Pretext Quotes

'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.

The newspaper that obstructs the law on a trivial pretext, for money's sake, is a dangerous enemy to the public weal.That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.

The civil rights of none, shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed.

We have it. The smoking gun. The evidence. The potential weapon of mass destruction we have been looking for as our pretext of invading Iraq. There's just one problem - it's in North Korea.

Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.

The holy word of God is on everyone's lips.

..but...we see almost everyone presenting their own versions of God's word, with the sole purpose of using religion as a pretext for making others think as they do.

We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavoring to meet it halfway, we easily become indirect and apathetic.

The idea that anyone can use drugs and escape a horrible fate is anathema to these idiots. I predict in the near future right-wingers will use drug hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus.

War is the greatest of all crimes; and yet there is no aggressor who does not color his crime with the pretext of justice.

A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood.

Armaments are necessary - or are maintained on the pretext of necessity - because of a real or an imagined danger of war.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

I saw in the whole Christian world a license of fighting at which even barbarous nations might blush. Wars were begun on trifling pretexts or none at all, and carried on without any reference of law, Divine or human.

The whole race, which is now called Gallic or Galatic,is madly fond of war,high-spirited and quick to battle,but otherwise straightforward and not of evil character.For at any time or place and on whatever pretext you stir them up,you will have them ready to face danger,even if they have nothing on their side but their own strength and courage.

If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another.

It is wrong to try to avoid the struggle against imperialism under the pretext that independence and revolution are important, but that peace is still more precious.

[Terrorism] is formed of certain fundamental problems, [including] ignorance, poverty, and fear of others. Some people take advantage of the young and foolish. They are manipulated, abused, and even drugged to such an extent that they can be used as murderers on the pretext of some crazy ideals or goals.

To be feminist doesn't mean simply to do nothing, to reduce yourself to total impotence under the pretext of refusing masculine values. There is a problematic, a very difficult dialectic between accepting power and refusing it, accepting certain masculine values, and wanting to transform them. I think it's worth a try.

By the combination of lines and colors, under the pretext of some motif taken from nature, I create symphonies and harmonies that represent nothing absolutely real in the ordinary sense of the word but are intended to give rise to thoughts as music does.

It is peculiar to “ressentiment criticism” that it does not seriously desire that its demands be fulfilled. It does not want to cure the evil. The evil is merely the pretext for the criticism.

In Iraq, [American administration] said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction endangering mankind. With this pretext, the U.S. intervened militarily, and all they did is take control over oil fields, and oil wells.

The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.

A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns;

but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for another, under the pretext that the affairs of the other are his own affairs.

Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered;

any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.

She missed him the days when some pretext served to take him away from her, just as one misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun when it was shining.

Neglecting small things under the pretext of wanting to accomplish large ones is the excuse of a coward.

It is a virtual reflex for governments to plead security concerns when they undertake any controversial action, often as a pretext for something else.

We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.

History is nothing but a procession of false Absolutes, a series of temples raised to pretexts, a degradation of the mind before the Improbable.

The enemy is only a pretext to test our strength

Everywhere do I percieve a certain conspiracy of rich men seeking their own advantage underthat name and pretext of commonwealth.

The fight against drug trafficking is a false pretext for the United States to install military bases.

Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their littleness, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies.

To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect.

However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.