example.”

Caterina Davinio (1957) Italian writer

Source: Virtual Mercury House. Planetary & Interplanetary Events, p. 48

Art

“The Independent Expert believes that a fundamental rethink is necessary and should result in an explicit definition of new priorities that puts the interests of billions of human beings who are deprived of the necessities of life ahead of those of foreign investors.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the adverse impact of World Bank policies on human rights and the realisation of a democratic and equitable international order
2017, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

Life

“The way these things go, there are probably 6 or 8 kludgey ways to do it, and a better way that involves rethinking something that hasn't been rethunk yet.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199710221859.LAA24889@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Way

“I imagine that whatever contribution I can make to teaching derives from having had to rethink and re-create my technique.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

Violinist Yehudi Menuhin

Imagination

“PETA has proven that there is a sexy way to suggest to people to rethink the fur. … As a former fur wearer, I must say that I have not really given fur any thought for a good seven years. I don't really think that fur is the mark of success anymore. As a decent person, with compassion, it just seems like the right thing to support. What I would have to say to people that currently wear fur, I’d softly suggest to keep your mind open and do your research.”

Wendy Williams (1964) American television personality and radio host

"Wendy Williams' Sexy Ad for PETA" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAEGbuSWd9E, video interview with PETA (28 November 2012).

People, Way, Support, Thinking

“I still think Keynesian economics is extremely important, and if anybody didn’t think so, this crisis should have made them rethink.”

Stanley Fischer (1943) American economist

Stanley Fischer, quoted in Dylan Matthews, "Stan Fischer saved Israel’s economy. Can he save America’s?" http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/15/stan-fischer-saved-israels-economy-can-he-save-americas/, washingtonpost.com, 2013/02/15

Thinking

“It means that until 12 April, anything is possible: a deal, a long extension if the United Kingdom decided to rethink its strategy, or revoking Article 50, which is a prerogative of the UK government. The fate of Brexit is in the hands of our British friends. As the EU, we are prepared for the worst, but hope for the best. As you know, hope dies last.”

Donald Tusk (1957) Polish politician, current President of the European Council

Brexit's fate 'is in British hands', says Donald Tusk https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47672136 BBC News (22 March 2019) 2011, 2019

Fate, Hope

“In keeping with a pattern which will be familiar to anyone studying the writings of supporters of the Aryan invasion theory, such unnatural or anomalous phenomena do not make these scholars rethink their theory; it only makes them try to think of ways to maintain their theory in the face of inconvenient facts.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 7 : The Indo-European Homeland

Making love, Way, Support, Thinking

“It might also mean greater business and government support for maternity and paternity leave and day care so that the middle class and the poor can get some of the educational benefits that the early academic intervention of the rich provides their children. Fundamentally, it means rethinking our still-persistent notion that educational problems should be solved by schools alone. The more we do to ensure that all children have similar cognitively stimulating early childhood experiences, the less we will have to worry about failing schools. This in turn will enable us to let our schools focus on teaching the skills — how to solve complex problems, how to think critically and how to collaborate — essential to a growing economy and a lively democracy.”

Sean Reardon American sociologist

No Rich Child Left Behind, 2013

Children, Education, School, Democracy

“People want to it to be done, they want that uncomfortable truth to be over with, they want the racism to be done, they want to believe everything is great and hunky-dory. And it’s not. There’s a lot of racism still alive and still active. And it just forced America to rethink it once again. And to really, really understand that racism isn’t gone. We have to actively push it out. And snuff it out.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

The NFL Would Not Have Banned A Donald Sterling For Life (May 7, 2014)

People, Truth, Understanding

“Humanity is entirely responsible for being at the root of the problems arising from global warming. We need to rethink the way we live on earth in order to preserve life. Global warming is out of control…. Time is not on our side, which is why I am calling on all young millennials to hasten this radical revolution. You are a part of nature and compassion decrees that you take care of it as much as you do yourselves. It is only through mutual support and co-operation that you will be able to contain disasters that are fuelled by economic and social injustice and are fuelled by greed, selfishness, and other negative states of mind…. You are responsible for the wellbeing of billions of humans and all manner of living species sharing the adventure of life on earth. It is up to you to protect natural resources and guard over air, water, oceans, forests, fauna and flora. To do so it is essential that you realize your potential for love and compassion in order to care for the earth. Learn to love it through sharing it rather than striving to possess it and thereby destroying it.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

A Call for Revolution (2017-2018)

Love, Life, Making love, Way

“The task of material phenomenology is immense. It is not simply to be attached to another order of phenomena that remained neglected up to now but to rethink everything, if one can think reality. Every sphere of reality must become the object of a new analysis that goes back to its invisible dimension. And this concerns material nature as well, which is a living cosmos. Since material phenomenology implies the revival of philosophical questioning in its entirety, it offers a future to phenomenology and to philosophy itself. At the same time, it discovers a new past.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Source: Michel Henry, Material Phenomenology, Fordham University Press, 2008, p. 6
Source: Books on Phenomenology and Life, Material Phenomenology (1990)

Question, Nature, Thinking, Reality

“The unprecedented circumstances we live in represent a unique opportunity for us to rethink the global role of multilateralism and strengthen the importance of orderly globalization and a rules-based international order.”

Andrej Plenković (1970) Prime Minister of Croatia

Source: "Speech at the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly" https://undocs.org/en/A/75/PV.10 (25 September 2020)