#dice

[J]ust the sight of this book, even though it was of no authority, made me wonder how it happened that so many different men – and learned men among them – have been and are so inclined to express both in speaking and in their treatises and writings so many wicked insults about women and their behaviour. Not only one or two ... but, more generally, from the treatises of all philosophers and poets and from all the orators – it would take too long to mention their names – it seems that they all speak from one and the same mouth. Thinking deeply about these matters, I began to examine my character and conduct as a natural woman and, similarly, I considered other women whose company I frequently kept, princesses, great ladies, women of the middle and lower classes, who had graciously told me of their most private and intimate thoughts, hoping that I could judge impartially and in good conscience whether the testimony of so many notable men could be true. To the best of my knowledge, no matter how long I confronted or dissected the problem, I could not see or realise how their claims could be true when compared to the natural behaviour and character of women. ↗

— Christine de Pizan

#books #character #clichés #conduct #double-standards

Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. Our mission, therefore, is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated. ↗

— Kofi Annan

#intolerance #prejudice #racism #tolerance #defeat

The last time that I consciously wrote anything to 'save the honor of the Left', as I rather pompously put it, was my little book on the crookedness and cowardice and corruption (to put it no higher) of Clinton. I used leftist categories to measure him, in other words, and to show how idiotic was the belief that he was a liberal's champion. Again, more leftists than you might think were on my side or in my corner, and the book was published by Verso, which is the publishing arm of the New Left Review. However, if a near-majority of leftists and liberals choose to think that Clinton was the target of a witch-hunt and the victim of 'sexual McCarthyism', an Arkansan Alger Hiss in other words, you become weary of debating on their terms and leave them to make the best of it. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#arkansas #bill-clinton #corruption #cowardice #debate

You have bewitched me, body and soul. ↗

— Jane Austen

#mr-darcy #pride-and-prejudice #romance #pride

Science, almost from its beginnings, has been truly international in character. National prejudices disappear completely in the scientist's search for truth. ↗

— Irving Langmuir

#been #beginnings #character #completely #disappear

Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#difficult #effort #find #instincts #many

With improvisation, I just do it. It might be a total failure but then you just throw the dice again. ↗

— Christian Marclay

#dice #failure #i #improvisation #just

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity. ↗

— Rollo May

#courage #cowardice #opposite #our #society

When blithe to argument I come, Though armed with facts, and merry, May Providence protect me from The fool as adversary, Whose mind to him a kingdom is Where reason lacks dominion, Who calls conviction prejudice And prejudice opinion. ↗

— Phyllis McGinley

#argument #armed #blithe #calls #come

I grew up reading 'Sense and Sensibility' and 'Pride and Prejudice' - girly kind of books. ↗

— Leighton Meester

#girly #grew #i #kind #prejudice