#out

I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language." I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever. Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking. ↗

— Audre Lorde

#revolution #silence #speaking-out #truth #change

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#human race #knock #never #out #patriotism

The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment. ↗

— Elbert Hubbard

#being #criticism #endure #final #final proof

Teachers are the one and only people who save nations. ↗

— Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

#inspirational #youth #education

It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul. ↗

— Sofia Kovalevskaya

#impossible #mathematician #poet #soul #without

Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#ceases #exist #expression #freedom of expression #offend

For me, writing has always come out of living a fairly to-the-bone kind of life, just really being present to a lot of life. The writing has been really a byproduct of that. ↗

— Alice Walker

#been #being #byproduct #come #fairly

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#shakespeare #shakespeare

The moon is an orbital albino, and it gets tons of sunlight, so I propose Operation Sunscreen, where astronauts coat the surface of the moon with a protective layer of sunscreen. If you care about albinos and the environment, you’ll see this is a good idea. And hey, it’s a better use of taxpayer funds than bailing out private banks.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#albino #bailout #moon #environment

The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, he's going to keep digging, he's going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that's who he is. ↗

— Joss Whedon

#because #before #digging #end #end of the tunnel