Propositional Quotes & Sayings

Consider this: there is not a single word in [the Sermon on the Mount] about what to believe, only words about what to do. It is a behavioral manifesto, not a propositional one. Yet three centuries later, when the Nicene Creed became the official oath of Christendom, there was not a single word in it about what to do, only words about what to believe! — Robin Meyers

But the fact is that the Bible itself is the grandest of grand stories, yet it prizes truth and reason without being modernist, and it prizes countless stories within its overall story without being postmodern either. In short, the Bible is both rational and experiential, propositional as well as relational, so that genuinely biblical arguments work in any age and with any person. — Os Guinness

Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share. — Mark Z. Danielewski

Have you ever seen a world so amazing you wanted to inhale it, like air sucking into a jet engine? And the more you inhaled, the faster you flew, until you knew, without having to ask anyone else, that you were living? — S.W. Southwick

A crucial difference between lite libertarians and the Right kind is that to the former, the idea of liberty is propositional - a deracinated principle, unmoored from the realities of history, hierarchy, biology, tradition, culture, values. Conversely, the paleolibertarian grasps that ordered liberty has a civilizational dimension, stripped of which the libertarian non-aggression axiom, by which we all must live, cannot endure. — Ilana Mercer

Wesley and most of his descendants developed a doctrine of Scripture that focused on its role in transforming the believer's inner being as the ground for reordering behavior. Fundamentalism, on the other hand, developed a doctrine of Scripture that tended to focus on reordering behavior in obedience to a body of propositional truths. — Al Truesdale

From semantics to shipbuilding, from dream theory to propositional logic, any specialist ... is invariably astonished to discover that modern knowledge was foreshadowed at the time ... Should we not replace these foreshadowings by the study of the influences of Hellenistic thought on modern thought? — Lucio Russo

If one denies that, when the meaning is true, then the meant is what is so, one rejects propositional truth. If the rejection is universal, then it is the self-destructive proposition that there are no true propositions. If the rejection is limited to the dogmas, then it is just a roundabout way of saying that all the dogmas are false. — Bernard Lonergan

By using repetition, images, and other strategies - all of which communicate truths in ways that are not cognitively or propositional - marketing forms us into the kind of persons who want to buy beer to have meaningful relationships, or to buy a car to be respected, or buy the latest thing to come along simply to satisfy the desire that has been formed and implanted in us. It is important to appreciate that these disciplinary mechanisms transmit values and truth claims, but not via propositions or cognitive means; rather, the values are transmitted more covertly ... This covertness of the operation is also what makes it so powerful: the truths are inscribed in us through the powerful instruments of imagination and ritual. — James K.A. Smith

What is or is not the jargon is determined by whether the word is written in an intonation which places it transcendently in opposition to its own meaning; by whether the individual words are loaded at the expense of the sentence, its propositional force, and the thought content. — Theodor Adorno

But that changed propositional knowledge is thoroughly enmeshed with other forms of understanding - feeling, somatic experience, skills and competencies, presuppositions and common sense. Thinking about the always socially situated work of striving to create the conditions for complex flourishing requires a thick understanding of these aspects of our experience. — Alexis Shotwell

You become visibly stressed because you are working hard to pay for a standard of living so robust that it overwhelms your capacity to consume it. — William Thorsell

Mencius said that human nature is good. I disagree with that. — Xun Zi

patients with aphasia and left-hemisphere lesions, says they have lost 'abstract' and 'propositional' thought - and compares them with dogs (or, rather, he compares dogs to patients with aphasia). — Oliver Sacks

Denny gave me a strange look when I showed up in the band room, but I have always believed playing drums is no excuse not to look cute. Besides, if McDaniel shows up, I want to look my best. Oh, crap, I should be paying attention.
"Did you hear anything I said?"
I answer honestly, "No."
Denny runs a hand through his spiked hair and asks, "Do you really want to learn how to march?"
"I have to learn to march if I want to be a part of the section, right?"
"Right."
"Then, it doesn't really matter if I want to do anything. It's something I have to do."
Denny looks confused and partially like he's completely regretting the decision to add me to his section, but proceeds to teach me drill for the better part of two hours. While we run through the steps, I look longingly over at my quints, which I have secretly decided to name Quincy. — Courtney Brandt

In very general terms 'Top Of The Lake' is about good and evil. It's a deep dark mystery. It also deals with lots of fascinating human relationships, and it's also about the battle of the sexes. — David Wenham

I represented the people of Hawaii and this nation honestly and to the best of my ability. I think I did okay. — Daniel Inouye

When I say or write something, there are actually a whole lot of different things I am communicating. The propositional content (i.e., the verbal information I'm trying to convey) is only one part of it. Another part is stuff about me, the communicator. Everyone knows this. It's a function of the fact there are so many different well-formed ways to say the same basic thing, from e.g. "I was attacked by a bear!" to "Goddamn bear tried to kill me!" to "That ursine juggernaut did essay to sup upon my person!" and so on. — David Foster Wallace

Sometimes with people I know, they're playing the hunky action guy and there's resistance to them coming out because it's so connected to straight masculinity. There's a plastic kind of movie star who has a very short shelf with very small kind of ambition. I see that but I still don't agree with it. — Alan Cumming

Like it doesn't cater to the rich and abandon the poor — Linkin Park

The percept is the reality. It is not in propositional form. But the most immediate judgment concerning it is abstract. It is therefore essentially unlike the reality, although it must be accepted as true to that reality. Its truth consists in the fact that it is impossible to correct it, and in the fact that it only professes to consider one aspect of the percept. — Charles Sanders Peirce

The U.S. now imports over half of its oil supply from the Middle East. This dangerous dependence on foreign energy sources is an issue of national security. — Kenny Marchant

It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect. — Alice Walker

almost every scholar who has grappled with the question of what reading does to one's habits of mind has concluded that the process encourages rationality; that the sequential, propositional character of the written word fosters what Walter Ong calls the "analytic management of knowledge. — Neil Postman

A propositional sign, applied and thought out, is a thought. A thought is a proposition with a sense. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

We really only came around to accepting and integrating the propositional dimension of identity into a concept of ourselves at the time of the American Revolution. — Samuel P. Huntington

In the beginning, the call of God was not propositional. It was experiential. (p. 10) — Robin R. Meyers

What I argue is that talk of knowledge plays an important role in theories within cognitive ethology. The idea is this. First, one sees cognitive ethologists arguing that we need to attribute propositional attitudes to some animals in order to explain the sophistication of their cognitive achievements. — Hilary Kornblith

Barth (or Barthianism134) believed that the Scriptures are not the word of God, per se, but merely a witness to the word of God (Jesus Christ).135 Revelation is not a propositional statement about God; rather it is an event (Ereignis), an encounter, something that "happens" to an individual. — Michael J. Kruger

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads. — Erica Jong

Oddly, I've never heard of a church or denomination that asked people to affirm a doctrinal statement like this: The purpose of Scripture is to equip God's people for good works. Shouldn't a simple statement like this be far more important than statements with words foreign to the Bible's vocabulary about itself (inerrant, authoritative, literal, revelatory, objective, absolute, propositional, etc.)? — Brian D. McLaren

What does it mean to call for a "democratic" solution if you don't have a conflict-resolution mechanism in mind?
I think it means that you have said the word "democracy," so the audience is supposed to cheer. It's not so much a propositional statement, as the equivalent of the "Applause" light that tells a studio audience when to clap. — Eliezer Yudkowsky