L. Divine > L.'s Quotes

“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“People don't have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you're dead, when they've killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn't have any character. They weep big, bitter tears - not for you. For themselves, because they've lost their toy.”
― James Baldwin, Another Country

“True rebels after all, are as rare as true lovers,and in both cases, to mistake a fever for passion can destroy one's life”
― James Baldwin

“It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.”
― James Baldwin

“Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality. ”
― James Baldwin

“The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“To accept one’s past – one’s history – is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.”
― James Baldwin

“You write in order to change the world ... if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”
― James Baldwin

“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. ”
― James Baldwin

“People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.”
― James Baldwin

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin

“Teachers and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of re-creating that knowledge. As they attain this knowledge of reality through common reflection and action, they discover themselves as its permanent re-creators.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“Without a sense of identity, there can be no real struggle.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“The oppressors do not favor promoting the community as a whole, but rather selected leaders.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“To simply think about the people, as the dominators do, without any self-giving in that thought, to fail to think with the people, is a sure way to cease being revolutionary leaders. ”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption (Freire, 1970, p. 54).”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“Even revolution, which transforms a concrete situation of oppression by establishing the process of liberation, must confront this phenomenon. Many of the oppressed who directly or indirectly participate in revolution intend - conditioned by the myths of the old order - to make it their private revolution. The shadow of their former oppressor is still cast over them.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves”
― Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

“Who we are cannot be separated from where we're from.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

“Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

“It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success. It’s the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. It’s the best students who get the best teaching and most attention. And it’s the biggest nine- and ten-year-olds who get the most coaching and practice. Success is the result of what sociologists like to call “accumulative advantage.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

“It's not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether or not our work fulfills us. Being a teacher is meaningful.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success