Source: Noli Me Tángere
Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) Kenyan environmental and political activist
On her opposition to the construction of a skyscraper in Nairobi, Kenya, as quoted in the article Wangari Maathai:"You Strike The Woman ..." by Priscilla Sears in the quarterly In Context #28 (Spring 1991)
“People who think dying is the worst thing don't know a thing about life.”
Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees
Variant: Someone who thinks death is the scariest thing doesn't know a thing about life.
Source: The Secret Life of Bees (2002)
Lawrence Lessig book Free Culture
Free Culture (2004)
Context: A simple idea blinds us, and under the cover of darkness, much happens that most of us would reject if any of us looked. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in ideas that we don't even notice how monstrous it is to deny ideas to a people who are dying without them. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in culture that we don't even question when the control of that property removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture democratically. Blindness becomes our common sense. And the challenge for anyone who would reclaim the right to cultivate our culture is to find a way to make this common sense open its eyes.
So far, common sense sleeps. There is no revolt. Common sense does not yet see what there could be to revolt about.
George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American politician, 41st President of the United States
Statement to the students of East Los Angeles' Garfield High School (5 May 1988)
Victoria Sweet Physician
Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing (2017)
Walter Reuther (1907–1970) Labor union leader
Opening address of the twelfth constitutional convention of the UAW, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 10, 1949, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 41
1940s, Opening address of the twelfth constitutional convention of the UAW (1949)
“People don't need wings to survive"
"Mockingjays do.”
Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay
Source: Mockingjay
Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.
[Nelson, Willie; Bud Shrake; Edwin Shrake, 2000, Willie: An Autobiography, Cooper Square Press, 197]
“Don't condemn people who need it. Be very careful when that need becomes fanatical.”
Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer
"Conversations in Port Townsend", interview with Tim O'Reilly, 1983. Reprinted in The Maker of Dune: Insights of a Master of Science Fiction (1987), edited by Tim O'Reilly
General sources
Context: What I'm saying in my books boils down to this: Mine religion for what is good and avoid what is deleterious. Don't condemn people who need it. Be very careful when that need becomes fanatical.
