Barbara Alice Mann > Quotes

“Westerners are fond of the saying ‘Life isn’t fair.’ Then, they end in snide triumphant: ‘So get used to it!’
What a cruel, sadistic notion to revel in! What a terrible, patriarchal response to a child’s budding sense of ethics. Announce to an Iroquois, ‘Life isn’t fair,’ and her response will be: ‘Then make it fair!”
― Barbara Alice Mann

“Westerners are fond of the saying ‘Life isn’t fair.’ Then, they end in snide triumph: 'So get used to it!’
What a cruel, sadistic notion to revel in! What a terrible, patriarchal response to a child’s budding sense of ethics. Announce to an Iroquois, ‘Life isn’t fair,’ and her response will be: ‘Then make it fair!”
― Barbara Alice Mann

“This logic may appear contemptible to those for whom sinking into oblivion one's doomed cause carries a glamorous cachet. For any who have ever actually been doomed, however, willful sinking just seems immature.”
― Barbara Alice Mann, Make a Beautiful Way: The Wisdom of Native American Women

“To understand how much was lost politically, it is first necessary to understand what once existed.”
― Barbara Alice Mann, Make a Beautiful Way: The Wisdom of Native American Women

“Consensus does not require enthusiasm for a plan; it does not really even require investment in the idea. All it requires is a lack of dedicated opposition.”
― Barbara Alice Mann, Make a Beautiful Way: The Wisdom of Native American Women