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An agnostic is a cowardly atheist.

Studs Terkel

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Studs Terkel
Age: 96 †
Born: 1912
Born: May 16
Died: 2008
Died: October 31
Actor
Author
Historian
Journalist
Music Journalist
Poet Lawyer
Radio Personality
Writer
New York City
New York
Louis Terkel
Belief
Cowardly
Agnostic
Atheist

More quotes by Studs Terkel

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The answer is to say 'No!' to authority when authority is wrong.
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Once you wake up the human animal, you can't put it back to sleep again.
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I'd want the human voice expressing grievances, or delight, or whatever it might be. But something real
Studs Terkel
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You happen to be talking to an agnostic. You know what an agnostic is? A cowardly atheist.
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All you need in life is truth and beauty and you can find both at the Public Library.
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Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things, and that's what it's all about. They must count.
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All the other books ask, 'What's it like?' What was World War II like for the young kid at Normandy, or what is work like for a woman having a job for the first time in her life? What's it like to be black or white?
Studs Terkel
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I think it's realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the easiest thing: 'I despair. The world's no good.' That's a perverse idealist. It's practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That's very realistic.
Studs Terkel
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Work is born in us. We take to it kindly or unkindly. The terms may be easy or harsh, but the contract is binding.
Studs Terkel
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You can work next to a guy for months without even knowing his name.
Studs Terkel
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How come you don't work fourteen hours a day? Your great-great-grandparents did. How come you only work the eight-hour day? Four guys got hanged fighting for the eight-hour day for you.
Studs Terkel
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I want a language that speaks the truth.
Studs Terkel
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I want people to talk to one another no matter what their difference of opinion might be.
Studs Terkel
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I want to praise activists through the years. I praise those of the past as well, to have them honored.
Studs Terkel
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My doctors were of one mind: unless something was immediately done, I had maybe six months to live. A quintuple bypass was suggested. Quintuple! I was impressed, though somewhat disturbed because I was in the middle of work on a new book.
Studs Terkel
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Never go to bed with someone whose problems are greater than yours.
Studs Terkel
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Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirits.
Studs Terkel
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Having been blacklisted from working in television during the McCarthy era, I know the harm of government using private corporations to intrude into the lives of innocent Americans. When government uses the telephone companies to create massive databases of all our phone calls it has gone too far.
Studs Terkel
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But once you become active in something, something happens to you. You get excited and suddenly you realize you count.
Studs Terkel
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That's what we're missing. We're missing argument. We're missing debate. We're missing colloquy. We're missing all sorts of things. Instead, we're accepting.
Studs Terkel