#ra

When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some. ↗

— Harry A. Blackmun

#politics #religion #separation-of-church-and-state #equality

The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#poetic #poetry #prose #writers #equality

To be sane, he held, was either to be sedated by melancholy or activated by hysteria, two responses which were 'always and equally warranted for those of sound insight'. All others were irrational, merely symptoms of imaginations left idle, of memories out of work. And above these mundane responses, the only elevation allowable, the only valid transcendence, was a sardonic one: a bliss that annihilated the universe with jeers of dark joy, a mindful ecstasy. Anything else in the way of 'mysticism' was a sign of deviation or distraction, and a heresy to the obvious. (“The Medusa”) ↗

— Thomas Ligotti

#insanity #melancholy #mysticism #sanity #sardonic

If a coin comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until that moment the two possibilities were equal. But on another world, it does come down tails. And when that happens, the two worlds split apart. ↗

— Philip Pullman

#parallel-universe #possibility #equality

Just because I've gone and snagged myself a hot boyfriend doesn't mean I'm going to leave my bestfriend high and dry. ↗

— Becca Fitzpatrick

#friendship #nora #vee-sky #friendship

No matter whether you’re a gay or a mixed race couple; when you’re drawn together, ultimately it doesn’t matter what everybody thinks because it’s so honest, true, and sincere. How can that be wrong? ↗

— Tegan Quin

#gay #gay-marriage #lgbt #love #sara-quin

I do believe that characters in novels belong to their writers and their readers pretty equally. I've learned a lot of things about the characters I write from people who read about them. Readers expand them in ways I don't think of and take them to places I can't go. ↗

— Ann Brashares

#fictional-characters #reading #writing #equality

We can either emphasize those aspects of our traditions, religious or secular, that speak of hatred, exclusion, and suspicion or work with those that stress the interdependence and equality of all human beings. The choice is yours. (22) ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#choice #equality #exclusion #hatred #inclusion

To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral. ↗

— Abbie Hoffman

#empire #equally #evil #immoral #institutions

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