quotes-for-the-soul

[quotes-for-the-soul]

On seeing these [Palestinian] cisterns, it occurred to me that Israel had advanced beyond the Jim Crow South and segregated not just the pools and fountains but the water itself.

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

[quotes-for-the-soul]

For as sure as my ancestors were born into a country where none of them was the equal of any white man, Israel was revealing itself to be a country where no Palestinian is ever the equal of any Jewish person anywhere. This fact is not hard to discern. Beyond my own initial impressions, there is the law itself, which clearly and directly calls for a two-tier society. Jewish citizens of Israel who marry Christians from Scotland can pass their citizenship on to their spouse and children; Palestinian citizens of Israel cannot. Jewish Israelis in Jerusalem are citizens of the state; Palestinians in the city are merely "permanent residents," a kind of sub-citizenship with a reduced set of rights and privileges.

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

[quotes-for-the-soul]

I don't really care much for hearing "both sides" or "opposing points of view," so much as I care about understanding the literary tools deployed to advance those views--the discipline of voice, the use of verbs, the length and brevity of sentences, and the curiosity of mind behind those sentences. It is this last I find so often lacking. Great canons angle toward great power, and the great privilege of great power is an incuriosity about those who lack it.

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

[quotes-for-the-soul]

A belief in genius is a large part of what plagues us, and I have found that people widely praised for the power of their intellect are as likely to illuminate as they are to confound. "Genius" may or may not help a writer whose job is, above all else, to clarify.

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

[quotes-for-the-soul]

I think this tradition of writing, of drawing out a common humanity, is indispensable to our future, if only because what must be cultivated and cared for must first be seen.

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

[quotes-for-the-soul]

Psychiatrists know remarkably little about why some people with mental illnesses recover and others with the same diagnosis go on to have an illness “career.” Answering the question, I think, requires paying more attention to the distance between the psychiatric models that explain illness and the stories through which people find meaning themselves. Even if questions of interpretation are secondary to finding effective medical treatment, these stories alter people’s lives, sometimes in unpredictible ways, and beat heavily on a person’s sense of self—and the desire to be treated all.

Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv

[quotes-for-the-soul]

In mental illness, the boundary between self and other often seems to erode, but pregnancy gives that confusion physical form. The pilosopher Iris Marion Young describes pregnancy as the “most extreme suspension of bodily distinction between inner and outer.” Describing the growing fetus, she writes, “It feels somewhat like a gas bubble, but it is not; it is different, in another place, belonging to another, another that is nevertheless my body.”

Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv

[quotes-for-the-soul]

The tragedy of anorexia seems to me that it’s intent is not self-destructive, though its outcome so often is. Its intent is to construct, in the only way possible when means are so limited, a plausible self.

Louise Glück, as quoted in Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv

[quotes-for-the-soul]

When I try to form a clear picture of the experience, I find myself thinking about what a young woman whom I interviewed years ago told me about her attempt to translate symptoms of psychosis into language: “It’s like trying to explain what a bark sounds like to someone who’s never head of a dog.”

Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv

[quotes-for-the-soul]

I find it especially vital to remember that political dogmas become dogmas expressly because they are repeated with fervor. When a politician or pundit starts to sound more like a commercial jingle or broken record than a scholar, that's a cue to listen more closely--to bear in mind that knowledge isn't always meant to go down like a nursery rhyme.

The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell

[quotes-for-the-soul]

We cannot perceive self-doubt as a weakness, and we shouldn't demand undying certainty even from experts, or they will surely bullshit us in order to meet that expectation. WASPs in turtlenecks will overpromise eager investors. They'll press launch before the rocket is ready.

The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell

[quotes-for-the-soul]

"The universe has your back" sounds like a positive affirmation. But to me, it's still a conspiracy theory, because it plays into the narrative that the universe cares--that it could be out to get you if it wanted to. Nature does not "care" like that. If it has intentions, they're not the human kind.

The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell

[quotes-for-the-soul]

In the end, rage, no matter how profoundly justified, destroys the enraged. Just as we are created anew by what we love, so we are reduced and remade by what we hate.

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie

[quotes-for-the-soul]

Wasting one's time on little things is not the hallmark of greatness.

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie

[quotes-for-the-soul]

Love is spring after winter. It comes to heal life's wounds inflicted by the unloving cold.

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie

[quotes-for-the-soul]

At the moment of dying, we are all penniless.

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie

[quotes-for-the-soul]

She closed her eyes and felt the ease of shutting out the world, however temporary. Sleep, the only space that did not refuse her, took over her body. Just an hour, she told herself, just two hours, just three hours, just a day, just two days, just a month, just nine months, just the rest of her life. That’s all she would sleep for, the rest of her life.

Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson