Deter Quotes & Sayings

Our policy for the last many years has been to deter the Chinese government in Beijing from ever coming into the position where they thought they had enough leverage over the U.S. to cross the Straits of Taiwan. — Bob Filner

Do not let the fear of unknown deter you from trying.
Keep trying until you succeed. — Lailah Gifty Akita

We only have two things that we share in this life; we are born and we die. And what we do in between those times, we've got to be happy. I don't let the outside world deter me. — Dawn Fraser

We have now to fight for peace with the same courage and deter-mination as we fought against aggression. — Lal Bahadur Shastri

Now you must cast aside your laziness,"
my master said, "for he who rests on down
or under covers cannot come to fame;
and he who spends his life without renown
leaves such a vestige of himself on earth
as smoke bequeaths to air or foam to water.
Therefore, get up; defeat your breathlessness
with spirit that can win all battles if
the body's heaviness does not deter it.
A longer ladder still is to be climbed;
it's not enough to have left them behind;
if you have understood, now profit from it. — Dante Alighieri

When couples start a family, they give up their personal love to achieve a greater responsibility - to nurture their children into good human beings. Nothing should deter them from that goal until the kids are up on their own feet — Siddharth Katragadda

The power of the press in America is a primordial one. It sets the agenda of public discussion; and this sweeping political power is unrestrained by any law. It deter- mines what people will talk and think about-an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins. — Theodore White

There are no accomplished golf tour operators in Indonesia, so a golf holiday there is a do-it-yourself operation. But don't let that deter you. — Raymond Bonner

Writing a journal article combines all the elements that deter motivation: The probability of success is low; the likelihood of criticism and rejection is high; and the outcome, even if successful, isn't always rewarding. — Paul J. Silvia

If all boys could be made to know that with every breath of cigarette smoke they inhale imbecility and exhale manhood ... and that the cigarette is a maker of invalids, criminals and fools-not men-it ought to deter them some. The yellow finger stain is an emblem of deeper degradation and enslavement than the ball and chain. — Hudson Maxim

Let's stop pretending we can arrest our way to safety and security. Despite all the fine work that policemen and women do, we have got to find other solutions to deter crime. — Carrie P. Meek

Our capacity to retaliate must be, and is, massive in order to deter all forms of aggression. — John Foster Dulles

Stick to the script like paper clips and coffee stains
Never let a seed of doubt deter you from your lofty aims
The will is much stronger than the flesh
And it only gets stronger when you going through duress
Imagination is the factory that makes legends
Close your eyes and dream B.I.G. like Faith Evans — Jay Electronica

Gun-free zones don't deter criminals-they help them by providing a guarantee that they will not face any armed resistance. But they do deter the law-abiding. A faculty member with a concealed-handgun permit who breaks the campus gun ban would be fired and likely find it impossible to get admitted to another school. Bringing a firearm into a gun-free zone can have serious adverse consequences for law-abiding people. But for someone like the Virginia Tech killer, the threat of expulsion is no deterrent at all. — Glenn Beck

For a punishment to be just it should consist of only such gradations of intensity as suffice to deter men from committing crimes. — Cesare Beccaria

Be ever thus, my dearest Evelina, dauntless in the cause of distress! let no weak fears, no timid doubts, deter you from the exertion of your duty, according to the fullest sense of it that nature has implanted in your mind. — Fanny Burney

I think fire is so critical in the wild. You can cook with it, you can make tools, you can deter a predator, you can dry your clothes and you get that element of morale that matters so much when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. — Bear Grylls

Were not this desire of fame very strong, the difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger of losing it when obtained, would be sufficient to deter a man from so vain a pursuit. — Joseph Addison

Then the mother of the murdered boy rose, turned to you, and said, You exist. You matter. You have value. You have every right to wear your hoodie, to play your music as loud as you want. You have every right to be you. And no one should deter you from being you. You have to be you. And you can never be afraid to be you. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

As history since Hiroshima shows, the best, perhaps the only, way to curb war is to deter it with such overwhelming force as to turn it from a struggle into suicide. — Martin Van Creveld

It is my fervent goal and hope ... that we will someday no longer have to rely on nuclear weapons to deter aggression and assure world peace. To that end the United States is now engaged in a serious and sustained effort to negotiate major reductions in levels of offensive nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal of eliminating these weapons from the face of the earth. — Ronald Reagan

She is, Althea thought uneasily, what I pretend to be: a woman who does not let her sex deter her from living as she pleases. — Robin Hobb

You know how a nonlethal weapon is supposed to work? A nonlethal weapon works on the basis of three things: It needs to deter, and that's normally done through pain, and that pain creates a byproduct, which is fear. — Greg Rucka

Iran has little capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to set it. — Noam Chomsky

In no way did any of this discourage or deter Wilbur and Orville Wright, any more than the fact that they had had no college education, no formal technical training, no experience working with anyone other than themselves, no friends in high places, no financial backers, no government subsidies, and little money of their own. Or — David McCullough

I've never let the criticism deter me. — Jamaica Kincaid

It is a way now, approximately, of being at home. The forum has become one of the most consistent places of her life, like a familiar cafe that exists someone outside geography and beyond time zones.
There are perhaps twenty regular posters on F:F:F:, and some muchlarger and uncounted number of lurkers. And right now there are three people in Chat. But there's no way of knowing exactly who until you are in there, and the chat room she finds not so comforting. It's strange even with friends, like sitting in a pitch-dark cellar conversing with people at a distance of about fifteen feet. the hectic speed, and the brevity of the lines in the thread, plus the feeling that everyone is talking at once, at counmter-purposes, deter her. — William Gibson

Do not let the word 'tripe' deter you. Let its soothing charms win you over, and enjoy it as do those who always have! — Fergus Henderson

Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter. — Richard Whately

This was my attempt to deter cold callers: "There's no past, there's no future, just one pulsating present ... Please leave your message after the tone." — Bill Bailey

Military strikes on Afghanistan will not prevent something this terrible from happening again, for the simple reason that bombs will not deter people who are unafraid of death and desire martyrdom. — Jemima Khan

Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power. — Al Gore

Obsolete weapons do not deter. — Margaret Thatcher

This means that the only function of nuclear weapons, while they exist, is to deter a nuclear attack. — Joseph Rotblat

No amount of manifest absurdity ... could deter those who wanted to believe from believing. — Bernard Levin

Don't let failures deter you. It only means the next time your chance of succeeding is greater!" LJBurson Marcy: A continuing series . . . — Linda Burson

I look over at Satan's Cat in the corner, and of course she starts it again. She widens her eyes. I sigh loudly, but not enough to deter her. Another staring contest. This is probably somewhere around our fifteenth in two days. It goes like this. Satan's Cat stares into my eyes. I stare into Satan's Cat's eyes. After a few minutes I get freaked out and jump off the couch, usually screaming the same string of trilingual curse words as before because she has the most terrifying eyes in the world. They're amber with long black flecks in them that look like slivers, and I swear after about thirty seconds they start spinning like pinwheels and she's actually grinning at me the whole time - EVEN THOUGH CATS CAN'T GRIN! - probably because she knows she's stretching her evil out and into my brain. Demonic ocular poisoning. I'd Google it if I weren't so afraid of what I'd see. Whatever. Maybe this time I'll win. — Jessica Martinez

Don't let failure deter you; use it as a stepping-stone and an educational experience towards making your mark on the world. — Ben Parr

Neither the discontent of party friends, nor the allurements constantly offered of confirmations of appointees conditions upon the avowal that suspensions have been made on party grounds alone, nor the threat proposed in the resolutions now before the Senate that no confirmations will be made unless the demands of that body are complied with, are sufficient to discourage or deter me from following in the way which I am convinced leads to better government for the people. — Grover Cleveland

The only person powerful enough to deter me...is me — Auketria Manor

I wanted to write about Jews in Montana, so I went there by plane and bus, only to discover that there are no Jews in Montana. It didn't deter me. — Kevin Barry

Democrats always assure us that deterrence will work, but when the time comes to deter, they're against it. — Ann Coulter

A primatologist told me you can find love in the eyes of an orangutan. It's that old primate gleam that goes back thousands of years and can penetrate the deepest gloom of the jungle. Nothing can deter that gleam, which is why we primates have survived for so long to meet and procreate. In prison, the survival of romance is not easy, but it finds a way ... In Canada, there has been a succession of romances between prisoners and female guards, nurses, librarians, and one Catholic nun who married the convict after he divorced his wife. — Shawn Thompson

It wasn't going to be hard ... it was going to be impossible. It wouldn't deter me. I'd done impossible things several times in the past, and the prospect didn't scare me as much as it used to. — Jasper Fforde

We need to deter the Palestinians in any way we can. — Samantha Power

Charisma can be as much a liability as an asset, as the strength of your leadership personality can deter people from bringing you the brutal facts. — James C. Collins

Because you're looking for something temporary. Something fun to play with." I leaned even closer to deliver my punch line - the one that would deter even the horniest of men. "And I get attached." I stood back up to my full height so I could take in his reaction. "Now doesn't that just scare you shitless? — Laurelin Paige

One goal of law - as we learn in law school from the first day of contracts - is to deter bad behavior. — Marvin Ammori

I smoke a pipe abroad, because
To all cigars I much prefer it,
And as I scorn you social laws,
My choice has nothing to deter it. — Robert Louis Stevenson

You worry me, Mags, so self-contained and quiet. Hazelton would not have been my choice for you."
"Why not?"
"He's a man who dwells in the shadows and appears to like it there. You have enough shadows of your own."
"Maybe he sees me as I really am because shadows don't deter him. — Grace Burrowes

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. — Abraham Lincoln

Her bones felt thin and hollow beneath my fists, but her frailty didn't deter me. I wanted her to feel my pain. — Courtney Cole

Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of. — H.L. Mencken

If someone does something we disapprove of, we regard him as bad if we believe we can deter him from persisting in his conduct, but we regard him as mad if we believe we cannot. — Thomas Szasz

Never deter from your path of determination and commitment. There may be obstacle but never fret. These obstacles are to make you more strong and committed to spread your wings of determination so that you can fly higher and higher to touch the sky of achievement. — Anil Sinha

Penalties serve to deter those who are not inclined to commit any crimes. — Karl Kraus

While there are many obstacles that deter students from going to college, finances by no means should be the deciding factor. — Bobby Scott

In painting I try to make some logic out of the world that has been given to me in chaos. I have a very pretentious idea that I want to make life, I want to make sense out of it. The fact that I am doomed to failure - that doesn't deter me in the least. — Grace Hartigan

Eve, we're here. Shall I carry you?" She sat up slowly, her hand going to her forehead. "I can walk." Or she'd crawl, or expire of pride in the filth of the mews before she'd allow him to assist her where others might notice. He handed her out of the carriage, and any fool could see she was none too steady on her feet. "You can ring a peal over my head later, my lady." "Deene, no." Such a weak protest wasn't going to deter him from scooping her up against his chest and proceeding toward the house. "For once in your stubborn life, hush. Your brothers would expect this much of me." The — Grace Burrowes

If God has called you to China or any other place and you are sure in your own heart, let nothing deter you.Remember, it is God who has called you and it is the same as when He
called Moses or Samuel. — Gladys Aylward

She had a very traditional Catholic upbringing and that didn't deter her. On the contrary it strengthened her determination to be true to herself, to follow her heart, even though it meant enduring a lot of self-sacrifice." Intrigued — Diane Ackerman

There is no way to deter old age from its grim duty, but a life of accomplishments makes up in quality for what it cannot add in quantity. — Dr. Sherwin Nuland

As an American I wanted to explore ... why are we the only first world country that still has capital punishment? Is it because we're too afraid to really examine the system, or is it because we really truly believe that this is the best way to deter future crime? — Jodi Picoult

Fifteen minutes later I'm hunched over the steering wheel of a two-seater that looks like something you'd find in your corn flakes packet. The Smart is insanely cute and compact, does about seventy miles to a gallon, and is the ideal second car for nipping about town but I'm not nipping about town. I'm going flat out at maybe a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour on the autobahn while some joker is shooting at me from behind with a cannon that fires Porsches and Mercedes. Meanwhile, I'm stuck driving something that handles like a turbocharged baby buggy. I've got my fog lights on in a vain attempt to deter the other road users from turning me into a hood ornament, but the jet wash every time another executive panzer overtakes me keeps threatening to roll me right over onto my roof. And that's before you factor in the deranged Serbian truck drivers driven mad with joy by exposure to a motorway that hasn't been cluster-bombed and then resurfaced by the lowest bidder. — Charles Stross

An over examination of life can deter you from life itself — Ilyas Kassam

I did stand up first in high school, joined an improv group in college, kept doing stand up after that, no one could deter me. And I have no other skills really, so I'm sorta stuck with this now. It's a little late to switch over to an ornithologist. — Greg Proops

Though there are many barriers to expressing unreserved love, no such impediments to a developing a loving and generous heart deter a spiritual warrior. He who is without love is bereft of richness of life. Compassion, empathy, kindness, tenderness, and patience are essential for love. Anger, frustration, jealously, greed, and hatred are the antonym to love. When we love other people with all our ferocity, we transcend the misuse, waste, pain, tragedy, death, anguish, erotic obsessions, unaccountable confusion, and self-absorbed personal ambitions that, if left unchecked, numb our earthly existence. — Kilroy J. Oldster

A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep. — Henry David Thoreau

Shame is the proper reaction when one has purposefully violated the accepted behavior of society. Inflicting it is etiquette's response when its rules are disobeyed. The law has all kinds of nasty ways of retaliating when it is disregarded, but etiquette has only a sense of social shame to deter people from treating others in ways they know are wrong. So naturally Miss Manners wants to maintain the sense of shame. Some forms of discomfort are fully justified, and the person who feels shame ought to be dealing with removing its causes rather than seeking to relieve the symptoms. — Judith Martin

I had an amazing childhood and always loved to sing and dance, but there were moments where I had ups and downs with my health that often tested me as it does many people. I've never hidden the fact that my health was sometimes not on my side, but I've never let it define me or deter me from my dreams. — Jessie J.

Since I was a law student, I have been against the death penalty. It does not deter. It is severely discriminatory against minorities, especially since they're given no competent legal counsel defense in many cases. It's a system that has to be perfect. You cannot execute one innocent person. No system is perfect. And to top it off, for those of you who are interested in the economics it, it costs more to pursue a capital case toward execution than it does to have full life imprisonment without parole — Ralph Nader

Of course it can be said of jails, too, that they try - by punishing the troublesome - to deter others. No doubt, in certain instances this deterrence actually works. But generally speaking it fails conspicuously. — Barbara Deming

Something in his leisurely move- ments and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to deter- mine what share was his of our local heavens. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Never allow carping critics to deter you from success. Instead, silence them with it. — Christian Baloga

Thus in the right place, at the right time, and in right degree, anger is not only appropriate
but may be indispensable. It serves to deter from dangerous behaviour, to drive off a rival, or to coerce a partner. In each case the aim of the angry behaviour is the same - to protect a relationship which is of very special value to the angry person. — John Bowlby

A small win is a concrete, complete, implemented outcome of moderate importance. By itself, one small win may seem unimportant. A series of wins at small but significant tasks, however, reveals a pattern that may attract allies, deter opponents, and lower resistance to subsequent proposals. Small wins are controllable opportunities that produce visible results. — Karl E. Weick

Nothing will deter us from building the future we want for our children. What greater rejection of those who would tear down our world than marshaling our best efforts to save it. — Barack Obama

We will stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. We will stop that nuclear arms race that could happen in the Middle East. We will also make that Putin knows we have brigades in eastern Europe to make sure we deter his aggression. Peace through strength works. — Bobby Jindal

I realized that you didn't have to make self-deprecating remarks or turn yourself into the butt of some unspoken joke. I also discovered that being big didn't deter possible suitors. — Maeve Binchy

O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment
let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

I charge [my sons] never to let the motives of private interest or ambition to influence them to betray, nor the terrors of poverty and disgrace, or the fear of danger or of death deter them from asserting the liberty of their country, and endeavoring to transmit to their posterity those sacred rights to which themselves were born — George Mason

But death wouldn't deter her killer. It would whet his appetite. He'd look at her corpse and see only an object of desire. Someone he can control. She doesn't resist him. She is cool, passive flesh, yielding to any and all indignities. She is the perfect lover. The — Tess Gerritsen

As recently as the mid-1970s, the most well-respected criminologists were predicting that the prison system would soon fade away. Prison did not deter crime significantly, many experts concluded. Those who had meaningful economic and social opportunities were unlikely to commit crimes regardless of the penalty, while those who went to prison were far more likely to commit crimes again in the future. — Michelle Alexander

I always thought there was some cleverness to the joke diet in which you could eat as much as you want and as often as you want, but everything must be consumed naked in front of a full-length mirror. That would deter me! — Gene Weingarten

As an actor, I was not accepted for the longest time. But it did not deter me, as the audience had accepted me. I never compared myself with any other actors. I never had any game plan and took whatever came my way. — Emraan Hashmi

The people ahead of you, living in the liberty of instinct-guided uniqueness, will welcome you, encourage you, and mentor you. They will inspire you to be a pioneer and not a poser. Only those incarcerated by their unwillingness to listen to their instincts and to take the risks required for success will seek to deter you. — T.D. Jakes

The practice of gratitude is incompatible with negative emotions and may actually diminish or deter such feelings as anger, bitterness, and greed. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

As a neighboring funeral terrifies sick misers, and fear obliges them to have some regard for themselves; so, the disgrace of others will often deter tender minds from vice. — Horace

First of all, it does not deter crime, the death penalty. — Patricia Cornwell

No hours, nor amount of labor, nor amount of money would deter me from giving the best that there was in me. — Colonel Sanders

What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies? — Ronald Reagan

The possibility that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. - Abraham Lincoln — Thom S. Rainer

The opinions of others should not deter you from being yourself.. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Among many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, "The cannibals! you will be eaten by cannibals!" At last I replied, "Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms." — John Gibson Paton

Memory! Never, ever forgive the parents that. Remembered our last send-off one drizzly autumn afternoon at Audley End, Adrian was in uniform, Pater clasping him. Days of bunting and cheering were long over - later heard Military Police were escorting conscripts to Dunkirk to deter mass desertions. All those Adrians jammed like pilchards in cemeteries throughout eastern France, western Belgium, beyond. We — David Mitchell

Users are a double-edged sword. They can help you improve your language, but they can also deter you from improving. So choose your users carefully, and be slow to grow their number. Having users is like optimization: the wise course is to delay it. — Paul Graham

But little else could deter Craig Binky, for he believed that everything about him was destined to be triumphal. Harry Penn was certain that in his nearly one hundred years he had never encountered a soul more intensely marinated in self-satisfaction. Craig Binky's pomposity was often relieved, for others, by what Harry Penn generously termed Mr. Binky's somewhat inexact intelligence. — Mark Helprin

The reason the United States is not so likely to invade Iran is precisely because of the lessons learned from Iraq. And conversely, the Iranian push towards nuclear capability is calculated to deter invasions like the kind deposing Saddam Husain. — Steven Pinker

For the first few weeks in Santa Fe, Oppenheimer and his key staff worked out of the office at 109 East Palace Avenue in the early mornings and made daily trips up to Los Alamos to inspect the progress of the construction. "The laboratories at the site were in a sketchy state, but that did not deter the workers," Dorothy wrote of those hectic early days. "In the morning buses, consisting of station wagons, sedans, or trucks, would leave 109 and pick up the men at the ranches and take them up the Hill. Occasionally, a driver would forget to stop at one or another of the ranches and the stranded and frustrated scientists would call in a white heat. — Jennet Conant

For the law is not jurisprudence, not a weighty tome full of articles, not philosophical treatises, not peevish nonsense about justice, not hackneyed platitudes about morality and ethics. The law means safe paths and highways. It means backstreets one can walk along even after sundown. It means inns and taverns one can leave to visit the privy, leaving one's purse on the table and one's wife beside it. The law is the sleep of people certain they'll be woken by the crowing of the rooster and not the crashing of burning roof timbers! And for those who break the law; the noose, the axe, the stake and the red-hot iron! Punishments which deter others. — Andrzej Sapkowski