Authorizing Quotes & Sayings

If you look at any Muslim society and you make a scale of how developed they are, and how successful the economy is, it's a straight line. It depends on how much they emancipate their women. — Christopher Hitchens

On March 1, 1907, New Jersey passed a law authorizing execution by electrocution, thus becoming only the third state in the nation to adopt electrocution as its form of capital punishment. Until that time, most states hanged condemned prisoners. Carl Adams, the founder of Adams Electric in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, built this electric chair, known as "Old Sparkey. — Mark W. Falzini

God's revelation does not need the light of human genius, the polish and strength of human culture, the brilliancy of human thought, the force of human brains to adorn or enforce it; but it does demand the simplicity, the docility, humility, and faith of a child's heart. — E. M. Bounds

It should be done with the same degree of alacrity and nonchalance that you would display in authorizing a highly intelligent trained bear to remove your appendix. — Daniel S. Greenberg

In 1872, Western Union (by then the dominant telegraph company in the United States) decided to implement a new, secure scheme to enable sums of up to $100 to be transferred between several hundred towns by telegraph. The system worked by dividing the company's network into twenty districts, each of which had its own superintendent. A telegram from the sender's office to the district superintendent confirmed that the money had been deposited; the superintendent would then send another telegram to the recipient's office authorizing the payment. Both of these messages used a code based on numbered codebooks. Each telegraph office had one of these books, with pages containing hundreds of words. But the numbers next to these words varied from office to office; only the district superintendent had copies of each office's uniquely numbered book. — Tom Standage

By making college more affordable for all and more accessible for minority students, the first new higher education authorizing legislation in a decade will help strengthen our nation and America's middle class, and spur a new age of innovation and ingenuity in our country. — Nancy Pelosi

The powers of government exercised locally derive from a federal law authorizing government by consent in local affairs only, unless those affairs are otherwise governed by federal law. — Dick Thornburgh

Critics have stepped up their attacks on the President for authorizing the National Security Agency to listen to international communications of known al Qaeda members or affiliated terrorists during a time of war. The American people expect their leaders to stay a step ahead of the enemy, and the National Security Agency authorization is a critical tool in the War on Terror that saves lives and protects civil liberties at the same time. — Scott McClellan

Leaving the criminal law on one side, what is the difference between the liability under the mill acts or statutes authorizing a taking by eminent domain and the liability for what we call a wrongful conversion of property where restoration is out of the question. In both cases the party taking another man's property has to pay its fair value as assessed by a jury, and no more. What significance is there in calling one taking right and another wrong from the point of view of the law? — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

I must do what I can to make myself intelligible to you. Our natures, however, are so different, that this may not be easy. Men and women live but to die; we, that is such as I-we are but a few-live to live on. Old age is to you a horror; to me it is a dear desire: the older we grow, the nearer we are to our perfection. Your perfection is a poor thing, comes soon, and lasts but a little while; ours is a ceaseless ripening. I am not yet ripe, and have lived thousands of your years-how many, I never cared to note. The everlasting will not be measured. — George MacDonald

I continue to hear concerns from health professional organizations that dried marijuana is not an approved drug or medicine in Canada. They want clearer guidance on safety and effectiveness and want authorizations to be monitored. That is why I asked Health Canada to consult with provincial and territorial regulatory bodies, companies licensed to produce marijuana and other professional organizations to enhance information-sharing on how doctors and nurse practitioners are authorizing the use of marijuana. — Rona Ambrose

There is no better illustration of that crisis than the fact that the president is openly violating our nation's laws by authorizing the NSA to engage in warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens. — John Conyers

But if man is free to define for himself the conditions of a life which is valid in his own eyes, can he not choose whatever he likes and act however he likes? Dostoievsky asserted, "If God does not exist, everything is permitted." Today's believers use this formula for their own advantage. To re-establish man at the heart of his destiny is, they claim, to repudiate all ethics. However, far from God's absence authorizing all license, the contrary is the case, because man is abandoned on the earth, because his acts are definitive, absolute engagements. He bears the responsibility for a world which is not the work of a strange power, but of himself, where his defeats are inscribed, and his victories as well. — Simone De Beauvoir

To re-establish man at the heart of his destiny is, they claim, to repudiate all ethics. However, far from God's absence authorizing all license, the contrary is the case, because man is abandoned on the earth, because his acts are definitive, absolute engagements. He bears the responsibility for a world which is not the work of a strange power, but of himself, where his defeats are inscribed, & his victories as well. — Simone De Beauvoir

When I consider a problem, it is now instinctive for me to think about the institutions involved, the authorizing environment, possible coalitions, likely opposition, implementation, legal issues, resource dimensions, communications - and how the problem fits into a stream of other issues. — Robert Zoellick

If charter schools are not more successful on average than the public schools they replace, what is accomplished by demolishing public education? What is the rationale for authorizing for-profit charters or charter management organizations with high-paid executives, since their profits and high salaries are paid by taxpayers' dollars? — Diane Ravitch

The authorizing committees are free to set their agency budgets, and that includes NASA. — Ted Cruz

Not to punish evil is equivalent to authorizing it. — Leonardo Da Vinci

Just as there are many Jews who keep the Friday ritual in their home despite describing themselves as atheists, I am a 'tribal Christian,' happy to attend church services. — Martin Rees

We pass bills authorizing improvements and grants. But when it comes time to pay for these programs, we'd rather put the country's money toward tax breaks for the wealthy than for police officers who are protecting our communities. — David Price

If you slow things down, you notice things you hadn't seen before. — Robert Wilson

If I had a bucket list, I'd say raising my four girls to be strong, good women would be No. 1, — Matt Damon

With my renewed focus, informed consent - the ritual by which a patient signs a piece of paper, authorizing surgery - became not a juridical exercise in naming all the risks as quickly as possible, like the voiceover in an ad for a new pharmaceutical, but an opportunity to forge a covenant with a suffering compatriot: Here we are together, and here are the ways through - I promise to guide you, as best as I can, to the other side. — Paul Kalanithi

was passed authorizing the appointment of a commission to select a site for an additioual lunatic asylum and to commence its erection. A site was selected three miles from Morristown, and 430 acres of land were purchased. An extensive building was erected, at a cost, including land, — Monroe Howell

If you ask the question of Americans, should we pay our bills? One hundred percent would say yes. There's a significant misunderstanding on the debt ceiling. People think it's authorizing new spending. The debt ceiling doesn't authorize new spending; it allows us to pay obligations already incurred. — Peter Welch

One hundred years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, the Spanish government issued a decree authorizing the enslavement of the American Indian as in accord with the law of God and man. — Nelson A. Miles

In an era where the White House is abusing power, is excusing and authorizing torture and is spying on American citizens, I find Judge [Samuel] Alito's support for an all-powerful executive branch to be genuinely troubling. — Samuel Alito

Has President Bush exceeded his constitutional authority or acted illegally in authorizing wiretaps without a warrant? Benjamin Franklin would not have thought so. — Pete Du Pont

We cannot really love anyone with with whom we never laugh. — Agnes Repplier

It's important to show that, while authorizing the demonstrations and promoting diversity of opinion, the Republic can't allow itself to be undermined from within. — Jean-Pierre Raffarin

"She cries." Ashley's high-pitched voice cut through the silence as if she were dispensing juicy country-club gossip. "All the time. She really misses Aires."
Both my father and I turned our heads to look at the blond bimbo. I willed her to continue while my father, I'm sure, willed her to shut up. God listened to me for once. Ashley went on, "We all miss him. It's so sad that the baby will never know him."
And once again, welcome to the Ashley show, sponsored by Ashley and my father's money. — Katie McGarry

I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color
something which exists before all forms and colors appear ... No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea. — Shunryu Suzuki

Statutes authorizing unreasonable searches were the core concern of the framers of the 4th Amendment. — Sandra Day O'Connor

If shackling former prisoners with a lifetime of debt and authorizing discrimination against them in employment, housing, education, and public benefits is not enough to send the message that they are not wanted and not even considered full citizens, then stripping voting rights from those labeled criminals surely gets the point across. — Michelle Alexander

Laws which authorize and promote abortion and euthanasia are therefore radically opposed not only to the good of the individual but also to the common good; as such they are completely lacking in authentic juridical validity. Disregard for the right to life, precisely because it leads to the killing of the person whom society exists to serve, is what most directly conflicts with the possibility of achieving the common good. Consequently, a civil law authorizing abortion or euthanasia ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil law. — Pope John Paul II

Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up. — Ronald Wright

In the alternate universe of conservative talk radio, the killing of Bin Laden coincidentally happened on Barack Obama's watch. He had to be kicked dragging and screaming into authorizing it, and even then he made lots of mistakes. — Jackson Katz

But the permitting, the authorizing of something always concealed an element of dubiousness for him, something vague and not quite spoken. When a dramatic circle, a reading room or tearoom was permitted in town, he would shake his head and say softly:
'That's very well, of course, it's all splendid, but something may come of it.'
- The Man in a Case — Anton Chekhov

The interchange between the academic and the more or less imaginative meanings of Orientalism is a constant one and since the late eighteenth century there has been a considerable, quite disciplined
perhaps even regulated
traffic between the two. Here I come to the third meaning of Orientalism, which is something more historically and materially defined than either of the other two. Taking the late eighteenth century as a very roughly defined starting point Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed a the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient
dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient. — Edward W. Said