Katie

“As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has- or ever will have- something inside that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.”
― Fred Rogers, You Are Special: Neighborly Wit And Wisdom From Mister Rogers

“Polarization becomes a serious and dangerous problem when many people have very negative views of people on the “other side” — not just disagreeing but hating and fearing them. When high levels of contempt and fear are involved, this is what’s referred to as toxic polarization (and by other names, like psychological polarization, affective polarization, and pernicious polarization). In countries that are toxically polarized, it’s common for people to call their political opponents “horrible” and “evil,” and use other dehumanizing language. High levels of contempt and fear lead to the behaviors that can tear countries apart.”
― Zachary Elwood, How Contempt Destroys Democracy: An American Liberal's Guide to Toxic Polarization

“How good it is when you have roast meat or suchlike foods before you, to impress on your mind that this is the dead body of a fish, this is the dead body of a bird or pig; and again, that the Falernian wine is the mere juice of grapes, and your purple edged robe simply the hair of a sheep soaked in shell-fish blood!
And in sexual intercourse that it is no more than the friction of a membrane and a spurt of mucus ejected.
How good these perceptions are at getting to the heart of the real thing and penetrating through it, so you can see it for what it is!
This should be your practice throughout all your life: when things have such a plausible appearance, show them naked, see their shoddiness, strip away their own boastful account of themselves.
Vanity is the greatest seducer of reason: when you are most convinced that your work is important, that is when you are most under its spell.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“In situations of polarization and heightened anxiety, people tend to regard their own fears as authentic and those of their opponents as manipulated.”
― Christopher Clark, Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849