#powerlessness

It does not take a great supernatural heroine or magical hero to save the world. We all save it every day, and we all destroy it -- in our own small ways -- by every choice we make and every tiniest action resulting from that choice. The next time you feel useless and impotent, remember what you are in fact doing in this very moment. And then observe your tiny, seemingly meaningless acts and choices coalesce and cascade together into a powerful positive whole. The world -- if it could -- will thank you for it. And if it does not... well, a true heroine or hero does not require it. ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#act #action #actions #acts #choice

Full moon is falling through the sky. Cranes fly through clouds. Wolves howl. I cannot find rest Because I am powerless To amend a broken world. Sima Zian added, "I love the man who wrote that, I told you before, but there is so much burden in Chan Du. Duty, assuming all tasks, can betray arrogance. The idea we can know what must be done, and do it properly. We cannot know the future, my friend. It claims so much to imagine we can. And the world is not broken any more than it always, always is. ↗

— Guy Gavriel Kay

#duty #foresight #future #powerlessness #imagination

Delphine witnessed awful things occurring to other humans. Worse than that, she was powerless to alter their fate. It would be that way all her life--disasters, falling like chairs all around her, falling so close they disarranged her hair, but not touching her. ↗

— Louise Erdrich

#powerlessness #witnessing #life

Power is fortified not just by what it destroys, but also by what it creates. Not just by what it takes, but also by what it gives. And powerlessness reaffirmed not just by the helplessness of those who have lost, but also by the gratitude of those who have (or THINK they have) gained. ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#helplessness #human-nature #humility #power #powerlessness

The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy us. ↗

— Theodor Adorno

#insoluble #neither #nor #others #our

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#fully #gift #go #human #possible

In his state of complete powerlessness the individual perceives the time he has left to live as a brief reprieve. ↗

— Theodor Adorno

#complete #his #individual #left #live

I think in the case of horror, it's a chance to confront a lot of your worse fears and those fears usually have to do, ironically, with powerlessness and isolation. ↗

— Adam Arkin

#chance #confront #fears #horror #i

Power should not be concentrated in the hands of so few, and powerlessness in the hands of so many. ↗

— Maggie Kuhn

#few #hands #many #power #powerlessness

Collectively, we must do more than simply watch, with resignation and a feeling of powerlessness, reports on the evening news about the latest terrorist atrocity. ↗

— Michael Jeffery

#atrocity #collectively #evening #evening news #feeling