Dictating Quotes & Sayings

As with most revolutions, the counterculture's call for total freedom quickly turned into a demand for total control. The phenomenon of 'political correctness', with its speech codes and other efforts to enforce ideological conformity, was one predictable result of this transformation. What began at the University of California at Berkeley with the Free Speech Movement (called by some the 'Filthy Speech Movement'} soon degenerated into an effort to abridge freedom by dictating what could and could not be said about any number of politically sensitive issues. — Roger Kimball

The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it's like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren't equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can't live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go. — Ronald Reagan

Our possessions are dictating our free time. Sundays used to be for relaxing and eating, and now they're spent cleaning the garage. --pg55 — Cristin Frank

Since dictating the Bible, and hiring a perfect race of ministers to explain it, God has never done much but creep around and try to catch us disobeying it. — Sinclair Lewis

I have 3,000 penalty minutes. I don't need people dictating to me how to do my job. — Tie Domi

In the name of being social, we learn to ignore our natural instinct.
Society keeps dictating do's and don'ts which we keep obeying day in and day out. — Chitralekha Paul

Personal religious convictions have no place in political campaigns or in dictating public policy. — Geraldine Ferraro

My boss is dictating my preventive hangover care, and I just used the word swords in reference to his obvious cockfight with the man I just made out with in a public hallway. I am truly in an alternate universe. — Lisa Renee Jones

My father's films are often very slow for the modern audiences, which are used to a lot of editing. It's the audience that watches the film instead of the director dictating the reaction he wants from you. — Isabella Rossellini

The ways of change are dictated by the circumstances of each country, each place and each time. I don't think that arrogant intellectuals should be dictating to the people which way they should be heading. I think we should be listening to the people, see in which directions things are developing. People are walking where they can, not where they want to. But they are walking! — Eduardo Galeano

In catering, you're always changing; the client is always dictating to you in terms of their wishes. — Carla Hall

I've been dictating to my son, who's helping me on his computer. I'm spending a lot of time doing research
I've just got up to 1971, when I went crazy and dived through the window. My life is so full of interesting stories ... — Ozzy Osbourne

Is the Son of God praying in me, or am I dictating to Him? ... Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray. — Oswald Chambers

Oh, don't cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don't know how to spell a cough. — Oscar Wilde

A moment from another world! Imagine a reporter dictating an exclusive story, a lead story, sourced from the President of the United States, from a telephone just off the White House dance floor to the strains of Lester Lanin's dance band. — Ben Bradlee

For so long, companies were run using a command-and-control, 'top down' hierarchical method that involved dictating down the command chain and maintaining order. What I've witnessed in our time is evolving democratization, a shift to a demand economy accelerated by technological advancements like social media. — Kevin Allen

This is why fashion is such a magical part of our lives, for it inspires our decisions without dictating them; it sets the theme but not the limits of our aesthetic. — Simon Van Booy

Like clockwork, the powerful end up dictating, and so everyone is forced to compete for power, which only leads to an ever-escalating quest for control over others. This is the condition in which we live in early twenty-first century America. Without viable alternatives, everyone must adhere to the dictates of those in power, whether it is the Democrats or Republicans, the corporations or the unions. Given such a predicament, it is only reasonable to strive to achieve control, and so ensues a never ending struggle to obtain and hold power over everyone else. — Eric Robert Morse

This wasn't about an infraction, but dictating a philosophy of life: certain types of people must be overseen. — Victor LaValle

Closing his eyes he kissed her forehead. "Eva?"
"Mm."
"I want ye."
A pair of sleepy green eyes turned up to him - not dull green, but vivid, like spring leaves.
William parted his lips as her mouth covered his. Lord save him, Eva's entire body turned wicked, writhing, groping. Her mouth sucking, dictating a frenzied pace as she lifted her hips and let him tug off those damnable panties. — Amy Jarecki

Dictating condolences to the mother of a murdered husband whom you've been busily cuckolding for the last three years would take more than his limited social vocabulary. — P.D. James

Yes," I said, "that is what I mean to say. I am not going to vote for him." The others began to find their voices. They sang the same note. They said that when a party's representatives choose a man, that ends it. If they choose unwisely it is a misfortune, but no loyal member of the party has any right to withhold his vote. He has a plain duty before him and he can't shirk it. He must vote for that nominee. I said that no party held the privilege of dictating to me how I should vote. That if party loyalty was a form of patriotism, I was no patriot, and that I didn't think I was much of a patriot anyway, for oftener than otherwise what the general body of Americans regarded as the patriotic course was not in accordance with my views; that if there was any valuable difference between being an American and a monarchist it lay in the theory that the American could decide for himself what is patriotic and what isn't; whereas — Mark Twain

I control my fate
As I stand on the edge of the cliff of destiny and tears filled with my dreams shatter below on the rocks of fate I slowly lift my head and look out over the sea of hope to behold a sunrise. As I wipe away the the tears I realize as long as I have one more sunrise I have hope to fulfill the dreams dictating my destiny and I control my fate. — Lynette White

... Language shows a tendency for the words "good" and "stupid" to come [close] together... a hint of contempt... within these term[s]... [dictating that] the good man must always be unthreatening. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I would not waste time, as Senator Gillibrand does, on things such as dictating a national minimum driving age and sponsoring a 'National Day of Play.' I'd help New Yorkers understand that we get less in value from Washington than what we send there in taxes. — Wendy E. Long

How do these people have any credibility? How do they get away with this? It's mind boggling that its gotten to a point where the EPA is dictating policy based on what is an obvious fraud, or if you want to be gentle about it, creates enough doubt to back off. — Joe Bastardi

The beautiful thing about marriage is the right it gives me to monogamy. One man intent on dictating my whereabouts is enough, wouldn't you think? — Courtney Milan

When authors write best, or at least, when they write most fluently, an influence seems to waken in them which becomes their master, which will have its own way, putting out of view all behests but its own, dictating certain words, and insisting on their being used, whether vehement or measured in their nature; new moulding characters, giving unthought-of turns to incidents, rejecting carefully elaborated old ideas, and suddenly creating and adopting new ones. Is it not so? And should we try to counteract this influence? Can we indeed counteract it?
from a letter to G.H. Lewes, 12 January 1848 — Charlotte Bronte

Communication is paramount, and what medium or what format you utilize should be a non-issue. In some respects, that has created a barrier for new media, especially web new media, because often times maybe the media itself comes before the concept, before the ideas, and ends up navigating or dictating the outcome. — Doug Aitken

We believe in personal choice, rather than society dictating how we must live our lives. — Mike Peters

I truly want what you truly want-nothing different and nothing more. Don't you see that is My greatest gift to you? If I wanted for you something other than what you want for you, and then went so far as to cause you to have it, where is your free choice? How can you be a creative being if I am dictating what you shall be, do, and have? My joy is in your freedom, not your compliance. — Neale Donald Walsch

Ultimately, the challenges of the 21st century can't be met without collective action. Agreement will almost never be easy, and results won't always come quickly. But I am committed to respecting different points of view, and to forging a consensus instead of dictating our terms ... that's how we will advance and uphold our ideals. — Barack Obama

People don't want Congress dictating what light fixtures they can use. — Joe Barton

I find dictating in the mass media particularly good because you're writing for voice anyway; you're writing for people to say a line and, consequently, saying a line through a machine is quite a valid test for the validity of what you're saying. — Rod Serling

I hate Science. It denies a man's responsibility for his own deeds, abolishes the brotherhood that springs from God's fatherhood. It is a hectoring, dictating expertise, which makes the least lovable of the Church Fathers seem liberal by contrast. — Basil Bunting

I have always maintained that society has no business dictating morality. — Peter Fonda

As the author you know how you want it to appear on screen and it's always the content dictating the form. — Woody Allen

The world seems to want us to be sad and angry because bad things frequently happen. But I say we should feel the opposite. We should be happy and cheerful because good things happen. We should be delighted to see the sun rise and stars glow and rainbows color stormy skies. We should savor every simple breath and eat each meal with gratitude. We should slumber in sweet dreams and relish moments of laughter and love. We should take more notice of the joys and kindnesses that do exist, still dictating the actions of millions of good people all over the world. Life is filled with pleasant moments, not just grief. We should be happy because this is true. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Jesus Christ, will you quit dictating this conversation to Hannah?' I grumble. 'Bros before hos, dude.'
'Call my girlfriend a ho one more time and you won't have a bro. — Elle Kennedy

I don't know whether crime is dictating business or business is dictating crime. — Andrew Dominik

All these things that we are very nostalgic for come from a place of technology dictating [art]. This time and place is no different. — Annie E. Clark

There's a difference between, you know, God loves unconditionally in my feeling and religion loves conditionally. Religion spends an awful lot of time dictating who God can love and can't love. — Sinead O'Connor

In previous centuries, the Church was the great controller, dictating morality, stifling free expression and posing as conservator of all great art and music. Instead we have TV, doing just as good a job at dictating fashions, thoughts, attitudes, objectives as did the Church, using many of the same techniques but doing it so palatably that no one notices. Instead of 'sins' to keep people in line, we have fears of being judged unacceptable by our peers (by not wearing the right shoes, not drinking the right kind of beer, or wearing the wrong kind of deodorant). Coupled with that fear is imposed insecurity concerning our own identities. All answers and solutions to these fears come through the television, and only through television. Only through exposure to TV can the new sins of alienation and ostracism be absolved. — Anton Szandor LaVey

The president really shouldn't be involved in terms of dictating what course the investigation should take. — Janet Reno

If anything is going to halt necessary investments in next generation networks it will be Congress dictating business models to companies. — Claudia Jones

Sometimes I pine for the era of Miss Manners, when there were hard and fast rules dictating a well-bred individual's behaviour in any given situation. — Lynn Coady

The problem is, I think, that so many of us pray as if we are ordering groceries. We pick up the telephone and say, 'Is this the right place to place my order?' and we proceed right to dictating our order. When we have then ended that list, we hang up. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Of course I will be dictating to you, Savannah. But please do not worry. I can assure you, I am quite good at it. — Christine Feehan

Henry James's later works would have been better had he resisted that curious sort of self-indulgence, dictating to a secretary. The roaming garrulousness of ordinary speech is usually corrected when it's transcribed into written prose. — Joyce Carol Oates

As the invasion fleet sailed east across the Mediterranean, Napoleon would lie in bed reading and dictating to Bourrienne. His principal reading was from the Koran. Like Alexander the Great before him, he intended to absorb the religion of the people over whom he would rule. He insisted that, if necessary, he himself was willing to become a Muslim - an intention that, at least initially, he would show every sign of wishing to fulfill. However, it should also be noted that in Napoleon's shipboard library the Koran was shelved under "Politics." At the same time, he also busied himself with dictating his "proclamation" to the Egyptian people. — Paul Strathern

We are not dictating. We are not telling them [Saudi Arabia] how they should do it or who they should look like. We are their friends. We have mutual interests and we will help them in any way that is possible. — Colin Powell

4chan is a framework of pictures and text. I've always been extremely hands-off with dictating what gets posted, past general categories and rules. I support providing a place to discuss anything, although I don't agree with everything that's posted. — Christopher Poole

There is no room for dictating taste in the diverse and dynamic world of media. To limit taste only limits the role we play for people of all kinds. — Lachlan Murdoch

The point all these people had in common was how little freedom they seemed to enjoy. They were grappling with their beliefs, and these beliefs restricted their choices by dictating their behavior. — Laurent Gounelle

I was 4 and dictating stories into a tape recorder, and my mom typed them up. — Shonda Rhimes

Egyptians undergo an odd personality change behind the wheel of a car. In every other setting, aggression and impatience are frowned upon. The unofficial Egyptian anthem "Bokra, Insha'allah, Malesh" (Tomorrow, God Willing, Never Mind) isn't just an excuse for laziness. In a society requiring millennial patience, it is also a social code dictating that no one make too much of a fuss about things. But put an Egyptian in the driver's seat and he shows all the calm and consideration of a hooded swordsman delivering Islamic justice. — Tony Horwitz

Later, dictating the tale into his comlog, the Consul remembered it as a seamless whole, minus the pauses, hoarse voice, false starts, and small redundancies which were the timeless failings of human speech — Dan Simmons

Dictating to dictators doesn't work; they are congenitally delusional about their own indispensability. — Joe Klein

Muse

When at night I wait for her to come,
Life, it seems, hangs by a single strand.
What are glory, youth, freedom, in comparison
with the dear welcome guest, a flute in hand?

She enters now. Pushing her veil aside,
she stares through me with her attentiveness.
I question her: 'And were you Dante's guide,
dictating the Inferno?' She answers: 'Yes. — Anna Akhmatova

Asking questions will get you the performance you are after far more than dictating demands. — Dan James

In 1 Samuel 17, we see how comfort stymied the nation of Israel and David's three older brothers up at their army camp. They repeated their battle cry every day. They got suited up and went and stood on the front lines. They had God on their side and believed he was the one true God. But for forty days they were held back by comfort. They were prevented from moving forward by the lure of ease. The giant was calling the shots. He was dictating their lives. Goliath would come out every morning and evening and shake, rattle, and roar, and the Israelites would all say, "Nope, not today. Too dangerous. Too uncomfortable. Let's go have lunch. Let's stay in the tents where it's safe. If we run out of supplies someone will arrive with more. Maybe we'll do battle tomorrow." We — Louie Giglio

We do not want to believe that we cannot control alcohol and that alcohol is, in truth, controlling and dictating our lives. When you free yourself of a dictator, like alcohol, the freedom that you experience is totally amazing and so empowering. You get your life back. — Liz Hemingway

Come now, Tichy. For half a century civilization hasn't been left to its own devices. A hundred years ago a certain Dior was dictating fashions in clothing. Today this sort of regulating has embraced all walks of life. If prostheticism is voted in, I assure you, in a couple of years everyone will consider the possession of a soft, hairy, sweating body to be shameful and indecent. A body needs washing, deodorizing, caring for, and even then it breaks down, while in a prostheticized society you can snap on the loveliest creations of modern engineering. What woman doesn't want to have silver iodide instead of eyes, telescoping breasts, angel's wings, iridescent legs, and feet that sing with every step? — Stanislaw Lem

He can't quite picture God except as a huge ball of light with an old man's deep voice like in the pickup truck ads on TV coming out of the ball of light dictating the way everything in Eden is supposed to work. — Russell Banks

The more we come to rely on government, the fewer freedoms we will enjoy. Government will start dictating what we can own, eat and drive, how much of our money they will let us keep, how we run our businesses, how many - if any - guns we can own, and what we may and may not say. Oh, wait! They are already doing that. To preserve freedom we must fight for it. — Cal Thomas

To teach a child an instrument without first giving him preparatory training and without developing singing, reading and dictating to the highest level along with the playing is to build upon sand. — Zoltan Kodaly

As long as gas is cheaper than bottled water, we can't be in a position of dictating to the consumer what to buy. — William Clay Ford Jr.

When Pococke inquired of Grotius, where the proof was of that story of the pigeon, trained to pick peas from Mahomet's (Muhammad's) ear, and pass for an angel dictating to him? Grotius answered that there was no proof! ... — Thomas Carlyle

I am pitching it feebly," said young Bingo earnestly. "You haven't heard the thing. I have. Rosie shoved the cylinder on the dictating-machine last night before dinner, and it was grisly to hear the instrument croaking out those awful sentences. If that article appears I shall be kidded to death by every pal I've got. Bertie," he said, his voice sinking to a hoarse whisper, "you have about as much imagination as a warthog, but surely even you can picture to yourself what Jimmy Bowles and Tuppy Rogers, to name only tow, will say when they see me referred to in print as "half god, half prattling, mischievous child"?"
I jolly well could
"She doesn't say that?"I gasped.
"She certainly does. And when I tell you that I selected that particular quotation because it's about the only one I can stand hearing spoken, you will realise what I'm up against. — P.G. Wodehouse

Sometimes you have the feeling that some little imp is standing behind you and dictating to you, but he gives it to you slowly, drop by drop. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

One of the major problems leading to the breakdown of society is that we have far too many opinions dictating life choices and not enough truth mandating them. — Tony Evans

I wouldn't want the federal government dictating how I use my cameras, every community has their own issues and their own dynamics. — Kenneth R. Miller

I have actually been very fortunate to be able to make films on my own credit card without having huge funders behind me dictating how the story should be told. — Jehane Noujaim

[Hospitalized and pressing the nurse's button before dictating letters to her secretary:] This should assure us of at least forty-five minutes of undisturbed privacy. — Dorothy Parker

Germany is dictating its policy in Europe — Christopher A. Pissarides

Buonaparte is certainly writing, or rather dictating, his memoirs. He walks backwards and forwards with his hands behind him, and dictates so fast that two or three of his suite are obliged to be in attendance, that the one may take down one-half of a sentence, and another the rest; they then literally compare notes, and put the disjointed legs and wings and heads of periods together. This is writing a book as he fought a battle. — Mary Russell Mitford

The best soldier does not attack. The superior fighter succeeds without violence. The greatest conqueror wins without struggle. The most successful manager leads without dictating. This is intelligent non aggressiveness. — Laozi

I was dictating to my mother when I was 5. — Judith Rossner

For over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples. — Osama Bin Laden

the president began dictating what became his famous declaration of hope for "a world founded upon four essential human freedoms" - freedom of speech and expression; freedom of religion; freedom from want; and freedom from fear. These were, he said, not a vision for "a distant millennium" but "a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. — Douglas Brinkley

Tomorrow's leaders will not lead dictating from the front, nor pushing from the back. They will lead from the centre - from the heart — Rasheed Ogunlaru

If any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by which the world should be governed for ever, it was the first generation that existed; and if that generation did it not, no succeeding generation can show any authority for doing it, nor can set any up. — Thomas Paine

Never place a time limit on the healing. That is dictating to the spiritual intelligence that does its perfect work when it is not impeded by your questions and false beliefs. — Raymond Charles Barker

Everyone tells a story about who they are in their own head. That story defines you, dictating all your actions and all your mistakes. If your own story is filled with guilt and fear and self-hatred, life can look pretty miserable. But, if you're very lucky, you might have a person who tells you a better story, one that takes up residence in your soul, speaking louder than the woeful tale of which you've convinced yourself. If you let it speak loudly within your heart, it becomes your passion and your purpose. — Mia Sheridan

I think that's a question for South Carolin and the last thing they need is people from outside the state coming in and dictating how they should resolve that issue [about flag]. — Ted Cruz

I wouldn't want to have the thought police going to people's homes, dictating what they teach their children. I don't want to be Big Brotherish. I would hate that. — Richard Dawkins

Elizabeth found that nothing was beneath this great lady's attention, which could furnish her with an occasion of dictating to others. — Jane Austen

I have heard that M. Guesdon is dictating lessons to his seminarians. This is contrary to the custom of the Company and a somewhat ineffective way of teaching, since the students rely on their notes and do not exercise either their judgment or their memory, In this way, their minds remain empty while they pile up papers which they will perhaps never look at again. — Vincent De Paul