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May I Quote You?
As many of you know I often have the privilege of doing presentations at various universities, businesses, and conferences. One of the things that occurred to me recently when I was doing a presentation is how many sayings and quotes I often use to accentuate my points. Somehow it further legitimates a thought or better frames a message if someone else also said what it is you are trying to convey. My students, colleagues, and close friends know that when they use any of my original quotes (not to imply that there are that many, but the one’s I use are “tight.” Don’t hate!) they are expected to give a verbal footnote, a J.W. shout-out! It isn’t anything extraordinary, just a whispered acknowledgement that the poignant thought they just dropped isn’t there’s.
An example of this is when one of my young bloods (who has just ascended to Student Association president at SUNY Plattsburgh), Mr. Angel Acosta--once during a break in a class in which he was a Teacher's Assistant--looked at and commented on two women who we both respect greatly, Professor Deb Light and one of the most outstanding students I’ve ever worked with who was also a Teacher's Assistant for us, Ms. Dana Lutters. We had just finished talking about how most everyone has multiple identities that situate them as both oppressors or oppressed, in differing contextual moments. Angel threw his arm around my shoulder and said “look at them, ‘swimming in privilege, yet drowning in oppression.’” I was flabbergasted! His statement was the perfect frame for two white women who have racial privilege in a hegemonic culture where white skin is dominant. However, those same two women, as women, lose privilege in many cases because they are women in a culture designed for, and dominated by men. So, whenever I use Angel’s phrase I say “swimming in privilege, yet drowning in oppression,” and follow it with a very low “Angel Acosta.” Now, people look at me and sometimes wonder did I just say something, or even wonder what I just said. I don’t have to repeat it though unless I really want to. I have fulfilled my responsibility to the original author by at least pseudo-silently giving the verbal footnote.
Below are some of my favorites. Also I include the authors name when I know it, though many were passed onto me from adults and they would use them as if they coined the phrases, without any mention of a verbal footnote. Shame on them! Oh, please feel free to include any quotes near and dear to you!
Only the educated are free. -- Epictetus
I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep. -- Talleyrand
The mind is like a parachute - it works only when it is open. -- Author Unknown
The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. – W.E.B. DuBois
Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined. – Albert Camus
Most Individuals are plastic to the molding force of the society into which they are born! -- Ruth Benedict,
Forewarned is Forearmed – Author Unknown
Truths are like other people's property. -- Charles Fried
Men are only poor creatures ... They would not seem to be dwarfs if they had not been asked to be giants. -- Simone de Beauvoir
If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking. -- George S. Patton
The most powerful means of sustaining the moral hegemony of the dominant gender ideology is that the process is made invisible; any possible alternatives are virtually unthinkable. -- Judith Lorber
The level of consciousness of young people must be raised; they need enlightenment. -- Frantz Fanon
Ability is a poor man's wealth. -- John Wooden
Other people are the mirror in which we see ourselves! -- Charles Cooley
Condemning people out of habit is easy! Overcoming deep seated prejudice takes courage! – John Corvino
There is no sun without shadow and it is essential to know the night. – Albert Camus
Herein lies the tragedy of the age; not that men are poor--all men know something of poverty; nor that men are wicked--who is good? Not that men are ignorant--what is truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men. – W.E.B. DuBois
Truth fears no trial. -- Proverb
I Believe in the soul, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, long foreplay, show tunes...I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap, that there should be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, voting every election, soft core pornography, chocolate chip cookies...and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft wet kisses that last three days. -- Kevin Costner in Bull Durham
The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step! -- Confucius
The social is the natural. -- Judith Lorber
Normality is culturally defined! -- Ruth Benedict
I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out. -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The problem of the 20th Century is the problem of the color line. – W.E.B. DuBois
In the depth of Winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible Summer. – Albert Camus
The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." -- Albert Einstein
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. – Anais Nin
America taught my son's killer to hate blacks. -- Camille Cosby
An oppressed class is the vital condition for every society founded on the antagonism of classes. – Karl Marx
No person can put a chain about the ankle of another [person] without at last finding the other end fastened about his [or her] own neck. -- Fredrick Douglass
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
The sword does not feel the pain it inflicts. Do not ask it about suffering. -- Phillip Hallie
No jailer is ever a free man, himself. -- J.A. Rogers
Between the superhuman and the inhuman is there no place for the human? -- Simone de Beauvoir
The middle of every successful project looks like a disaster. -- Rosabeth Moss Cantor
The more regularly a lie is repeated, the more plausible it it likely to appear. -- Josef Goebbel
Most of the early information we receive about "others" -people racially, religiously, or socio-economically different from ourselves-does not come as the result of firsthand experience. The secondhand information we do receive has often been distorted, shaped by cultural stereotypes, and left incomplete. – Beverly Daniel Tatum
Victory has a hundred fathers... Defeat is an orphan. -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Ultimately, social class determines how people think about social class. – James Loewen
As we climb the social ladder, what is our perspective on the rungs we left behind? -- J.W. Wiley
Agenda after Agenda after Agenda after Agenda, you can never get into your agenda for having one. – Author Unknown
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. -- Helen Keller
A vision without a plan is an hallucination! -- Salome Thomas-El
Watch your thoughts , they may become your words. Watch your words, they may become your actions. Watch your actions, they may become your habits. Watch your habits, they may become your character. Watch your character, it may become your destiny. – Author Unknown
It is often a better strategy to apologize than to ask permission! – Author Unknown
Concepts without percepts are empty, Percepts without concepts are meaningless! -- Immanuel Kant
The very compulsiveness with which certain lies are repeated can reveal not only the degrees of their falsity but the extent to which their authors understand them to be false. -- Homi Bhabba
It's never too late to be who you might have been. -- George Elliot
It is when the well is dry that we know the price of water. -- Ben Franklin
She has never had a lover like me, one who puts a lot of thought into our sensuality, because I want her to revere me! -- Anonymous
Covenants without the sword are but words. – Thomas Hobbes
Romance is about the possibility of things.... it's about the time between when you meet some fine-ass woman and when you first make love to her... when you first ask a woman to marry you and when she says 'I do.' When people who have been together for a long time say that the romance is gone what they are really saying is they've exhausted the possibility! -- Darius Lovehall in the film Love Jones
They enjoy black culture as they grow up, but at a certain point, as soon as it's time to get a job and move on in their life, they'll throw this culture aside like they had never participated in it. -- Dave Chappelle
The institute of marriage makes a parasite of woman, an absolute dependant. It incapacitates her for life's struggle, annihilates her social consciousness, paralyzes her imagination, and then imposes its gracious protection, which is in reality a snare, a travesty on human character. -- Author Unknown
It is better to be thought an idiot in your silence than to speak and remove all doubt. – Author Unknown
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me. -- Pastor Martin Niemoller
You can't be neutral on a moving train! -- Howard Zinn
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. -- George Carlin
WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITES LISTED HERE, YOUR REACTIONS TO ANY OF THEM, OR SOME YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE?
Comments
J.W. - I am sending you some of my favorite inspirational/motivational quotes. I keep a compilation of my favorites and like to reference them daily or whenever I feel the need for a quick pick-me-upper. In my previous job, one of my responsibilities was to submit a weekly calendar of upcoming events. As an extra bonus, I always added some type of quote at the bottom of the schedule. Each week my colleagues looked forward to the “quote of the week” as the calendar was distributed, and I received many positive comments. The first quote below is one of my favorites. I noticed you had a similar quote in your collected works, but were not sure of the author. Please feel free to add any of these to your collection or share with your friends or colleagues. I will also add some of yours to my growing list.
Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. – Frank Outlaw
While most are dreaming of success, winners wake-up and work hard to achieve it. – Author Unknown
Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are, for what you could become. – Author Unknown
What the mind can conceive and believe; it can achieve. – Author Unknown
There is no giant step that does it. It’s a lot of little steps. – Peter A. Cohen
Integrity comes when character is tested; keep true and never be ashamed of doing what is right. – Author Unknown
Courage is not the absence of fear, but the judgment that something else is more important than fear. – Ambrose Hollingworth Redmoon
There is no end to the amount of things you can accomplish. – Author Unknown
Winners must have two things: definite goals and a burning desire to achieve them. – Author Unknown
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. – W.J. Bryan
Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success. – Author Unknown
Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can fly. – Author Unknown
The road to success is always under construction. – Author Unknown
"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed."- Theodore Roosevelt
The only time you’ll find success before work is in the dictionary. – Mary B. Smith
Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. –Confucius
You will always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. – Author Unknown
Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. - Mark Twain
The higher the goals, the harder the climb - the sweeter the reward. – Author Unknown
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. –Aesop
We have become not a melting pot, but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams. – Jimmy Carter
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small compared to what lies within us."- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Posted by: lmm | January 10, 2008 12:39 PM
Not sure I'm as well-read as you JW, and I don't have time to check my sources, but, here goes!
A bad deal never goes away - Dennis Ryan
Always put yourself in the best position to win - Dennis Ryan
Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is being afraid and doing what must be done in spite of that. - Author Unknown
Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not - heard it in a country song, but, doubt that is it's orign.
The very act of observation changes that which is being observed - Hidenburg (sp?) principle
Your are entitiled to your own opinion but you are NOT entitiled to your own facts - Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission - Dr. Frank Trace, SU Marching Band Director
Patience may be a virture but it's those who complain a lot that get promoted - Fr. John MulCahy, MASH Character.
If you can't wow them with wisdom, baffle them with bullshit - Salesman's Proverb
Play this game with fear and arrogance - Kevin Costner in Bull Durham
Practice with fear, play with confidence - My own adaptation of the preceeding.
The name on the front of that jersey is a hell of a lot more important than the name on the back - Herb Brooks
There's a few, JW
Happy New Year!
Posted by: Card Buddy | January 10, 2008 4:00 PM
Thanks J.W., Quite a long list of quotes.
The art of citation, even in speeches, that gives credit to original thoughts and ideas, is one we should all help spread. I'll be adding you to my class guest speaker list for LIB105!
The more teachers and public figures model this, the better.
This one isn't my favorite, but it's certainly true in my life.." I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble." -- Helen Keller
Posted by: Holly Heller-Ross | January 10, 2008 8:46 PM
All of these quotes are significant to me in one way or another; especially after a certain someone has first “unpacked” (J.W.) them, then helped me “own” (J.W…will this ever end?) the quotes.
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible Summer.” – Albert Camus
No matter what trials I encounter, or have encountered, there is always a reason to rejoice. I could be in a worse position than what is available for my rationale at the time of misfortune. If I focus on this fact, I will smile and also remember that without the trials I would not truly appreciate bliss.
“No jailer is ever a free man, himself.” –J.A. Rogers
Every oppressor is in some way oppressed. It is because the oppressors feel oppressed that they project this onto others, therefore oppressing them. By oppressing someone else, the oppressed are overcompensating for their own feelings of inferiority.
“Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined.” –Albert Camus
My favorite! This quote speaks to me the most, painting perfectly a picture of how I feel on the daily. I learn more; essentially teaching me that I will never know all there is to know. All will not be readily accessible for me and my desire to find it only opens up another door leading to an eternity of uncertainty.
“She has never had a lover like me, one who puts a lot of thought into our sensuality, because I want her to revere me.” –Anonymous
To be revered! While pleasing another, we ultimately bring ourselves pleasure. Now if that isn’t “coming together” (alternate spelling if you deem necessary) then I’m dumbfounded.
One quote that I would like to share comes from an author of a book called The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors, named Frances Cress-Welsing.
“The slave’s fate is not to see nor reason why, but only to do or die.”
This quote makes me think of what I am allowing to enslave me in today’s society. By questioning my reality, I break chains that hold me down and choose whether or not I die by doing.
“Ha… ha… hooollaaaaaaaaaaaa! Did I just go high pitch?” (J.W.)
Posted by: via via | January 11, 2008 12:18 AM
OOPS,
Thought of a few more.
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It waste's time, and annoys the pig. - Dennis Ryan
Mind over matter - if you don't mind, it doesn't matter - Author Unknown.
Better to work to live than to live to work. - Author unknown
Posted by: Card Buddy | January 11, 2008 8:03 AM
JW,
Here are a couple of my favorites:
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years, how man would believe and adore. [Ralph Waldo Emerson]
Life has taught us that love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction. [Antoine de Saint-Exupery]
All people dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind,
Wake in the morning to find that it was vanity.
But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people,
For they dream their dreams with open eyes,
And make them come true.
- T.E. Lawrence
Posted by: whaler | January 11, 2008 9:27 AM
Hii JW~~ Happy New Year! Here are a few of my very favorite quotes and inspirations.
See you soon. CC
To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goeth
Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them. Albert Camus
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
Helen Keller
If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten. Author Unknown
There is no exercise better for the heart, than reaching down and lifting people up. Anonymous Author
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. Theodore Roosevelt
When the day has ended, dare to feel as you've done your best. Steve Maraboli
Posted by: CC | January 11, 2008 10:21 AM
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. -Kant
That which does not kill me, makes me stronger. -Nietzsche
We are all responsible. -JP Sartre (I believe)
And, I hope these don't all have to be awful deep quotes. One of my favorite quotes is:
You looked like you just saw a one armed serpent of doom pop out of the ground and eat a three legged puppy. -one of my roommates to me.
Posted by: Brennan | January 13, 2008 11:38 PM
Hey JW,
Here is my favorite quote, dreamer that I am:
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
- Henry David Thoreau
And some others:
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others. - Solomon Ibn Gabriol
A wise man learns by the mistakes of others,
a fool by his own. - Latin Proverb
After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box. - Italian Proverb
To live is like to love--all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it. - Samuel Butler
Posted by: PD | January 14, 2008 10:36 AM
I hope its not too late to post a few of my favorite quotes:
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
-Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
Those who do not move do not notice their chains.
- Rosa Luxemburg
There is a certain age when a woman must be beautiful to be loved, and then there comes a time when she must be loved to be beautiful.
-Francoise Sagan
Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
- Dorothy Parker
Once you wake up and smell the coffee, it's hard to go back to sleep.
- Fran Drescher
In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.
- Coco Chanel
I, who fall short in managing my own affairs, can see just how it would profit my neighbor if I managed his.
- Anne Ellis
The taste of chocolate is a sensual pleasure in itself, existing in the same world as sex....For myself, I can enjoy the wicked pleasure of chocolate....entirely, by myself. Furtiveness makes it better.
- Ruth Westheimer
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
- Dorothy Parker
It is not what you give your friend, but what you are willing to give him that determines the quality of friendship.
- Mary Dixon Thayer
Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out , just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.
- Dinah Craik
When you're in love you never really know whether your elation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or the meeting of your sparks.
- Natalie Clifford Barney
*** E, thanks for the quotes. Is it my imagination or did you only quote women? Are you trying to suggest that men don't have anything worthwhile to say? If that is the case, is my response to you an exercise in futility itself? *** --J.W.
Posted by: E:) | January 18, 2008 12:28 AM