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In a culture where female dissatisfaction and anger were linked with witchcraft, and where women were pressured to search their consciences for evidence of their own evil, not surprisingly some women were persuaded—albeit temporarily—that
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“Witchcraft is similar to the risk of nuclear war, of global warming, or, perhaps most aptly, of contemporary terrorism: they all constitute an overriding but indeterminable threat, a threat that is both real and yet often absents itself from daily experience.”
― The Empty Seashell: Witchcraft and Doubt on an Indonesian Island
― The Empty Seashell: Witchcraft and Doubt on an Indonesian Island
“Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.”
― The Wise Man's Fear
― The Wise Man's Fear
“In 1654, for example, Elizabeth Drew was whipped twelve stripes (a punishment comparable to that for rape of a single woman) for naming her master’s son as the father of her child. When Drew persisted in her story she was whipped an additional twenty stripes and forced to stand in public on lecture day with a paper on her forehead proclaiming herself “A SLANDERER OF MR ZEROBABELL ENDICOTT.”
― The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England
― The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England
“Well, after that she would do her best. That was the only way. You did not want things for yourself. That made you small. That kept you safe. That meant you could move smoothly through the world without upsetting every applecart you came across. And if you were careful, if you were a proper part of things, then you could help. You mended what was cracked. You tended to the things you found askew. And you trusted that the world in turn would brush you up against the chance to eat. It was the only graceful way to move. All else was vanity and pride.”
― The Slow Regard of Silent Things
― The Slow Regard of Silent Things
“I touched the loose peg gently, running my hands over the warm wood of the lute. The varnish was scraped and scuffed in places. It had been treated unkindly in the past, but that didn’t make it less lovely underneath. So yes. It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That’s as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.”
― The Wise Man's Fear
― The Wise Man's Fear
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