Concerted Quotes & Sayings

In 23 years in newsrooms, I saw consistent and concerted efforts to get stories right. Clearly, the public's not convinced. — Ken Paulson

My experience as a school nurse taught me that we need to make a concerted effort, all of us, to increase physical fitness activity among our children and to encourage all Americans to adopt a healthier diet that includes fruits and vegetables, but there is more. — Lois Capps

I'm not very good at relationships, Claire. In fact, my track record is abysmal." Claire gently squeezed Annie's shoulder. "It takes a concerted effort to make any relationship work. Your walk with God is no different. It's a lifelong process that won't be perfected until you reach Heaven. And I must warn you, Annie, just because you're a believer now doesn't mean your life will become easier. In fact, it might become much harder. — Mark Romang

But no life was without it's strain & strife, not if it was fully lived. Opening up to experience, even the good ones like trust & love, was to open yourself up to the pain. I suppose the key was to not compound matters by making the rest of it unnecessarily hard. My need for control had certainly done that in the past. So I made a promise to myself in that moment.
I would make a concerted effort to reach for what was soft & good in this world. I'd find a place to settle into, and hold still so that this world's good and soft could reach back & touch me as well. — Vicki Pettersson

They preferred the invention because this invention expressed and corroborated their hates and fears so perfectly. It is just as well to remember that people are always doing this. Perhaps many of those legends, including Christianity, to which the world clings began their conquest of the world with just some such concerted surrender to distortion. — James Baldwin

The alternate triumphs of different parties ... make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels. — George Washington

When I'm writing, which is 8-9 months out of the year, I'm in a concerted writing pace, where I work 5 days a week for at least a few hours a day, maybe a little bit more. But I won't work for more than 2 hours at a time. I'll work for a couple hours and take a break. — Amy Ray

The peoples of many countries are being taxed to the point of poverty and starvation ... to enable governments to engage in a mad race in armaments ... This grave menace to the peace of the world is due in no small measure to the uncontrolled activities of the manufacturers and merchants of engines of destruction, and it must be met by the concerted actions of the peoples of all nations. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

But political crises, moments when the keystone of authority of some major governing institution is whisked away like a Jenga block, can produce a tumbling cascade of new forms of politics. We've been looking at the tower for so long we forget it's made of blocks; we forget it can be put back together in a different way. Previous crises of authority in America produced not just concerted movements to reform the institutions of the time, but organic bouts of institutional innovation that created fundamentally new ways of coordinating work and life. — Christopher L. Hayes

I do a lot of thrifting, but I don't go shopping in a concerted way very often. I find things by accident that I can't talk myself out of, like armadillo purses. — Mackenzie Davis

Every step by which an individual substitutes concerted action for isolated action results in an immediate and recognizable improvement in his conditions. The advantages derived from peaceful cooperation and division of labor are universal. — Ludwig Von Mises

The best-concerted schemes men lay for fame, Die fast away: only themselves die faster. The far-fam'd sculptor, and the laurell'd bard, Those bold insurancers of deathless fame, Supply their little feeble aids in vain. — Robert Blair

Sitting on the ground, she looked up at her best friend. "Danke," she said. "Thank you."
Rudy bowed. "My pleasure." He tried for a little more. "No point asking if I get a kiss for that, I guess?"
"For bringing my shoes, which you left behind?"
"Fair enough." He held up his hands and continued speaking as they walked on, and Liesel made a concerted effort to ignore him. She only heard the last part. "Probably wouldn't want to kiss you anyway
not if your breath's anything like your shoes."
"You disgust me," she informed him, and she hoped he couldn't see the escaped beginnings of a smile that had fallen from her mouth. — Markus Zusak

I have such thin skin, so I make a concerted effort to avoid reading anything about myself. — Justin Long

Edify a person in advance for the positive traits you want him or her to have, and you'll find them making a concerted effort to live up to your praise. — Bob Burg

If you have a sweet tooth and you're making a concerted effort to get yourself off sugar, take a supplement called glutamine when you have a craving (1,000 milligrams every four to six hours as needed). — Frank Lipman

Germany is a fascinating role model. The Germans have maintained their manufacturing edge despite being a high-tax, high-regulation economy. Why? Because the government really set about ensuring that it maintained funding for technical training, technical advancements and programs. It made a concerted effort to retain high-end, complex manufacturing
the kind of BMW model, if you will. And they've done that so successfully that Germany, which has a quarter of America's population, exports more than America does. — Fareed Zakaria

What governments call international monetary cooperation is concerted action for the sake of credit expansion. — Ludwig Von Mises

Because he let the entire world press upon him. For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person.Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do. — Saul Bellow

It was the widest concerted attack ever. Hundreds of ships on at least four sides. Dozens of stations, millions of lives. Among the stars, it didn't stand out. — James S.A. Corey

If we all make a concerted effort and try to improve the life of someone else, then this world would be a better place to live in. — Alonzo Mourning

'Rhye' clearly plays with notions of sexual identity, and it has made a concerted effort to keep its own identity mysterious. Its love songs are gender-neutral, the members have declined to appear in their own videos, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a photo of the duo that doesn't cast them in shadows. — Will Hermes

Like your weight set-point, which keeps the scale hovering around the same number, your happiness set-point will remain the same unless you make a concerted effort to change it. — Marci Shimoff

Generosity helps us make a concerted effort to keep the needs of others in the forefront of our thinking. Not for guilt's sake, but for the sake of being good stewards of the resources we have been privileged to manage. — Andy Stanley

My focus on silence is to be understood as an intrinsic part of the body's search for meaning amongst the noisy assaults of everyday life ... What quilts have brought to the viewing of art generally is this intervening layer of silence, of collected thought and concerted attention. — Radka Donnell

Just by nature, I think in comedy. I think in sketches and what have you. In every drama or action movie I've been in, I have to make a concerted effort not to turn it into a comedy. Every shot, before action is called and after cut is called, I'm usually in some goofy head space. It feels natural to me. — Michael Jai White

The U.N. power comes from concerted action of the governments. — Kofi Annan

Revolt begins first in the human heart. But there comes a time when revolt spreads from heart to spirit, when a feeling becomes an idea, when impulse leads to concerted action. This is the moment of revolution. — Albert Camus

A concerted effort to preserve our heritage is a vital link to our cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, and economic legacies - all of the things that quite literally make us who we are. — Steve Berry

Civil disobedience can help to focus attention on a particular injustice. It was used historically to highlight wrongs in society - turning ancient redwood forests into paper towels or preventing people from sitting down at lunch counters because of the color of their skin. On climate change, we have not seen strong leadership coming from Washington, DC.In particular the president has an enormous opportunity to follow up on his inaugural speech with a concerted course of action to aggressively take on a clean energy transition. — Michael Brune

It is generally not known in the world that, in the years preceding 1916, there was a concerted effort made to eliminate all the Armenian people, probably one of the greatest tragedies that ever befell any group. And there weren't any Nuremberg trials. — Jimmy Carter

I will take responsibility for any impression or anything I've ever done that people have legitimate questions about. But I think that it's fair to say there's been a concerted effort to convince people like that young man of something, nobody's quite sure what, but of something. — Hillary Clinton

I think protest and actions have to be organised against the Israelis and their backers. There needs to be a concerted high profile campaign to raise awareness of the people in this country. — Tom Paulin

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world. — Eleanor Roosevelt

Valkyrie Cain got out of the passenger side. She zipped up
her black jacket against the cold, and joined Skulduggery as he
walked up to the front door. She glanced at him, and saw that he was smiling.
"Stop doing that," she sighed.
"Stop doing what?" Skulduggery responded in that gloriously velvet voice of his.
"Stop smiling. The person we want to talk to lives in the only dark house on a bright street. That's not a good sign."
"I didn't realise I was smiling," he said.
They stopped at the door, and Skulduggery made a concerted effort to shift his features. His mouth twitched
downwards. "Am I smiling now?"
"No."
"Excellent," he said, and the smile immediately sprang back up. — Derek Landy

The intensive and concerted effort to exclude references to religion or God from public places is an attack on our founding principles. It's an attempt to bolster a growing reliance on the government
especially the judiciary
as the source of our rights. But if our rights are not unalienable, if they don't come from a source higher than ourselves, then they're malleable at the will of the state. This is a prescription for tyranny. — Mark R. Levin

When people bitch about the death of the vinyl LP as a medium (and lord knows they bitch) what they're mostly lamenting is the death of this kind of listening. Music as a concerted sonic experience, rather than the backing track to a flashing screen. What — Steve Almond

And it may be that history, as Michel Foucault tried to convince us, is a list of discrete, disconnected processes whose joint impact is not linked to any one of them but to their fusion into one big explosion. In that case, history is not just a linear movement of endless American support for Israel against, and at the expense of, the Palestinian cause but a more distorted, curved line of ups and downs that indicate possible changes in the future. Moreover, a concerted effort to bring about such a change is a worthy goal - inside and outside the United States. But what we have this year is the ominous call at the 2006 AIPAC convention for the United States to attack and invade Iran.38 — Noam Chomsky

If I want to make something known, I have to make a concerted effort to get the word out. Tiger Woods, on the other hand, only has to say something, and it's tomorrow's headlines. — Tim Finchem

In 1979, certain leaders within the Southern Baptist Convention began a concerted effort to address what they saw as a theological drift in some of that denomination's seminaries and agencies. Over a fifteen-year period, they were able to bring about a remarkable change in the direction of those seminaries and agencies, such that one writer has called it "the Baptist Reformation."- — John S. Hammett

I don't know if my work is a concerted effort to make kids sad! — Patricia Polacco

Preachers and counselors can spend their energy exhorting people to change their behavior. But the human will is not a free entity. It is bound to a person's understanding. People will do what they believe. Rather than making a concerted effort to influence choices, preachers first need to be influencing minds. When a person understands who Christ is, on what basis he is worthwhile, and what life is all about, he has the formulation necessary for any sustained change in lifestyle. Christians who try to "live right" without correcting a wrong understanding about how to meet personal needs will always labor and struggle with Christianity, grinding out their responsible duty in a joyless, strained fashion. Christ taught that when we know the truth, we can be set free. We now are free to choose the life of obedience because we understand that in Christ we now are worthwhile persons. We are free to express our gratitude in the worship and service of the One who has met our needs. — Larry Crabb

Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals
that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government
that it is not a charter _for_ government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection _against_ the government. — Ayn Rand

New management at Nine has launched a concerted attack on its cost base in order to restore margins through eliminating waste, improving efficiency and lowering programming costs. — James Packer

For him, too, starting over, departures, a new life had a certain luster, but he knew that only the impotent and the lazy attach happiness to such things. Happiness implied a choice, and within that choice a concerted will, a lucid desire. He could hear Zagreus: "Not the will to renounce, but the will to happiness. — Albert Camus

I don't make a concerted effort to distinguish myself as Duncan D. Hunter versus Duncan Hunter. I just do my own thing. That's good enough for me. — Duncan D. Hunter

I made a very concerted decision to go to drama school in the United States. But I did have the opportunity to go to Britain's Central School of Speech and Drama, and my dad and I had a few tense words about that. He wanted me to go to British drama school. — Kate Burton

My dear Sir.
Yours of the 13th. is just received. My engagements are such that I can not, at any very early day, visit Rock-Island, to deliver a lecture, or for any other object.
As to the other matter you kindly mention, I must, in candor, say I do not think myself fit for the Presidency. I certainly am flattered, and gratified, that some partial friends think of me in that connection; but I really think it best for our cause that no concerted effort, such as you suggest, should be made.
Let this be considered confidential. Yours very truly,
{Abraham Lincoln} — Abraham Lincoln

Create your own community of liberation. From this moment on, direct your most concerted efforts, your best work, and your greatest feats of imagination toward creating the impossible community, and do so first of all precisely where you are, with those around you. — John P. Clark

There has been a concerted effort to frame caring about climate change and the environment as an alternate religion - one that worships the creation rather than the creator, so to speak. — Katharine Hayhoe

We have not advanced very far in our spiritual lives if we have not encountered the basic paradox of freedom, to the effect that we are most free when we are bound. But not just any way of being bound will suffice; what matters is the character of our binding. The one who would like to be an athlete, but who is unwilling to discipline his body by regular exercise and by abstinence, is not free to excel on the field or the track. His failure to train rigorously and to live abstemiously denies him the freedom to go over the bar at the desired height, or to run with the desired speed and endurance. With one concerted voice the giants of the devotional life apply the same principle to the whole of life with the dictum: Discipline is the price of freedom. — Elton Trueblood

Our team at Duolingo is really cohesive, but this did not just happen. I made a concerted effort to hire people who are going to play nice. — Luis Von Ahn

In the American League, there seems to have been an entire lack of any concerted campaign to build up a club in New York which should rival the Giants on an even basis. — Jacob Ruppert

People from all sides of the political debate... seem to want to interfere with others having access to ideas with which they disagree. In the spirit of free expression. . . I'd suggest a far more appropriate course of action would be to expose and debate those ideas in a concerted effort to make certain that the truth emerges. — Andrew MacDonald

Launching more drone strikes than Bush ever did and compiling a secret "kill list," President Obama's administration took the view that al-Qaeda was like an organized crime gang - disrupt the hierarchy, destroy the gang. Theirs was a concerted and dogmatic attempt at pretending that al-Qaeda was nothing but a fringe criminal group, and not a concrete realization of an ideological phenomenon with grassroots sympathy. They took this view in part because of how successful Islamist "fellow-traveler" lobbies had been in influencing Obama's campaign after the mistakes of the Bush years. For Islamists and their allies, the problem was "al-Qaeda inspired extremism," and not the extremism that had inspired al-Qaeda. — Sam Harris

But why does it matter what we call it, as long as there is concerted action to respond to and prevent such crimes? It matters because if we really want to fix something that is broken, if we want to heal these fractures in our society, then we need to understand their causes. If we do not, then we will forever continue to place giant sticking plasters over the wounds left by this violence, trying to bandage over losses that can never be replaced. As long as this violence continues, it is obviously the case that we do have to address the symptoms, but my argument is that we must also address the causes if we want a long-term reduction or even, perhaps, the eventual eradication of male violence against women. — Finn Mackay

With concerted effort, I can follow written instructions, but don't ask me to simply grasp how to operate a smartphone. — Michael Dirda

Truth is, I don't know what Deacon wants anymore - it's not just physical. Whatever it is must scare him, though, and I'm the one who ends up getting hurt. So I make the concerted effort to resist his temptation, even if sometimes I'd like nothing more than to surround myself with his affection. — Suzanne Young

Some leaders may be honest and good but unwise in legislation they choose to support. Others may possess wisdom but be dishonest and unvirtuous. We must be concerted in our desires and efforts to see men and women represent us who possess all three of these qualities. — Ezra Taft Benson

At my heaviest, I was 5'8 and 175 pounds. I ate well, but in too large quantities, and I rarely made a concerted effort to burn off the extra calories. I'd beat myself up about being overweight, even though I had the tools to be in shape. Then I'd resort to an unhealthy diet to lose the weight that was making me self-conscious. — Daphne Oz

I believe that any intelligent person who reads the evidence will come to the same conclusion about 2004 election results . But one will never be able to prove it to an absolute certainty because the votes were never counted in Ohio as the result of an illegal effort by public officials to derail the recount. Even if you do not believe that the election was stolen, there is no dispute that the Republicans made a deliberate, concerted effort to tilt the results in their favor. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Adopting and promoting sustainable production practices require concerted effort, something which in practice is too often missing or insufficient. Making this shift at the scale required demands forward-looking leadership in the public and private sectors alike. — Helen Clark

We must dispel the negative and harmful atmosphere that has been created by avaricious and unprincipled realtors who engage in "blockbusting." If we had in America really serious efforts to break down discrimination in housing, and at the same time a concerted program of government aid to improve housing for Negroes, I think that many white people would be surprised at how many Negroes would choose to live among themselves, exactly as Poles and Jews and other ethnic groups do. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Every child learned the skills and attitudes that are valued by their own class culture. But outside of the family unit, all skills were not considered to be equal. Modern American culture, Lareau wrote, valued the qualities that middle-class children were developing over the ones that poor and working-class children were developing. "Central institutions in the society, such as schools," Lareau wrote, "firmly and decisively promote strategies of concerted cultivation in child rearing. For working-class and poor families, the cultural logic of child rearing at home is out of synch with the standards of institutions." In one poor household Lareau studied, for example, family members didn't look each other in the eye when they spoke - an appropriate response in a culture where eye contact can be interpreted as a threat, but ill-suited to a job interview where a firm handshake and a steady gaze are considered assets, and a failure to make eye contact can make a candidate seem shifty. — Paul Tough

I have repeatedly said that success requires concerted efforts and support of the fans. — Juan Ramon Lopez Caro

The RNC has made a concerted effort to work with their allies with a real focus on what we can do to equip candidates with the resources to win in 2014 and beyond. There isn't a week that goes by that I don't see someone from the RNC at our weekly coalition meeting. Keep up the good work. — Grover Norquist

to never have to look at someone who was remembering when you have made such a concerted effort to forget. — Ann Patchett

Scott, deaf and enchanted in the gallery, and the whole row of pretty heads at his side saw the concerted rush on Lymond: his assailants downed him without malice and eighteen stones of Molly planted themselves on his chest. "A throw!" said Molly, and Lymond, half buried, gave a choked whoop of laughter and raised a defeated hand in signal to Tammas. — Dorothy Dunnett

I really don't make a concerted effort to try to find a type of role. — Greg Kinnear

A genuine transformation that results from sustained concerted effort is long lasting because it has a firm foundation. — Dalai Lama

Since the beginning of the 21st century, thanks to the concerted efforts of both sides, China-U.S. relationship has on the whole enjoyed steady growth. Since President Obama took office, we have maintained close contact through exchange of visits, meetings, telephone conversations and letters. — Hu Jintao

Climate change is such a huge issue that it requires strong, concerted, consistent and enduring action by governments. — Peter Garrett

I don't have the heart to tell my sons that the older one gets, the less funny literature becomes - and they would refuse to believe me if I tried to explain that some people don't think jokes even belong in proper books. I won't bother breaking the news that, if they remain readers, they will insist on depressing themselves for about a decade of their lives, in a concerted search of gravitas through literature. — Nick Hornby

More often than not, what people put up online using social media is widely accessible because most systems are designed such that sharing with broader or more public audiences is the default. Many popular systems require users to take active steps to limit the visibility of any particular piece of shared content. This is quite different from physical spaces, where people must make a concerted effort to make content visible to sizable audiences.8 In networked publics, interactions are often public by default, private through effort. — Danah Boyd

I see, or at least it appears to me, that there is some concerted effort to discredit them, and categorize the American Indian Movement as some adverse entity, as opposed to it being a manifestation of the desperations of a whole race of people. — Leonard Peltier

This, then, is the legacy of January 1973. The "me generation" found its voice, religion became a political force, poverty and civil rights became someone else's problem, and the national will for concerted action for the common good of all its citizens was scattered into "a thousand points of light."

At some point, perhaps those scattered lights will re-form and reunite to give birth to a rededicated nation, one that includes a place for everyone, opportunity for all, and help for those who need it. After all, it only takes a moment in time and some simultaneity. As Lyndon Johnson so aptly observed in his greatest speech - the "We Shall Overcome" speech - there are times in America when "history and fate meet at a single time in a single space to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom."

Let us hop such a time is nearing. — James Robenalt

A ... difference between most system-building in the social sciences and systems of thought and classification of the natural sciences is to be seen in their evolution. In the natural sciences both theories and descriptive systems grow by adaptation to the increasing knowledge and experience of the scientists. In the social sciences, systems often issue fully formed from the mind of one man. Then they may be much discussed if they attract attention, but progressive adaptive modification as a result of the concerted efforts of great numbers of men is rare. — Lawrence Joseph Henderson

We can make a concerted effort to stop poisoning the planet: that would be a good way of appeasing the gods. — Simon Toyne

Fair-minded people make a concerted effort to pull their own weight rather than living off the hard work of others. — Frank Sonnenberg

Violent measures are always dangerous, but, when necessary, may then be looked on as wise. They have, however, the advantage of never being matter of indifference; and, when well concerted, must be decisive. — Lord Chesterfield

What I've been doing with my misfit, so-called acting career in film from day one on my first film, 'Spanking The Monkey', is, I've kind of made a concerted effort to hijack my acting career to turn it into film school, because I've always had the blasphemous idea of becoming a reasonably competent filmmaker in my own right some day. — Jeremy Davies

We see systematically taught in our high schools today that kids not have to hear their parents, that they can make their own rules, and not even live by what their parents, so there's no guidance from the parents. And there's a concerted effort why - government must be their God. — Rafael Cruz

Women's liberty", "women's independence" are words on everybody's lips these days, but they stay on the lips and don't go any further. Do you know why? I've found out that liberty can be obtained neither by theoretical arguments, nor by pleading justice and morality, nor by staging a concerted quarrel with men at a meeting. It's something that no one can give to another - not something to be owed or paid as a due..you can easily understand that it comes of its own accord - through one's own fulfillment, by the enlargement of one's own soul. — Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay

We live in an increasingly chaotic world and it takes a conscious and concerted effort to protect one's humanity. — K.J. Kilton

Kate made a concerted effort not to drift into mommy terrain when she was with them, though she sometimes slipped and saw their eyes glaze over, like her older sister's would. — Nichole Bernier

it is extraordinary how few Christians make any concerted effort to keep the commandment of sabbath rest. We have somehow twisted Jesus' pithy rebuke of the Pharisees, "The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath" (Mark 2:27) from a warning against legalism into a license for neglect. We seem to forget that in the very next breath Jesus asserts, "so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath" (v. 28), thus asserting his lordship over - not exemption from or indifference to - this very good gift from God to his image bearers. — Andy Crouch

Happiness implied a choice, and within that choice a concerted will, a lucid desire. Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience — Albert Camus

The teacher should make a concerted effort never to lose his temper in the presence of the class. If a man, he may take refuge in profane soliloquies. If a woman, she may follow the example of one sweet-faced tranquil girl who went out in the yard and gnawed a post. — William Lyon Phelps

Since we desire the true happiness that is brought about by a calm mind, and such peace of mind arises only from having a compassionate attitude, we need to make a concerted effort to develop compassion. — Dalai Lama

Civil strife is as much a greater evil than a concerted war effort as war itself is worse than peace. — Herodotus

To realize lasting peace and sustainable development in human society, members of the international community have to cooperate with one another fully and make concerted efforts. — Wu Bangguo

He will perceive that there are far more excellent qualities in the student than preciseness and infallibility; that a guess is often more fruitful than an indisputable affirmation, and that a dream may let us deeper into the secret of nature than a hundred concerted experiments — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Concerted cultivation. He gets taken to museums and gets enrolled in special programs and goes to summer camp, where he takes classes. When he's bored at home, there are plenty of books to read, and his parents see it as their responsibility to keep him actively engaged in the world around him. It's not hard to see how Alex would get better at reading and math over the summer. — Malcolm Gladwell

And this was history now: heroic protest, concerted rebellion, execution of the tyrant, a new social order. It ran like a clear stream--useless to require it to resemble the viscous substance of truth. — Unsworth

Denial itself was institutionalized as a government function. Since 1923, the Turkish government has spent tens of millions of dollars in a concerted disinformation campaign to delude the world at large and, perhaps more important, its own people. — Eric Bogosian

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests. — George Washington

There is a concerted effort to keep you and me, you know, the people, away from what it [war]really looks like, 'cause when you're selling war, when it's such a big industry. What they don't tell you is the rest of it and the down side of it. And so obviously there is a lot of money and a lot of time and effort being spent on that campaign "perpetual war for perpetual peace". — Henry Rollins

Preaching is the concerted engagement of one's faculties of body, mind, and spirit. — Fred B. Craddock

The abuse of the veto power has become so predictable that frequently resolutions are not even tabled because of the certainty of a veto against their adoption. Necessary discussion is thereby suppressed. Concerted action by the Security Council, the General Assembly and other United Nations agencies is necessary to prevent major human rights violations, stop ongoing breaches and provide remedies to victims. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

Concerted voices of heartfelt petitions in Arabic all pleading for divine intervention are abruptly silenced as the drone ensures fatalities by injecting a final stab in each of their skulls. — C.J. Anderson