#entity

Everyone wears clothing, yes? Society divides these clothing up into Men & Women’s, Boys & Girls’, Jr. & Miss. But society cannot decide who wears what. While the fabric may be cut to suit a traditionally male or female body (boy or girls body), the second the buyer purchases the item, that clothing no longer becomes 'boys' or 'girls' clothes, but rather, the buyers clothes. This is an example of the individual defining the identity term vs. the identity term defining the individual. ↗

— Cristina Marrero

#defining #glbt #identity-terms #men

Boys will be boys, that's what people say. No one ever mentions how girls have to be something other than themselves altogether. We are to stifle the same feelings that boys are encouraged to display. We are to use gossip as a means of policing ourselves -- this way those who do succumb to sex but are not damaged by it are damaged instead by peer malice. Girls demand a covenant because if one gives in, others will be expected to do the same. We are to remain united in cruelty, ignorance, and aversion. Or we are to starve the flesh from our bones, penalizing the body for its nature, castigating ourselves for advances we are powerless to prevent. We are to make false promises then resist the attentions solicited. Basically we are to become expert liars. (p. 65) ↗

— Hilary Thayer Hamann

#girls #hamann #identity #masks #sexuality

I had brought from Paris the national prejudice against Italian music; but I had also received from nature that acute sensibility against which prejudices are powerless. I soon contracted the passion it inspires in all those born to understand it. ↗

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#culture #identity #prejudice #art

All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. ... But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not. ↗

— Nick Hornby

#identity #individuality #read

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, -- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost... He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American... ↗

— W.E.B. Du Bois

#dubois #identity #pragmatism #progress #progress

She was looking for something I could never give her." Again his dark eyes bored into Julia's mind. "You have something of the same about you, young woman. Take my advice: Don't think you will find it in another person. You won't. It's not there. You must find it in yourself. ↗

— Iain Pears

#individuality #search #self-awareness #self-reliance #dreams

I'm not really sure which parts of myself are real and which parts are things I've gotten from books. ↗

— Beatrice Sparks

#sense-of-self #identity

If you understood everything I said, you’d be me ↗

— Miles Davis

#understanding #identity

It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!" I shall only look up and say "Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else"--but, oh dear!' cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, 'I do wish they WOULD put their heads down! I am so VERY tired of being all alone here! ↗

— Lewis Carroll

#identity #loneliness #identity

Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God. ↗

— Thomas Sowell

#hubris #identity