Provoke Quotes

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
Henry David Thoreau

Truth, Sorry, Him

On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Charles Babbage

Two, Confusion, Put

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

The best films of any kind, narrative or documentary, provoke questions.
Edward Norton

Best, Questions, Films

When I was a ten-year old bookworm and used to kiss the dust jacket pictures of authors as if they were icons, it used to amaze me that these remote people could provoke me to love.
Erica Jong

Love, Old, Kiss

Writers should provoke disagreement.
V. S. Naipaul

It'll keep you alive for another 10 years if you get yourself a laugh once a day: either provoke it, or look around in the wildest laboratory in the world, the public.
Jerry Lewis

Yourself, Laugh, Around

When a man fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent.
George Henry Lewes

Truth, Him, Law

There are people out there who want to provoke me and bring back the old Mary but I'm not giving them the satisfaction.
Mary J. Blige

Giving, Old, Bring

I think cinema should provoke thoughts, sure, but using it as I soapbox I think is the wrong place. I never want to be part of something like that, where there's an agenda there that's not about telling a story, where its someone getting on a soapbox and preaching their own beliefs onto somebody.
Jeremy Renner

Someone, Thoughts, Place

In all of my work I'm trying to create a dialogue, in which I want to provoke the recipients, stimulate them to use their own imaginations. I don't just say things recipients want to hear, flatter their egos or comfort them by agreeing with them. I have to provoke them, to take them as seriously as I take myself.
Michael Haneke

Work, Trying, Seriously

'Funny Games' was conceived as a provocation. My other films are different. If people feel my other films are, or respond to them as provocation, then that's quite different. 'Funny Games' is the only one of mine where my intention was to provoke the audience.
Michael Haneke

Funny, Different, Quite

Herr Schroder has conducted two electoral campaigns, and he is doing it again now, by not telling people what is really necessary. He keeps avoiding the difficult and uncomfortable issues, those that imply changes and therefore provoke discussions.
Angela Merkel

Two, Difficult, Again

What did our nation ever do to provoke these madly vicious enemies? What is seen as injustice in one place is seen as just requital in the other.
Mary Douglas

Place, Nation, Seen

And it will fall out as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore, you will provoke another; and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others.
Thomas More

Others, Another, Fall

The shock of the way I mix patterns and fabrics can be disconcerting, but what I am trying to do is provoke new ideas about how pieces can be put together in different ways. I think this is a more modern way to wear clothes that in themselves are fairly classic.
Jean Paul Gaultier

Together, Different, Trying

Why not provoke some thought and get people talking about things? I like characters that are flawed because we all are. When people break up in a script, you think, Oh, right, there must be tears shed here. But maybe the fact of the matter is that they're both laughing.
Michael Fassbender

Thought, Why, Here

The strips about the military do seem to provoke moving and thoughtful responses. It's nice when the strip resonates, but more importantly, I need to know when I'm getting something wrong. The last thing I want to do is contribute to the suffering that wounded warriors already endure.
Garry Trudeau

Nice, Moving, Suffering

To provoke dreams of terror in the slumber of prosperity has become the moral duty of literature.
Ernst Fischer

Dreams, Become, Moral

Being able to provoke a different point of view to the standard current ideological or political perspective as played out in conventional newspaper or radio reportage is what a public intellectual does. But it's not merely about being oppositional, because that's too negative.
Susie Orbach

Political, Different, Negative

People around the world now complain about stressors everyday, and the word shows up throughout professional and lay literature. But in reality there is no such thing as a stressor. Why not? Because nothing has the inherent power to provoke stress.
Andrew Bernstein

Power, Stress, Nothing

I used to come up with these crazy jobs to try and provoke my parents but they said, 'You can be anything you want.' So I was like, 'I want to be a garbage man' and they were like 'That's OK, we'll still love you!'
Lara Stone

Love, Crazy, Parents

Since governmental quotas expand bureaucratic power, provoke a backlash and are unfair to individuals, we need to find a better way to increase minority opportunities.
Marvin Olasky

Power, Find, Since

However, the combination of civil resistance, of large-scale mass activities and strikes, with a certain degree of revolutionary violence, could provoke a crisis in the enemy's camp that would ultimately lead to essential changes.
Joe Slovo

Crisis, Enemy, Violence

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

Readers, Ambiguous, Responses

And it says something about our level of disassociation, that we can provoke these wars abroad but we're not allowed to see people get killed as a result.
Alex Cox

Result, Level, Says

You've got to honor your relationship with your audience - that they sit down because they want to be entertained. And that doesn't mean you can't provoke them and antagonize them and challenge them in the course of the entertainment as long as you keep the entertainment part of the equation alive.
David E. Kelley

Long, Mean, Down

I know I will be breaking a taboo. But I'm sure that it will provoke a new discussion. It's time things change. I feel 30 and want to look that way again.
Brigitte Nielsen

Change, Time, Again

And so we have to be careful with looking at additional stimulus that we don't provoke an increase in the bond rate and then offset a lot of the stimulus we've already got.
Franklin Raines

Looking, Careful, Increase

Repression will provoke rebellion.
Hugh Williamson

Rebellion, Repression

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