ronnie

“And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives. That we not hide behind the mockeries of separations that have been imposed upon us and which so often we accept as our own: for instance "I can't possibly teach Black women's writing- their experience is so different from mine," yet how many years have you spent teaching Plato and Shakespeare and Proust? Or another: "She's a white woman and what could she possibly have to say to me?" Or, "she's a lesbian, what would my husband say, or my chairman?" Or again, "This woman writes of her sons and I have no children." And all the other endless ways in which we rob ourselves of ourselves and each other.”
― Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals

“And why are you so firmly and triumphantly certain that only what is normal and positive - in short, only well-being - is good for man? Is reason mistaken about what is good? After all, perhaps prosperity isn't the only thing that pleases mankind, perhaps he is just as attracted to suffering. Perhaps suffering is just as good for him as prosperity. Sometimes a man is intensely, even passionately, attached to suffering - that is a fact. About this there is no need to consult universal history: ask yourself, if you are a man and have ever lived even in some degree. As for my own personal opinion, I find it somehow unseemly to love only well-being. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, smashing things is also sometimes very pleasant.”
― fyodor dostoevsky, Notes from Underground & The Double

“Thou didst not come down from the cross when they shouted to Thee, mocking and reviling Thee, "Come down from the cross and we will believe that Thou art He." Thou didst not come down, for again Thou wouldst not enslave man by a miracle. Thou didst crave faith given freely, not based on a miracle. Thou didst crave for free love and not the base raptures of the slave before the might that has overawed him for ever.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Grand Inquisitor

“We do not dislike everything that shines, but we do prefer a pensive luster to a shallow brilliance, a murky light that, whether in a stone or an artefact, bespeaks a sheen of antiquity. Of course this 'sheen of antiquity' of which we hear so much is in fact the glow of grime. In both Chinese and Japanese the words denoting this glow describe a polish that comes of being touched over and over again, a sheen produced by the oils that naturally permeate an object over long years of handling - which is to say grime. If indeed 'elegance is frigid', it can as well be described as filthy.”
― Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows and Other Essays