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T Quotes

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All T Quotes

“This idea of purity, and you’re never compromised, and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly. The world is messy; there are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting, may love their kids and, you know, share certain things with you. There is this sense sometimes of: ‘The way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough.’ …That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That is easy to do. --Speech at the Obama Foundation Summit, October 2019.”

“This idea that children won't learn without outside rewards and penalties, or in the debased jargon of the behaviorists, "positive and negative reinforcements," usually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we treat children long enough as if that were true, they will come to believe it is true. So many people have said to me, "If we didn't make children do things, they wouldn't do anything." Even worse, they say, "If I weren't made to do things, I wouldn't do anything." It is the creed of a slave.”

“This idea—that what parents need or want will play a role in choices—can be hard to admit. In a sense, I think this is at the core of a lot of the “Mommy War” conflicts. We all want to be good parents. We want our choices to be the right ones. So, after we make the choices, there is a temptation to decide they are the perfect ones. Psychology has a name for this: avoiding cognitive dissonance. If I choose not to breastfeed, I don’t want to acknowledge that there are even small possible benefits to breastfeeding. So I encamp myself in the position that breastfeeding is a waste of time. On the other side, if I spend two years taking my boobs out every three hours, I need to believe that this is what it takes to deliver a life of continued successes to my child. This is a deeply human temptation, but it is also really counterproductive. Your choices can be right for you but also not necessarily the best choices for other people. Why? You are not other people. Your circumstances differ. Your preferences differ. In the language of economics, your constraints differ.”

“This idea that you’re undeserving, a fraud—that you’re not as smart or talented or “together” as people might think makes you an “imposter” and therefore unqualified in whatever it is you want to do and someday you’re going to be found out. By whom? The imposter police? You’re not an imposter, you’re a human being.”

“This idealization of motherhood is essentially a means of keeping women from developing a sexual consciousness and from breaking through the barriers of sexual repression, of keeping alive their sexual anxieties and guilt feelings. The very existence of woman as a sexual being would threaten authoritarian ideology; her recognition and social affirmation would mean its collapse.”

“This illusion is reality, and we shall acknowledge it as such. The interdependence of secondary and primary qualities, the dependence of our senses on the world, and the formation of our impressions are all realities. But, if reality is not reality, as we see it or understand it, this does not mean it is not a reality. Without these “illusions,” there would be no meaningful reality. Reality as it is, in its ultimate and absolute state, without transformations, is equal to nothing.”

“This imaginary gift is a journey for your imagination. I send you... A luxury train ride. On this train are all the inspiring people you've ever wanted to meet or talk to. You glide from car to car, sitting or lying down on velvet lounge chairs, listening and asking questions. There is also a voluminous library on the train, with every book you've ever wanted to read or look at. Kind people bring you delicious tidbits to eat and nourishing liquids to drink. If you take a nap, time stands still until you return so you never miss anything. You receive a large journal filled with photographs, drawings and descriptions of your journey to take with you when you leave. You realize that you can board this train at any time.”

“This imagined beyond, which the scientist has proved he cannot penetrate, will become the playground of the imagination of eery mystic and dreamer. The existence of such a domain will be made the basis of an orgy of rationalizing. It will be made the substance of the soul; the spirits of the dead will populate it; God will lurk in its shadows; the principle of vital processes will have its seat here; and it will be the medium of telepathic communication.”

“This immediate dependence of language upon nature, this conversion of an outward phenomenon into a type of somewhat in human life,never loses its power to affect us. It is this which gives that piquancy to the conversation of a strong-natured farmer or backwoodsman, which all men relish.”

“This immediately reminds me of a thought I had about you months ago, during that miserably frenzied period when I thought you weren’t coming back: sat on the subway and musing over all the various adaptations of you that existed in other people’s anecdotes…a great composite of identities, none of them ever entirely capturing the whole. I’d wondered what they would have talked about if they’d sat down together – all those versions of you – whether they would have recognized each other if they’d met in the street.”