All Quotes

"There is a key trait in people who do polyamory well, and it's this: They are good at regulating their strong emotions. By that I mean, when something emotionally intense is happening to you, either good or bad, you're able to see it as part of a larger whole and keep it in perspective."

"In my experience and observation, the following factors most positively influence the odds for [poly relationship] success: 1. General attitude of goodwill and a generosity of spirit 2. Willingness to be honest, especially when the news is likely to hurt 3. Independent spirit 4. Strong personal desire for a poly life 5. Reasonably good emotional intelligence and self-esteem 6. Reading poly literature and discussing it with partners"

"Repeatedly, research on CNM shows that couples with differing sexual interests report being better off when they have multiple sexual partners. “In a relationship often there is a discrepancy between both partners’ interests,” says Muise. “However, people with multiple partnerships might be more fulfilled overall. If you have the interest in being sexual with other people it can be healthy to explore that.”"

"“For the people who wanted to open their relationship and who did end up doing it, their satisfaction was significantly higher,” says Samantha Joel, assistant professor of social psychology at Western University in London, Canada. “Meanwhile, for the people who thought about it but didn't, their satisfaction dipped, but barely significantly.” Joel suggests that the uplift in satisfaction among people who switched to CNM might have been the result of a dragging effect. A better quality of sex life with a secondary partner drags up satisfaction with the primary partner, because suddenly the pressure of one person having to provide all of their enjoyment is removed. “We know that when people are happier with their sex life they communicate better anyway,” says Joel. “But people in CNM report having open communication – it is difficult to be CNM if you are not talking about boundaries. Whereas in monogamous couples, those discussions about boundaries often don’t happen.”"

"What the psychological profiles of CNM people might suggest is that they have emotional needs that cannot be satisfied by one person. “People in poly relationships might have higher needs in general,” says Balzarini. “We find monogamous people are on an even keel in terms of their needs for nurturance and eroticism. But poly people have high highs and low lows. They might be people who need both things simultaneously and it is hard to experience those things with only one partner. A primary partner who is nurturing is unlikely to also be exciting in an erotic way.” That said, there is very little in the way of a profile that you can build about CNM people, according to Moors. She says that there is no correlation between age, income, location, education, race, ethnicity, religion or political affiliation and CNM in her research. People who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual are more likely to be CNM, but that is the only pattern. For something that seems to span all walks of life, there is still a relentless stigma associated with non-monogamous lifestyles. Moors gives the example of how normal it is to think of platonic or familial love as endless, yet for some reason we consider romantic love finite. “We already know how to have close loving relationships with multiple people,” she says. “But we are expected to believe that romantic love is limited? How many best mates do you have? Oh, that’s disgusting you have one too many? That would be a ridiculous thing to say.” We ask a lot from our partners. We expect them to be our life coach, best friend, confidant. “We don’t need all of those things from one person,” says Moors. Perhaps we would be better off by spreading our needs between more than one person."

"No act of possession can be exercised on a free being; it is an unjust to own a wife monogamously as it is to own slaves. All men are born free, all are equal before the law; we must never lose sight of these principles. Hence, no sex is granted the legitimate right to seize the other sex exclusively, and never can any sex or any class possess the other arbitrarily."

"The omnipresent process of sex, as it is woven into the whole texture of our man's or woman's body, is the pattern of all the process of our life."

"'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it."

"Every artist writes his own autobiography."

"If men and women are to understand each other, to enter into each other's nature with mutual sympathy, and to become capable of genuine comradeship, the foundation must be laid in youth."

""Charm"—which means the power to effect work without employing brute force—is indispensable to women. Charm is a woman's strength just as strength is a man's charm."

"There has never been any country at every moment so virtuous and so wise that it has not sometimes needed to be saved from itself."

"Had there been a lunatic asylum in the suburbs of Jerusalem, Jesus Christ would infallibly have been shut up in it at the outset of his public career. That interview with Satan on the pinnacle of the Temple would alone have damned him, and everything that happened after could but have confirmed the diagnosis."

"The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence, from Jerusalem, of a lunatic asylum."

"The text of the Bible is but a feeble symbol of the Revelation held in the text of Men and Women."

"It is curious how there seems to be an instinctive disgust in Man for his nearest ancestors and relations. If only Darwin could conscientiously have traced man back to the Elephant or the Lion or the Antelope, how much ridicule and prejudice would have been spared to the doctrine of Evolution."

"The family only represents one aspect, however important an aspect, of a human being's functions and activities...A life is beautiful and ideal, or the reverse, only when we have taken into our consideration the social as well as the family relationship."

"One can know nothing of giving aught that is worthy to give unless one also knows how to take."

"The byproduct is sometimes more valuable than the product."

"All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution."

"The greatest task before civilization at present is to make machines what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men."

"The art of dancing stands at the source of all the arts that express themselves first in the human person. The art of building, or architecture, is the beginning of all the arts that lie outside the person; and in the end they unite."

"Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself."

"The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum."

"Thinking in its lower grades is comparable to paper money, and in its higher forms it is a kind of poetry."

"In philosophy, it is not the attainment of the goal that matters, it is the things that are met with by the way."

"The mathematician has reached the highest rung on the ladder of human thought."

"A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest."

"The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness."

"What we call "morals" is simply blind obedience to words of command."

"The sun and the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago...had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands."

"1919...Henri Bergson, Karl Barth, Ernst Cassirer, Havelock Ellis, Karl Jaspers, John Maynard Keynes, Rudolf Steiner—indelible figures—were all active in their various spheres."

"It has not been in vain: the good, the enlightened of all ages and nations have found pleasure and consolation in the beauty of the rural earth. Prophets of old retired into the solitudes of nature to wait the inspiration of heaven. It was upon Mount Horeb that Elijah experienced the mighty wind, the earthquake, and the fire; and, heard the small still voice. That voice is yet heard among the mountains!"

"I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now."

"I was born wise. Street-wise, people-wise, self-wise. This wisdom was my birthright. I was also born old. And illegitimate. But the two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty."

"I was not intrigued with the accouterments of success and fame, the furs, jewels, expensive automobiles and mansions... I can assure you that these things were not on my mind when I sat spellbound in that Pozzuoli movie house. It was what these performers on the screen were doing, not what they received for doing it."

"I was blessed with a sense of my own destiny. I have never sold myself short. I have never judged myself by other people’s standards. I have always expected a great deal of myself, and if I fail, I fail myself. So failure or reversal does not bring out resentment in me because I cannot blame others for any misfortune that befalls me."

"My philosophy is that it's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe and not to explore at all."

"A woman's dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view."

"Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical."

"Sex appeal is fifty percent what you've got and fifty percent what people think you've got."

"Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful."

"There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will have truly defeated age."

"Being beautiful can never hurt, but you have to have more. You have to sparkle, you have to be fun, you have to make your brain work if you have one. Being a Hollywood beauty was a mixed blessing. Men are men, with all that testosterone, and when a pretty girl comes in front of them what can you expect? The fact that I became one is probably the loveliest, most glamorous and fortunate misunderstanding."

"After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life."

"My mother’s feelings were all closed off inside herself…I was allowed to be a part of it, never in a good way, never like mother and daughter."

"I wanted to be able to walk into the kind of places my father walked into. I wanted to understand what it was like to live like he did. I wanted reasons. I wanted answers…But I got nowhere."

"Not at first. She was against new things. She thought I would never be successful, and that was wrong, she was wrong. Later she started to believe that I could maybe be somebody. But it was always a big maybe. To her, the life that I wanted, it was all a dream. And she didn’t believe in dreams."

"Naples is so strong, so vital. It’s about music and dance. Books and books of history. Read all the books first and then we can talk."

"Yes, well, maybe sometimes. But then I say to myself: ‘Shut up. Be strong. Just keep going and try. Sometimes you make mistakes and sometimes you win.’ I made some mistakes,”…But still I won."