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Quote by Amos Oz

“This war is being fought between fanatics convinced that their ends sanctify all means, and everyone else - all those who hold that life is an end and not a means. It is a struggle between people who believe that justice, whatever that term may mean to them, is more important than life, and those who maintain that life takes precedence over other values.”

Quote by Amos Oz

Book:שלום לקנאים
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שלום לקנאים

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Amos Oz
Amos Oz

Amos Oz, born on May 4, 1939, is a renowned Israeli writer. His works are known for their profound insights into human nature and unique narrative style. He has won numerous literary awards, including the Israel Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature. more

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“There are varying degrees of evil in the world. The distinction between levels of evil is perhaps the primary moral responsibility incumbent upon each of us. Every child knows that cruelty is bad and contemptible, while its opposite, compassion, is commendable. That is an easy and simple moral distinction. The more essential and far more difficult distinction is the one between different shades of gray, between degrees of evil. Aggressive environmental activists, for example, or the furious opponents of globalization, may sometimes emerge as violent fanatics. But the evil they cause is immeasurably smaller than that caused by a fanatic who commits a large-scale terrorist attack. Nor are the crimes of the terrorist fanatic comparable to those of fanatics who commit ethnic cleansing or genocide. Those who are unwilling or unable to rank evil may thereby become the servants of evil. Those who make no distinction between such disparate phenomena as apartheid, colonialism, ISIS, Zionism, political incorrectness, the gas chambers, sexism, the 1 percent's wealth, and air pollution serve evil with their very refusal to grade it.”

ExtremismFanaticsAuthoritarianismDogmatismPuritanismDear Zealots
Book:שלום לקנאים
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“One of the distinct hallmarks of the fanatic is his fervent desire to change you so that you will be like him. To convince you that you must immediately convert, abandon your world, and move into his. The fanatic does not want there to be any differences between people. He wants us all to be as one. He desires a world with no curtains drawn, no blinds shuttered, no doors locked, no shadow of a private life, for we must all be one body and one soul. We must all march together in threes on the path ascending to redemption, whether this redemption or the opposite one. The fanatic strives to upgrade and improve you, to open your eyes so that you, too, can see the light. Indeed, in that sense the fanatic is a wondrously altruistic and extremely unselfish creature: he is interested in you far more than he is in himself. Day and night he yearns to save your soul, to unshackle you, to take you out of darkness into the light, to redeem you once and for all from error and sin. Here he comes to hug you, sick with worry about your condition, bubbling with goodwill to change your prayer habits (or lack thereof), your voting or smoking habits, your eating habits, your preferences, your entire lifestyle, which is so harmful to you. All the fanatic wants is to take you in his arms and hug you, to raise you from the lowly spot you are stuck in and place you in the sublime place he has discovered, where he has since been basking and to which you must ascend immediately. For your very own good.”

EvangelismFanaticsAuthoritarianismSelf RighteousnessDogmatismDear ZealotsPreachiness
Book:שלום לקנאים
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“To be sure, I had, and have, spent the better part of my post-college life growing up in the public eye, with my shameful warts, big and ugly, looming there for the world to see; and it has been a mighty battle trying to be a man, a Black man, a human being, a responsible and consistent human being, as I have interfaced with my past and with my personal demons, with friends and lovers, with enemies and haters. As Tupac Shakur once famously said to me, “There is no placed called careful.” On the one hand, Tupac was right: There is not much room for error in America if you are a Black male in a society ostensibly bent on profiling your every move, eager to capitalize on your falling into this or that trap, particularly keen to swoop down on your self-inflicted mishaps. But by the same token, Tupac was wrong: There can be a place called careful, once one becomes aware of the world one lives in, its potential, its limitations, and if one is willing to struggle to create a new model, some new and alternative space outside and away from the larger universe, where one can be free enough to comprehend that even if the world seems aligned against you, you do not have to give the world the rope to hang you with.”

LoveGrowthPowerHatersKnowledge Of SelfBlack MenBlack ManTupacShakur
Book:Who's Gonna Take the Weight: Manhood, Race, and Power in America
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“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection. Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves. Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.”

LoveSelfShameBlameAffectionBetrayalVulnerabilityConnectionDisrespect
Book:The Gifts of Imperfection
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