B > B's Quotes

“I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!”
― Charlie Chaplin

“It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.”
― Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot

“There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“But I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.”
― Tina Fey, Bossypants

“Step Away from the Mean Girls…
…and say bye-bye to feeling bad about your looks.
Are you ready to stop colluding with a culture that makes so many of us feel physically inadequate? Say goodbye to your inner critic, and take this pledge to be kinder to yourself and others.

This is a call to arms. A call to be gentle, to be forgiving, to be generous with yourself. The next time you look into the mirror, try to let go of the story line that says you're too fat or too sallow, too ashy or too old, your eyes are too small or your nose too big; just look into the mirror and see your face. When the criticism drops away, what you will see then is just you, without judgment, and that is the first step toward transforming your experience of the world.”
― Oprah Winfrey

“Like This

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,

Like this.

When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,

Like this.

If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or what "God’s fragrance" means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.

Like this.

When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.

Like this.

If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.

Like this. Like this.

When someone asks what it means
to "die for love," point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.

This tall.

The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.

Like this.

When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.

Like this.

I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.

Like this.

When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.

Like this.

How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?
Huuuuu.

How did Jacob’s sight return?
Huuuu.

A little wind cleans the eyes.

Like this.
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us

Like this.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won't discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself. (p. 84)”
― Geneen Roth, Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything

“. . . hell is wanting to be somewhere different from where you are. Being one place and wanting to be somewhere else . . . . Wanting life to be different from what it is. That's also called leaving without leaving. Dying before you die. It's as if there is a part of you that so rails against being shattered by love that you shatter yourself first. (p. 44)”
― Geneen Roth, Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything

“I believe in love. And beauty. I believe that every single person has something they find beautiful and that they truly love. The smell of their child's hair, the silence of a forest, their lover's crooked grin. Their country, their religion, their family. And I believe that if you follow this love all the way to its end, if you start with the thing you find most beautiful and trace it's perfume back to its essence, you will perceive an intangible presence, a swath of stillness that allows the thing you love to be visible like the openness of the sky reveals the presence of the moon.”
― Geneen Roth, Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything

“Imagine not being frightened by any feeling. Imagine knowing that nothing will destroy you. That you are beyond any feeling, an state. Bigger than. Vaster than. That there is no reason to use drugs because anything a drug could do would pale in comparison to knowing who you are. To what you can understand, live, be, just by being with that presents itself to you in the form of the feelings you have...”
― Geneen Roth, Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything

“HOW

do you define a word without concrete meaning? To each his own, the saying goes, so

WHY

push to attain an ideal state of being that no two random people will agree is

WHERE

you want to be? Faultless. Finished. Incomparable. People can never be these, and anyway,

WHEN

did creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the person

WHO

lives inside your skin? The outside belongs to others. Only you should decide for you -

WHAT

is perfect.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Perfect

“...what good would it
do to
shutter your windows, never
dream of rainbows or find hope
in promises? Why choose to
walk away
rather than hold your ground
and fight for love?”
― Ellen Hopkins, Perfect

“Not exactly. I see a girl who wants to present someone special to the world. Someone beautiful. The pinnacle of beauty. But she has lost her hold on reality. Real beauty isn’t thin. It isn’t size two, unless you happen to be four foot ten. What the world sees when they look at you is someone who believes self-worth is all about how she looks, and that very often means that what she’s missing is love. Not someone else’s love. But love and respect for herself.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Perfect

“Love is Chocolate
The unprocessed kind. Dark. Bitter.
But always with the promise of sweet
perfection. All it takes is sugar-
that certain someone's kiss, flavored

with possibility. If Dani has taught
me anything, it's that life is brimming
with possibilities. Every single day
brings choices.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Perfect

“When did creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the person who lives inside your skin?”
― Ellen Hopkins, Perfect

“Everybody sees me as this sullen and insecure little thing. Those are just the sides of me that I feel necessary to show because no one else seems to be showing them.”
― Fiona Apple

“Even the models we see in magazines wish they could look like their own images.”
― Cheri K. Erdman

“Every woman knows that, regardless of all her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful.”
― Germaine Greer, The Whole Woman

“Newsflash she already has body image issues. 
It's an intrinsic part of being a woman. Every woman in the world has some part of herself that she absolutely hates. 
Her hands are too small, her feet are too big, her hair is too straight, too curly, her ears stick out, her bums too flat, her nose is too big and, you know, nothing you can say will change how we feel. 
What men don't understand is, the right clothes, the right shoes, the right makeup it just... It, it hides the flaws we think we have. 
They make us look beautiful to ourselves. 
That's what makes us look beautiful to others.

Used to be all she needed to feel beautiful was a pink tutu and a plastic tiara.

And we spend our whole lives trying to feel that way again.”
― Richard Castle

“Question: You seem to advise me to be self-centered to the point of
egoism. Must I not yield even to my interest in other people?

Maharaj: Your interest in others is egoistic, self-concerned, self-
oriented. You are not interested in others as persons, but only
as far as they enrich, or enoble your own image of yourself.
And the ultimate in selfishness is to care only for the protection,
preservation and multiplication of one's own body. By body I
mean all that is related to your name and shape--- your family,
tribe, country, race, etc. To be attached to one's name and
shape is selfishness. A man who knows that he is neither body
nor mind cannot be selfish, for he has nothing to be selfish for.
Or, you may say, he is equally 'selfish' on behalf of everybody
he meets; everybody's welfare is his own. The feeling 'I am the
world, the world is myself' becomes quite natural; once it is es-
tablished, there is just no way of being selfish. To be selfish
means to covet, to acquire, accumulate on behalf of the part
against the whole.

I Am That

Nisargadatta Maharaj”
― -Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Eating – overeating – saved me. It comforted me when I was at the mercy of grown-ups who didn't know how to give what I needed. Food was something to which I had ready access, and with it I cleverly fashioned a survival mechanism that pulled me back from the edge of insanity. – a young MacGuyver of angst and junk food.”
― Kim Brittingham, Read My Hips: How I Learned to Love My Body, Ditch Dieting, and Live Large

“Weight and body oppression is oppressive to everyone. When you live in a society that says that one kind of body is bad and and other is good, those with “good” bodies constantly fear that their bodies will go “bad”, and those with “bad” bodies are expected feel shame and do everything they can to have “good” bodies. In the process, we torture our bodies, and do everything from engage in disordered eating to invasive surgery to make ourselves okay. Nobody wins in this kind of struggle.”
― Golda Poretsky

“Telling yourself you like the way you look is easy. Believing it is an entirely different kettle of whales.”
― Andrew Biss, The Impressionists

“We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them as if they might teach us how not to need.”
― Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia