#humiliation

As she uttered the words of the prayer, she glanced up at him as if he were God Himself. He watched her with growing pleasure. In front of him was kneeling the directress, being humiliated by a subordinate; in front of him a naked revolutionary was being humiliated by prayer; in front of him a praying lady was being humiliated by her nakedness. This threefold image of degradation intoxicated him and something unexpected suddenly happened: his body revoked its passive resistance. Edward was excited! As the directress said, 'And lead us not into temptation,' he quickly threw off all his clothes. When she said, 'Amen,' he violently lifted her off the floor and dragged her onto the couch. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#degradation #humiliation #lust #sex #love

All the world wondered as they witnessed... a people lift themselves from humiliation to the greatest pride. ↗

— Corazon Aquino

#humiliation #lift #people #pride #themselves

We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons. ↗

— W. H. Auden

#places #shy #sunny #these #where

Losing your capital is like losing your trousers. It is a real humiliation, and one not to be soon repeated. ↗

— James Buchan

#humiliation #like #losing #real #repeated

I came to poetry through the urgent need to denounce injustice, exploitation, humiliation. I know that's not enough to change the world. But to remain silent would have been a kind of intolerable complicity. ↗

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

#came #change #change the world #complicity #denounce

If you are a success in life, there are places you must go and pay to be humiliated. It is an unwritten law that human beings must be tormented throughout their lives in one way or another. If you are fortunate enough to have risen to a social level where no one does it to you for free, then you must pay for the service. ↗

— Jonathan Carroll

#success #life

Park women, properly so called, are those degraded creatures, utterly lost to all sense of shame, who wander about the paths most frequented after nightfall in the Parks, and consent to any species of humiliation for the sake of acquiring a few shillings. ↗

— Henry Mayhew

#acquiring #after #any #called #consent