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On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978

Book by Adrienne Rich · 17 quotes · Language, Humans, Males

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On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978 Quotes

“How shall we ever make the world intelligent of our movement? I do not think that the answer lies in trying to render feminism easy, popular, and instantly gratifying. To conjure with the passive culture and adapt to its rules is to degrade and deny the fullness of our meaning and intention.”

ThinkingWorldTryingLyingCultureEasyAnswersFeminismMovementIntelligentIntentionDenyPassiveFullnessDegrade
Book:On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978
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“The necessity of poetry has to be stated over and over, but only to those who have reason to fear its power, or those who still believe that language is 'only words' and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform.”

WorldTryingBelieveStillsReasonEnoughPoetryLanguagePoetDescriptionGood EnoughSocial Change
Book:On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978
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“Sexist grammar burns into the brains of little girls and young women a message that the male is the norm, the standard, the central figure beside which we are all deviants, the marginal, the dependent variables. It lays the foundation for androcentric thinking, and leaves men safe in their solipsistic tunnel-vision.”

ThinkingMenLittlesYoungGirlBrainVisionFiguresSafeMessagesStandardsFoundationLaysMalesDependentYoung WomenNormGrammarTunnelsVariablesSexistDeviantsTunnel Vision
Book:On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978
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“Each feminist work has tended to be received as if it emerged from nowhere; as if each one of us had lived, thought, and worked without any historical past or contextual present. This is one of the ways in which women's work and thinking has been made to seem sporadic, errant, orphaned of any tradition of its own.”

IfsThinkingWayHas BeensMadeSeemsPastJusticeDiversityTraditionSocial JusticeHistoricalFeministSporadic
Book:On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978
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“I am a feminist because I feel endangered, psychically and physically, by this society and because I believe that the women's movement is saying that we have come to an edge of history when men - insofar as they are embodiments of the patriarchal idea - have become dangerous to children and other living things, themselves included”

MenFeelsBelieveChildrenIdeasI BelieveDangerousMovementEdgesFeministAssBad AssLiving ThingsEmbodimentThis Society
Book:On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978
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“The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.”

EndsUsePoliticsDoorsRevolutionKeysReturnLimitsMalesToleranceWheelsRebelliousLiberatedRelicsRevolvingRevolving DoorsLiberated Woman
Book:On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978
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“Much male fear of feminism is the fear that, in becoming whole human beings, women will cease to mother men, to provide the breast, the lullaby, the continuous attention associated by the infant with the mother. Much male fear of feminism is infantilism–the longing to remain the mother’s son, to possess a woman who exists purely for him.”

MenHumansWholeMotherHuman BeingsAttentionFeminismSonBecomingLongingMalesCeaseBreastsInfantBeing A WomanLullabyBecoming Whole
Book:On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978
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“An honorable human relationship- that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love"- is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.”

PeopleWayLoveHumansPersonsTwoImportantSelfHardUseProcessJusticeLove IsBreakInvolvedViolentComplexityIsolationDelusionDelicateHonorableBreaking DownHuman RelationsHuman RelationshipsHard WayRefiningSelf DelusionWords Love
Book:On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978
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