Darina

“Your new life is going to cost you your old one.
It’s going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense
of direction.
It’s going to cost you relationships and friends.
It’s going to cost you being liked and understood.
It doesn’t matter.
The people who are meant for you are going to meet you
on the other side. You’re going to build a new comfort
zone around the things that actually move you forward.
Instead of being liked, you’re going to be loved. Instead of
being understood, you’re going to be seen.
All you’re going to lose is what was built for a person you
no longer are.”
― Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery

“Perhaps you're right, but everything I've learned is precious to me. No one can take my skills away–I value them with my life. Some may say that my knowledge is worthless, but it makes no difference to me." She turned from the balcony, fixing him with a piercing gaze. "I'm the one who decides what I value.”
― Touko Amekawa, 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy! Vol. 1

“Women have always worked. They have worked unpaid, underpaid, underappreciated, and invisibly, but they have always worked. But the modern workplace does not work for women. From its location, to its hours, to its regulatory standards, it has been designed around the lives of men and it is no longer fit for purpose. The world of work needs a wholesale redesign--of its regulations, of its equipment, of its culture--and this redesign must be led by data on female bodies and female lives. We have to start recognising that the work women do is not an added extra, a bonus that we could do without: women's work, paid and unpaid, is the backbone of our society and our economy. It's about time we started valuing it.”
― Caroline Criado-Pérez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

“Intelligence requires first the gift of curiosity.  Without curiosity, who would ask questions?  Second, intelligence is the ability to synthesize.  Facts alone signify little.  Neither are they to be trusted.  Intelligence is the subtle arrangement of that which might or might not be true, the intuitive selection and the weaving of such selections into a pleasing whole that makes for meaning.  Third, intelligence has need of laughter.  Without laughter so much that is bitter and dark is allowed into being.  That which is bitter and dark may be clever, it may even be cunning, but it is never intelligent.  As for wisdom, wisdom is simple.  The wise are able to recognize, and to accept, that not only is one never intelligent enough, but that when all is said and done, one knows exactly nothing.”
― Ki Longfellow, Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria