Sacred Cow Quotes & Sayings

Cosca smiled up at the dragon, hands on hips. 'It certainly is a remarkable curiosity. A magnificent relic. But against what is already boiling across the plains? The legion of the dumb? The merchants and farmers and makers of trifles and filers of papers? The infinite tide of greedy little people?' He waved his hat towards the dragon. 'Such things as this are worthless as a cow against a swarm of ants. There will be no place in the world to come for the magical, the mysterious, the strange. They will come to your sacred places and build . . . tailors' shops. And dry-goods emporia. And lawyers' offices. They will make of them bland copies of everywhere else.' The old mercenary scratched thoughtfully at his rashy neck. 'You can wish it were not so. I wish it were not so. But it is so. I tire of lost causes. The time of men like me is passing. The time of men like you?' He wiped a little blood from under his fingernails. 'So long passed it might as well have never been. — Joe Abercrombie

Knowledge is a sacred cow, and my problem will be how we can milk her while keeping clear of her horns. — Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

In the 1990s, it's OK to do comedy about the Chernobyl disaster or the Space Shuttle blowing up. It's acceptable to ridicule the Pope or the President of the United States, but God forbid you do a joke ... about gays. The gay community is the last sacred cow in this society. — Sam Kinison

Speak of the daimon: Leo burst through the door next to the pantry, holding a loft a wheel of cheese like a victor's laurel crown.
"BEHOLD THE CHEDDAR!" he announced. "ALL HAIL THE CHEESE CONQUERORS!"
Josephine, chuckling good-naturedly, lumbered in behind him with a metal pail. "The cows seemed to like Leo."
"Hey, abuelita," Leo said. "All da cows love Leo." He grinned at me. "And these cows are red man. Like... bright red."
That definitely made me want to weep. Red cows were my favourite. For centuries I had a herd of sacred scarlet cattle before cow-collecting went out of fashion. — Rick Riordan

You lose that sacred-cow status when you lose three straight years. — Joe Dumars

Monogamy, it follows, is the sacred cow of the romantic ideal, for it is the marker of our specialness: I have been chosen and others renounced. When you turn your back on other loves, you confirm my uniqueness; when your hand or mind wanders, my importance is shattered. Conversely, if I no longer feel special, my own hands and mind tingle with curiosity. The disillusioned are prone to roam. Might someone else restore my significance — Esther Perel

I am afraid that education is conceived more in terms of indoctrination by most school officials than in terms of enlightenment. My own belief is that education must be subversive if it is to be meaningful. By this I mean that it must challenge all the things we take for granted, examine all accepted assumptions, tamper with every sacred cow, and instill a desire to question and doubt. Without this the mere instruction to memorise data is empty. The attempt to enforce conventional mediocrity on the young is criminal. — Bertrand Russell

Every sacred cow in the business has to do with economics. — Gena Rowlands

I think this is a bodhi tree," I said, "just like Buddha sat under! It's so exciting. I'm feeling sort of enlightened just standing here. Really, I can feel ripe bodhies squishing between my toes."
Joshua looked at my feet. "I don't think those are bodhies. There was a cow here before us."
I lifted my foot out of the mess. "Cows are overrated in this country. Under the Buddha's tree too. Is nothing sacred? — Christopher Moore

Everyone now has a sacred cow in the tax code. For my money, the most sacred thing of all is our country and its growth, but the sacred cows have turned into a pack of wolves. — Ari Fleischer

My mind is a sacred cow / bleeding in the ellipsis. — Tomaz Salamun

Science is not a sacred cow. Science is a horse. Don't worship it. Feed it.
[Addressing a group of prospective contributors to an Israeli scientific research program] — Abba Eban

This was what the universities were turning out nowadays. The science-is-a-sacred-cow boys. People who believe you could pour mankind into a test-tube and titrate it, and come up with all the answers to the problems of the human race. — Frank M. Robinson

The only sacred cow is an organisation should be its basic philosophy of doing business. — Thomas Watson Jr.

In their pursuit to make us choose the "right" option, politicians and media pundits create a new holy entity called freedom of expression. It becomes another sacred, holy, untouchable "cow." Another religious concept which if you're "killed" promoting, you become a "martyr. — Anonymous

I'm saying that the leaders of the church have locked the sacred cow called science in the stable and they won't let anybody enter; they should open it immediately so that we can milk that cow in the name of humanity and thus find the truth. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Dennis looked at the puppy in the window. We both did. It was the oddest thing. Normally, puppies in pet store windows sleep or pee or roll around on top of other dogs. This one ignored us its window-mates and was instead sitting with its nose pressed against the glass, looking at us with an extremely serious little expression on its face. An expression that seemed to me to be saying, I am a sacred cow. Get out your wallet. — Augusten Burroughs

Science is the kind of sacred cow which theology was five hundred years ago ... — John Lukacs

and produce as a result of their inundation with industrial herbicides and pesticides which, of course, make their way, again, into the Russian River. Then into the Pacific Ocean. And ultimately, into all the fish in your local supermarket. What is said about the environmental impact of vineyards in Sonoma County? Fucking nothing. It is our sacred cow." Darren raised his shot glass again, "Long live the sacred cow." Colin — Rob Loughran

Because of these new car models there is suddenly on the streets of Delhi a new intolerance by the motorists for both the cows and the cyclists. So for the first time the sacred cow in India, which used to be such a wonderful speed-breaker, is now seen as a nuisance. For the first time, I've seen cows being hit and hurt. These guys just go right past, and if the cow is sitting on the road, they don't care. We can't afford to have a sacred car rather than a sacred cow. — Vandana Shiva

We have this sacred cow in our society that what the majority of people want is right-but is it? Our populace can't really be informed, not the majority of them-most people vote the way they have been manipulated and by the way they have responded to that manipulation-they are working out their own patterns of wishful thinking on the social environment in which they live. — David Gerrold

Science is not a sacred cow-but there are a large number of would-be sacred cowherds busily devoting quantities of time, energy and effort to the task of making it one, so they can be sacred cowherds. — John W. Campbell

Everybody thinks of baseball as a sacred cow. When you have the nerve to challenge it, people look down their noses at you. There are a lot of things wrong with a lot of industries ... baseball is one of them. — Curt Flood

Man is naturally a religious being. His heart instinctively seeks for God whether he reverences the sacred cow or prays to the sun or moon; whether he kneels before wood and stone images, or prays in secret to his Heavenly Father, he is satisfying an inborn urge. — Spencer W. Kimball

Our freedom is our sacred cow; no one should touch it! We must be very pious in this holy matter. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

For almost seventy years the life insurance industry has been a smug sacred cow feeding the public a steady line of sacred bull. — Ralph Nader

Irreverence is our only sacred cow. — Paul Krassner

SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose; having a divine character; inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions; as ... the Cow in India; the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt. — Ambrose Bierce

Yoga may have originated in India, where the cow has been revered as sacred for thousands of years, but times have changed since Lord Krishna played his flute for the cows of Vrindavan. There are factory farms in India now. — Sharon Gannon

Of all political sacred-cows, education is the most sacred and the most cow-like. — Enoch Powell