Davison Quotes & Sayings

It seems likely that the Internet will do for the corporation what the Guttenberg press did for the church. That is, it will break up structures we had always assumed were permanent: it will render temporal what we assumed was timeless. — Ron Davison

What are they trying to do?" Davison asked. "I never heard of anything like this."
I took my eyes off Ginger's legs. "Gangsters," I said.
"But they've gone out of style," Davison said. "They don't have gangsters any more."
"Suppose you go out and tell them that," I said. — Jonathan Latimer

The test case of the civilizations in America suggests that we are predictable creatures, driven everywhere by similar needs, lusts, hopes, and follies. — Ron Davison

It may be no coincidence that the world's richest man is a computer programmer. Programmers have "theories" about how software will behave when they change a line of code. Those theories rarely hold up to their first encounter with reality. Unsuccessful programmers could probably wax eloquent about how things should be different. Successful programmers just debug their code. Such a profession would quickly wean a person from idealistic notions about how to make a change. Successful programmers soon learn that it is more profitable to challenge their own thinking than to curse their computers when faced with unexpected results. — Ron Davison

Ideas do have consequences in history, yet not because those ideas are inherently truthful or obviously correct but rather because of the way they are embedded in very powerful institutions, networks, interests, and symbols. — James Davison Hunter

I'm over there filming in South Africa now, and two in five are HIV-positive now. Not many people know that. — Bruce Davison

It has been said that in every being there is another being and this being is the true self. Not a double. Not an opposite. Simply, the one each of us strives to be all our lives. Some who have suffered cruelty, violence, or abuse as children somehow short-circuit this search with their cries. They are kidnapped by the other self and abandoned in a strangely familiar place where they are victim to the same cruelty, violence, or abuse, but can remember little or none of it until such time as they are strong enough to cope. — Philip Davison

Pluralism today - at least in America - exists without a dominant culture, — James Davison Hunter

Choice is one level of freedom, but design is a higher — Ron Davison

Actors, lots of times, are great when they have great parts. For me, a lot of times, it's been the part. — Bruce Davison

Collecting at its best is very far from mere acquisitiveness; it may become one of the most humanistic of occupations, seeking to illustrate by the assembling of significant reliques, the march of the human spirit in its quest for beauty ... — Arthur Davison Ficke

Frost is the most sophisticated of poets. — Peter Davison

To enact a vision of human flourishing based on the qualities of life that Jesus modeled will invariably challenge the given structures of the social order. In this light, there is no true leadership without putting at risk one's time, wealth, reputation, and position. — James Davison Hunter

Entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs for one simple reason: to be free. If you give that up, then you stop being an entrepreneur, and to hell with that. - Wilson Harrell, founder of over 100 companies and former publisher of Inc. Magazine — Ron Davison

The character of American civilization is a bundle of contradictions, — James Davison Hunter

Our producer Jon Davison thought it would be a good idea to put in additional TV scenes. So, they sent me a tape of these additional TV scenes, and I watched them, and I didn't think they were that great. I didn't think it was worth putting them in. — David Zucker

Saving one dog will not change the world, but surely for that one dog, the world will change forever. — Karen Davison

The collector attempts always to acquire the best, and his knowledge of what is best is always widening. His is the task of judging between degrees of perfection. — Arthur Davison Ficke

I like poems that are complex. — Peter Davison

I just think that some version of the past in our culture is going to rise up and become dominant. — Peter Davison

The problem, for me, with the writing programs is that they produce a terrible uniformity of product. — Peter Davison

For instance, it's a little better now than it was two or three years ago, but something like 70% of the poems I receive seem to be written in the present indicative. — Peter Davison

If I were brave enough to say so, I'd like to think that I had written some poems that people are not going to forget. — Peter Davison

I would like to be proud of having written some poems that will be remembered, but I will never know whether I will have any reason to be proud of that. — Peter Davison

My friends never talk to me about my poetry because they're embarrassed that I write it or they're embarrassed by what I write about which are not such extraordinarily terrifying things, but they are the state of human existence. — Peter Davison

I love villains. You know, I am a character actor, and any chance to get to play a really outrageous villain. I like to play that. — Bruce Davison

I spent my whole life figuring out how to get out of work. I would say I was intelligent, but intelligent in a very surreptitious, invisible way. — Bruce Davison

Be your dogs own personal chef! — J.R. Davison

To be Christian is to be obliged to engage the world, pursuing God's restorative purposes over all of life, — James Davison Hunter

Poetry should be able to reach everybody, and it should be able to appeal to all levels of understanding. — Peter Davison

I hate to date myself, but my earliest memories are Flash Gordon. I would love playing Flash Gordon in the neighborhood. — Bruce Davison

A final irony has to do with the idea of political responsibility. Christians are urged to vote and become involved in politics as an expression of their civic duty and public responsibility. This is a credible argument and good advice up to a point. Yet in our day, given the size of the state and the expectations that people place on it to solve so many problems, politics can also be a way of saying, in effect, that the problems should be solved by others besides myself and by institutions other than the church. It is, after all, much easier to vote for a politician who champions child welfare than to adopt a baby born in poverty, to vote for a referendum that would expand health care benefits for seniors than to care for an elderly and infirmed parent, and to rally for racial harmony than to get to know someone of a different race than yours. True responsibility invariably costs. Political participation, then, can and often does amount to an avoidance of responsibility. — James Davison Hunter

Corporations create wealth and define how it is shared. They define working conditions, salary, wages, and benefits. Holy days used to be defined by the church, but now it is the corporation that defines for the workforce which days are holidays. Politicians have to win the approval of corporations in the same way that kings, centuries earlier, had to win the blessing of the church. — Ron Davison

The tragedy is that in the name of resisting the internal deterioration of faith and the corruption of the world around them, many Christians - and Christian conservatives most significantly - unwittingly embrace some of the most corrosive aspects of the cultural disintegration they decry. By nurturing its resentments, sustaining them through a discourse of negation toward outsiders, and in cases, pursuing their will to power, they become functional Nietzscheans, participating in the very cultural breakdown they so ardently strive to resist. — James Davison Hunter

And there are a lot more people reading poetry, but there are not so many people reading an individual poet. — Peter Davison

Hollywood could use less instead of more of everything. — Bruce Davison

Poetry is composing for the breath. — Peter Davison

If Christians cannot extend grace through faithful presence within the body of believers, they will not be able to extend grace to those outside. — James Davison Hunter

Secret Instructions for Reaching Xanadu: Go eastward from the Bewildered-Dragon Lake Until you see the Monastery of the West Tower straight and high above your head. Then take Those charms which, as I told you, in the breast Of your most inner robe you have hidden, and follow Their clear instruction. — Arthur Davison Ficke

Millennials were the first generation to grow up with game controllers. They are not spectators. They are participants. — Ron Davison

We cannot stick our heads in the sand concerning the issue of hunger in America. Even though this subject seldom reaches the front page of our newspapers or is featured on news programs because of its lack of sensationalism, the problem exists in massive proportions and must be defeated. — Bruce Davison

They need to learn poetry. They don't need to learn about poetry. They don't need to be told how to interpret poetry. They don't need to be told how to understand poetry. They need to learn it. — Peter Davison

It was not until the late 19th century that the term innovation had a positive connotation: — Ron Davison

rogrammers have "theories" about how software will behave when they change a line of code. Those theories rarely hold up to their first encounter with reality. Unsuccessful programmers could probably wax eloquent about how things should be different. Successful programmers just debug their code. Such a profession would quickly wean a person from idealistic notions about how to make a change. Successful programmers soon learn that it is more profitable to challenge their own thinking than to curse their computers when faced with unexpected results. There is no reason that communities could not formulate policy in a similar way. Two reasons that it is not is because of our still rudimentary understanding of system dynamics and our insistence on placing blame on individuals rather than trying to understand systems. — Ron Davison

Merely engaging the culture implies the issue and exercise of power. — James Davison Hunter

Every so often I find some poems that are too good for the readers of The Atlantic because they are a little too involved with the nature of poetry, as such. — Peter Davison

Indeed, redemption through Christ represents a reaffirmation of the creation mandate, not its annulment. When people are saved by God through faith in Christ they are not only being saved from their sins, they are saved in order to resume the tasks mandated at creation, the task of caring for and cultivating a world that honors God and reflects his character and glory. — James Davison Hunter

In order to understand what they need to understand, in order to write what they write, they have to be free. And yet, they aren't ever free. They are not free because they are not free of the constrictions their art puts on them. — Peter Davison

Faithfulness works itself out in the context of complex social, political, economic, and cultural forces that prevail at a particular time and place. — James Davison Hunter

Another way to describe the dilemma for religious faith is that pluralism creates social conditions in which God is no longer an inevitability. While it is possible to believe in God, one has to work much harder at it because the framework of belief is no longer present to sustain it. The presumption of God and of his active presence in the world cannot be easily sustained because the most important symbols of social, economic, political, and aesthetic life no longer point to him. God is simply less obvious than he once was, and for most no longer obvious at all - quite the opposite. — James Davison Hunter

It is a way we reassess our past. We can do that in poetry in ways we can't do in prose. — Peter Davison

You have cocktails for 250,000 people when millions upon millions are sick. — Bruce Davison

The trouble with the performance poets is that they don't seem to have read anything. So there is not a real sense of the poetic tradition in their work. — Peter Davison

That's always something that's really important for an actor - to find an opportunity to do a scene where there is a moment like that, where you manage to connect with everyone. — Bruce Davison

The contemporary quarrel over church and state is not really about whether a wall of separation of church and state should exist or not ... The real question is what does 'separation' mean? — James Davison Hunter

I mean exactly that," Mr. Davison retorted. "You've hit the nail smack on the head. We pay a price for having money. People in my position" - he turned to Kay - "have 'privilege.' That's what I read in the Nation and the New Republic." Mrs. Davison nodded. "Good," said Mr. Davison. "Now listen. The fellow who's got privilege gives up some rights or ought to. — Mary McCarthy

The more poetry you have in the head, the more poetry you will understand because you will be getting to the roots of what it is that makes people write poetry at all. — Peter Davison

If a drug failed as often and had as many side effects as western marriage, the FDA probably would not approve it. — Ron Davison

In the seeker-church movement the emphasis away from the use and explication of creedal confession is obvious, since the whole point is to focus on the 'felt-needs' of the person in the pew - especially the felt-needs of nonbelievers. The rationale is that the church and its main service are evangelistic in nature. Because nonbelievers simply cannot penetrate the arcana of historic Christianity, the felt-needs of people become the point of entry into conversation with them. — James Davison Hunter

The legal and political debate surrounding the just management of plurality will continue well into the future. — James Davison Hunter

Christians recognize that all social organizations exist as parodies of eschatological hope. And so it is that the city is a poor imitation of heavenly community;13 the modern state, a deformed version of the ecclesia;14 the market, a distortion of consummation; modern entertainment, a caricature of joy; schooling, a misrepresentation of true formation; liberalism, a crass simulacrum of freedom; and the sovereignty we accord to the self, a parody of God himself. As these institutions and ideals become ends in themselves, they become the objects of idolatry. The shalom of God - which is to say, the presence of God himself - is the antithesis to all such imitations. — James Davison Hunter

The reason one writes poems is so that your poem will be remembered. — Peter Davison

Take the Gospel parables: what are these stories, these narratives, if not powerful invitations to people to locate themselves within the situations of others, precisely in order to realize the moral landscapes of their life, so that they may develop their spiritual, empathetic and imaginative view of reality? — Andrew Davison

There is not one single challenge to Christianity that eclipses all others in importance. — James Davison Hunter

But the consequences of the whole-hearted and uncritical embrace of politics by Christians has been, IN EFFECT, to reduce Christian faith to a political ideology and various Christian denominations and para-church organizations as special interest groups. The political engagement of the various Christian groups is certainly legal, but in ways that are undoubtedly unintended, it has also been counterproductive of the ends to which they aspire. — James Davison Hunter

I think tolerance is something everybody needs to be reminded of, especially in a reactionary political world. Well, actually, I should say, a reactionary political climate. — Bruce Davison

But for me, being an editor I've been an editor of all kinds of books being an editor of poetry has been the way in which I could give a crucial part of my time to what I love most. — Peter Davison

Ideas are not free-floating in consciousness but are grounded in the social world in the most concrete ways. — James Davison Hunter

But poetry is my life. Poetry is what matters to me. — Peter Davison

As a child, I was influenced by a great deal but in particular the 1969 film Easy Rider exerted quite a bit of influence in that I longed for a Harley Davison chopper motorcycle so that I could pretend to be one of the lead characters from that particular film, either Wyatt or Billy, (played respectively by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper).
The closest I got to realise this dream was back in 1971 when the chopper bike was the craze throughout the nation. It even had gears! The big padded seat was comfortable for your backside and you really thought you were one of the gang from Easy Rider on your Harley Davidson. — Stephen Richards

pay gap could be less about market realities than the fact that the corporation has yet to be democratized. — Ron Davison

The cultural capital American Christianity has amassed simply cannot be leveraged where it matters most. — James Davison Hunter

I did a filmstrip on pollution in the Davison area as my Eagle Scout project and showed it around town. Businesses who were the polluters were mad at me. — Michael Moore

In public discourse, the challenge is not to stifle robust debate, but rather to make sure that it is real debate. The first obligation for Christians is to listen carefully to opponents and if they are not willing to do so, then Christians should simply be silent. To engage in a war of words is to engage in a symbolic violence that is fundamentally at odds with the gospel. And too often, on such hot button issues as poverty, abortion, race relations, and homosexuality, the poor, children, minorities, and gays are used as weapons in ideological warfare. This too is an expression of instrumentalization.16 — James Davison Hunter

THE MANDATE OF CREATION is a source both of glory and of shame for the Christian community. — James Davison Hunter

In my youth, I found that I was quite often inspired and pushed forward by what I read. — Peter Davison

Idealism misconstrues agency, implying the capacity to bring about influence where that capacity may not exist or where it may only be weak. — James Davison Hunter

I was always a visual person. I could see things visually. I had a harder time with numbers and logic, and I always had more of an artistic sensibility. So that I could do. And it was something that I really loved. — Bruce Davison

A dog can express more with his tail in minutes than an owner can express with his tongue in hours. — Karen Davison

There is little taste for 'high culture' especially in Evangelicalism, where the tendency has long been toward translation - making things accessible to the largest number of people. — James Davison Hunter

It was quite a ride and very conflicting for me, too - to be nominated for an Oscar, to be straight and healthy, and to be getting all these accolades while these people around me were suffering and dying from AIDS. — Bruce Davison

There are so many things that poetry is about, one of which is memory. — Peter Davison

It is very difficult for people to come in contact with their own emotions and their own sensibilities. — Peter Davison

James Davison took me out to show me where Karl is living right now and where hes going to build. Karl wasnt at home. He was out there somewhere in the woods riding on some Caterpillar or some kind of tractor. But I figured wed at least knock on the door to see if he was there. His wife answered the door. So we got to meet Kay before Karl. — Terry Bradshaw

A man must learn to forgive himself. — Arthur Davison Ficke

I think poetry has lost an awful lot of its muscle because nobody knows any. Nobody has to memorize poetry. — Peter Davison

I've seen this idea put forward a hundred times - that a proper feminist would do her own hoovering, Germaine Greer cleans her own lavvy, and Emily Wilding Davison threw herself under that horse, hands still pine-y fresh from Mr Muscle Oven Cleaner. On this basis alone, how many women have had to conclude, sighingly, as they hire a cleaner, that they can't, then, be a feminist?
But, of course, the hiring of domestic help isn't a case of women oppressing other women, because WOMEN DID NOT INVENT DUST. THE STICKY RESIDUE THAT COLLECTS ON THE KETTLE DOES NOT COME OUT OF WOMEN'S VAGINAS. IT IS NOT OESTROGEN THAT COVERS THE DINNER PLATES IN TOMATO SAUCE, FISHFINGER CRUMBS AND BITS OF MASH. MY UTERUS DID NOT RUN UPSTAIRS AND THROW ALL OF THE KIDS' CLOTHES ON THE FLOOR AND PUT JAM ON THE BANISTER. AND IT IS NOT MY TITS THAT HAVE SKEWED THE GLOBAL ECONOMY TOWARDS DOMESTIC WORK FOR WOMEN. — Caitlin Moran

People are talking about the Internet as though it is going to change the world. It's not going to change the world. It's not going to change the way we think, and it's not going to change the way we feel. — Peter Davison

Perhaps teachers and parents should add this to their list of admonitions and lessons: "Warning: contents of this society have been known to create feelings of stress and alienation; provoke wars, homicides, and suicides; and pollute the habitat you need for survival. Most of what we tell you, you should question. You can improve it. This is, really, just the best we have been able to do up until now and it could be that improvement will actually overturn much of what we now accept and advocate. Learn about your culture and your place in it, but do not cling too tightly to it. What we're teaching you probably needs to change, and soon. — Ron Davison

Culture is as much an infrastructure as it is ideas. — James Davison Hunter

But there is some way in which poets believe that and this is dangerous, too believe that their calling gives them a certain freedom. A certain freedom to live in a free way. — Peter Davison

A good actor is somebody who can be truthful and fascinating and interesting and enlightening. — Bruce Davison

Poetry was invented as an mnemonic device to enable people to remember their prayers. — Peter Davison

The Great Depression in the 1930s turned many young people away from corporations towards communism. By contrast, the Great Recession in the first decade of this century seems to have turned many away from corporations towards entrepreneurship. — Ron Davison

I like poems that are little games. — Peter Davison

I'm a lifelong 'Doctor Who' fan. Like, Peter Davison/Colin Baker, lifelong fan. — Andrew Kreisberg

At that moment, when you feel like you were born into the wrong society or culture, you have a few choices. You can ignore the gap between the world around you and what you feel within. There are lots of ways to do this, from TV to drugs to desperately trying to succeed within the world's big social inventions. Another way is to rail at the world for its failings, creating a narrative in which you are right and "they" are wrong. Or you can be humbled by trying to change the world around you just enough to realize your own potential. — Ron Davison

one's life begins when he is born and one's life story begins when he realizes that he was born into the wrong family. I would expand that somewhat, to say that anyone paying attention must eventually have a moment in which he wonders if he has been born into the wrong society. I suspect that you would have to be on some fairly strong drugs to escape those moments when you feel like a Martian. — Ron Davison

As with military campaigns, cultural warfare is always decided over the pragmatic problems of strategy, organization and resources ... The factions with the best strategies, most efficient organization, and access to resources will plainly have the advantage and very possibly, the ultimate victory. — James Davison Hunter

If poets were realistic, they wouldn't be poets. — Peter Davison