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Speaking Out Quotes

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Speaking Out Quotes

“I told myself being a Perez meant more than being Cuban, that my responsibility to my family, to do what was expected, to be the woman my parents wanted me to be meant more than fighting for what I believed in, for speaking out against Batista's tyranny. And the whole time we were pretending our way of life was fine, the "paradise" we'd created was really a fragile deal with a mercurial devil, and the ground beneath us shifted and cracked, destroying the world as we knew it. Fidel has shown us the cost of our silence. The danger of waiting too long to speak, of another's voice being louder than ours because we were too busy living in the bubbles we'd created to realize the rest of Cuba had changed and left us behind.”

SilenceBeliefsSpeaking Out
Book:Next Year in Havana
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“Young children begin very early to internalize information that either encourages or discourages self-disclosure. Cues are intuitively understood. Most of what we feel is unexamined and articulated. Cultural norms are unwittingly absorbed. We learn when to speak and when to stay silent. - Pam MacRae (Ch. 2)”

ChildrenCultureGrowthSilenceChildhoodDevelopmentSpeaking OutInternalizingIntuitive Development
Book:Unseduced and Unshaken: The Place of Dignity in a Woman's Choices
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“Humanity wears the cloak of being rational and civilized. It is a sneering veneer developed, built and used to cope with the brutality of others’ agendas. But this is the cycle that destroys. It is a wheel that never stops turning once you get on it. To break this type of wheel—good intention, follow through and deep pauses are the tools of the crucibles in which we must testify against the norms created in this world. The first step is to speak up in the language or the voice that is your given right.”

TruthHumanityQuotesFreedomDiscernmentSpeaking OutSpeaking UpCoping MechanismsReena Doss
Author:Reena Doss
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“I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language." I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever. Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”

TruthSilenceFeminismRevolutionSpeaking Out
Author:Audre Lorde
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“You try to separate yourselves from history. You pretend its ugliness could never happen where you are. But it can...and it does, when normal people, en mass, allow worse and worse shit to go down because either they're too ignorant to understand or they're being corrupted by the powers that control the country. That's how this starts, that's how it gets too far. PLEASE see the signs. Please. This is human nature...to miss the boat out of fear or anger about others "taking what's ours" and so we allow (or cheer on) heinousness one step at a time until, before you know it, you're living in a nightmare of epic proportions and history sees you as the villain you became. DON'T BECOME A VILLAIN. BE THE VOICE THAT BREAKS THE INSANITY OPEN.”

HumanityPoliticsCompassionImmigrationSpeaking OutBreaking SilenceSocial Activism
Author:Jennifer DeLucy
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“To say nothing is saying something. You must denounce things you are against or one might believe that you support things you really do not.”

TruthTodayLife LessonsPurposeSpeakPowerfulSupportSocietyAdviceLife PhilosophyTransformationHuman RightsHumanismActivismTruth QuotesTruthfulTruth Of LifeHumanity And SocietyTransparentTransparencyBe The ChangeSociety QuotesCondemnationRevelationSpeakingPowerful WomenAdvocatingAdvocacyPurpose QuotesTruthsTruth TellingAction QuotesSpeaking OutAdvice For LifeGermany Kent QuotesSpeak UpGermany KentAdvice QuotesThe Hope GuruHope GuruSpeaking UpLife Philosophy InspirationalStand For SomethingActivistsSociety HumanityPowerful WordsBe The Change You Wish To SeeTranscendSociety ProblemPowerful QuotesAdvocateBe The Change QuotesSociety ThinkingToday Is The DayAdversaryCondemnPowerful PeopleSupportive QuotesAdversity And AttitudeTruth InspirationalSpeaking Your MindYouth OutreachHuman Rights ActivistsSupport QuotesActivism InspirationLife TruthsSociety ViewsSpeaking The TruthPowerful QuoteSpeaking Truth To PowerToday S SocietySpeaking TruthsSupportive ActionsDenouncePowerful ForcesToday Is LaterAdvocating For PeacePurposeful QuotesStand For Something PositiveAdvocate For CompassionStand For Something Right
Author:Germany Kent
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“I felt like I needed to comfort both the little girl inside me and my mother, assuring them that neither of them could have prevented the rape. I didn't want my mother to blame herself and I didn't want to blame the little girl inside of me for not speaking up at the age of six.”

AwarenessShameBlameGuiltParentingParentsSpeaking OutTriggerChild Abuse SurvivorRape SurvivorTrigger WarningChild MolestationErin Merryn
Book:Living for Today: From Incest and Molestation to Fearlessness and Forgiveness
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“We all have a sphere of influence. Each of us needs to find our own sources of courage so that we can begin to speak. There are many problems to address, and we cannot avoid them indefinitely. We cannot continue to be silent. We must begin to speak, knowing that words alone are insufficient. But I have seen that meaningful dialogue can lead to effective action. Change is possible.”

Black Lives MatterRace And Racism In AmericaSpeaking OutBlmAnti RacismAllyship
Book:Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
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“A Litany for Survival For those of us who live at the shoreline standing upon the constant edges of decision crucial and alone for those of us who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice who love in doorways coming and going in the hours between dawns looking inward and outward at once before and after seeking a now that can breed futures like bread in our children's mouths so their dreams will not reflect the death of ours: For those of us who were imprinted with fear like a faint line in the center of our foreheads learning to be afraid with our mother's milk for by this weapon this illusion of some safety to be found the heavy-footed hoped to silence us For all of us this instant and this triumph We were never meant to survive. And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish when we are alone we are afraid love will never return and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.”

LifePoetryFearSilenceSpeaking Out
Book:The Black Unicorn: Poems
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“Women have been using their ‘womanly wiles’ to influence male’s behavior for thousands of years. Why are they suddenly crying foul after they receive favor from those same men, some even decades before? They knew what they were doing from the start but had no problem accepting the benefits from those influential men. Why do women feel like they have the right to make outrageous claims of sexual harassment against men while destroying careers, businesses, and families with no repercussions?”

WomenBiographySpeaking OutMetoo MovementCry Foul
Author:Jane Whitaker
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“Call Stella 'Trash Can Girl' again and I'll beat the h--- out of you. In fact, call her or anyone else anything ever again and I'll do the same. I'm done saying nothing. I'm done letting you treat people like crap. Do you hear me?”

Life LessonsRelationshipsCourageYoung AdultDoing The Right ThingContemporary FictionSpeaking OutSpeaking UpAnti BullyingStanding Up For OthersTreat Others With KindnessStanding Up To People
Book:Red at Night
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“Our playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so others won't feel insecure around us! As we become liberated from our fears, we are free to experience life as it is meant to be! If we are to be free from oppression and control, we must take charge of our own lives and in our magnificence, stand up and speak our truth. In our doing, we let our light shine... (Stella: She was kicked out of the Religion because she objected to her 16 Year old daughter being given in marriage to a 39 yr old polygamist man.)”

FearOppressionPolygamySpeaking OutSpeak Your TruthSouthern Utah
Book:From Brainwash to Hogwash: Escaping and Exposing Polygamy
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“I have to think about that one for a minute. “Everybody’s pissed ’cause One-Fifteen hasn’t been charged,” I say, “but also because he’s not the first one to do something like this and get away with it. It’s been happening, and people will keep rioting until it changes. So I guess the system’s still giving hate, and everybody’s still getting fucked?” Daddy laughs and gives me dap. “My girl. Watch your mouth, but yeah, that’s about right. And we won’t stop getting fucked till it changes. That’s the key. It’s gotta change.” A lump forms in my throat as the truth hits me. Hard. “That’s why people are speaking out, huh? Because it won’t change if we don’t say something." "Exactly. We can't be silent." "So I can't be silent.”

HateSilenceRacismPoliceActivismAfrican AmericansBlacksPolice BrutalitySpeaking OutInstitutional Racism
Book:The Hate U Give
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