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Quote by Carmen Maria Machado

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Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

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Carmen Maria Machado

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“But this is something quite new!" said Mrs. Munt, who collected new ideas as a squirrel collects nuts, and was especially attracted by those that are portable. "New for me; sensible people have acknowledged it for years. You and I and the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands. It is so firm beneath our feet that we forget its very existence. It's only when we see someone near us tottering that we realize all that an independent income means. Last night, when we were talking up here round the fire, I began to think that the very soul of the world is economic, and that the lowest abyss is not the absence of love, but the absence of coin." "I call that rather cynical." "So do I. But Helen and I, we ought to remember, when we are tempted to criticize others, that we are standing on these islands, and that most of the others are down below the surface of the sea. The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly ever escape from those whom they love no longer. We rich can. Imagine the tragedy last June if Helen and Paul Wilcox had been poor people and could not invoke railways and motor-cars to part them." "That's more like Socialism," said Mrs. Munt suspiciously. "Call it what you like. I call it going through life with one's hand spread open on the table. I'm tired of these rich people who pretend to be poor, and think it shows a nice mind to ignore the piles of money that keep their feet above the waves. I stand each year upon six hundred pounds, and Helen upon the same, and Tibby will stand upon eight, and as fast as our pounds crumble away into the sea they are renewed—from the sea, yes, from the sea. And all our thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders, and all our speeches; and because we don't want to steal umbrellas ourselves, we forget that below the sea people do want to steal them, and do steal them sometimes, and that what's a joke up here is down there reality—”

IdeasMoneyClassInjusticePrivilegeIncomeInequalityHowards EndE M Forster
Book:Howards End
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“The guerilla fighter will be a sort of guiding angel who has fallen into the zone, helping the poor always and bothering the rich as little as possible in the first phases of the war. But this war will continue on its course; contradictions will continuously become sharper; the moment will arrive when many of those who regarded the revolution with a certain sympathy at the outset will place themselves in a position diametrically opposed; and they will take the first step into battle against the popular forces. At that moment the guerilla fighter should act to make himself into the standard bearer of the cause of the people, punishing every betrayal with justice.”

PoliticsJusticeLeaderClassMilitaryRevolutionWarfareTacticsGuerilla
Author:Che Guevara
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“Few ideas in all of human history have been more thoroughly misunderstood than the simple concept of evolution. Intellectuals in Victorian England, eager to use the science of their time to bolster a class system already cracking under the weight of its own injustice, invented the notion that some living things- and thus some people- are "more evolved" than others. That turn of phrase is still much used today, but in the real world, it is quite simple nonsense. Every living being is just as evolved as every other, because every living thing has been shaped by evolution over the exact same period of time since life first evolved”

ScienceClassEvolutionInjustice
Book:Mystery Teachings from the Living Earth: An Introduction to Spiritual Ecology
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“America's elites today, especially progressive ones, often don't realize how judgmental they are. They disdain tacky things, and, not coincidentally, those tacky things--fake tans, big hair, pro wrestling, chrome bull testicles hanging from the back of a big truck--are usually associated with lower-income Americans.”

ClassJudgmental People
Book:Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations
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“But to them, I knew, I was a go-between, they thought of me in terms of another person. When Lord Trimingham wanted Marian, when Marian wanted Ted, they turned to me. The confidences Marian had made me had been forced out of her. With Ted it was different. He felt he owed me something - me, Leo: the tribute of one nature to another. I did not like to think of him giving up the things he cared for and sleeping on the ground. I could not believe it was softer than the beds at Brandham; besides, he might be killed. There was a lot of him to be killed, and what there was he carried about with him, it was not spread out over houses and parklands.”

LoveGriefClassChildhoodInnocenceInnocence Lost
Book:The go-between
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