Quotes about tension
page 4

Steven Crowder photo
Thomas Hylland Eriksen photo

“Many social scientists, including anthropologists, have been interested in the power inherent in gender relations, often described through the idiom of female oppression. It can be argued that men usually tend to exert more power over women than vice versa. In most societies, men generally hold the most important political and religious positions, and very often men control the formal economy. In some societies, it may even be prescribed for women to cover their body and face when they appear in the public sphere, and, paradoxically, these practices sometimes become more common as their societies become more modern. On the other hand, women are often capable of exerting considerable informal power, not least in the domestic sphere. Anthropologists cannot state unequivocally that women are oppressed before they have investigated all aspects of their society, including how the women (and men) themselves perceive their situation. One cannot dismiss the possibility that certain women in western Asia (the Middle East) see the ‘liberated’ western woman as more oppressed – by professional career pressure, demands to look good and other expectations – than themselves.
When studying societies undergoing change, which perhaps most anthropologists do today, it is important to look at the value conflicts and tensions between different interest groups that are particularly central. Often these conflicts are expressed through gender relations.”

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962) Norwegian social anthropologist and professor

Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 2 : Key Concepts

Benjamin Creme photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo

“Conflict, pain, tension, fear, paradox... these are transformations trying to happen. Once we confront them, the transformative process begins.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Three, Brains Changing, Minds Changing

T.S. Eliot photo
Nelson Mandela photo

“Exercise dissipates tension, and tension is the enemy of serenity. I found that I worked better and thought more clearly when I was in good physical condition, and so training became one of the inflexible disciplines of my life.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

Interview with Gavin Evans, Soweto (15 February 1990) recounted in COVID-19 lockdown: Can you do Nelson Mandela's Robben Island prison cell workout? https://nationalpost.com/news/world/covid-19-lockdown-can-you-do-nelson-mandelas-prison-cell-workout?video_autoplay=true, 7 April 2020
1990s

Richard D. Wolff photo
Richard D. Wolff photo

“We have a lot of employment, but the quality of the jobs has collapsed over the last 10 years. The people who work now used to be people who had a job with good income, good benefits and good security. The jobs, overwhelmingly, created have none of those things: low wages—that’s why our wages have gone nowhere; bad benefits—those are shrinking, pensions and so on; and the security is virtually gone. One of our biggest problems in America is people don’t know one week to the next what hours they’re working, what income they’ll get. You can’t have a life like this. So, what we’ve done is we’ve ratcheted down the quality of jobs. We’ve made people use up their savings since the great crash of 2008, so they’re in a bind. They have really no choice but to offer themselves at lower wages or at less benefit or at less security than before, which is why there’s the anger, which is why there was the vote for Mr. Trump in the first place, because this talk of recovery really is about that stock market with the funny money that the Fed Reserve pumped in, but is not about the real lives of people, which are in serious trouble, hence the numbers, like a average American family can’t get a $400 emergency cost because it doesn’t have that kind of money in the background. So, you’ve undone the underlying economy, you have this frothy stock market for the 1 percent, and this is an impossible tension tearing the country apart.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

We Need a More Humane Economic System—Not One That Only Benefits the Rich (December 26, 2018)

Teal Swan photo
Prevale photo

“The distant souls, united by destiny, shorten distances, increase tension by merging into one and intense passion.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Le anime lontane ma unite dal destino accorciano le distanze, aumentano la tensione fondendosi in un'unica ed intensa passione.
Source: prevale.net

Paulo Coelho photo
Kim Gordon photo

“I like a certain amount of tension in music…I like the kind of music that maybe makes you think about the status quo.”

Kim Gordon (1953) American musician, bassist of Sonic Youth

On her ideal music in “Kim Gordon unmasked: a natural instinct of going against the grain” https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/kim-gordon-unmasked-a-natural-instinct-of-going-against-the-grain-20190805-p52dxg.html in The Sydney Morning Herald (2019 Aug 9)

Ioan Robu photo

“There are no tensions, between Orthodox and Catholics of the Latin rite, while the relations between Greek Catholics and Orthodox are living a sort of winter.”

Ioan Robu (1944) Roman Catholic archbishop

Source: Pope Francis will travel to Romania in 2019 https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/39960/pope-francis-will-travel-to-romania-in-2019 (20 November 2018)

Vadim Krasnoselsky photo

“I as President of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic in such a destructive situation made every possible effort to return the dialogue to normal and prevent an escalation of tension with Moldova.”

Vadim Krasnoselsky (1970) politician

Source: Vadim Krasnoselsky (2021) cited in " Commentary by Vadim Krasnoselsky regarding the next appeal to the President of the Republic of Moldova https://novostipmr.com/en/news/21-12-24/commentary-vadim-krasnoselsky-regarding-next-appeal-president" on Novosti Pridnestrovya, 24 December 2021.

Swami Sivananda photo
Joe Biden photo
This quote waiting for review.
José Baroja photo