#refusal

A soft refusal is not always taken, but a rude one is immediately believed. ↗

— Alexander Chase

#believed #immediately #refusal #rude #soft

(Response to King Erik XIV of Sweden's proposal of marriage:) "[W]hile we perceive ... the zeal and love of your mind towards us is not diminished, yet in part we are grieved that we cannot gratify your Serene Highness with the same kind of affection. And that indeed does not happen because we doubt in any way of your love and honour, but, as often we have testified both in words and writing, that we have never yet conceived a feeling of that kind of affection towards anyone. We therefore beg your Serene Highness again and again that you be pleased to set a limit to your love, that it advance not beyond the laws of friendship for the present nor disregard them in the future. ... We certainly think that if God ever direct our hearts to consideration of marriage we shall never accept or choose any absent husband how powerful and wealthy a Prince soever. But that we are not to give you an answer until we have seen your person is so far from the thing itself that we never even considered such a thing. I have always given both to your brother ... and also to your ambassador likewise the same answer with scarcely any variation of the words, that we do not conceive in our heart to take a husband but highly commend this single life, and hope that your Serene Highness will no longer spend time in waiting for us. ↗

— Elizabeth I Tudor

#empowerment #freedom #friendship #independence #love

There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war. ↗

— Reinhold Niebuhr

#aggression #civilization #consequences #defend #even

Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd. ↗

— Annie Besant

#believe #denial #experience #given #limited

You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner." (Elizabeth Bennett) ↗

— Jane Austen

#behaviour #declaration #empowerment #gentlemanlike #gentlemen

Wahrscheinlich kann man vom Nichtwollen seelisch nicht leben; eine Sache nicht tun wollen, das ist auf Dauer kein Lebensinhalt. ↗

— Thomas Mann

#meaning-of-life #negativity #refusal #resistance #life

I asked her if she’d give me all her love, and she flatly said no. I got excited because while she said she wouldn’t give me all her love, she said nothing about not wanting to give me some of her love. 
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#love #refusal #rejection #love

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all. ↗

— John Updike

#artists #behalf #content #distinguishes #entertainers

People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth. ↗

— Raoul Vaneigem

#class #class struggle #constraints #corpse #everyday

The crucial thing is to arouse the awareness that as a matter of human conscience we can never permit the people of any country to fall victim to nuclear weapons, and for each individual to express their refusal to continue living in the shadow of the threat they pose. ↗

— Daisaku Ikeda

#arouse #awareness #conscience #continue #country