94 Provoking Quotes

Following is our list of provoking quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about deep thought provoking.

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Famous Provoking Quotes

I am provocative, and I admit this. It isn't as if I'm only on the receiving end, a poor, frail little creature. I can be thoroughly nasty when I get going, and I don't pull my punches. — Helen Suzman

I have been a provoker and I'll probably always be one in the public arena for the rest of my life. — Mark Lanegan

I would like to provoke ambiguous responses in my readers. — James Ellroy

[I provoke] the system [to] show its true face ... so that through its own acts of terrorism ... the masses will rise against it. — Ulrike Meinhof

I like to make people a little uncomfortable. It encourages them to examine who they are and why they think the way they do. — Sally Mann

You will stir up the hornets. [Lat., Irritabis crabones.] — Plautus

The chief aim of Interpretation is not instruction, but provocation. — Freeman Tilden

No one provokes me with impunity. — Mary Queen Of Scots

It is not he who gives abuse that affronts, but the view that we take of it as insulting; so that when one provokes you it is your own opinion which is provoking. — Epictetus

If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. — Sun Tzu

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it. — Seneca

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it. — Seneca The Elder

Anger is as a stone cast into a wasp's nest. — Proverbs

Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for truth. — Barbra Streisand

I try with my pictures to raise a question, to provoke a debate, so that we can discuss problems together and come up with solutions. — Sebastiao Salgado

Short Provoking Quotes

  • If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old — Peter Drucker
  • Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there. — Stevie Wonder
  • Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
  • Why is it that weeks and months and years go by so quickly, all in a blur, but moments last forever? — Jennifer Donnelly
  • Poverty is the deprivation of opportunity. — Amartya Sen
  • Poor people have big TV's. Rich people have big libraries. — Jim Rohn
  • We will not have failure - only success and new learning. — Queen Victoria
  • We never grow closer to God when we just live life. It takes deliberate pursuit and attentiveness. — Francis Chan
  • Lose your mind and come to your senses. — Frederick Salomon Perls
  • I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking — Albert Einstein

Provoking Image Quotes

A person starts to live when he can live outside himself. - Albert Einstein quote

A person starts to live when he can live outside himself. — Albert Einstein

A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent. - Elie Wiesel quote

A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent. — Elie Wiesel

Your dreams tell you what to do; your reason tells you how to do it. - Jonas Salk quote

Your dreams tell you what to do; your reason tells you how to do it. — Jonas Salk

Thought-provoking Quotes

My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. — Maya Angelou

We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n'ani ji onwe ya: 'He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.' — Chinua Achebe

How strange! You lose a little from you and you cry. And your whole life is wasting and you're laughing — Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut — Albert Einstein

People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice. — Charles Bukowski

Experiences have clearly shown that an approach which 'de-medicalizes' birth, restores dignity and humanity to the process of childbirth, and returns control to the mother is also the safest approach. — Michel Odent

I not only think but also look and study things carefully. When I travel around, I look at things carefully, make comparisons of what I see. I don't accept things at face value, you cannot trust what you hear or see. Don't jump to conclusions without thinking. — Mahathir Mohamad

Sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind but falling in love and not getting arrested. — Hunter S. Thompson

There is no other world. Nor even this one. What, then, is there? The inner smile provoked in us by the patent nonexistence of both. — Emile M. Cioran

One common mistake is to think that one reality is the reality. You must always be prepared to leave one reality for a greater one. — Mother Meera

Deep Thought Provoking Quotes

It is necessary ... for a man to go away by himself ... to sit on a rock ... and ask, 'Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going? — Carl Sandburg

Are you learning to say things after listening to God, or are you saying things and trying to make God's word fit in? — Oswald Chambers

Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Either we shall find what it is we are seeking or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know. — Plato

Thought Provoking Quotes

The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time. — Francis Chan

If you ask managers what they do, they will most likely tell you that they plan, organise, co-ordinate and control. Then watch what they do. Don't be surprised if you can't relate what you see to those four words. — Henry Mintzberg

The wisdom and compassion a woman can intuitively experience in childbirth can make her a source of healing and understanding for other women. — Stephen Gaskin

As a man is, so he sees. — William Blake

I am sometimes asked, 'Why do you spend so much of your time and money talking about kindness to animals when there is so much cruelty to men?' I answer: 'I am working at the roots.' — George Thorndike Angell

The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Big Data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it. — Dan Ariely

What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice. - Albert Einstein

What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice. — Albert Einstein

If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions. — Albert Einstein

You can use all the quantitative data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and judgment. — Alvin Toffler

People Writing About Provoking

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Helen Suzman

Helen Suzman
quotes on education, religion and power

22 288
Read quotes by Mark Lanegan

Mark Lanegan
quotes on life, death and love

23 138
Read quotes by James Ellroy

James Ellroy
quotes on life, love and wall

104 279
Read quotes by Ulrike Meinhof

Ulrike Meinhof

10 260
Read quotes by Sally Mann

Sally Mann

38 580
Read quotes by Plautus

Plautus
quotes on war, play

265 1583

More Provoking Quotes

A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed — ​what gospel is that? — Oscar Romero

Difficult things provoke all your irritations and bring your habitual patterns to the surface. And that becomes the moment of truth. You have the choice to launch into your lousy habitual patterns, or to stay with the rawness and discomfort of the situation and let it transform you. — Pema Chodron

If God has called you, the more they block your way, the more that trouble and temptation, the more God's love is provoked. Each attempt to stop you asks for more evidence from God. — T. B. Joshua

If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large. — William Wilberforce

People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past. — Milan Kundera

Economics, as it has emerged, can be made more productive by paying greater and more explicit attention to the ethical considerations that shape human behaviour and judgment. — Amartya Sen

Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body. — Wassily Kandinsky

Drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things . . . nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance. — William Shakespeare

It provokes the desire but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him and it mars him; it sets him on and it takes him off. — William Shakespeare

The main purpose of my work is to provoke people into using their imagination. Most people spend their lives in dreary, grey-beige conformity, mortally afraid of using colours. By experimenting with lighting, colours, textiles and furniture and utilizing the latest technologies, I try to show new ways to encourage people to use their phantasy and make their surroundings more exciting. — Verner Panton

The main purpose of my work is to provoke people into using their imagination and make their surroundings more exciting. — Verner Panton

The ultimate is not to win, but to reach within the depths of your capabilities and to compete against yourself. — Billy Mills

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