Fixed Action Patterns

Famous quotes containing the words fixed, action and/or patterns:

    Every morning I woke in dread, waiting for the day nurse to go on her rounds and announce from the list of names in her hand whether or not I was for shock treatment, the new and fashionable means of quieting people and of making them realize that orders are to be obeyed and floors are to be polished without anyone protesting and faces are to be made to be fixed into smiles and weeping is a crime.
    Janet Frame (b. 1924)

    U.S. international and security policy ... has as its primary goal the preservation of what we might call “the Fifth Freedom,” understood crudely but with a fair degree of accuracy as the freedom to rob, to exploit and to dominate, to undertake any course of action to ensure that existing privilege is protected and advanced.
    Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)

    For the man who should loose me is dead,
    Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
    In a pattern called a war.
    Christ! What are patterns for?
    Amy Lowell (1874–1925)