Quotes about submission

"The sovereign being is burdened with a servitude that crushes him, and the condition of free men is deliberate servility."

Bataille, Georges on submission   

"There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness and of love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage to irremediable weakness."

Eliot, George on submission   

"There're two people in the world that are not likeable: a master and a slave."

Giovanni, Nikki on submission   

"If every day a man takes orders in silence from an incompetent superior, if every day he solemnly performs ritual acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions and is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of humiliation."

Havel, Vaclav on submission   

"My reason is not framed to bend or stoop: my knees are."

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De on submission   

"Progress and reaction have both turned out to be swindles. Seemingly, there is nothing left but quietism -- robbing reality of its terrors by simply submitting to it."

Orwell, George on submission   

"It does not matter what the whip is; it is none the less a whip, because you have cut thongs for it out of your own souls."

Ruskin, John on submission   

"Never may an act of possession be exercised upon a free being; the exclusive possession of a woman is no less unjust than the possession of slaves; all men are born free, all have equal rights: never should we lose sight of those principles; according to which never may there be granted to one sex the legitimate right to lay monopolizing hands upon the other, and never may one of the sexes, or classes, arbitrarily possess the other."

Sade, Marquis De on submission   

"We are like horses who hurt themselves as soon as they pull on their bits -- and we bow our heads. We even lose consciousness of the situation, we just submit. Any re-awakening of thought is then painful."

Weil, Simone on submission   

"True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself."

Miller, Henry on submission
6 fans of this quote