#we

When one is deprived of ones liberty, one is right in blaming not so much the man who puts the shackles on as the one who had the power to prevent him, but did not use it. ↗

— Thucydides

#slavery

Not all men (and especially the wisest) share the opinion that it is bad for women to be educated. But it is very true that many foolish men have claimed this because it displeased them that women knew more than they did. ↗

— Christine de Pizan

#education #empowerment #inequality #knowledge #men

Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven't answered me." I probably still haven't completely adapted to the world," I said after giving it some thought. "I don't know, I feel like this isn't the real world. The people, the scene: they just don't seem real to me." Midori rested an elbow on the bar and looked at me. "There was something like that in a Jim Morrison song, I'm pretty sure." People are strange when you're a stranger. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#norwegian-wood #space

No book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep, it's meant to make you jump out of your bed in your underwear and run and beat the author's brains out. ↗

— Bohumil Hrabal

#books #brains #sleep #underwear #authority

The Professor never really seemed to care whether we figured out the right answer to a problem. He preferred our wild, desperate guesses to silence, and he was even more delighted when those guesses led to new problems that took us beyond the original one. He had a special feeling for what he called the "correct miscalculation," for he believed that mistakes were often as revealing as the right answers. ↗

— Yoko Ogawa

#delight #guesses #math #struggle #math

Sometimes we must undergo hardships, breakups, and narcissistic wounds, which shatter the flattering image that we had of ourselves, in order to discover two truths: that we are not who we thought we were; and that the loss of a cherished pleasure is not necessarily the loss of true happiness and well-being. (109) ↗

— Jean-Yves Leloup

#emotional-wounds #happiness #hardships #self-image #suffering

Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#everyone #governs #his #learns #nobody

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. ↗

— John Stuart Mill

#libertarian #liberty #power #community

I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never been able to believe it. I don't believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage. ↗

— L.M. Montgomery

#names #power-of-words #rose

Tucker: "But she gave me the perfect gift." Clara: "What?" Tucker: "You. ↗

— Cynthia Hand

#crush #gift #sweet #gifts