“Identity is only productive when one doesn't think about it. There's nothing more sterile for a person or a country than to be never-endingly affirming itself, because one always affirms oneself by denying the other.”

—  Nuria Amat

Queen Cocaine (2005)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Jan. 26, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Identity is only productive when one doesn't think about it. There's nothing more sterile for a person or a country tha…" by Nuria Amat?

Related quotes

Albert Schweitzer photo

“Affirmation of the world, which means affirmation of the will-to-live that manifests itself around me, is only possible if I devote myself to other life.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics
Context: Affirmation of the world, which means affirmation of the will-to-live that manifests itself around me, is only possible if I devote myself to other life. From an inner necessity, I exert myself in producing values and practising ethics in the world and on the world even though I do not understand the meaning of the world. For in world- and life-affirmation and in ethics I carry out the will of the universal will-to-live which reveals itself in me. I live my life in God, in the mysterious divine personality which I do not know as such in the world, but only experience as mysterious Will within myself.
Rational thinking which is free from assumptions ends therefore in mysticism. To relate oneself in the spirit of reverence for life to the multiform manifestations of the will-to-live which together constitute the world is ethical mysticism. All profound world-view is mysticism, the essence of which is just this: that out of my unsophisticated and naïve existence in the world there comes, as a result of thought about self and the world, spiritual self-devotion to the mysterious infinite Will which is continuously manifested in the universe.

Paulo Freire photo
Anthony de Mello photo

“The atheist makes the mistake of denying that of which nothing may be said… and the theist makes the mistake of affirming it.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 21
Context: "Tell me," said the atheist, "Is there a God — really?"
Said the master, "If you want me to be perfectly honest with you, I will not answer."
Later the disciples demanded to know why he had not answered.
"Because the question is unanswerable," said the Master.
"So you are an atheist?"
"Certainly not. The atheist makes the mistake of denying that of which nothing may be said... and the theist makes the mistake of affirming it.

“Because free countries have affirmed many years ago that a compulsory church rate is immoral and oppressive, for the sake of the burden laid upon individual consciences; and in affirming this truth they have unconsciously affirmed the wider truth, that every tax or rate, forcibly taken from an unwilling person, is immoral and oppressive.”

Auberon Herbert (1838–1906) British politician

The human conscience knows no distinction between church rates and other compulsory rates and taxes. The sin lies in the disregarding of each other's convictions, and is not affected by the subject matter of the tax.
The Principles of Voluntaryism and Free Life

Meher Baba photo

“To attain union is so impossibly difficult because it is impossible to become what you already are! Union is nothing other than knowledge of oneself as the Only One.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

"The Lover and the Beloved", p. 1.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

“There is nothing more profoundly serious than real comedy, which is an affirmation of human communion, redemption and grace.”

Michael Malone (1942) American screenwriter, novelist

January Magazine (January 2002).

Paulo Freire photo
Ralph Ellison photo

“By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity as a writer. You might know this within yourself, but to have it affirmed by others is of utmost importance. Writing is, after all, a form of communication.”

Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer

"The Art of Fiction: An Interview" (The Paris Review, Spring 1955), in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1995), p. 218.

Oscar Wilde photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo

“One could only damage oneself through the harm one did to others. One could never get directly at oneself.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Related topics