Why do I feel like I have to be constantly thankful to have basic human rights, lest I’m perceived to be ungrateful?

• Violence had been normalised in the name of pleasure, at a heavy cost to women, but also to men...By the time we got to dessert, we'd been through the lack and expense of childcare facilities, more cuts in the lowest-paid jobs which are ever women's and the casual sexism in pop song, film and workplace. We were now bemoaning the ever-growing sway of the beauty, diet and cosmetic-surgery sectors.
• We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this earth, though it's almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn't have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender. - http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion...

• “...so, everyday you realise (you’re black). Even though you’re not doing anything wrong; you’re just existing. You’re just a person. But you’re a black person perceived in an unblack world”
• Coming from a Western capitalist perspective (isn’t new) and notion of thrusting our ideas upon what we have labelled the ‘third world’. Why don’t we ask, examine, and analyze their views, beliefs and practices (rather than us upon them). Incorporate new ideals, philosophies, methods and practices into our existence and understandings.
• People do not have to be nice to you for you to listen or to accept the validity of their arguments. YOUR WHITE PRIVILEGE has likely led you to believe that everyone should be nice too...a person of colour might be nice and do that (walk you through racism...) for you, but they are unde...

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” “Through difficult experiences, life sometimes becomes more meaningful.” “It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.” “What I believe, according to my own experience, is that a calm, peaceful mind is a very important element for sustaining the body in a balanced way.” “So the first step in seeking happiness is learning. We first have to learn how negative emotions and behaviours are harmful t use and how positive emotions are helpful.” “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

• Writings from the Zen Masters
• The Alchemist
• Where the Girls are

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. - Teddy Roosevelt

• “But in the end, all religions tend to point to the same light. In between the light and us, sometimes there are too many rules”.
• “Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits them”.
• “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure”.
• “We have to try to get rid of the notion of time. And when you have an intense contact of love with nature or another human being, like a spark, then you understand that there is no time and that everything is eternal”.
• “When we love, we always strive to become better than we are.”
• “You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one; each day brings a miracle of its own. It’s just a matter of paying atten...

• Brave New World John/The Savage - "But I don't want comfort.I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger,I have freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
• “Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw, or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night, she kept her own secret, never whispering a word to memory, and baffling imagination by an indissoluble silence” – Villette by Charlotte Bronte
• “...look for a lovely thing and you will find it, it is not far – it will never be far” – Sara Teasdale Night
• And in this moment we are infinite
• Orwell – Animal Farm - And above all, no animal must ever tyrannize over his kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal.

She was one of those who come to teach us that all that matters in this life is how deeply we love, how lightly we live and how gracefully we let go of things not meant for us.

• The right has all the advantages, just as the devil has all the best tunes. Conservatism appeals to our selfishness and fear, our desire and self-interest; they neatly nurture and then harvest the inherent and incubating individualism.
• “A socialist egalitarian system based on the massive redistribution of wealth, heavy taxation of corporations and massive responsibility for energy companies and any companies exploiting the environment. The very concept of profit should hugely reduced. David Cameron says profit isn’t a dirty word. I say profit is a filthy word,” Brand declared, sitting at the edge of his seat." - Brand

• Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence
• I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. – E B White
• Most good things have already been said for too many times and just need to be lived – shane cailborne
• Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has – Margaret Mead
• Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love – Mother Teresa
• The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man”...

ON GIRL HATE

Girl hate is not hating someone who happens to be a girl, it’s hating someone because we’re told that, as girls, we should hate other girls who are as awesome as or more awesome that ourselves. That there can ever only be one cool girl, one funny girl, one smart girl, etc, in a circle of people. This, along with the myth that other girls are obstacles in your Life Of Finding A Man, is why girls compete with one another. THIS SUCKS. The only good thing that has ever come out of this is inspiration for Mean Girls.

• ..confidence is not a crime...It just means that she likes herself. I don’t want to like in a world where any girl with healthy self-esteem is labelled a whore, or where you have to dislike yourself to be considered a nice person.

“Don’t let the haters stop you from d...

• "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." - Dr.Seuss
• "I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go. Things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself. And sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." - Marilyn Monroe
• "I want to see the world. I want the world to see me." - Nohely Koeyers
• "None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are." - Anne Rice
• "The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life tha...