As a supporter of secularism, I am willing to accept same-sex weddings in a state-sanctioned register office, on grounds of equity. As a believer in Islam, however, I insist that no mosque be forced to hold one against its wishes.
If you insist that individual rights are the summum bonum, then the whole structure of society falls down.
If, for 2,000 years, you dress up differently, believe in a different God, celebrate different holidays, and on top of it insist on telling everyone that you’re completely different than them, ultimately they’ll believe you.
Audiences have grown to equate being startled with being scared, and will complain that a movie ‘isn’t scary enough’ if it doesn’t have enough jump scares… so that means that a lot of studios will insist on shoving jump scares into a movie, regardless of character or story structure, thinking it ‘makes it scarier.’
One of my grandsons used to insist, when he was only 3 or 4, that he had been born and had lived in India.
We still insist, by and large, in thinking that we can understand China by simply drawing on Western experience, looking at it through Western eyes, using Western concepts. If you want to know why we unerringly seem to get China wrong… this is the reason.
Whenever the creation of a national, computerized database of gun owners is proposed, the advocates pushing it insist that people have nothing to fear because politicians will not abuse the enormous power inherent in such a database.
The danger facing us comes not from lack of resources, but from people who insist that we have run out of resources. If you embrace their idea of a world where there is only so much to go around, then you are endorsing a program of genocide and a war of all against all.
But what sets Europe apart is we insist on a social model that consists of solidarity, equal opportunity and a certain amount of redistribution.
Let’s summon the courage to insist on a minimal level of civic knowledge for the citizens empowered to decide our fate.
Republicans insist that if you’re going to run for political office, you have to be loyal to President Trump. This is wrong. This is not the America I want to live in. This is not the America I want my children to live in.
We should insist that governments receiving American aid live up to standards of accountability and transparency, and we should support countries that embrace market reforms, democracy, and the rule of law.
If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them – not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.
Conservatives should insist that defense spending be examined with the same seriousness that we demand in examining the books of those government agencies that spend taxpayer money in the name of welfare, the environment, or education.
Anybody who writes a diary insists it must be read by someone else.
When I fly in a helicopter, I insist there be two sets of controls, one for me in case something happens to the pilot. I’m no expert, but I know enough to at least get the thing on the ground. Nothing scares me like the thought of not being in control.
In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war.
In the old parts of Nice, the family tables are out in the cobbled streets so that you can’t drive past. They insist you join them at midnight on a hot July evening. So that’s just what you do, abandoning the car.
We need more enlightened women in senior ranks, and we have to insist that companies are more diverse.
Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.
Amplifying body-image issues, profiting from anxiety, and employing virtual slaves in sweatshops are bad enough, but the fashion industry is also actively hastening the destruction of the very Earth we walk on. It insists on launching fresh collections each season, declaring yesterday’s range obsolete on a whim.
Coach Noll insists upon his players having a positive attitude toward the game and, looking back, I really believe that his philosophy in this area helped mold the Steelers into being the team of the 1970s.
Sure, some journalists use anonymous sources just because they’re lazy and I think editors ought to insist on more precise identification even if they remain anonymous.
As I grew older, I realized that it was much better to insist on the genuine forms of nature, for simplicity is the greatest adornment of art.
Experts on romance say for a happy marriage there has to be more than a passionate love. For a lasting union, they insist, there must be a genuine liking for each other. Which, in my book, is a good definition for friendship.
Putin must be punished for violating the Budapest Memorandum, and Russia must learn that the U.S. will isolate it if it insists on acting like a rogue nation.
If aliens are really hanging out in our ‘hood, it’s hard to imagine any other fact more worthy of study. If not, then why does such a large fraction of the populace insist on believing they’re here?
We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering.
We will pay a heavy price if we insist on navigating the 21st century with a 20th century mindset.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Yes, the American people want us to legislate, they want us to insist on furthering their set of values, but they also want us to resist and exercise our oversight powers.
The costs of marriage breakdown are borne by the entire society, and therefore it is reasonable for the entire society to demand support for marriage – to insist that it is privileged both culturally and legally.
If we insist on being as sure as is conceivable… we must be content to creep along the ground, and never soar.
The reality is that Israel is a multi-ethnic, multireligious society, and it makes no sense to insist as a precondition for peace that its neighbors recognize it as ‘the Jewish state.’
Neoclassical economics insists that advertising cannot force consumers to buy anything they don’t already want to buy.
It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. The best way for children to treasure reading is to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.
Good breeding differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights.
I’m not one of those writers who insist they don’t read reviews and don’t care much about them. I do read them, and I do care about them, and they’re not always what you want them to be in an ideal world.
My nickname at school was Caveman. When I tell people my name is Kayvan, some insist on going ‘Caveman?’
We are less than honest and commit a grave error if we insist that what happened to Rodney G. King was isolated and an exceptional case. The poor know better.
Some of the happiest people I know have none of the things the world insists are necessary for satisfaction and joy.
I didn’t want to be captain, I wanted to have more free time. I didn’t want that added pressure at that particular time, but they actually insist, insist, insist, so I said OK. So I thought, just get on with it.
Children are free moral agents and have a right to be exposed to a range of beliefs well beyond the rigid doctrinal confines of their parent’s faith, and we have an obligation to insist that they be so exposed, at least in public schools, if not elsewhere.
Don’t make election popularity largely a matter of which candidate hires the most creative and effective propagandists. Insist that it be, instead, a running conversation with the public.
I have enough energy to insist on saying what I think.
Anybody who says they are a good liar obviously is not, because any legitimately savvy liar would always insist they’re honest about everything.
We pacifists have not ceased to point to the grave danger of armaments and to insist on their curtailment.
What does it say about a president’s policies when he has to use a cartoon character rather than real people to justify his record? What does it say about the fiction of old liberalism to insist that good jobs and good schools and good wages will result from policies that have failed us, time and again?
Instead of raising taxes as some would insist, we need to reduce waste and inefficiency in government.
Schools insist that everything is under their purview – what your kids eat, what they believe, what they say on the playground.
The open-borders Right regularly insists that immigrants and their children are assimilating at a brisk clip. It would be nice to see them advocating as well, then, an English-only practice in all government communications.
Nowadays, my mood ungoverned, I’m free to think the most outrageous things, such as: might it not be a good idea to insist that drug companies give their preparations names that tell the user what they really do?
Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.
