“You and I are learning to see our trait as a neutral thing—useful in some situations, not in others—but our culture definitely does not see it, or any trait as neutral. The anthropologist Margaret Mead explained it well. Although a culture’s newborns will show a broad range of inherited temperaments, only a narrow band of these, a certain type, will be the ideal. The ideal personality is embodied, in Mead's words, in 'every thread of the social fabric—in the care of the young child, the games the children play, the songs the people sing, the political organization, the religious observance, the art and the philosophy.' Other traits are ignored, discouraged, or if all else fails, ridiculed.
What is the ideal in our culture? Movies, advertisements, the design of public spaces, all tell us we should be as tough as the Terminator, as stoic as Clint Eastwood, as outgoing as Goldie Hawn. We should be pleasantly stimulated by bright lights, noise, a gang of cheerful fellows hanging out in a bar. If we are feeling overwhelmed and sensitive, we can always take a painkiller.”
Source: The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
“Think about the impact on you of not being ideal for your culture. It has to affect you—not only how others have treated you but also how you have come to treat yourself.”
Source: The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
“But now you know the specific cause of your difficulty with [certain tasks] and can explore ways around the overarousal they create. So there's really very little that you can't do if you find a way to do it in your own style.”
Source: The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
“The world needs to coax more such folks into public positions. But if they don't coax us, we had better volunteer now and then.”
Source: The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
“They say the gods never give us more than we can handle, but let's just say that the gods had an overinflated sense of my abilities.”
Source: Paladin's Faith
“They have chosen to worship power and strength, Cerisia,” Allystaire said, softening his voice somewhat. “I will pay them in the wages they deserve.”
Source: Crusade
“It was the worst moment of my life, to realize she was really gone, never to return.”
Tara does not know what it would be like to have lived with the same person, loved the same person, for so many years, and suddenly have them not be with you ever again.”
Source: Lost and Found
“My silence towards you is not out of respect. It’s just my way to avoid having another useless argument with you.”
Source: Life Simplified: Quote - Unquote
“Ale is the most civilized thing to a Dwarf, but to a Human it’s a reversal; a step back into a more primitive state.”
(HammerThorn)”
Source: The Knights of the Brotherhood
“Stephen woke up stiff and sore and his first thought was that he was a miserable bastard of a man who'd hurt a woman who deserved a whole lot better.
It wasn't until he'd gotten up and downed some tea that he realized his first thought on waking hadn't been about not getting out of bed forever.
'It seems that I am being dragged back into the feeling world whether I want to be or not. I only wish guilt had not been the hook to drag me with.”
Source: Paladin's Grace