#norms

With genius, as with beauty -- all, well almost all, is forgiven. ↗

— Susan Sontag

#exemptions #forgiveness #generosity #genius #leniency

You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too. No, I think there was too rigid a pattern. You came out of an education and are supposed to know your vocation. Your vocation is fixed, and maybe ten years later you find you are not a teacher anymore or you're not a painter anymore. It may happen. It has happened. I mean Gauguin decided at a certain point he wasn't a banker anymore; he was a painter. And so he walked away from banking. I think we have a right to change course. But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now. ↗

— Anaïs Nin

#education #experiments #growth #life #mistakes

My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone. ↗

— Mary Wollstonecraft

#double-standards #empowerment #equality #feminism #flattery

The man or the woman in whom resides greater virtue is the higher; neither the loftiness nor the lowliness of a person lies in the body according to the sex, but in the perfection of conduct and virtues. ↗

— Christine de Pizan

#conduct #double-standards #empowerment #equality #gender

No: I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne." "I ask why? I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you." She stood on the hearth; she was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling. "And I ask in what sense that young man is worthy of me? ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#courtship #dignity #empowerment #equality #feminism

I shake my head at my friend. “Not only is they lines, but you know good as I do where them lines be drawn.” Aibileen shakes her head. “I used to believe in em. I don’t anymore. They in our heads. People like Miss Hilly is always trying to make us believe they there. But they ain’t. ↗

— Kathryn Stockett

#equality #race-relations #social-norms #equality

[Mo] sapeva che a Caterina, Cecilia e Maria, quando avessero messo piede su Deneb, nessuno avrebbe chiesto di compilare un modulo sbarrando la F. e non la M. per relegarle di conseguenza in uno scompartimento di seconda categoria. ↗

— Bianca Pitzorno

#empowerment #equality #gender #independence #opportunities

With a philosophy education, one can infuriate his peers, intimidate his date, think of obscure, unreliable ways to make money, and never regret a thing. ↗

— Criss Jami

#composure #contentment #education #education-system #freedom

The world is not ready for some people when they show up, but that shouldn't stop anyone. ↗

— Ashly Lorenzana

#expression #freedom #individuality #life #norms

There is no deception on the part of the woman, where a man bewilders himself: if he deludes his own wits, I can certainly acquit the women. Whatever man allows his mind to dwell upon the imprint his imagination has foolishly taken of women, is fanning the flames within himself -- and, since the woman knows nothing about it, she is not to blame. For if a man incites himself to drown, and will not restrain himself, it is not the water's fault. ↗

— John Gower

#clichés #deceit #delusion #discrimination #double-standards