Quotes about realization (3337 quotes, page 32)

“I can recall the first time I missed your presence at home and discovered that you were out hunting for a job scrubbing floors in order to bring home some food for the family. I knew that something was very wrong with life, but I had no idea what to do about it to make it any different. It was only when I grew up and I too had to go around begging for work to live that I realized the wrongs had to be corrected.”

Bill Bailey (Spanish Civil War veteran) (1910–1995) American labor activist

The Kid from Hoboken: An Autobiography by Bill Bailey (1993)

Home , Family , Time , Food

“From my reading of Gandhi I had learned how some people in India regard eating cow as unspeakably repulsive. I realized I felt the same way about cats and dogs: I could never eat them.”

Tom Regan book Empty Cages

Were cows so different from cats and dogs that there were two moral standards, one that applies to cows, another that applies to cats and dogs? Were pigs so different? Were any of the animals I ate so different?
Source: Empty Cages (2004), Ch. 2

Reading , Dogs , People , Learning

“He leaves the reader with a realization. The line between those born with choices and those not so lucky is very thin. The side of the divide you’re born on is purely random.”

Jeet Thayil (1959) Indian writer

Savita Iyer, Ahrestani in: "Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil Dens and iniquity"

“Christian, however, was fortunate having a paternal grandmother who realized very early that this child was very different from his brothers and sisters, if only physically. Raymond was a fighter, Jacqueline a tomboy, and Bernard, who was gentle as a lamb, had an introverted side that caused concern. Christian on the other hand was lively and affectionate, interested in everything – and with such an imagination. He epitomized the wonderment of childhood.”

Christian Dior (1905–1957) French fashion designer

In p. 13
Christian Dior: The Man who Made the World Look New

Childhood , Imagination , Sister

“A few months back Major Terry and his pet student, Drosen, had brought in a guy from San Diego to play chess with me. I’d had no idea that he was rated and was really good, so I’d beaten his ass real fast. He’d gotten all mad at Major Terry and Drosen for not telling him that I was as good as I was. He’d accused them of setting him up to publicly embarrass him. I’d had no idea what the big fuss was all about. I hadn’t even realized that there was such a thing as tournaments and championships for chess just like we had in wrestling. I’d quit playing chess at school after that incident. Now I only played at home with my dad’s older friends, Roberto and Salvador Montoya, who’d both been very good chess players in Mexico City. I beat Roberto almost all the time, but his older brother Salvador beat me pretty regularly. And I’d recently been told that Salvador had been so good that he’d once gone to Cuba to play and that he’d come in third among some of the best international players in the world.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

School , Home , Time , World

“I began to worship pubic hair, to touch it, to smell it, to lick it. This was when I came to realize that pubic hair wasn’t at all like the hair we had on our heads. No, pubic hair was tougher, coarse, and sharp. You could cut your tongue on it if you licked it too hard. The hair on our heads wasn’t just finer but also round, and our pubic hair was thicker and flat, and so this was why it could cut you if you weren’t careful.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

“And no one would interfere with me because of the loaded gun in my hand. Also, a part of me didn’t give a shit anymore if I was caught or not. I could now see that my objective wasn’t just to kill Moses and all these other teachers who had abused us, but for everyone in all the whole world to know why. This wasn’t going to be a surprise attack. This had to be a cold, premeditated act, completely well planned, just as it had been premeditated and well thought out to torture and beat us Mexican kids, starting in kindergarten, so we’d be a people, a gente, with our heads bowed down to authority forever, thinking we were inferior and worthless. I now realized that this was how you enslaved a people. You didn’t just bring them over in chains from Africa. No, you convinced them that they were inferior, not evolved, subhuman, and then when you took off their shackles, so they could go to work, you’d still have them enslaved and shackled inside of their minds for hundreds of years. And this system of teaching was fine with most Anglo teachers, because in the act of convincing us, los Mexicanos and the Blacks, we were subhuman, they’d also convinced themselves that they were superior!”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

People , Teachers , Thinking , World

“Nui is a different kind of CEO. He says her approach boils down to balancing the profit motive by making healthier snacks (in speech to the food industry, she pushed the group to tackle obesity), striving for a net zero impact on the environment and taking care of your workforce. She was one of the first executives to realize that the health and green movements were just not fads and she demanded true innovation.”

Indra Nooyi (1955) Indian-born, naturalized American, business executive

Quoted in[. Lussier, Robert N, Achua, Christopher F., Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development: Theory, Application, & Skill Development, http://books.google.com/books?id=7ctnVNMtBQgC&pg=PA151, 1 February 2009, Cengage Learning, 978-0-324-59655-7, 151–]

Motivation , Making love , Health , Food

“It would have been funny if I had been an observer and not a participant, an idea that gave me a disconcerting insight into gossip. As I talked beside the silent Tamara, I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt.”

Sherwood Smith book Crown Duel

Crown Duel (Crown & Court #1 - 2, 1997)

Idea , Hurt

“A highly competent Bitch often deprecates herself by refusing to recognize her own superiority…. Bitches are among the most unsung of the unsung heroes of this society. They are the pioneers, the vanguard, the spearhead. Whether they want to be or not this is the role they serve just by their very being. Many would not choose to be the groundbreakers for the mass of women for whom they have no sisterly feelings but they cannot avoid it. Those who violate the limits, extend them; or cause the system to break…. Their major psychological oppression is not a belief that they are inferior but a belief that they are not…. Like most women they were taught to hate themselves as well as all women. In different ways and for different reasons perhaps, but the effect was similar. Internalization of a derogatory self-concept always results in a good deal of bitterness and resentment. This anger is usually either turned in on the self —making one an unpleasant person or on other women — reinforcing the social cliches about them. Only with political consciousness is it directed at the source — the social system…. We must be strong, we must be militant, we must be dangerous. We must realize that Bitch is Beautiful and that we have nothing to lose. Nothing whatsoever.”

Jo Freeman (1945) writer, lawyer

The BITCH Manifesto (Fall, 1968, © 1969) http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/bitch.htm, as accessed Aug. 22, 2010 (also published as Joreen, The Bitch Manifesto, in Notes From the Second Year (N.Y.: Shulamith Firestone & Anne Koedt, 1970))

Anger , Hate , Personality , Beauty

“Finally I realized that I was a demi-god and that I was beyond all the low, petty desires of mankind. I felt the eternal flux within me. What is eternity? Eternity for me was playing hide-and-seek with that whore on the banks of the Suren river; it was a momentary closing of my eyes when I hid my head in her lap.”

Sadegh Hedayat book The Blind Owl

The Blind Owl

Whore , God

“When I realized I was going to have to be a whore, to put my face on the label, I decided that the only way I could do it was to give away all the money we make. Over the years, that ethical stance has given us a 30 per cent boost. One in three customers buys my products because all the profits go to good causes and the rest buy the stuff because it is good.”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Quoted in "Saint Paul," http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,1453395,00.html interview with John Aldridge, The Guardian (2005-04-10)

Whore , Money , Way , Making love

“Shri Babaji shows us the practical side of the teachings of great saints like Guru Nanak, who did not preach a particular religion or cult. He gave teachings of spiritual perfection, valid for all mankind. To follow these teachings is to realize good for all humanity and the unity of all humanity and the unity of the individual soul with the universal Soul.”

Nanak (1469–1539) Founder of Sikhism

Shri Shastriji about Haidakhan Babaji, cited in: The Teachings of Babaji, 10 April 1983.

Universe , Perfection , Soul , Religion

“In France, everybody realized that God exists, and that he is back in the French international team. God is back, there is little left to say.”

Zinedine Zidane (1972) French association football player and manager

Thierry Henry, 2005 http://www.soccerway.com/news/2005/august/5/henry-hails-god-zidane/

God

“I was overwhelmed to realize that he could never understand me or the scalding experiences that had swept me beyond his life and into an area of living that he could never know.”

Richard Wright book Black Boy

Black Boy (1945)

Life , Understanding

“Utopia is a meta-utopia: the environment in which Utopian experiments may be tried out; the environment in which people are free to do their own thing; the environment which must, to a great extent, be realized first if more particular Utopian visions are to be realized stably.”

Robert Nozick book Anarchy, State, and Utopia

Source: Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), Ch. 10 : A Framework for Utopia; The Framework, p. 312

People

“Even today, we are still accused of racism. This is a mistake. We know that all interracial groups in South Africa are relationships in which whites are superior, blacks inferior. So as a prelude whites must be made to realize that they are only human, not superior. Same with blacks. They must be made to realize that they are also human, not inferior.”

Steve Biko (1946–1977) anti-apartheid activist in South Africa

Statement quoted in the Boston Globe (25 October 1977)

“To few men was it given to realize so completely the element of eternity — of time-effacing enjoyment in work — as it was to John Muir. The secret of it all was in his soul, the soul of a child, of a poet, and of a strong man, all blended into one. … An innate nobility of character, an unstudied reverence for all that is sublime in nature or in life, unconsciously called forth the best in his friends and acquaintances. In the spiritual as in the physical realm flowers blossomed in his footsteps where he went. After all it is to such men as John Muir that we must look for the sustenance of those finer feelings that keep men in touch with the spiritual meaning and beauty of the universe, and make them capable of understanding those rare souls whose insight has invested life with imperishable hope and charm. … To all who knew John Muir intimately his gentleness and humaneness toward all creatures that shared the world with him, was one of the finest attributes of his character. … Among those who have won title to remembrance as prophets and interpreters of nature he rises to a moral as well as poetical altitude that will command the admiring attention of men so long as human records shall endure.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

William Frederic Badé (pages 38-40)
Sierra Club Bulletin - Memorial Issue

Soul , Time , Understanding , Strong

“It is not easy to write of my good friend, John Muir. The impression of his personality was so strong on those who knew him that all words seem cheap beside it. Those who never knew him can never, through any word of ours, be brought to realize what they have missed. … He had a quaint, crisp way of talking, his literary style in fact, and none of the nature lovers, the men who know how to feel in the presence of great things and beautiful, have expressed their craft better than he.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

David Starr Jordan, first President of Stanford University (page 8)
Sierra Club Bulletin - Memorial Issue

Personality , Beauty , Strong , Nature

“There is, of course, a tipping point. There have been times when I realized that someone can’t be helped, because they continue doing the wrong things. Typically, the only time I cut someone off is when they’re in jail, because I can’t help them there.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

Stardom Doesn’t Change Where You’re From (April 02, 2014)

Time , Help

“But DeSean Jackson is the menace, right? He’s just as bad as those guys he parties with because he threw up a Crip sign in a picture and he owns a gangsta rap record label. If only all record label owners were held to this standard, somebody might realize that Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg weren’t the bosses behind NWA. Jim Irsay lookalikes in suits were.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

Stardom Doesn’t Change Where You’re From (April 02, 2014)

Bad luck , Guy

“This is no day for the rabble-rouser, whether he be Negro or white.We must realize that we are grappling with the most weighty social problem of this nation, and in grappling with such a complex problem there is no place for misguided emotionalism. We must work passionately and unrelentingly for the goal of freedom, but we must be sure that our hands are clean in the struggle. We must never struggle with falsehood, hate, or malice. We must never become bitter. I know how we feel sometime. There is the danger that those of us who have been forced so long to stand amid the tragic midnight of oppression — those of us who have been trampled over, those of us who have been kicked about — there is the danger that we will become bitter. But if we will become bitter and indulge in hate campaigns, the new order which is emerging will be nothing but a duplication of the old order.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Give Us the Ballot (1957)

Hate , Freedom , Problem , Passion

“Even in terms of breaking down the barriers of segregation, there is still much to be done. It may be true, as I just said, figuratively speaking that old man segregation is on his deathbed. But history has proven that social systems have a great last-minute breathing power, and the guardians of the status quo are always on hand with their oxygen tents to keep the old order alive. And so segregation is still with us. We still confront it in the South in its glaring and conspicuous forms. We still confront it in every other section of this country in its hidden and subtle forms. But if democracy is to live, segregation must die, for racial segregation is a cancer in the body politic. Segregation must be removed before our moral and democratic health can be realized.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Democracy , History , Health , Country

“Time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively, and I’m convinced that in many points the people of ill will in the United States have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. Something must come to remind us that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability; evolution may be true in the biological realm — at that point Darwin is right; but when a Herbert Spencer seeks to apply it to the whole of society, there is very little evidence for it. Human progress comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. Without this hard work, time itself becomes the ally of the primitive forces of irrational emotionalism and social stagnation. And so we must help time, and realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

God , Time , Silence , Bad luck

“I say to you in very honest terms that there are some things in our social order and in the world to which I’m proud to be maladjusted, and I would hope the men of good will will be maladjusted to these same things until the good society is realized. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Hope , Self-confidence , World , Madness

“I realized it had everything to do with how I grew up and the interaction I had with my father, that he was somewhat abusive…That made me understand that your body retains not just physical damage, but emotional perforations.”

Lucy Liu (1968) American actress and model

On her “41 Series” in “Lucy Liu on making art to find a sense of belonging” https://www.cnn.com/style/article/lucy-liu-artsy/index.html in CNN (2019 Nov 28)

Understanding

“With so many people doing so much writing, great writing is hard to find ... If you succeed in attaining a position that allows you to do something great, if you do something that really is great, and if you realize that it’s great, there’s still one more hurdle: You have to convince others that it’s great. This will require writing.”

Leslie Lamport (1941) American computer scientist

As quoted in [Nathan, David E., Computer scientist Leslie Lamport to grads: If you can’t write, it won’t compute, https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2017/may/commencement-lamport.html, Brandeis University, 17 January 2020, May 21, 2017]

People

“Is a man a coward if he realizes that bravery is just a myth the old tell the young so they line up for the meatgrinder?”

Pierce Brown book Dark Age

Source: Dark Age (2019), Ch. 10: The Ash Rain; Lysander