Wrong Concept Quotes & Sayings

Party-mindedness" was "an almost mystical concept," explained Kopelev. "The indispensable prerequisites were iron discipline and faithful observance of all the rituals of Party life." As one veteran Communist put it, a Bolshevik was not someone who believed merely in Marxism but "someone who had absolute faith in the Party no matter what . . . A person with the ability to adapt his morality and conscience in such a way that he can unreservedly accept the dogma that the Party is never wrong - even though it's wrong all the time." Stalin did not exaggerate when he boasted: "We Bolsheviks are people of a special cut."2 Nadya — Simon Sebag Montefiore

They told me that nothing was a sin, just a poor life choice. Poor impulse control. That nothing is evil. Any concept of right versus wrong, according to them, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. They said that if anything should force us to modify our personal behavior it should be our allegiance to a social contract, not some vague, externally imposed threat of flaming punishment. — Chuck Palahniuk

I believe it is wrong to undermine public safety, and indeed public confidence in the concept of human rights, by allowing highly dangerous criminals and terrorists to trump the rights of the people of Britain to live in security and peace — David Cameron

He had suddenly the clearest understanding he had ever had of the way his father had gone so wrong. A man's strength was supposed to be against the outside world; to fight it back from himself and from those he took under his protection: his wife, his children, and for a man strong enough, more people still, people like his employees. To turn it inward, against the very people you had been given the strength to protect, because you couldn't deal with the outward fight, was the ultimate weakness. — Laura Florand

Piscary killed people, but he didn't have the concept of pity or remorse. It would be like telling a shark he was a bad fish and to stop eating people. But Trent? He knew he was doing wrong, and he did it anyway. — Kim Harrison

Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong. — Edward O. Wilson

Vere spoke again, "You want us to hide this six-foot-three, positively gorgeous, famous rock star - one who has sports-drink blue eyes BY THE WAY - and who is absolutely PERFECT looking, at Palmer Divide High? In this town? In my junior class?"
"Yes," Mrs. Roth answered. "Why is it such a difficult concept for you to grasp?"
"Because guys who look like that." She pointed a finger at him. "Do not come from this town. In addition to the face, he's too tall, and he's got the posture of some Russian - ballerina! And did you not notice his voice?"
"What's wrong with my voice?" Hunter frowned.
"It's all LOW and, SUPER-MANLY-AMAZING," she modulated her voice down, trying to sound like him.
Charlie cracked up, and Hunter had to bury his own laugh. — Anne Eliot

The single most important impediment to global institutions is the concept of "my country, right or wrong". — U Thant

Who's to say that there is any more support for Freud's psychoanalytic concept of the superego than there is for that old time religion that asserted that there is a God who ordains what is right and wrong, and that His righteousness endures for all generations? — Tony Campolo

Life had stopped for her a long time ago. She was so out of touch with her feelings that she had no joy in her life and no concept of the fact that she could be wrong. She delivered her care of her insane patients in a killing manner, but she was convinced she was right. — Louise Fletcher

I started to see that my concept of spirituality was totally wrong. — Lauryn Hill

I have a hardcore attitude: a "self-published, ghost-written book" is wrong because the concept behind self publishing is that you have knowledge or emotions that you want to express. When
people read a book - particularly a self-published one - they have the right to expect that it's the person's writing, not cleaned-up dictation or slapping a name on a book that someone else wrote. — Guy Kawasaki

Our concept of eco-effectiveness means working on the right things - on the right products and services and systems - instead of making the wrong things less bad. Once you are doing the right things, then doing them "right," with the help of efficiency among other tools, makes perfect sense. — William McDonough

I don't have too many pests. My concept is this: I manage myself, and there's nothing wrong with people having managers. — Vickie Winans

I think the very concept of an elite commission deciding for the American people who deserves to be heard is profoundly wrong. — Newt Gingrich

If the concept of consciousness were to fall to science, what would happen to our sense of moral agency and free will? If conscious experience were reduced somehow to mere matter in motion, what would happen to our appreciation of love and pain and dreams and joy? If conscious human beings were just animated material objects, how could anything we do to them be right or wrong? — Daniel Dennett

Liars lie to others and they lie to themselves without even the concept of lying arising in their minds because this concept doesn't exist for them. There is no judgment, remorse, guilt, worry, or condemnation because lying is not a right or wrong thing. It just is. An axiomatic "Given." To — Alexandra York

Worry about right and wrong wasn't a concept he embraced. Right and wrong were ephemerals; they changed from every angle, from hour to hour, depending on which side of any of a thousand borders a soldier was born. — Nevada Barr

Often, the most striking and innovative solutions come from realizing that your concept of the problem was wrong. — Eric S. Raymond

If the concept of the Enterprise crew meeting the Legion of Super-Heroes doesn't appeal to you, there may be something wrong with you. — Chris Roberson

There needs to be an order of office, but in every single office that is presented in the Scriptures there is the personal emphasis within that legal concept. In the Church the elder is an office-bearer. But both the preaching elders and the ruling elders are "ministers," and the word "minister" is a personal relationship, it does not speak of dominance. There is to be order in the Church, but the preaching elder or the ruling elder is to be a minister, with a loving personal relationship with those who are before him, even when they are wrong and need admonition. — Francis Schaeffer

Responsibility is a unique concept ... You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you ... If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion, or ignorance or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible. — Hyman G. Rickover

The Gorilla Foundation, like a tree or cloud or other thing from nature, seems to mostly present itself only to an ideal, abstract, fully internalized audience - one that does not question sincerity or intent, that does not require justification or meaning, that would rather The Gorilla Foundation not pause (to defend itself, to allow others time to comprehend it) but to continue always with what it's already doing. In this manner The Gorilla Foundation exists more in actualization of itself than in opposition to something else, which implies, to some degree, that it doesn't earnestly believe it - or anything - "needs" to exist or is "right" or "wrong," rather that its "mission" is a temporary concept, created by itself to directionalize itself, that without which [The Gorilla Foundation] wouldn't exist. — Tao Lin

Perhaps the most extraordinary popular delusion about violence of the past quarter-century is that it is caused by low self-esteem. That theory has been endorsed by dozens of prominent experts, has inspired school programs designed to get kids to feel better about themselves, and in the late 1980s led the California legislature to form a Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem. Yet Baumeister has shown that the theory could not be more spectacularly, hilariously, achingly wrong. Violence is a problem not of too little self-esteem but of too much, particularly when it is unearned. — Steven Pinker

Justice in terms of "right" or "wrong" is a man-made concept. — Amish Tripathi

In Soviet thinking the concept of economy of force has little place. Whereas to an Englishman the taking of a sledgehammer to crack a nut is a wrong decision and a sign of mental immaturity ... in Russian eyes the cracking of nuts is clearly what sledgehammers are for. — Max Hastings

What's really worried me over the years is not our stock price, but that we might someday fail to take care of our customers, or that our managers might fail to motivate and take care of our associates. I also was worried that we might lose the team concept, or fail to keep the family concept viable and realistic and meaningful to our folks as we grow. Those challenges are more real than somebody's theory that we're headed down the wrong path. As — Sam Walton

He had never been interested in stories at any age, and had never quite understood the basic concept. He'd never read a work of fiction all the way through. He did remember, as a small boy, being really annoyed at the depiction of Hickory Dickory Dock in a rag book of nursery rhymes because the clock in the drawing was completely wrong for the period. — Terry Pratchett

And James Loewen just proved that we all are wrong... this concept is fucking hard to be swallowed. — Deyth Banger

The Charter of the United Nations said in its preamble: "We the people determined to save succeeding generations from war ... " Can the United Nations save the world from war? The answer is No! It was conceived and created by statesmen who knew little of the significance of the biblical concept of history and the nature of man. When the perspective is wrong, the whole viewpoint will be wrong. — Billy Graham

What is wrong is that you cannot learn how to do things from books...They are starting points for principle, theory, and concept. Your mind understands, but your body does not know until you perform the act yourself. Without action and practice, your hands will not oblige. Experience is a far greater teacher. — Elise Kova

Lawyers had abolished the simple concept of right and wrong, turning it into degrees of guilt. — Peter F. Hamilton

How much of our contemporary moral and religious language originally emerged directly from these very conflicts. Terms like "reckoning" or "redemption" are only the most obvious, since they're taken directly from the language of ancient finance. In a larger sense, the same can be said of "guilt," "freedom," "forgiveness," and even "sin." Arguments about who really owes what to whom have played a central role in shaping our basic vocabulary of right and wrong.
The fact that so much of this language did take shape in arguments about debt has left the concept strangely incoherent. After all, to argue with the king, one has to use the king's language, whether or not the initial premises make sense. — David Graeber

The concept known as bal tashchit
'Do no destroy'
has a special significance in Jewish tradition ... We are constantly being warned in our faith that the capricious, thoughtless, wasteful destruction of the elements and creatures of the earth is wrong ... We should remind ourselves daily of our responsibility to all aspects of creation. — David Geffen

If there are no conditions placed on thought and action by the Creator, then there is no right or wrong! Right and wrong must then be a human concept, not a universal one. Jesus said: 'Resist not Evil' (Matthew 5:39) Jesus understood universal law. — Stephen Davis

Our investments continue to be few in number and simple in concept: The truly big investment idea can usually be explained in a short paragraph. We like a business with enduring competitive advantages that is run by able and owner-oriented people. When these attributes exist, and when we can make purchases at sensible prices, it is hard to go wrong (a challenge we periodically manage to overcome). — Warren Buffett

Second, you should examine the Scriptures for principles that relate to the issue at hand. The Lord will never ask you to do anything that is morally wrong or in contradiction to His Word. If what you are considering violates a concept you find in the Word, you can forget it. — James C. Dobson

Bring on those tired, labor-plagued, competition-weary companies and ESOP will breathe new life into them. They will find ESOP better than Geritol. It will revitalize what is wrong with capitalism. It will increase productivity. It will improve labor relations. It will promote economic justice. It will save the economic system. It will make our form of government and our concept of freedom prevail over those who don't agree with us. — Russell B. Long

What does somebody like you want? More power? More toys? More sex?"
"All of the above. All the time."
"Greedy bugger."
"Kid, let me tell you something. Most people spend their short time in this world less than half alive. They wander through their days in a haze of responsibility and resentment. Something happens to them not long after they're born. They get conflicted about what they want and start worshipping the wrong gods. Should. Mercy. Equality. Altruism. There's nothing you should do. Do what you want. Mercy isn't Nature's way. She's an equal opportunity killer. We aren't born the same. Some are stronger, smarter, faster. Never apologize for it. Altruism is an impossible concept. There's no action you can make that doesn't spring from how you want to feel about yourself. Not greedy, Dani. Alive. And happy about it every single fucking day. — Karen Marie Moning

What basic psychological distortion can be found in every civilization of which we know anything? The only psychological force capable of producing these perversions is morality - the concept of right and wrong. The re-interpretation and eventual eradication of the concept of right and wrong are the belated objectives of nearly all of psychotherapy. — Brock Chisholm

The disciples, under the influence of a natural, religious concept, asked Him, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" (v. 2). Listen to the Lord's answer. "Neither has this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifested in him" (John 9:3). Here is the significance of the Lord's reply: people always appraise situations according to yes or no, right or wrong, which are the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but the Lord Jesus always brings people back to the tree of life, which is God Himself. — Witness Lee

Kid, let me tell you something. Most people spend their short time in this world less than half alive. They wander through their days in a haze of responsibility and resentment. Something happens to them not long after they're born. They get conflicted about what they want and start worshiping the wrong gods. Should. Mercy. Equality. Altruism. There's nothing you should do. Do what you want. Mercy isn't Nature's way. She's an equal opportunity killer. We aren't born the same. Some are stronger, faster. Never apologize for it. Altruism is an impossible concept. There's no action you can make that doesn't spring from how you want to feel about yourself. — Karen Marie Moning

There's a school of thought today that rejects patriotism. People are made nervous by that intense allegiance to a country. They think it can only lead to war and bloodshed and that fights can be avoided if we all just compromise and get along. And, of course, compromise and getting along are great things as long as you're not sacrificing essential values. But I believe there's a line in the sand, some things that you have to be willing to stand up for, even if it means trouble. Charlie's patriotism is not blind, flag-waving jingoism: it's an intense allegiance to the American concept of liberty. He's through and through. He can talk about it and explain it. And he's shown he's willing to give everything for it. I admire him for that. — Andrew Klavan

His gaze locked with mine and a slow grin appeared on his face. He didn't look like he had last night. More like he did every day at school. Worn jeans. A black henley instead of a T-shirt and beat-up sneakers, but goodness, I couldn't think.
Okay. Not true. I could think, but I was thinking things I really had no concept of. I was thinking about those full, slightly curved lips and how they must feel in places...other than my forehead or cheek. I was thinking about his hands and how strong they were and the oddly pleasant calluses on his palms. I was thinking about...about a lot of things - things that now didn't feel so wrong since he was actually single.
Noticing my near-prone position, Ainsley looked over her shoulder. "Oh, my good God almighty," she murmured. "That's him?"
"Yes," I whispered. That was so him. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Secularism has two meanings: the Western concept makes a clear distinction between functions of the State which includes politics and functions of religion which are confined to places of worship, public or private. This is the concept that Nehru accepted, preached and practiced. The other concept was equal respect for all religions. This was propagated and observed by men like Bapu Gandhi and Maulana Azad and lasted as long as the two men were alive. After that it deteriorated to a mere display of religiosity. If you were a devout Hindu you went to a Muslim dargah or threw an Iftar party to prove you were secular. If you were Muslim, you celebrated Diwali with your Hindu friends. Secularism was reduced to a sham display. Time has shown that as far as secularism is concerned, Nehru was right; Gandhi and Azad were wrong. — Khushwant Singh

The reinterpretation and eventual eradication of the concept of right and wrong are that belated objectives of nearly all Psychotherapy — Brock Chisholm

In principle, there's nothing wrong with the concept of an infographic. What concerns me is the types of things that people are doing with them. They get far off topic, or the fact checking is really poor. The infographic may be neat, but if the information it's based on is simply wrong, then it's misleading people. — Matt Cutts

Every day is important for us because it is a day ordained by God. If we are bored with life there is something wrong with our concept of God and His involvement in our daily lives. Even the most dull and tedious days of our lives are ordained by God and ought to be used by us to glorify Him. — Jerry Bridges

Clarence Darrow, one of history's greatest lawyers, once noted "There is no such thing as justice, in or out of court." Perhaps because justice is a flawed concept that ultimately comes down to the decision of twelve people. People with their own experiences, prejudices, feelings about what defines right and wrong. Which is why, when the system fails us, we must go out and seek our own justice. — Emily Thorne

Debts that must be paid ... that sums up the concept of karma. But I would add that karma is not a burden that you have to carry. It is also an opportunity to learn, a chance to practice love and forgiveness, a chance to learn lessons that are valuable to us. Karma offers us the chance to wipe our dirty slate clean, to erase the wrong doings of the past. — Dada Vaswani

When I came here [to Malaysia] I heard that there is a problem with the concept of pluralism whereby pluralism is understood in a very narrow way, which I think is wrong. This is not to diminish your sense of truth in what you believe but to acknowledge the fact that we live in a world where we need to deal with pluralism. It's a fact. — Tariq Ramadan

If we act in a goodly way because we are afraid of how we will feel if we do not, then we have not truly come to separate the concept of right and wrong. — R.A. Salvatore

Then I got the offer to play Buck Rogers, but I turned it down thinking it was a cartoon character. Well I was wrong, it wasn't at all. So I read the script and decided I liked the character, it had a good concept. — Gil Gerard

You got to play the flute as a flute, like that. You can't play like a tenor concept on soprano; it sounds wrong. But some guys do it, and they think it's O.K., but not so! — Jerome Richardson

To tell you the truth the only thing I feel, Peter, is that you're going about this all wrong. You're following the most natural roads, and for that reason you've ended up in particularly unnatural places. You're exploring alibis, gathering clues, looking for motives. But it seems to me that, in this particular case the usual terms of your art have lost their meaning, the same way that the concept of time changes meaning at speeds faster than light ... — Arkady Strugatsky

You are looking at this wrong. You think I hold my territory by the might of my fist. But that's not it. I hold my territory by consent of the governed. I think it is a very American concept, which might be why you never looked for it."
- Adam Hauptman, Columbia Basin Pack Alpha, to Iacopo (Jacob) Bonarata, Lord of the Night (master vampire of Milan) — Patricia Briggs

Killing innocent, unarmed civilians is morally wrong even if it is for some perceived higher cause. It is the very essence of terrorism. By this concept, suicide bombers and stealth bombers are both terrorists and should be equally condemned. — Dimitris Mita

I've never supported this concept of going after Napster. I think the rock bands who fought this were wrong. — Michael Moore

As Donald Trump was campaigning for the Republican nomination for president in 2016 he was asked, "Have you ever asked God for forgiveness?" He replied, "I'm not sure I have. I just go and try and do a better job from there. . . . If I do something wrong, I think I just try to make it right. I don't bring God into that picture. I don't."1 He created quite a stir among many religious people, so he tempered the comments a few days later. But I think he was being honest, and his comments reflect the way many people feel: in theory they believe in the forgiveness of sins, but the concept doesn't really apply to them. Standing in stark contrast to this view is one articulated by twentieth-century existentialist theologian Paul Tillich, who once said, "Forgiveness is an answer, the divine answer, to the question implied in our existence."2 — Adam Hamilton

This is a concept that western culture has forgotten : everything is one! The idea of dichotomy is deeply wrong and nothing is better than a great symbol of China, the Tao, the wheel of yin and yang that represents life. The universe is the harmony of opposites, because there is no water without fire, there is no female with no male, there is no night without day, there is no sun without the moon ... there is no good without evil! This symbol is perfect since the white and black are embracing each other; inside the white there is a black point and inside the black there is a white point. — Tiziano Terzani

I even read aloud the part of the novel I had rewritten, which is about as low as a writer can get and much more dangerous for him than glacier skiing unroped before the full winter snowfall has set over the crevices.
When they said, 'It's great, Ernest. Truly, it's great. You cannot know the thing it has, I wagged my tail in pleasure and plunged into the fiesta concept of life to see if I could not bring some attractive stick back, instead of thinking, 'If these bastards like it what is wrong with it?' That was what I would think if I had been functioning as a professional although, if I had been functioning as a professional, I would never have read it to them. — Ernest Hemingway,

Moral compromise rejects the concept of right and wrong. It says that everyone is equal, all desires are equally valid, all action is equally valid, so everyone should compromise to get along. — Terry Goodkind

I think that cancer is a life form that exists out there, and it exists in us. I think even the concept of healing is a spiritual principle that we have to really look at. I think the word itself is something we ought to get rid of, because it implies that there is illness - that there is something wrong. — Wayne Dyer

Time is a slippery concept, and we are often wrong about it ... All too often we find ourselves looking in the right places at the wrong times. — Frank Partnoy

The downside was that for 400 years, science has grown up, has arisen and developed as a purely materialist concept and avoided the subject of mind and consciousness, leaving it to the realm of religion. Only with the founding of quantum science in the early part of the 20th century have we realized that the Cartesian Duality is wrong, that body, mind, physicality do interact and they're interrelated. — Edgar Mitchell

Efficiency was a concept foreign to most government agencies, not because there was anything wrong with the people, but because nobody had ever told them to do better. — Tom Clancy

A wrong concept misleads the understanding; a wrong deed degrades the whole man, and may eventually demolish the structure of the human ego. — Muhammad Iqbal

It is becoming fashionable to scorn the idea of sin in society. The impact of humanistic thinking is to belittle the concept that man is corrupt. Psychologists and psychiatrists would persuade us that people really are not responsible for their wrongs. Rather, the view of sociologists is that the environment is all wrong.
Their cry is, 'Change society and you will get better men and women'. It simply does not happen.
Christ's call is, 'Change men and women and you will get a better society'. This does work. It always has. — W. Phillip Keller

We have been trying to point out that this concept of an indefinitely favorable future is dangerous, even if it is true; because even if it is true you can easily overvalue the security, since you make it worth anything you want it to be worth. Beyond this, it is particularly dangerous too, because sometimes your ideas of the future turn out to be wrong. Then you have paid an awful lot for a future that isn't there. Your position then is pretty bad. — Benjamin Graham

Along with the concept of American Dream runs the notion that every man and woman is entitled to an opinion and to one vote, no matter how ridiculous that opinion might be or how uninformed the vote. It could be that the Borderer Presbyterian tradition of "stand up and say your rightful piece" contributed to the American notion that our gut-level but uninformed opinions are some sort of unvarnished foundational political truths. I have been told that this is because we redneck working-class Scots Irish suffer from what psychiatrists call "no insight". Consequently, we will never agree with anyone outside our zone of ignorance because our belligerent Borderer pride insists on the right to be dangerously wrong about everything while telling those who are more educated to "bite my ass! — Joe Bageant

Wayne: I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them ... the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves ... I'm quite sure that the concept of a Government-run reservation ... seems to be what the socialists are working for now
to have everyone cared for from cradle to grave ... But you can't whine and bellyache 'cause somebody else got a break and you didn't, like those Indians are. We'll all be on a reservation soon if the socialists keep subsidizing groups like them with our tax money. — John Wayne

Many ask what difference does it make whether man believes in a God or not.
It makes a big difference.
It makes all the difference in the world.
It is the difference between being right and being wrong; it is the difference between truth and surmises - facts or delusion.
It is the difference between the earth being flat, and the earth being round.
It is the difference between the earth being the center of the universe, or a tiny speck in this vast and uncharted sea of multitudinous suns and galaxies.
It is the difference in the proper concept of life, or conclusions based upon illusion.
It is the difference between verified knowledge and the faith of religion.
It is a question of Progress or the Dark Ages. — Joseph Lewis

Bad art was as good as good art. Grammar and spelling were no longer important. To be clean was no better than to be filthy. Good manners were no better than bad. Family life was derided as an outdated bourgeois concept. Criminals deserved as much sympathy as their victims. Many homes and classrooms became disorderly - if there was neither right nor wrong there could be no basis for punishment or reward. Violence and soft pornography became accepted in the media. Thus was sown the wind, and we are now reaping the whirlwind. — Norman Tebbit

Strip away all the assumptions about what competition is supposed to do, all the claims in its behalf that we accept and repeat reflexively. What you have left is the essence of the concept: mutually exclusive goal attainment (MEGA). One person succeeds only if another does not. From this uncluttered perspective, it seems clear right away that something is drastically wrong with such an arrangement. How can we do our best when we are spending our energies trying to make others lose
and fearing that they will make us lose? — Alfie Kohn

That's a spiritual lifestyle, being willing to admit that you don't know everything and that you were wrong about some things. It's about making a list of all the people you've harmed, either emotionally or physically or financially, and going back and making amends. That's a spiritual lifestyle. It's not a fluffy ethereal concept. — Anthony Kiedis

Professional courage is the steel fiber that makes an NCO unafraid and willing to tell it like it is. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to the soldiers' problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he is wrong. — William A. Connelly