Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 40
Context: The book of Genesis is a male declaration of independence from the ancient mother-cults. Its challenge to nature, so sexist to modern ears, marks one of the crucial moments in western history. Mind can never be free of matter. Only by mind imagining itself free can culture advance. The mother-cults, by reconciling man to nature, entrapped him in matter. Everything great in western civilization has come from struggling against our origins. Genesis is rigid and unjust, but it gave man hope as a man. It remade the world by male dynasty, canceling the power of mothers.
“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”
[…] it's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.
Part I, Ch. 1
Green Hills of Africa (1935)
Parliament of Whores (1991)
Letter to the Maine Whig Committee (1856). Six years earlier, Choate gave a lecture in Providence which was reviewed by Franklin J. Dickman in the Journal of December 14, 1849. Unless Choate used the words "glittering generalities", and Dickman made reference to them, it would seem as if Dickman must have the credit of originating the catchword. Dickman wrote: "We fear that the glittering generalities of the speaker have left an impression more delightful than permanent". Reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 8
“From voice to voice, from one to other ear,
The loud proclaim they through the town declare.”
Di voce in voce e d'una in altra orecchia
Il grido e 'l bando per la terra scorse.
Canto XXIII, stanza 48 (tr. W. S. Rose)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
As quoted in Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (1979) by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow
Context: Much of what is written on the craft is biased in one way or another, so weed out what is useful to you and ignore the rest. I see the next few years as being crucial in the transformation of our culture away from the patriarchal death cults and toward the love of life, of nature, of the female principle. The craft is only one path among the many opening up for women, and many of us will blaze new trails as we explore the uncharted country of our own interiors. The heritage, the culture, the knowledge of the ancient priestesses, healers, poets, singers, and seers were nearly lost, but a seed survived the flames that will blossom in a new age into thousands of flowers. The long sleep of Mother Goddess is ended. May She awaken in each of our hearts — Merry meet, merry part, and blessed be.
Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha Session, Indore – September, 7-8, 1968
Quotes from ataljee.org
