#sm

Die Judenfrage,' it used to be called, even by Jews. 'The Jewish Question.' I find I quite like this interrogative formulation, since the question—as Gertrude Stein once famously if terminally put it—may be more absorbing than the answer. Of course one is flirting with calamity in phrasing things this way, as I learned in school when the Irish question was discussed by some masters as the Irish 'problem.' Again, the word 'solution' can be as neutral as the words 'question' or 'problem,' but once one has defined a people or a nation as such, the search for a resolution can become a yearning for the conclusive. Endlösung: the final solution. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#gertrude-stein #holocaust #irish-question #jewish-question #jews

Do you know why most survivors of the Holocaust are vegan? It's because they know what it's like to be treated like an animal. ↗

— Chuck Palahniuk

#holocaust #veganism #holocaust

We were in such good moods, we even decided to hit Todd's house for candy. Sam rang the doorbell, and when it opened, this hideous, rubber monster face roared at us. Sam screamed. Todd started laughing and took off the mask. I yelled, "Put it back on! Put it back on! Your hideousness is terrifying!" Todd did a fake yuk-yuk-yuk at my joke. "What are you guys supposed to be? Is it Prom Night Massacre or something?" Sam sighed at Todd's obvious stupidity. "We're zombie princesses, Todd. Can't you tell?" She stuck her arms straight out in front of her and said, "BRAINS! BRAINS!" I patted Sam on the head and said, "Sorry, Sam. You're wasting your time with this one. ↗

— Kristin Walker

#humor #sarcasm #humor

The female form provides the solution in which the essence itself is held; she is passio, and acted upon, the male is actio, the mover. ↗

— Marina Warner

#feminism #gender #grammar #male #grammar

Whenever an occasion arose in which she needed an opinion on something in the wider world, she borrowed her husband's. If this had been all there was to her, she wouldn't have bothered anyone, but as is so often the case with such women, she suffered from an incurable case of of pretentiousness. Lacking any internalized values of her own, such people can arrive at a standpoint only by adopting other people's standards or views. The only principle that governs their minds is the question "How do I look? ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#narcissism #pretentiousness #vanity #vanity

You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure. ↗

— John Berger

#misogyny #projection #sexism #vanity

A man must have a good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all the doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects are false. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#tolerance #vanity

River Song: Right then. I have questions, but number one is this - what in the name of sanity have you got on your head? The Doctor: It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool. ↗

— Steven Moffat

#eleventh-doctor #matt-smith #sanity

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation, because occupation means pre-occupation; and the pre-occupied person is neither happy nor unhappy, but simply alive and active. That is why it is necessary to happiness that one should be tired. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#activism

The Bible is not interested in arguing, because if you state a thesis of belief you have already stated it's opposite; if you say, I believe in God, you have already suggested the possibility of not believing in him. [p.250] ↗

— Northrop Frye

#poetic-theory #world-culture #mythology