#ge

I leave pansies, the symbolic flower of freethought, in memory of the Great Agnostic, Robert Ingersoll, who stood for equality, education, progress, free ideas and free lives, against the superstition and bigotry of religious dogma. We need men like him today more than ever. His writing still inspires us and challenges the 'better angels' of our nature, when people open their hearts and minds to his simple, honest humanity. Thank goodness he was here. ↗

— Bruce Springsteen

#education

When asked, "Why do you always wear black?", he said, "I am mourning for my life. ↗

— Anton Chekhov

#satire #life

Everybody sees me as this sullen and insecure little thing. Those are just the sides of me that I feel necessary to show because no one else seems to be showing them. ↗

— Fiona Apple

#insecurity #musician #secrets #shyness #musician

New Rule: Gay marriage won't lead to dog marriage. It is not a slippery slope to rampant inter-species coupling. When women got the right to vote, it didn't lead to hamsters voting. No court has extended the equal protection clause to salmon. And for the record, all marriages are “same sex” marriages. You get married, and every night, it's the same sex. ↗

— Bill Maher

#humor #same-sex-marriage #equality

Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves. ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#equality #fear #gender #intelligence #men

English is so hierarchical. In Cree, we don't have animate-inanimate comparisons between things. Animals have souls that are equal to ours. Rocks have souls, trees have souls. Trees are 'who,' not 'what. ↗

— Tomson Highway

#indigenous-peoples #language #nature #equality

It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much as their cultural confusions. The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with articulation, fun with pleasure - in short, all of the misconceptions common to those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for equals. ↗

— Trevanian

#youth #courage

There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers. ↗

— Susan B. Anthony

#equality

There are guys who grow up thinking they'll settle down some distant time in the future, and there are guys who are ready for marriage as soon as they meet the right person. The former bore me, mainly because they're pathetic; and the latter, quite frankly, are hard to find. But it's the serious ones I'm interested in, and it takes time to find a guy like that whom I'm equally interested in. I mean, if the relationship can't survive the long term, why on earth would it be worth my time and energy for the short term? ↗

— Nicholas Sparks

#guys #interests #long-term #marriage #relationship

A marriage of two independent and equally irritable intelligences seems to me reckless to the point of insanity. ↗

— Dorothy L. Sayers

#intelligence #irritability #marriage #matrimony #recklessness