"Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law. Because, in other words, the powerful don't play; they mean to keep that power, and those who are the powerless (you and me) better shape up --mimic/ape/suck --in the very image of the powerful, or the powerful will destroy you --you and our children."

Jordan, June on Language
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"Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other."

Truth, Sojourner on Humankind
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This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Only when the last tree has been cut down; Only when the last river has been poisoned; Only when the last fish has been caught; Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."

Proverb, American Indian on Money
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"A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled."

Cock, Barnett on Committees and Meetings
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"I can sympathize with people's pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness."

Huxley, Aldous on Happiness
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"Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress, but they consider the things government does for others as socialism."

Warren, Earl on Communism and Socialism
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"Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way."

Washington, Booker T. on Excellence
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"I will not permit any man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."

Washington, Booker T. on Hatred
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"No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward."

Washington, Booker T. on Rewards
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"There are two ways of exerting one's strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up."

Washington, Booker T. on Strength
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"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone."

Welles, Orson on Isolation
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"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."

Leary, Timothy on Feminism
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"All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract; or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience."

Walker, Alice on Revolutions and Revolutionaries
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"How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names."

Walker, Alice on Mothers
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"If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place."

Mead, Margaret on Purpose
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"No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow."

Walker, Alice on Friends and Friendship
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"Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise."

Walker, Alice on Expectation
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"The original crime of niggers and lesbians is that they prefer themselves."

Walker, Alice on Dissent
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"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

Nin, Anais on Action
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"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."

Nin, Anais on Attitude
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"I stopped loving my father a long time ago. What remained was the slavery to a pattern."

Nin, Anais on Fathers
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"Somewhere in the bible it say Jesus hair was like lamb's wool, I say. Well, say Shug, if he came to any of these churches we talking bout he'd have to have it conked before anybody paid him any attention. The last thing niggers want to think about they God is that his hair kinky."

Walker, Alice on Jesus Christ
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"There is no blue without yellow and without orange."

Gogh, Vincent Van on Color
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"My advice to people today is as follows: If you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in, and drop out."

Leary, Timothy on Twentieth Century
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"Facts don't cease to exist because they are ignored."

Huxley, Aldous on Facts
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"Experience teaches only the teachable."

Huxley, Aldous on Experience
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"The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not."

Huxley, Aldous on Education
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"Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting."

Huxley, Aldous on Education
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"Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."

Huxley, Aldous on Experience
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"Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation."

Augustine, St. on Abstinence
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"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for ones own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didnt, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didnt have to; but if he didnt want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. "

Heller, Joseph on Uncategorised
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"Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means."

Burroughs, William S. on Methods
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"The face of evil is always the face of total need."

Burroughs, William S. on Evil
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"Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy."

Burroughs, William S. on Drugs
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"I do not love you

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

that this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."

Neruda, Pablo on Lovers
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"Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past."

Paz, Octavio on Language
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"My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return."

Angelou, Maya on Hope
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"I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass."

Angelou, Maya on Aggression
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"It isn't enough for your heart to break because everybody's heart is broken now."

Ginsberg, Allen on Heartbreak
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"Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere."

Rochman, Hazel on Books - Reading
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