Norm Quotes - Page 6

• What has become clear to me is that it is not the inherent nature of being gay that causes such a reduced life; it is, rather, the social circumstances around being gay: the perceptions of it and the cultural norms that it is said to violate. As some of those norms have changed, I have been able to be gay, to have a marriage, to have a family, and to have - if there is wood to knock on - a fortunate and happy life.

  Andrew Solomon

  Gay, Happy Life, Perception

  Source: andrewsolomon.com

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• I live a half mile from the San Andreas fault - a fact that bubbles up into my consciousness every time some other part of the world experiences an earthquake. I sometimes wonder whether this subterranean sense of impending disaster is at least partly responsible for Silicon Valley's feverish, get-it-done-yesterday work norms.

  Gary Hamel

  Earthquakes, Yesterday, Valleys

  7 Copy quote

• Human rights will be a powerful force for the transformation of reality when they are not simply understood as externally defined norms of behavior but are lived as the spontaneous manifestation of internalized values.

  Daisaku Ikeda

  Powerful, Reality, Rights

  7 Copy quote

• Nothing is wonderful except in the abnormal, and nothing is abnormal until we have grasped the norm.

  C. S. Lewis

  Abnormal, Wonderful

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.10, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the information-communication civilization of the 21st Century, creativity and mental excellence will become the ethical norm. The world will be too dynamic, complex, and diversified, too cross-linked by the global immediacies of modern (quantum) communication, for stability of thought or dependability of behaviour to be successful.

  Timothy Leary

  Communication, Creativity, Successful

  Timothy Leary (2010). “The Politics of Self-Determination”, p.74, Ronin Publishing

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• The rule seemed to be that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her. ... The great man, on the other hand, could marry where he liked, not being restricted to great women; indeed, it was often found sweet and commendable in him to choose a woman of no sort of greatness at all.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Sweet, Greatness, Men

  71 Copy quote

• One tended to lose one’s bearings in the presence of willful and persistent acts of craziness, and the more gentle the act, the crazier it seemed, as if rage and violence, being closer to the norm, were easier to accommodate.

  Tom Robbins

  Violence, Rage, Craziness

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Skinny Legs and All”, p.225, Bantam

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• "But when you hear men talking," said Cornelia, "all they ever do is speak ill of women. 'And I don't quite know how they've managed to make this law in their favor, or who exactly it was who gave them a greater license to sin than is allowed to us; and if the fault is common to both sexes (as they can hardly deny), why should the blame not be as well?

  Moderata Fonte

  Sex, Men, Thinking

  "The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men".

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I just get really bored with sticking to the norm and having the proper conservative image. That's just so not me.

  Christina Aguilera

  Bored, Conservative

  "Christina's 'dirrty' Makes Some Fans Ill, Others Hot To Eat Her Toes", www.mtv.com. October 2, 2002.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We may now have reached a point where this gap in our make-up has become unsustainable; partly because what in the past would have counted as material plenty has become the norm for the majority in much of the world; and partly because the slow retreat of religion that coincided with the spread of a capitalist economy has left a gaping hole in millions of people's lives. (Geoff Mulgan)

  Dalai Lama

  Spiritual, Past, Capitalist Economy

  7 Copy quote

• The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Catholic, Action, Tradition

  Pope Benedict XVI's Address at The Meeting with The Representatives of British Society, Including The Diplomatic Corps, Politicians, Academics and Business Leaders, w2.vatican.va. September 17, 2010.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• In fact, there is perhaps only one human being in a thousand who is passionately interested in his job for the job's sake. The difference is that if that one person in a thousand is a man, we say, simply, that he is passionately keen on his job; if she is a woman, we say she is a freak.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Jobs, Work, Men

  8 Copy quote

• Do you really believe ... that everything historians tell us about men – or about women – is actually true? You ought to consider the fact that these histories have been written by men, who never tell the truth except by accident.

  Moderata Fonte

  Believe, Men, Facts

  Moderata (Modesta Pozzo) Fonte (2007). “The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men”, p.76, University of Chicago Press

  46 Copy quote

  Show source

• Valentine had long ago observed that in a society that expected chastity and fidelity, like Lusitania, the adolescents who controlled and channeled their youthful passions were the ones who grew up to be both strong and civilized. Adolescents in such a community who were either too weak to control themselves or too contemptuous of society's norms to try usually ended up being either sheep or wolves- either mindless members of the herd or predators who took what they could and gave nothing.

  Orson Scott Card

  Strong, Valentine, Passion

  Orson Scott Card (2009). “Xenocide: Volume Three of the Ender Quintet”, p.235, Tor Books

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• That's like making fun of a maniac because his brain isn't completely right, because he isn't in the norm.

  Alice Cooper

  Fun, Brain, Maniacs

  Interview with Mike Quigley, www.mjq.net. September 1969.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.

  Virginia Woolf

  Men, Thinking, Long

  Virginia Woolf (2005). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.530, Wordsworth Editions

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Some people's blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  People, Double Standard, Morality

  Dorothy L. Sayers (2012). “Gaudy Night”, p.131, Open Road Media

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Within the universe of the extraordinary, those qualities we designate to human concepts of gender are often shared, exchanged, or even completely obliterated. Because of this mixture of traits, these twins called Genius and Madness often appear to be the same thing. They both have a tendency to blur the lines of what we call norms, or established reality. They both, when we study that grand tapestry known as history and modern-day society, tend to stand out in much bolder relief than other figures. -- from Dancing with Madness, Dancing with Genius

  Aberjhani

  Reality, Dancing, Quality

  5 Copy quote

• You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.

  John Steinbeck

  Monsters, Variation, Chaos

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.66, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A bit of theory as we settle down for lunch: the waiter's treatment of Kitty is actually a kind of sandwich, with the bottom bread being the bored and slightly effete way he normally acts with customers, the middle being the crazed and abnormal way he feels around this famous nineteen-year-old girl, and the top bread being his attempt to contain and conceal this alien middle layer with some mode of behavior that at least approximates the bottom layer of boredom and effeteness that is his norm.

  Jennifer Egan

  Girl, Years, Lunch

  Jennifer Egan (2010). “A Visit from the Goon Squad”, p.128, Anchor

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When social movements engage in legal reform, they often mobilize images of people from their constituent population who most match national norms about what "deserving citizens" are like, and use those people as spokespeople and as lead plaintiffs in legal cases. This strategy requires that people who are experiencing intersectional harm - who are vulnerable through multiple vectors of demonization and marginalization - be further marginalized and disappeared by the advocacy.

  Dean Spade

  People, Reform, Population

  4 Copy quote

• My version of relativism is pluralistic and attributes functions to morality that in combination with human nature place limits on what could count as a true morality. Unlike many other relativists, I do not hold that people are subject to a morality because they all belong to a certain group. That is, I don't hold that being a member of a group makes one's subject to some set of generally accepted norms. What is true is that others around us teach us morality and moral language, so they inevitably influence us.

  David Wong

  People, Morality, Language

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was radicalised by being a minister. That's when I saw how the system really worked. And that is not a very usual process, but it certainly happened to me: it gave me a lot more experience, it helped me to understand where power really lay, develop strategies for undermining or changing it, and so on. But that isn't the norm. Mr Gladstone moved to the left as he got older, and one or two other people have, but normally you swing the other way.

  Tony Benn

  People, Strategy, Moved

  Source: think-left.org

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The left believes that we're an unwarranted, undeserving superpower because we're a racist, bigoted nation from our founding. So Obama presides over America's decline and tells everybody "get used to it. This is the new norm." The new norm is no full-time jobs. The new norm is government getting bigger. The new norm is you having no wage increases for 15 years. This is what the new norm is, as we entered the global marketplace. And the American people don't want any part of that. That's not America.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Believe, People, Racist

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm never trying to make a statement about morality ever. If there's a statement to be made, it's "People are complicated. They do things that may hurt other people, or exploit other people, but they may do them for the right reasons, or out of desperation." I don't judge that sort of "bad" behavior. I'm only interested in a world where people break outside of the norm, and I believe people do whatever they have to do to relieve themselves of pain. I just want to watch and see how that plays out.

  Liz W. Garcia

  Hurt, Pain, Believe

  Source: www.mtv.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source