#speaking

I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good. ↗

— Andrew Solomon

#depression #fear #life #speaking #words

I didn't want them to discuss how lovely my wife was, I wanted them to go out and search for my fucking wife. I didn't say this out loud, though; I often don't say things out loud, even when I should. I contain and compartmentalize to a disturbing degree: In my belly-basement are hundreds of bottles of rage, despair, fear, but you'd never guess from looking at me. ↗

— Gillian Flynn

#love

Speaking very generally, I find that women are spiritually, emotionally, and often physically stronger than men. ↗

— Gary Oldman

#emotionally #find #generally #i #men

Yawns are not the only infectious things out there besides germs. Giggles can spread from person to person. So can blushing. But maybe the most powerful infectious thing is the act of speaking the truth. ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#blushing #contagious #free-speech #giggle #giggles

Blacksmiths sometimes twist a rope tight around the nose of a horse, and by thus inflicting a little pain they distract his attention from the shoeing process. One way to get air out of a glass is to pour in water. Be Absorbed by Your Subject ↗

— Dale Breckenridge Carnegie

#self-consciousness #art

The first sign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and act great. Before you can call yourself a man at all, Kipling assures us, you must "not look too good nor talk too wise. ↗

— Dale Breckenridge Carnegie

#public-speaking #art

When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch. ↗

— Bette Davis

#double-standards #empowerment #feminism #gender #hypocrisy

I’m bilingual, speaking English and body language. I prefer the latter, because I can speak it silently and without listening and while my back is turned.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#english #ignore #ignoring #language #languages

The world is shaped by two things — stories told and the memories they leave behind. ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#actions #acts #creation #dream #dreams

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