Lgbt People

"Dal sonno alla morte è un picciol varco."

"Chè 'n parte troppo cupa, e troppo interna Il pensier de' mortali occulto giace."

"Chè nel mondo mutabile e leggiero, Costanza è spesso il variar pensiero."

"Chi la pace non vuol, la guerra s' abbia."

"Ei che modesto è sì, com'essa è bella, Brama assai, poco spera, e nulla chiede."

"Canto l'arme pietose e 'l capitano che 'l gran sepolcro liberò di Cristo."

"Perduto è tutto il tempo Che in amar non si spende."

"Vaghe Ninfe del Po, Ninfe sorelle, E voi de' boschi e voi d'onda marina E voi de' fonti e de l'alpestri cime."

"Because psychoanalysis emerged as a medical specialty concerned with the healing of the sick, it focused its attention on the pathological processes arising from the disruption of the adaptive capacities, and this subject matter was taken to be the totality of significant information concerning the structure of the personality. The diagnosis and treatment of mental illness is, however, a poor basis for the empiricism which a basic science requires. Mental illness, when it is seen in terms of the symptoms and syndromes which come to the attention of the psychotherapist, presents a picture of the personality which is readily fragmented and distorted out of proportion."

"The science of human nature belongs to people who are not afraid to live independent lives. They alone have the flexible access to experience which can bring human wisdom and strength into being, and once these assets exist, they will send forth their influence with an authority that cannot be resisted, unmindful of artificial man made boundaries, reaching anywhere in the world."

"Man is the animal with a soul who thinks and builds; his penetrating insights into the laws of nature are there for any child to learn, and his impressive mastery of the materials of the earth stands ready to be imitated by anyone, but the home he has built for his own kind is still a lonely and impoverished place for many people. There is nothing about that loneliness that wisdom cannot change; there is nothing in that poverty that strength cannot overcome. Separated from each other, the thinker is a stranger in his own house, and the builder is a beggar at his own door. Together, they can bring the warmth of love and the helpfulness of power into the daily market place of living, taking a human position that is eternal and without compromise. In the midst of the obvious and the commonplace, and only in this birthplace of human contentment and happiness, the thinker and builder can leave the monastic cell and relinquish barracks mobility to claim the world in the name of human beings. When they do so, man can expect a human harvest equal to his dreams, and measured to the nobility of his posture."

"The Garden of Eden in which Adam and Eve dwelt was only an illusion. Before men accumulated sexual shame and celebrative guilt they lacked that character differentiation out of which the human soul takes its being. Their world was a garden only in the sense that the jungle is a garden to its animal inhabitants. Man means something different when he speaks of a garden, or an El Dorado, or a paradise for the human spirit. Man means a world of eternal springtime in the human heart, where faith never fails and hope never falters, where men always understand more today than they did yesterday, and establish an always broadening responsibility in the world. He means a world of lasting contentment, where the contentment of today passes that of yesterday, and a world of complete happiness where today's happiness is bigger than that of the day before. He means a world of love which fears nothing that the human eye can see, and a world of power which cannot be touched by rage in the performance of any act. When he sees these things he is not dreaming, and when he reaches for them he is not play acting. He is only sounding the battle horn and raising the banner by which he lays claim to ownership of the world, acting in his own name."

"Man lives in a paradoxical world where his human development is hamstrung by the fact that the only kind of free scientific inquiry he does not allow himself is the pursuit of human truth, and the only kind of audacity in engineering enterprise which is alien to his nature is the undertaking of moral intervention in the lives of others."

"The hostility of society toward homosexuality is only a special case of its general hostility toward the adolescent spirit. In order to undermine the creative efforts of individuals to shape their lives by their own standards of human understanding and morality, society identifies their deviancy in terms of its inadequacies and failures, thereby undermining their access to basic social acceptance in adaptive areas."

"Life is each human being's workshop. If a man survives a lifetime with his creative capacities intact, he has done his part to make a better world for all men."

"As long as psychotherapy concerns itself with the relief of psychic distress, avoiding the larger questions which arise from involvement with the creative process, it can perform its medical healing function without doing major violence to the social assets which creativity supplies."

"In psychotherapy, the impact of love feelings, technically called the transference, is held under some degree of control by the artificial device of interpreting the patient's feelings while establishing barriers to the psychological exposure of the therapist. The therapist is supposed to come to the relationship fully endowed with a stable set of established insights which will be adequate in a practical sense to any application which the patient's needs will require. The patient, on the other hand, is supposed to limit his interaction with the therapist to the areas where he is aware of psychic pain or where the therapist accepts communication in the name of therapeutic technique. If everything else is carefully excluded, neither participant will be called on to deal with areas of the unknown in themselves which would require creative personal investment."

"Ain’t nothing an old man can do for me but bring me a message from a young one."

"The tap dancers and the be-bop musicians influenced the pitch and pace of my work. And along with the Chitlin' Circuit women, including women like Jackie "Moms" Mabley, they made me very curious about the national and international black community. You see, these were women who traveled a lot, and they would bring back information from all over the country and all over the world."

"They say you shouldn't say nothin' about the dead unless it's good. He's dead. Good!"

"They loved him, I think, because, with all his merits, he showed them to be rich: looking at his portraits, they understood at last how rich they really were."

"The only difference between an artist and a lunatic is, perhaps, that the artist has the restraint or courtesy…to conceal the intensity of his obsession from all except those similarly afflicted."

"The artist, like the idiot or clown, sits on the edge of the world, and a push may send him over it."

"Hell has a climate, but no situation. It lies in the spirit, and not in space."

"The Rich Man's Banquet, which was to last for a decade, had now begun: the feast, it was recognised, went to the greediest."

"Everywhere men have unlocked the prisoners within, and from under the disguising skins the apes have leapt joyfully out."

"How simple-minded of the Germans to imagine that we British could be cowed by the destruction of our ancient monuments! As though any havoc of the German bombs could possibly equal the things we have done ourselves!"

"Educ[ated]: during the holidays from Eton."

"For Poetry is the wisdom of the blood, That scarlet tree within, which has the power To make dull words bud forth and burst in flower."

"Heroic figures are now obsolete, So Demigod and Devil find retreat In minds of children — as rare beasts and men, Elsewhere extinct, persist in hill or fen From man protected — where each form assumes Gigantic stature and intention, looms From wind-moved, twilight-woven histories: For them each flower teems with mysteries."

"Our General Had to restore "Law-and-Order" At Amritsar; For he knew That if he failed To shoot Two thousand natives They would have laughed at him. To laugh at a General, Is, of course, very rude."

"The Daily Herald is unkind. It has been horrid About my nice new war. I shall burn the Daily Herald."

"The British bourgeoisie Is not born And does not die, But, if it is ill, It has a frightened look in its eyes."

"Many Muslim women will not consider themselves as inferior but wear a veil because they feel as dignified human beings. Because they want to protect themselves against staring and judging by men. If women are so dignified, why is it the burden of women to cover up, in order to protect themselves from the stares of men? Why can't be accepted from men to control their own instincts or animal behaviour? This is a question that I have never heard a satisfactory answer from a Muslim women.-->"

"The Koran says nothing about the proper form of government. If the Koran is a document approved by God, either in whole or in part, that silence is deliberate, and if that silence is deliberate that must mean that we have room to manoeuvre, to innovate and to experiment with the different forms of government. So in theory Islam is compatible with the separation of religion and state."

"Two other women, authors Irshad Manji (The Trouble with Islam Today) and Asra Nomani (Standing Alone in Mecca), have thrown a more robust challenge to the Islamic establishment, but instead of being debated on the merits of their case, the two were unfairly dismissed as attention-seeking apologists for the West."

"Our global responsibility now is not to determine who owns what identity, but to convey to future generations what we all owe each other."

"I've read the scholarship that explains these verses 'in their context', and I think there's a fancy dance of evasion going on."

"Islam was not always so close minded. During the 'Golden age' – between the 9th and 11th century – there existed a tradition of critical thinking in the Muslim world.<!--"

"Most Muslims treat the Quran as a document to imitate rather than interpret, suffocating our capacity to think for ourselves."

"It is time for those who love liberal democracy to join hands with Islam's reformists. Here is a clue to who's who: Moderate Muslims denounce violence committed in the name of Islam but insist that religion has nothing to do with it; reformist Muslims, by contrast, not only deplore Islamist violence but admit that our religion is used to incite it."

"In Islam's golden age, so much progress was made that it became the basis of the European Renaissance. We Muslims have to change ourselves, that's the main difference. We can't keep blaming America or Israel for our misery."

"The Koran says that everything God created is 'excellent' and that nothing that God has created is 'in vain'. If the creator did not wish to create me, a lesbian, then why didn't he create somebody else in my place? And given how explicit the Koran is that God has deliberately designed the world's breathtaking multiplicity, I wonder how my critics can justify their utter condemnation of homosexuality. You know what? I'm not seeking their approval. I don't care if they accept me as a lesbian. I don't care because they are not the arbiters of my life."

"I'd like to dedicate this award to all the women before me that never had the chances that I've had, the survivors, the pioneers and the outcasts. My blood, my tradition. And I'd like to thank all the people in this industry who've respected my choices and have not been afraid of the power and dignity that that entitled me to."

"This is such a big deal, and my life is so simple. There are very few things — there's love, and work, and family. And I'd like to thank all my families, all the tribes that I come from and, most importantly, my mother Brandy who taught me that all my finger paintings were Picasso's and that I didn't have to be afraid. And, mostly, that cruelty might be very human, and it might be very cultural, but it's not acceptable."

"Attacking the rich is not envy. It is self defense. The hoarding of wealth is the cause of poverty. The rich aren’t just indifferent to poverty; they create it and maintain it."

"I cannot believe in God when there is no scientific evidence for the existence of a supreme being and creator."

"Normal is not something to aspire to, it is something to get away from."

"You just threw cheese at Sam & Mark. Don't you think they've suffered enough?!"

"On December 22, 1986, finding I was body positive, I set myself a target: I would disclose my secret and survive Margaret Thatcher. I did. Now I have set my sights on the millennium and a world where we are all equal."