#ions

When distinction of any kind, even intellectual distinction, is somehow resented as a betrayal of the American spirit of equal opportunity for all, the result must be just this terror of individualistic impulses setting us apart, either above or below our neighbours; just this determination to obey without questioning and to subscribe with passion to the conventions and traditions. The dilemma becomes a very real one: How can this sense of democratic equality be made compatible with respect for exceptional personalities or great minds? How can democracy, as we understand it today, with its iron repression of the free spirit, its monotonous standardisation of everything, learn to cherish an intellectual aristocracy without which any nation runs the risk of becoming a civilisation of the commonplace and the second-rate? ↗

— Harold Edmund Stearns

#civilization #conventions #distinction #equality #individualism

I love the comic opportunities that come up in the context of a father-son relationship. ↗

— Harrison Ford

#come #comic #context #i #i love

They meant abnormal. Divisions of the kind were fashionable at that time, and it was so easy to stifle one's need to help by deciding that help could neither be accepted nor understood. ↗

— Janet Frame

#accepted #could #deciding #divisions #easy

Pop stardom is not very compelling. I'm much more interested in a relationship between performer and audience that is of equals. I came up through folk music, and there's no pomp and circumstance to the performance. There's no, like, 'I'll be the rock star, you be the adulating fan.' ↗

— Ani DiFranco

#between #came #circumstance #compelling #equals

We do not think clearly about our moral obligations to animals. ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#clearly #moral #obligations #our #think

It's hard when you're doing a film based on a true story to really figure out what all those relationships were. ↗

— James Franco

#doing #figure #film #hard #out

Most people who are activists and are concerned about issues get their information from sources which reinforce their opinions and give them the facts that they want to hear. ↗

— Barney Frank

#activists #concerned #facts #get #give

The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent. ↗

— Erich Fromm

#away #become #child #fully #grow

How much will you give for the lives of your childrens children, which is yourself? How much are people willing to give up for air, earth, water, animals, and the coming generations? I think the answer to that is pretty clear. ↗

— Lynette Fromme

#answer #children #clear #coming #earth

I'm not interested in forcing my music on people, and that's what the whole music industry nowadays is based on is forcing stations to play it, forcing people to listen to it. ↗

— John Frusciante

#forcing #i #industry #interested #listen