Sudeshna Bora

“is essential to become aware of what our critic is saying. Before we become aware, we tend to believe what the critic says without even realizing it’s the critic speaking, and not us. In other words, your critic might be so persistent and familiar that you believe the voice you’re hearing is actually how you truly think about things—that the critic is who you are.”
― Aziz Gazipura, The Solution To Social Anxiety: Break Free From The Shyness That Holds You Back

“Body and soul, it taught, were one and jointly responsible for sin, therefore jointly punishable. This became an important distinction between Christianity and Judaism. The Christian idea that, by weakening the body through mortification and fasting, you strengthened the soul, was anathema to Jews. They had ascetic sects as late as the first century AD, but once rabbinical Judaism established its dominance, the Jews turned their backs forever on monasticism, hermitry and asceticism. Public fasts might be commanded as symbols of public atonement, but private fasts were sinful and forbidden. Abstaining from wine, as the Nazarites did, was sinful, for it was rejecting the gifts God has provided for man’s necessities. Vegetarianism was rarely encouraged.”
― Paul Johnson, History of the Jews

“every situation, knowledge was better than ignorance. However agonizing, it was necessary to confront the facts. Only through knowing could a person become strong.”
― Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women

“Enlightenment thinkers, both French and German, argued that the objectionable features of Judaism had to be erased before the Jew could be free: Jews who were discriminated against accepted this, and thus often directed their rage more towards the unregenerated Jew than those who persecuted them both.”
― Paul Johnson, History of the Jews