#u

The Qur'an does not ask for human perfection, but rather asks that we persevere in striving for self-improvement and that we never become complacent (2: 197; 5:2; 7:26) or despondent (15:56; 39:53; 15:55) about our progress. ↗

— Jeffrey Lang

#perseverance

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

Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies. ↗

— Dorothy Allison

#lying #truth #lie

America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. ↗

— Alexis de Tocqueville

#misattributed #america

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. ↗

— Mark Twain

#congress #corruption #government #america

Less is less. Heartbreak is heartbreak. You think I'm sitting here gloating. Telling myself that my suffering beats yours? Hurt is hurt. You don't measure these things. ↗

— Stephanie Kallos

#hurt #loss #heartbreak

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

One thing, though," Qhuinn murmured. "What?" The voice that came out his throat was unlike anything he'd ever heard from himself before. "If any guy breaks your heart or treats you like shit, I will bust him apart with my bare hands and leave his broken, bloody body for the sun." Blay's laughter rumbled around the tiled walls. "Of course you will--" "I'm dead fucking serious." Blay's blue eyes shot over his shoulder. "If there are any who dare to hurt you," Qhuinn growled in the Old Language, "I shall see them staked afore me and shall leave their bodies in ruin. ↗

— J.R. Ward

#blaylock #heartbreak #oath #qhuinn #revenge

I'm just trying to outrun a broken heart, which is nothing to sneeze at, for a broken heart breaks a person. ↗

— Sarah Hina

#sarah-hina #thatsaquote #heartbreak

There's no fear in a shallow heart because the shallow heart is faint and don't fall apart, But feeling hearts that truly care are fragile to the flow of air. ↗

— Q-tip

#care #fall-apart #feeling #flow #fragile