#ow

Independence is like a flower that nurtures itself in the light of another. ↗

— Zephyr A. McIntyre

#personal-growth #philosophy #nature

Power is fortified not just by what it destroys, but also by what it creates. Not just by what it takes, but also by what it gives. And powerlessness reaffirmed not just by the helplessness of those who have lost, but also by the gratitude of those who have (or THINK they have) gained. ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#helplessness #human-nature #humility #power #powerlessness

My spiritual high naturally dissipated. At some point you've got to come out of the clouds and live real life. Again, it's just like falling in love. The feeling of euphoria is only temporary. ↗

— Pattie Mallette

#justin-bieber #nowhere-but-up #pattie-mallette #realization #love

When we trust the makers of baby formula more than we do our own ability to nourish our babies, we lose a chance to claim an aspect of our power as women. Thinking that baby formula is as good as breast milk is believing that thirty years of technology is superior to three million years of nature's evolution. Countless women have regained trust in their bodies through nursing their children, even if they weren't sure at first that they could do it. It is an act of female power, and I think of it as feminism in its purest form. ↗

— Christine Northrup

#children #common-sense #conflict #feminism #health

Her bedroom window overlooked the garden, and now and then, usually when she was "having a bad spell," Mr. Helm had seen her stand long hours gazing into the garden, as though what she saw bewitched her. ("When I was a girl," she had once told a friend, "I was terribly sure trees and flowers were the same as birds or people. That they thought things, and talked among themselves. And we could hear them if we really tried. It was just a matter of emptying your head of all other sounds. Being very quiet and listening very hard. Sometimes I still believe that. But one can never get quiet enough...") ↗

— Truman Capote

#nature #trees #nature

Command is a mountaintop. The air breathed there is different, and the perspectives seen there are different, from those of the valley of obedience. The passion for order and the genius for construction, which are part of man's natural endowment, get full play there. The man who has grown great sees from the top of his tower what he can make, if he so wills, of the swarming masses below him. ↗

— Bertrand De Jouvenel

#obedience #power #nature

Nature had given me a square jaw, a cleft chin, a dark mane, eyes that could bring a vestal virgin to her knees and a cock that could keep her there. ↗

— Michael Schiefelbein

#nature

Verily, knowledge is a lock and its key is the question. ↗

— Imam Jafar Al-Sadiq AS

#islam #knowledge #nature #religion #science

He seems to be supporting her tenderly. But what holds them together is difficult to pin down. In her memoir, she wrote that he once dropped her on her hip very painfully, and she had the distinct impression he’d done it on purpose. What really goes on between two people is very difficult to say. ↗

— Barbara Browning

#dance #merce-cunningham #relationships #relationship

The colonialist's existence is so closely aligned with that of the colonized that he will never be able to overcome the argument which states that misfortune is good for something. With all his power he must disown the colonized while their existence is indispensable to his own. Having chosen to maintain the colonial system, he must contribute more vigor to its defense than would have been needed to dissolve it completely. Having become aware of the unjust relationship which ties him to the colonized, he must continually attempt to absolve himself. He never forgets to make a public show of his own virtues, and will argue with vehemence to appear heroic and great. At the same time his privileges arise just as much from his glory as from degrading the colonized. ↗

— Albert Memmi

#colonialism #europeans #history #imperialism #politics