It always bothers me when I hear Rwanda's genocide described as a product of "ancient tribal hatreds." I think this is an easy way for Westerners to dismiss the whole thing as a regrettable but pointless bloodbath that happens to primitive brown peop...
One can observe that such changes in the breath are the direct result of your reaction to thoughts. If you can simply dismiss the thoughts by giving them no value then the breathing will find its own medium and become subtle.
Internet outrage can seem mindless, but it rarely is. To make that assumption is dismissive. There's something beneath the outrage - an unwillingness to be silent in the face of ignorance, hatred or injustice. Outrage may not always be productive, bu...
Shoot, I must have lived such a doggoned sheltered life as a normal, independent American up there in the Last Frontier, schooled with only public education and a lowly state university degree, because obviously I haven't learned enough to dismiss co...
When I was first introduced to Buddhism in a high school World Studies class, I dismissed it out of hand. This was during the hedonistic days of the late '60s, and this spiritual path seemed so grim with its concern about attachment and, apparently, ...
When a woman reads a romance novel, she is putting her own pleasure first. That small act of rebellion is perceived as a threat to the status quo. It’s also why this eternally popular and profitable genre has been scorned, ridiculed and dismissed.
The most blatant forms of denialism are rarely malevolent; they combine decency, a fear of change, and the misguided desire to do good - for our health, our families, and the world. That is why so many physicians dismiss the idea that a patient's rac...
I dismiss personal profit and focus exclusively on people and planet. That's what I call social business: a nondividend company dedicated to solving human problems. You can go all the way, forgetting about personal profit, being single-minded about s...
Sometimes, counter-intuitively, it's easier to make a major change than a minor change. When a habit is changing very gradually, we may lose interest, give way under stress, or dismiss the change as insignificant. There's an excitement and an energy ...
Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if t...
I don't dismiss the music that I was involved with, I don't think it was a joke, I don't think it was funny or a phase, I don't think it was just something I was doing back then, to me it was who I am. It connects all the way through. I don't distanc...
On street corners everywhere, people are looking at their cell phones, and it's easy to dismiss this as some sort of bad trend in human culture. But the truth is life is being lived there. When they smile - right, you've seen people stop - all of a s...
In Paris, AIDS was dismissed as an American phobia until French people started dying; then everyone said, 'Well, you have to die some way or another.' If Americans were hysterical and pragmatic, the French were fatalistic: depressed but determined to...
Misconceptions about Young Adult fiction aren't new to fans of the genre. From being dismissed as mindless fluff for 'Twilight'-obsessed tweens, to constant warnings that the genre is dying, kerfuffles between the media and readers occur with alarmin...
It didn't matter what we did or where we did it as long as we were together. We knew we'd found what most people either pursue in years of futile search or dismiss as a fantasy at the outset: the missing half of ourselves. The real thing.
If you read 'Lord of the Rings' and dismiss it as a lie because it has orcs and elves, you're missing the whole point of the story. If children don't have to be concerned about strangers because there's no such thing as a Big Bad Wolf dressed like Gr...
Strangely, charity sometimes gets dismissed, as if it is ineffective, inappropriate or even somehow demeaning to the recipient. 'This isn't charity,' some donors take pains to claim, 'This is an investment.' Let us recognize charity for what it is at...
President Obama has ignored or dismissed proposals that would address our anti-competitive tax code and unsustainable trajectory of federal debt - including his own bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform - and submitted no...
I'm always weary of connotations. I don't want people to listen to the music I make presently because they liked my previous work, or to dismiss it because they didn't. I'm guilty of this as well - having preconceptions about other artists - but it's...
I am a teacher. Pay close attention - this will be on the test. You don't wreck buildings. You don't take children hostage. And you don't threaten people with violence. Okay class dismissed. Looks like you fail!
All those old myths and legends and fairytales didn't just appear out of nowhere for no good reason, you know. They came about because there really is such a thing as magic or that it once flourished in the world. Or at least there is something extra...
