“The sooner we begin this process of healing as people, all people, the sooner we can begin to live a mutual life free from innuendo, hurt, judgment and need.”

—  Manuel Rivera-Ortiz

Buffalo Rising interview (2007)
Context: Even when someone from the lower financial caste in, say America, "makes it," then there is this other barrier of old money vs. new money, social status, respected family names vs. unsavory familial relations or even ethnic background that makes the entire journey of achievement suddenly turn sour and seemingly not have been worth the while.
My question here is why do we humans keep doing this to each other or to ourselves? Why do we think so little about the role of humanity and of kindness? In my opinion, if we believe in a higher being, there is only one God and he/she is neither you nor me. The sooner we begin this process of healing as people, all people, the sooner we can begin to live a mutual life free from innuendo, hurt, judgment and need.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The sooner we begin this process of healing as people, all people, the sooner we can begin to live a mutual life free f…" by Manuel Rivera-Ortiz?
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz photo
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz 14
American photographer 1968

Related quotes

John Locke photo

“The sooner you treat him as a man, the sooner he will begin to be one”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 95
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Context: A father would do well, as his son grows up, and is capable of it, to talk familiarly with him; nay, ask his advice, and consult with him about those things wherein he has any knowledge or understanding. By this, the father will gain two things, both of great moment. The sooner you treat him as a man, the sooner he will begin to be one; and if you admit him into serious discourses sometimes with you, you will insensibly raise his mind above the usual amusements of youth, and those trifling occupations which it is commonly wasted in. For it is easy to observe, that many young men continue longer in thought and conversation of school-boys than otherwise they would, because their parents keep them at that distance, and in that low rank, by all their carriage to them.

“How shall we venture home?
How shall we tell each other of the poet?
How can we meet the judgment on the poet,
or his execution? How shall we free him? How shall we speak to the infant beginning to run?
All those beginning to run?”

Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) poet and political activist

Source: The Gates (1976)

Bill Maher photo

“Now, if we establish right here at the beginning that all three of us are supporters of all laws that protect trans people, that we believe in all the dignity, equality, and respect that can be afforded to trans people, can we have an honest, free discussion about this?”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Source: Andrew Yang & John McWhorter on Dave Chappelle and 'Transphobia', (2021)

W.B. Yeats photo

“We can only begin to live when we conceive life as
Tragedy.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
Paul Bourget photo

“This teaching is to live as we think, otherwise, sooner or later, we end up thinking as we lived.”

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer

Cet enseignement, c'est qu'il faut vivre comme on pense, sinon, tôt ou tard, on finit par penser comme on a vécu.
Epilogue
The Demon of Noonday (1914)

Jorge Luis Borges photo

“The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Ficciones

"Funes the Memorious" ["Funes El Memorioso"] (1944); also published in Labyrinths (1964)
Ficciones (1944)

William Crookes photo

“Most students of nature sooner or later pass through a process of writing off a large percentage of their supposed capital of knowledge as a merely illusory asset. As we trace more accurately certain familiar sequences of phenomena we begin to realize how closely these sequences, or laws, as we call them, are hemmed round by still other laws of which we can form no notion.”

William Crookes (1832–1919) British chemist and physicist

Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)
Context: The most helpful quality which has aided me in psychical problems and has made me lucky in physical discoveries (sometimes of rather unexpected kinds) has simply been my knowledge — my vital knowledge, if I may so term it — of my own ignorance.
Most students of nature sooner or later pass through a process of writing off a large percentage of their supposed capital of knowledge as a merely illusory asset. As we trace more accurately certain familiar sequences of phenomena we begin to realize how closely these sequences, or laws, as we call them, are hemmed round by still other laws of which we can form no notion. With myself this writing off of illusory assets has gone rather far and the cobweb of supposed knowledge has been pinched (as some one has phrased) into a particularly small pill.

Maya Angelou photo

“Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
Barack Obama photo

“Of course, recognising our common humanity is only the beginning of our task. Words alone cannot meet the needs of our people. These needs will be met only if we act boldly in the years ahead; and if we understand that the challenges we face are shared, and our failure to meet them will hurt us all.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)

Semyon Timoshenko photo

“Peoples of all the warring countries are trying to put an end to the war, to establish peace. And we believe that they will get peace. And the sooner they get peace the better.”

Semyon Timoshenko (1895–1970) Soviet military commander

Quoted in "The American review on the Soviet Union" - Page 10 - by American Russian Institute - 1938

Related topics