Constitutes

Famous quotes containing the word constitutes:

    ... the attempt to control poetry, to subordinate it to extrapoetic ends, constitutes misuse.... it may be poetry’s stubborn quality of rockbottom, intrinsic uselessness which ... constitutes the guarantee of its integrity, and hence of its ultimate value to us.
    Jan Clausen (b. 1943)

    To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference.
    Joan Didion (b. 1934)

    I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait until they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)