#denial

What will you do with your self? Many men and women are still in darkness, trying to figure out the meaning and purpose of life. But no matter what you try to do with your self— whether you deny it, obliterate it, annihilate it, accept it or express it—believe me, it is still alive and kicking. ↗

— K.P. Yohannan

#self-denial #life

We have inherited a fear of memories of slavery. It is as if to remember and acknowledge slavery would amount to our being consumed by it. As a matter of fact, in the popular black imagination, it is easier for us to construct ourselves as children of Africa, as the sons and daughters of kings and queens, and thereby ignore the Middle Passage and centuries of enforced servitude in the Americas. Although some of us might indeed be the descendants of African royalty, most of us are probably descendants of their subjects, the daughters and sons of African peasants or workers. ↗

— Angela Y. Davis

#denial #history #memory #slavery #imagination

I sometimes wonder whether our churches--living as we do in American death-denying culture, relentlessly smiling through our praise choruses--are inadvertently helping people live not as much in hope as in denial. ↗

— Mark Galli

#church #denial #praise-and-worship #death

We desire that God would give us the death-stroke; but we long to die without pain; we would die to our own will by the power of the will itself; we want to lose all and still hold all. Ah! what agony, what distress, when God has brought us to the end of our strength! We faint like a patient under a painful surgical operation. But the comparison is nought, for the object of the surgeon is to give us life -- that of God to make us die. ↗

— François Fénelon

#death

Sara noticed my hesitation and grabbed my hand to drag me down the stairs. 'Bye.' I waved before I disappeared. 'You are so full of shit,' Sara accused when we pulled out of the driveway. My jaw dropped. 'If there was any more sexual tension in that room...' 'What?' I interrupted with a laugh. 'You are definitely seeing things that aren't there. ↗

— Rebecca Donovan

#love

At first, they'll only dislike what you say, but the more correct you start sounding the more they'll dislike you. ↗

— Criss Jami

#argumentation #avoidance #challenge #challenger #contempt

All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate. ↗

— Isaiah Berlin

#beings #conditioning #control #denial #forms

I felt I was drawing close to that age, that place in life, where you realize one day what you'd told yourself was a Zen detachment turns out to be naked fear. You'd had one serious love relationship in your life and it had ended in tragedy, and the tragedy had broken something inside you. But instead of trying to repair the broken place, or at least really stop and look at it, you skated and joked. You had friends, you were a decent citizen. You hurt no one. And your life was somehow just about half of what it could be. ↗

— Roland Merullo

#denial #love #mediocrity #settling #tragedy

There's a fine line between forgiveness and denial. ↗

— Janet Rebhan

#fine-line #forgiveness #forgiveness

Defeat is for the valiant. Only they will know the honour of losing and the joy of winning I am not here to tell you that defeat is a part of life: we all know that. Only the defeated know Love. Because it is in the realm of love that we fight our first battles – and generally lose. I am here to tell you that there are people who have never been defeated. They are the ones who never fought. They managed to avoid scars, humiliations, feelings of helplessness, as well as those moments when even warriors doubt the existence of God.’’ Manuscript Found In Accra – Paulo Coelho ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#defeat #denial #doubt #god #helplessness