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Quote by Sarah C. Williams

“During the nine months I carried Cerian, God came close to me again unexpectedly, wild and beautiful, good and gracious. I touched his presence as I carried Cerian and as a result I realized that underneath all my other longings lay an aching desire for God himself and for his love. Cerian shamed my strength, and in her weakness and vulnerability, she showed me a way of intimacy. The beauty and completeness of her personhood nullified the value system to which I had subscribed for so long.”

Quote by Sarah C. Williams

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Perfectly Human: Nine Months with Cerian

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Sarah C. Williams

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“Poor kids, through no fault of their own, are less prepared by their families, their schools, and their communities to develop their God-given talents as fully as rich kids. For economic productivity and growth, our country needs as much talent as we can find, and we certainly can’t afford to waste it. The opportunity gap imposes on all of us both real costs and what economists term “opportunity costs.”

“Lors du recensement de 1931, il avait été estimé que les outcasts, tribes et autresdepressed classes, comme on appelait alors les intouchables et autres catégories discriminées dans la langue administrative britannique, et qui deviendront par la suite les scheduled castes et les scheduled tribes, regroupaient quelque 50 millions de personnes, soit environ 21 % des 239 millions d’hindous. À la fin des années 1920, des mouvements indépendantistes avaient lancé dans plusieurs provinces des opérations de boycott du recensement, qui recommandaient de ne pas indiquer de jati ni de varna aux agents recenseurs. Petit à petit, on passa d’un système où les recensements visaient à identifier les élites et les hautes castes, parfois pour leur garantir explicitement des droits et des privilèges, à la fin du XIXe siècle et au début du XXe siècle, à une logique visant au contraire à identifier les plus basses castes, dans le but de corriger les discriminations passées. En 1935, alors que des systèmes d’accès préférentiel à certains emplois publics étaient expérimentés par le gouvernement colonial pour les scheduled castes, on constata que certaines jatis qui s’étaient mobilisées dans les années 1890 pour être reconnues comme kshatriya et obtenir l’accès à certains temples et lieux publics, se mobilisaient à présent pour être considérées comme faisant partie des plus basses castes. Cela démontre de nouveau la plasticité des identités individuelles et leur adaptabilité aux incitations contradictoires créées par le pouvoir colonial.”

“That’s the devil of things as they are now. As soon as any member of the working class shows ability as a leader, if he’s too rebellious to be collared as a foreman by the boss, the men make him an official and he steps right out of their class. Take Joan there. Now think what a power she would have been if she could have been kept in that shop where she used to work. Of course she would have got the sack and had to get another, but she’d have gone on fighting. What happens? She’s pretty (don’t blush, Joan), she’s clever, she is made an official. Then come along the Mary Mauds and the Anthony Dacres” (“and the Gerald Blains,” put in Dacre). “Quite. She is now a member of the middle class. Then she’ll get into Parliament and be quite a lady.”

“It seems that we are caught in a big, self-perpetuating celebrity-fueled cycle that goes something like this: declining social mobility and diminishing life options lead to increasing dreams of celebrity fame and fortune. This, in turn, enhances the power and allure of celebrity, which cause a focus (perhaps with an ever-increasing narcissistic resolve) on extrinsic aspirations that leads to less happiness and distracts us (and society more generally) from actions that may enhance social mobility, such as education and advocacy for social change.”