Jacoby Quotes & Sayings

Atheism is not a religion. One of the things, in fact, that atheism lacks are the kinds of rituals that religion does provide and I would be the first to say that. — Susan Jacoby

I have received many touching letters and emails from people who live in the most religious parts of the country, in places like rural Texas, saying it is so good to see someone be able to say I am an atheist without shame. — Susan Jacoby

You can't complain when people appreciate what you're doing. — Jacoby Ellsbury

I weighed the pros and cons of both, and college outweighed the pro ranks at the time and I'm definitely glad I made the choice to come to Oregon State because I'm a better player for it. — Jacoby Ellsbury

We both stared at him. It was as if a dog had just talked. — M.L. Brennan

At its heart, all intellectual and emotional life is a conversation, and the conversation begins at birth. — Susan Jacoby

Fat doesn't make you fat; carbohydrates make you fat. — Richard Jacoby

Love is like an unfathomable idea. An idea that is slightly above euphoria, yet a fingers width from heaven. — Shannan Jacoby

Today's banalities apparently gain in profundity if one states that the wisdom of the past, for all its virtues, belongs to the past. The arrogance of those who come later preens itself with the notion that the past is dead and gone ... The modern mind can no longer think thought, only can locate it in time and space. The activity of thinking decays to the passivity of classifying. — Russell Jacoby

Ingersoll was introduced as one of the main speakers by Frederick Douglass and proceeded, unlike most leaders of his party, to eviscerate the court's logic. "This decision takes from seven millions of people the shield of the Constitution," he said. "It leaves the best of the colored race at the mercy of the meanest of the white. It feeds fat the ancient grudge that vicious ignorance bears toward race and color. It will be approved and quoted by hundreds of thousands of unjust men. The masked wretches who, in the darkness of night, drag the poor negro from his cabin, and lacerate with whip and thong his quivering flesh, will, with bloody hands, applaud the Supreme Court. The men who, by mob violence, prevent the negro from depositing his ballot - those who with gun and revolver drive him from the polls, and those who insult with vile and vulgar words the inoffensive colored girl, will welcome this decision with hyena joy. The basest will rejoice - the noblest will mourn. — Susan Jacoby

My favorite team while I was growing up was the New Orleans Saints. My favorite player was Joe Horn. — Jacoby Jones

A person can be religious and still respect secular values and not talk about Jesus all the time as though every American believed in Jesus. — Susan Jacoby

Kyoto is likely to yield far less than the targeted emissions reduction. That failure will most likely be papered over with creative accounting, shifting definitions of carbon sinks, and so on. If this happens, the credibility of the international process for addressing climate change will be at risk. — Henry Sylvester Jacoby

The radicals ... want speech regulated by codes that proscribe certain language. They see free speech as at best a delusion, at worst a threat to the welfare of minorities and women ... The most obvious (and cynical) explanation for the switched positions is the switched situations. Protesting students became established professors and administrators. For outsiders, free speech is bread and butter; for insiders, indigestion. To the new academics, unregulated free speech spells trouble. — Russell Jacoby

I love Baltimore, I want to retire a raven — Jacoby Jones

I completely can't understand people of different faiths who say that their children will choose when they grow up. I think that if you believe in a religion, most people believe that it's right. — Susan Jacoby

In a recent poll, one in four people said they'd donate a kidney to a complete stranger. Yeah, sure... 90% of people won't even let a stranger merge in traffic. Jay Leno — Jack Jacoby

As long as the Good News remains a matter of abstract facts, it will have little more effect on your life than your insurance policy has on the way you drive. — Matthew Jacoby

The specific use of folks as an exclusionary and inclusionary signal, designed to make the speaker sound like one of the boys or girls, is symptomatic of a debasement of public speech inseparable from a more general erosion of American cultural standards. Casual, colloquial language also conveys an implicit denial of the seriousness of whatever issue is being debated: talking about folks going off to war is the equivalent of describing rape victims as girls (unless the victims are, in fact, little girls and not grown women). Look up any important presidential speech in the history of the United States before 1980, and you will find not one patronizing appeal to folks. Imagine: 'We here highly resolve that these folks shall not have died in vain; and that government of the folks, by the folks, for the folks, shall not perish from the earth. — Susan Jacoby

The biggest religious wars and persecutions in history occur when religions, each claiming their own absolute truths, come into conflict. — Susan Jacoby

What goes around comes around. Karma. Ying and Yang. Two sides to every coin. With every action there is an opposite action. It doesn't matter how you say it, it all means the same thing.

What we put out in the world will be what we get back. In my writing, as well as in my life, I want my second side to reflect my first. And it's not going to be determined by how many books I have on the shelf or who I sat next to at that luncheon. It's going to come from how I treated the person who has just finished her first draft of her first book and the person who just opened his forty-seventh rejection."

~Lessons From the Giants, 2002 — Jacqui Jacoby

Americans are in serious intellectual trouble - in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations. — Susan Jacoby

It's something fundamental to me, human rights that people are equal under law simply because they are human beings. And I can no more imagine falling in love with someone who believed, for instance, as Orthodox Jews do, that women are unclean during their menstrual periods. — Susan Jacoby

Real-life discussions involve a great many bores and boors who have never learned that the art of conversation demands listening as well as talking. — Susan Jacoby

I feel culturally Jewish because of the way that I have lived my adult life. — Susan Jacoby

I still do find the prayers of the Kaddish quite moving, and I just substitute in my mind nature, although that's what the founders did in a lot of their documents, too. They substituted nature or providence for God. I think that's what I do in my head with Jewish God. — Susan Jacoby

I no more believe in the God of the Jews than I believe in any God. — Susan Jacoby

God Bless America started to become an almost ritualistic incantation at the end of political speeches really with Ronald Reagan. It appears occasionally before, but it was not that common. And of course since it was a song that wasn't written by Irving Berlin until the 20th century (laughter), none of the 19th century presidents said God Bless America at the end of speeches, either. I think that the symbolism which suggests that everybody is religious and that even presidents who believe in church and state feel obliged to do this ... — Susan Jacoby

It will be nearly impossible to slow warming appreciably without condemning much of the world to poverty unless energy sources that emit little or no carbon dioxide become competitive with conventional fossil fuels. — Henry Sylvester Jacoby

I don't ever participate in debates about the existence or nonexistence of God because I can't imagine why anyone would be persuaded one way or the other by such things. — Susan Jacoby

Too many Americans have twisted the sensible right to pursue happiness into the delusion that we are entitled to a guarantee of happiness. If we don't get exactly what we want, we assume someone must be violating our rights. We're no longer willing to write off some of life's disappointments to simple bad luck. — Susan Jacoby

I feel Jewish in the sense of culturally Jewish, I suppose the way Bernie Sanders feels Jewish, but not Jewish in a religious sense. — Susan Jacoby

I'm not saying that I think atheists are better than other people. God, no. What I am saying is I do feel that this an integral part of who I am. And it's not something that I could comfortably think of not sharing with the person I loved most in the world. — Susan Jacoby

Feminists who want to censor what they regard as harmful pornography have essentially the same motivation as other would-be censors: They want to use the power of the state to accomplish what they have been unable to achieve in the marketplace of ideas and images. The impulse to censor places no faith in the possibilities of democratic persuasion. — Susan Jacoby

This Jacoby character, regardless of how dreamy he may appear, is aiding and abetting my captivity. Not exactly the kind of guy you want to bring home to meet mom. — Erica Cope

Coleman Jacoby and Arnie Rosen won an Emmy and Mel Brooks didn't! Niezsche was right! There is no God! There is no God! — Mel Brooks

I understand the importance of giving back, and that's something I definitely want to do. — Jacoby Ellsbury

I'm proud to be a New York Yankee. — Jacoby Ellsbury

I can no more imagine falling in love with someone who believed that than I can imagine falling in love with someone who believes that blacks shouldn't be able to vote and are inferior to whites. — Susan Jacoby

The light of love is the brightest, because it shines into those who contact it and purify their soul. It is also dangerous in the fact that when you come into contact with it just once, you can't truly live life if it is to leave. — Shannan Jacoby

Hope is not a plan of action. — Susan Jacoby

Printed works do not take up mental space simply by virtue of being there; attention must be paid or their content, whether simple or complex, can never be truly assimilated. The willed attention demanded by print is the antithesis of the reflexive distraction encouraged by infotainment media, whether one is talking about the tunes on an iPod, a picture flashing briefly on a home page, a text message, a video game, or the latest offering of "reality" TV. That all of these sources of information and entertainment are capable of simultaneously engendering distraction and absorption accounts for much of their snakelike charm. — Susan Jacoby

I try to be my own player. I really haven't modeled my game after anybody. — Jacoby Ellsbury

I can't imagine falling in love with a devoutly religious person. — Susan Jacoby

I believe that whether one believes in God or not is - it's very central to who I am. — Susan Jacoby

One of the reasons there are largely Catholic and largely Protestant regions of Germany today is that people did sort themselves out geographically. — Susan Jacoby

I'm just really happy. — Jacoby Jones

The forgetting of the history of marginalized groups is both a cause and effect of their marginalization. — Susan Jacoby

The different policies reduce damages by only a modest amount. Indeed, one of the surprises is how little the policies affect the damages from global warming. The reasons are that, because there is so much inertia in the climate system and because the Protocol reduced the global temperature increase by only a fraction of a degree over the next century. — Henry Sylvester Jacoby

I'm half Native American and half white so I think I can adjust culturally to anything. — Jacoby Ellsbury

It is easy to forget, since the Catholic Church is now the only large American religious denomination whose ecclesiastical hierarchy continues to oppose birth control, that only a century ago the leaders of nearly all churches were united in their resistance to any public discussion of the subject. — Susan Jacoby

My biggest thing is to stay with my approach and take quality ABs to the plate. I'm just trying to keep it simple. — Jacoby Ellsbury

With the single crossing over to pop radio, it's bringing out new people to the shows. We've got all our metal kids and punk kids who still love us. And then we've got the average joes coming out. We call our fans the 'mixed nuts' because it's all kinds of people out there. — Jacoby Shaddix

Perfection is real. It occurs when you find that other part of you, that other person, that when combined you become one, perfect being. — Shannan Jacoby

Once upon a time, there was a clear set of choices that people made. Now there are so many choices of how to think, how to define ourselves. — Tamar Jacoby

I don't see why any president has to talk about his belief in God. — Susan Jacoby

The government should not be in the business of funneling money for social services through any faith-based organization — Susan Jacoby

The truth is, as Jacoby and many followers have shown, that the name David Stenbill will look familiar when you see it because you will see it more clearly. Words that you have seen before become easier to see again - you can identify them better than other words when they are shown very briefly or masked by noise, and you will be quicker (by a few hundredths of a second) to read them than to read other words. In — Daniel Kahneman

If enough money is involved and enough people believe that two plus two equals five the media will report the story with a straight face always adding a qualifying paragraph noting that mathematicians however say that two plus two still equals four. — Susan Jacoby

My atheism doesn't define my day-to-day life at all. But I realize - and maybe it is because, unlike people who sort of stay comfortably in a religion, I had to do a lot of thinking and reading before I realized that I was an atheist. — Susan Jacoby

Who was the fool, who the wise man, beggar or king? Whether poor or rich, all's the same in death. — Jacoby Shaddix

Religious education is only valuable intellectually, if the child is educated in a religion versus [just] about a religion. I don't believe you can have both. — Susan Jacoby

I have always regarded the development of the individual as the only legitimate goal of education. — Susan Jacoby

For us, selling a million records in 2005 is the equivalent of selling 2 to 3 million records (five years ago). Rock records aren't flying off the shelves like they used to. Hip-hop and pop are so huge. (But) everything's on the upswing for us. — Jacoby Shaddix

One of the interesting things is is that Judaism was very attractive to the Roman aristocracy. — Susan Jacoby

Throughout the three decades preceding the Civil War, the anticlerical ethos of the radical abolitionists was used against them by religious opponents of emancipation, who ... even described abolitionism itself as an atheist plot. — Susan Jacoby

High culture can never be obliterated as long as the species continues to produce individuals with the inclination and fortitude to pursue their interests and talents against the grain of the mass culture surrounding them. — Susan Jacoby

Everyone uses their own dictionary. — Robert Jacoby

Love makes people beautiful, beautiful in the fact that those who are stricken by love become blind. Not being able to see the evils and pain in the world, that's the part that makes people beautiful on the inside. — Shannan Jacoby

Every brand of religion maintains, and is, a permanent mechanism for transmitting ideas and values - whether one regards those values as admirable or ridiculous. Secularist organizations, with their generally looser, nonhierarchical structures, lack the power to hand down and disseminate their heritage in such a systematic way. — Susan Jacoby

Common sense, the half-truths of a deceitful society, is honored as the honest truths of a frank world. — Russell Jacoby

This mindless tolerance, which places observable scientific facts, subject to proof, on the same level as unprovable supernatural fantasy, has played a major role in the resurgence of both anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism. — Susan Jacoby

More than half of Americans have changed religions at least once in their adult lifetime. This is - the rate of religious conversion here is much, much higher than it is anywhere in Europe, for example. — Susan Jacoby

For one thing, the Catholic Church in particular has this one thing - confession - in which you could go, confess to a priest and obtain absolution of your sins. And there was a routine and a ritual and I think - I think that it did help. — Susan Jacoby

With each passing year the difficulty of meeting any fixed quantitative target increases progressively. Moreover, plausible estimates of when the Protocol would go into effect leave such a small window of time before the first commitment period that achievement of the Kyoto targets will eventually pass out of reach. — Henry Sylvester Jacoby

The most important obstacle to speed and ease of assimilation, however, is race. In the nineteenth century, swarthy Jews, "black" Irish, and Italian "guineas" - a not so subtle euphemism borrowed from the African country of Guinea - were all seen as what we today call "people of color." These immigrants terrified lighter-skinned native-born Americans, who accepted the newcomers as "white" only when they - actually, their descendants - began to earn middle-class incomes. Of course, skin color does not affect an immigrant's ability to absorb American culture. But color can play a large part in hindering economic and social assimilation: today's black newcomers, from the Caribbean and elsewhere, are often treated as part of the African-American population, with all the associated disadvantages. — Tamar Jacoby

I say my greatest strength is my speed, and I think that I could use some work on my concentration. — Jacoby Jones

Given the obstacles to merging these fragile and diverse forms of storytelling into a single tale, it is, paradoxically, by venturing in the opposite direction -- by listening for the silences between accounts; by discovering what each genre of recordkeeping cannot tell us -- that we can capture most fully the human struggle to understand our elusive past. What this past asks of us in return is a willingness to recount all our stories -- our darkest tales as well as our most inspiring ones -- and to ponder those stories that violence has silenced forever. For until we recognize our shared capacity for inhumanity, how can we ever hope to tell stories of our mutual humanity? — Karl Jacoby

I don't deny that religion is very healthful to a lot of people. And as long as they don't try to convert me, I have, you know, nothing - and to interfere with the rights of people to believe other religions or to not believe in any religion at all - as long as they mind their own religion - perfectly all right with me. — Susan Jacoby

We do want our fellow citizens to respect our deeply held conviction that the absence of an afterlife lends a greater, not a lesser, moral importance to our actions on earth. — Susan Jacoby

That so many manage to accommodate belief systems encompassing both the natural and the supernatural is a testament not to the compatibility of science and religion but to the flexibility, in both the physical and metaphysical senses, of the human brain. — Susan Jacoby

We were 6 feet under. A lot of people gave up on us, including fans and critics and show promoters and record labels. — Jacoby Shaddix

I am a big fan of Chad Johnson. I think that I would compare myself to him as well. — Jacoby Jones

It was fun, having speed and being able to jump. Especially playing football. I played wide receiver and defensive back. — Jacoby Ellsbury

We really refocused ourselves. I didn't want to live my life in a dark shadow all of the time. — Jacoby Shaddix

If during the Reformation you were a Catholic who lived in a part of Germany in which Lutheranism was the ascendant religion and the ruler of the province or the region was Lutheran, to stay a Catholic, you either had to be a dissenter or you had to leave. — Susan Jacoby

This is like the gun you shoot at the beginning of the race or the bell that you ring at the beginning of a classroom discussion, .. This is the president saying, 'OK, we're going to get serious about this now. Congress is going to work on it. I'm going to put my political capital behind it.' . — Tamar Jacoby

If you chose a particular religion, you were siding with the government religion of whatever region you were in. That's never been true in America, but also, the United States also has so many more immigrant groups which also tends to imply more religious diversity right away. — Susan Jacoby

I wanted to know how much of conversion was forced - that is, forced in the sense that the Inquisition forced people to choose - forced Jews, let's say, and Muslims to choose conversion to Christianity or death. I wanted to see how much of conversion historically was forced in that way and how much of it was really a kind of persuasion. — Susan Jacoby

I've been doing a lot of thinking"
"Uh-Oh, Thinking. That's a dangerous business! — Justin Somper

This is my dream. I ain't giving up. I see a band like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and they've had their ups and downs, but they've continued with heart. We look up to that. I see Papa Roach being around for another 15 years. We've always wanted to be a career band. — Jacoby Shaddix

Nonviolence and nonaggression are generally regarded as interchangeable concepts - King and Gandhi frequently used them that way - but nonviolence, as employed by Gandhi in India and by King in the American South, might reasonably be viewed as a highly disciplined form of aggression. If one defines aggression in the primary dictionary sense of "attack," nonviolent resistance proved to be the most powerful attack imaginable on the powers King and Gandhi were trying to overturn. The writings of both men are filled with references to love as a powerful force against oppression, and while the two leaders were not using the term" force" in the military sense, they certainly regarded nonviolence as a tactical weapon as well as an expression of high moral principle." Susan Jacoby (p. 196) — Helen Prejean

If the relatively rich participating countries want to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, they will have to pay at least some poor countries to reduce their emissions. Achievement of substantial reduction in this way implies international transfers of wealth on a scale well beyond anything in recorded history. There is no effective political support for such a Herculean effort, particularly in the United States. — Henry Sylvester Jacoby

It's kind of cool that we've quietly been selling a million albums. We knew the album wasn't going to debut at No. 1. I'm stoked to see us being successful again. — Jacoby Shaddix

Before I was drafted by the Red Sox, I really didn't know that much about them, but in talking to people, they said they weren't known for stealing a lot of bases. It's nice coming to an organization that doesn't necessarily use the run game and still have them give me the green light to steal and use my speed. — Jacoby Ellsbury

We have to dedicate more time to our health and well-being than we devote to worrying about our "social" status. — Jesse Jacoby

One of the great weaknesses of the women's rights movement over the past two hundred years has been the tendency of its history to disappear, so that it must be resurrected for each new generation. — Susan Jacoby

I think very few people realize how much the separation of church and state has to do with the fact that Americans are not only more religious than a lot of other people in the world but that conversions are much more common here. — Susan Jacoby

People think that, that conversion to Judaism is just a modern phenomenon. But there was an era in the late Roman Empire Judaism was not a proselytizing religion. It didn't go out looking for converts, but it accepted converts. — Susan Jacoby

The more intelligent and competent a woman is in her adult life, the less likely she is to have received an adequate amount of romantic attention in adolescence. — Susan Jacoby