Imagined Communities Quotes

Consumerism and nationalism work extra hours to make us imagine that millions of strangers belong to the same community as ourselves, that we have a common past, common interests and a common future. This isn't a lie. It's imagination. Like money, limited liability companies and human rights, nations and consumer tribes are inter-subjective realities. They exist only in our collective imagination, yet their power is immense. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

[Speaking to a group of female students] Have you any notion how many books are written [by men] about women in the course of one year? (...) Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe? (...)
Professors, schoolmasters, sociologists, clergymen, novelists, essayists, journalists, men who had no qualification save that they were not women (...) were very angry (...) as they wrote (...) about the mental, moral, and physical inferiority of women. (...) Why were they angry? (...)
Possibly when the professor [imagined by V. Woolf as a prototype of patriarchal writer] insisted a little too emphatically upon the inferiority of women, he was concerned not with their inferiority, but with his own superiority. (...) Hence the enormous importance to a patriarch (...) of feeling that great number of people, half the human race indeed [=women], are by nature inferior to himself.
Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size. (…) That serves to explain in part the necessity that women so often are to men. And it serves to explain how restless they are under her criticism. For if she begins to tell the truth, the figure in the looking-glass shrinks; his fitness for life is diminished (…)

A Room of One´s Own, chapter 2 ~ Virginia Woolf

A book is actually a place, a place where we, as adults, still have the chance to engage in active imagining, translating word into image, connecting these images to memories, dreams and larger ideas. Television, film, even the stage play, have already been imagined for us, but the book, in whatever form we choose to interact with it, forces us to complete it ... The fact that books provide us the place to imagine is critically important, as it is there, in the imagination, that all sense of possibility rests. ~ Joe Meno

The Islamist ideology took decades to incubate within our communities, and it will take decades to debunk. ~ Maajid Nawaz

We study the past ecological history, with the conscience of the present ecological conditions. The key to predict future aquatic ecosystem changes. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Communities must plan for a variety of uses and income levels. Why do we care about housing as high-tech employers? If teachers, firefighters, peace officers, retail or restau- rant workers can't live here, then we're going to fail. ~ Carl Guardino

While the lake lapped at their feet and the mountains absorbed their calls and the sky flung its blue parachute over their heads, he thought how wonderful it was that life was, after all, more simple than he had ever imagined. ~ Helen Simonson

Lao-tzu advised, "As soon as you have a thought, laugh at it," because reality is not what we think. We perceive the world through a window colored by beliefs, interpretations, and associations. We see things not as they are but as we are. The same brain that enables us to contemplate philosophy, solve math equations, and create poetry also generates a stream of static known as discursive thoughts, which seem to arise at random, bubbling up into our awareness. Such mental noise is a natural phenomenon, no more of a problem than the dreams that appear in the sleep state. Therefore, our schooling aims not to struggle with random thoughts but to transcend them in the present moment, where no thoughts exist, only awareness. Our mind's liberation awaits not in some imagined future but here and now. ~ Dan Millman

If one has problems with immigrant communities in Europe, that should not be used against Turkey. ~ Martti Ahtisaari

Rural communities in Africa, South Asia and Latin America are where the majority of hungry people are and the inequality that exists between women and men in these communities is holding back progress. ~ Dionne Warwick

There's no question that there's been a breach in the trust between urban - especially urban community, African-American and minority communities and the police in major American cities. ~ Mark Shields

Parents should continue to become more involved with their communities, and more involved in their children's education. ~ Sandra Day O'Connor

I'm happy when I have, like, one fan, but the fact that I'm getting fans from different places and different communities, it's really amazing. ~ Kat Graham

Let my words give you sustenance, nourish your spirit, and take you places you've never imagined.

Not just for today when you've read them, but for whatever forever we have in this life.
Or the next. ~ Raven West

And" – his voice was soft now – "you're a beautiful girl. If you show the slightest interest in Alec, he'll want to go out with you. I know I would."
My skin prickled with goose bumps, a chill in the hot April evening. My brain knew Grayson didn't have the crush on me that I'd imagined when he got mad at me at the airport that afternoon. He wouldn't have asked me to date his brother if he'd been interested in me. But my body didn't know this, or didn't care. ~ Jennifer Echols

He vividly recalled those old doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it was no mere chance that he recalled them now. It struck him as strange and grotesque, that he should have stopped at the same spot as before, as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be interested in the same theories and pictures that had interested him ... so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his heart. ...It seemed to him, he had cut himself off from everyone and from everything at that moment. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Recycling is more expensive for communities than it needs to be, partly because traditional recycling tries to force materials into more lifetimes than they are designed for - a complicated and messy conversion, and one that itself expends energy and resources. Very few objects of modern consumption were designed with recycling in mind. If the process is truly to save money and materials, products must be designed from the very beginning to be recycled or even "upcycled" - a term we use to describe the return to industrial systems of materials with improved, rather than degraded, quality. ~ William McDonough

Fear is always the result of an unquestioned past imagined as a future. ~ Byron Katie

As we pursue our strategies world-wide, we accept a social and environmental responsibility as well. These responsibilities include the promotion of a sustainable economy and recognition of the accountability we have to the economies, environments, and communities where we do business around the world. ~ John F. Smith, Jr.

Music has got a community vibe to it that pulls people together, and those communities are different in different places. ~ Matt Berninger

I begin to understand that failure is its own reward. It is in the effort to close the distance between the work imagined and the work achieved wherein it is to be found that the ceaseless labor is the freedom of play, that what's at stake isn't a reflection in the mirror of fame but the escape from the prison of the self. ~ Lewis H. Lapham

In the silence, she felt the past and the present shift and mix, but that was a mirage. There was no way to comfort the lost boy he'd been back then.
But she had the grown male.
She had him right in her arms, and for a brief moment of whimsy, she imagined that she was never, ever going to let him go. ~ J.R. Ward

You have bound us, Kimble imagined saying, to an evil world. Where's the love in that? And in that scenario, God always answered, Temporarily bound you, yes. Now, during your time in that evil world, did you do anything to help? ~ Michael Koryta

History is filled with tragic examples of wars that result from diplomatic impasse. Whether in our local communities or in international relations, the skillful use of our communicative capacities to negotiate and resolve differences is the first evidence of human wisdom. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

The past is already in debt to the mismanaged present. And besides, contrary to what you may have heard or learned, the past is not done and it is not over, it's still in process, which is another way of saying that when it's critiqued, analyzed, it yields new information about itself. The past is already changing as it is being reexamined, as it is being listened to for deeper resonances. Actually it can be more liberating than any imagined future if you are willing to identify its evasions, its distortions, its lies, and are willing to unleash its secrets. ~ Toni Morrison

However, these communities were also subject to the infusion of the world around them and their notion of tradition became altered in the very act of dissimulation. They 'falsely' believed they were protecting something old when, in fact, they were creating something new. ~ Shaul Magid

But the most important lesson to learn from Jobs has nothing to do with aesthetics. The greatest thing Jobs designed was his business. Apple imagined and executed definite multi-year plans to create new products and distribute them effectively. Forget ~ Peter Thiel

I did not realize that when money becomes a core value, then education drives towards utility or that the life of the mind will not be counted as good unless it produces measurable results. That public services will no longer be important. That an alternative life to getting and spending will become very difficult as cheap housing disappears. That when communities are destroyed only misery and intolerance are left. ~ Jeanette Winterson

Americans really believe that the past is past," he writes. "They do not care to know that the past soaks the present like the light of a distant star. Things that are over do not end. They come inside us, and seek sanctuary in subjectivity. And there they live on, in the consciousness of individuals and communities." The forward thrust of exuberance, like closure, risks leaving behind an essential past. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison

We're at this really unique time, I think, in trans representation in popular culture where homelessness, depression, mental health issues, instability-in-general are still so very real and need to be talked about, but we're aware that they've dominated "trans" stories for years and years.

And we're now finally at a place where we're seeing some really positive representations of trans folks in pop culture, and there's this new pressure -- at least, I feel it, within trans and trans-ally communities -- to only focus on the positive. Because we're trying, in some sense, to overcompensate for the years and years of too much negativity. As a writer, you might feel a pressure to push the negative stuff away. But there are consequences for that too. Anyone who's working with trans characters right now is going to have to reconcile that tension. ~ Mitch Kellaway

We are flies--gathering, swarming--bulging eyes and fragile bones flittering nervously toward imagined destinies. We hurl our bodies at the panes of tentalizing windows, aching for the world promised on the other side. Day after day we drag injured wings and eyes and organs around the same four walls; opened or closed, the exits elude us. We hope to be rescued by a breeze, hoping for a chance to see the sun. ~ Tahereh Mafi

is perhaps true to say, not that civil liberty is the child of religious liberty, but that liberty, whether civil or religious, was the work often reluctantly, sometimes unconsciously, undertaken by communities of men who had an end higher than political, who refused to submit religion to politic arguments, who fought for ends never entirely utilitarian. ~ John Neville Figgis

I'm building shopping centers and movie theaters in the inner cities. So that means supplying jobs and letting blacks understand that we have to build our communities back, not looking to anybody else. ~ Magic Johnson

She'd always wondered what had led her father to turn to the dark side, to become Darth Vader. She'd imagined it came from ambition, greed, or some other venal weakness. Never had she considered that the turn might begin in a better place, out of the desire to save someone or to avenge a great wrong. Even if it led to evil, that first impulse might be born of loyalty, a sense of justice, or even love. Had ~ Claudia Gray

We're incredibly excited to welcome the 500 millionth Poptropican into our virtual world. When we started in 2007, we never could have imagined that we'd see a day when half a billion avatars inhabited Poptropica. ~ Jeff Kinney

Changing entrenched systems is daunting; the odds against reshaping the nation's police forces are high. But there are few things more important than making sure their profession is the brave, honorable service it should be. We have to do it, or watch our communities and our democracy disintegrate. ~ Ann Medlock

He turned all the lights off and held her in his arms. She was so cold. "Stay close to me," she said. She looked outside towards the flowing lights. Everything was so bright there and for once there was no fear. She imagined the yellow lights that touched her life. In this life she saw nothing but peace. Where else to go from here? She wondered. What is there to see within one's peace? ~ Vatsal Surti

Yoga is the technology of upgrading, activating, and refining these inner energies for the highest possibilities. Suddenly, your capabilities reach a level of brilliance that you never imagined possible. An accidental and limited life turns near-miraculous. But ~ Sadhguru

Communities don't think, don't believe, don't want, don't have needs, don't have interests and don't make decisions. Only individuals have minds that generate desires and needs - and only individuals can make choices and decisions. ~ Harry Browne

Something can be symbolic without being a mere stand-in or vessel, which just brings us away from the true mystery and dread, into some boring version of what we already know. So what you say is true, in that the bear is a kind of parallel to the speaker, or imagined as such, but also very different. So if it's a symbol it is - ahem - a polysemous one. ~ Matthew Zapruder

Eugenic rhetoric thus remained dependent on the body exterior as a powerful "material metaphor" for mysterious genetic processes. The desirable stock of the "fit" was imagined in terms of whiteness, beauty, and physical fitness; embodied in the winners of the AES's "Better Babies" and "Fitter Families" competitions; invoked in books like Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race (1916), which described the progenitors of good American stock as "splendid conquistadores" of Nordic heritage with "absolutely fair skin" and "great stature"; and visualized in eugenic displays.37 ~ Angela M. Smith