Privileged Quotes

The foxes run. The foxes die. I mourn them, but I understand that there is danger in mourning for those who would not mourn for you in return. Empathy is for those who can afford it. Empathy is for the privileged. Empathy is not for Nature. ~ Tanya Tagaq

We must confront the privileged elite who have destroyed a large part of the world. ~ Hugo Chavez

In the run-up to the 1992 Democratic convention, Clinton's campaign realized that voters thought the young governor had a privileged upbringing. They didn't buy his alleged concern for the middle class. ~ Dee Dee Myers

When I found out this was going to be the last 'Star Wars' film that was ever going to be made, I felt pretty privileged to be in it. ~ Keisha Castle-Hughes

Out the corner of my eye I see Packard fly at Marty, pin him against the wall. "You do not do that! You do not!" He jerks Marty with every *not*. "You do *not* disrespect that woman, you understand me?" Packard speaks through his teeth, as if to bite back his fury. "It was your goddamn *lucky* day she decided to come in here. And you would spit at her? You were *privileged* she came in here! ~ Carolyn Crane

The gist of it was the caste (privileged) hindus wanted the power to close the door on untouchables, but on no account could untouchables be given the power to close the door on themselves. The Masters knew that Choice was Power. ~ Arundhati Roy

secularism should be understood as the view that: government should not involve itself with religious matters; religious doctrine should play no role in shaping public policy or in the discourse about public policy; and religious institutions and beliefs should not enjoy a privileged position within society. ~ Ronald A. Lindsay

As actors, we are so privileged to do what we do and to give to the world and to choose the subject we want to say to the world. ~ Juliette Binoche

When equality is treated not as a medicine or a safety-gadget but as an ideal we begin to breed that stunted and envious sort of mind which hates all superiority. That mind is the special disease of democracy, as cruelty and servility are the special diseases of privileged societies. It will kill us all if it grows unchecked. The ~ C.S. Lewis

It is often said that Islam is an egalitarian religion. There is much truth in this assertion. If we compare Islam at the time of its advent with the societies that surrounded it - the stratified feudalism of Iran and the caste system of India to the east, the privileged aristocracies of both Byzantine and Latin Europe to the west - the Islamic dispensation does indeed bring a message of equality. Not only does Islam not endorse such systems of social differentiation; it explicitly and resolutely rejects them. The actions and utterances of the Prophet, the honored precedents of the early rulers of Islam as preserved by tradition, are overwhelmingly against privilege by descent, by birth, by status, by wealth, or even by race, and insist that rank and honor are determined only by piety and merit in Islam. ~ Bernard Lewis

When I was a child, the lessons my father taught me had been about perseverance, never to accept limitations that stood in my way. As an adult, watching him in his final years, I also saw how to come to terms with limits that couldn't simply be wished away. When to shift from pushing against limits to making the best of them is not often readily apparent. But it is clear that are times when the cost of pushing exceeds its value. Helping my father through the struggle to define that moment was simultaneously among the most painful and most privileged experiences of my life. Part of the way my father handled the limits he faced was by looking at them without illusion. Though his circumstances sometimes got him down, he never pretended they were better than they were. He always understood that life is short and one's place in the world is small. But he also saw himself as a link in a chain of history. ~ Atul Gawande

Collective violence has flowed regularly out of the central political processes of western countries... The oppressed have struck in the name of justice, the privileged in the name of order, the in-between in the name of fear. ~ Charles Tilly

Children are not a right, they are a privileged obligation. ~ Laura Schlessinger

It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction ... And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man ... ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Those very traumatic events in our lives give us a privileged opportunity to let God's love become concrete for us. What the psychoanaylyst strives to do by bringing traumatic experiences to consciousness often comes about much quicker and more completely by the action of the Holy Spirit. "The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his inermost parts" (Prov. 20:27) We can ask him to illuminate our past and lead us to those incidents that we have still not accepted wholeheartedly. We can save a lot of time if we go into analysis with the Holy Spirit...who is our true and ultimate therapist. Nothing is hidden from him. ~ Wilfrid Stinissen

The Greeks' Christian successors rejected the idea that the universe is governed by indifferent natural law. They also rejected the idea that humans do not hold a privileged place within that universe. And though the medieval period had no single coherent philosophical system, a common theme was that the universe is God's dollhouse, and religion a far worthier study than the phenomena of nature. Indeed, in 1277 Bishop Tempier of Paris, acting on the instructions of Pope John XXI, published a list of 219 errors or heresies that were to be condemned. Among the heresies was the idea that nature follows laws, because this conflicts with God's omnipotence. Interestingly, Pope John was killed by the effects of the law of gravity a few months later when the roof of his palace fell in on him. ~ Stephen Hawking

The only difference in the way we make sense of our own minds versus other people's minds is that we know we're guessing about the minds of others. The sense of privileged access you have to the actual workings of your own mind - to the causes and processes that guide your thoughts and behavior - appears to be an illusion. ~ Nicholas Epley

Harry, despite your privileged insight into Voldemort's world (which, incidentally, is a gift any Death Eater would kill to have), you have never been seduced by the Dark Arts, never, even for a second, shown the slightest desire to become one of Voldemort's followers!"
"Of course I haven't!" said Harry indignantly. "He killed my mum and dad!"
"You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!" said Dumbledore loudly. ~ J.K. Rowling

Is what I am not saying, young LaMont Chu, is why you cease to seem to give total effort of self since you begin with the clipping pictures of great professional figures for your adhesive tape and walls. No? Because, privileged gentlemen and boys I am saying, is always something that is too. Cold. Hot. Wet and dry. Very bright sun and you see the purple dots. Very bright hot and you have no salt. Outside is wind, the insects which like the sweat. Inside is smell of heaters, echo, being jammed in together, tarp is overclose to baseline, not enough of room, bells inside clubs which ring the hour loudly to distract, clunk of machines vomiting sweet cola for coins. Inside roof too low for the lob. Bad lighting, so. Or outside: the bad surface. Oh no look no: crabgrass in cracks along baseline. Who could give the total, with crabgrass. Look here is low net high net. Opponent's relatives heckle, opponent cheats, linesman in semifinal is impaired or cheats. You hurt. You have the injury. Bad knee and back. Hurt groin area from not stretching as asked. Aches of elbow. Eyelash in eye. The throat is sore. A too pretty girl in audience, watching. Who could play like this? Big crowd overwhelming or too small to inspire. Always something.' [p.458] ~ David Foster Wallace

You know, I was really privileged to meet Woody Allen, who is now a filmmaker, let's be honest. He's also an actor. And he's classic. And because I have no conception of what classic fashion is now, I respond to his slightly outdated sensibilities. ~ Ezra Miller

Art is a well-articulated manifestation of an aspect of life. I have been privileged to view much of life through my cameras, making the journey an enlightened experience. My emphasis has mainly been on affirmative reactions to human behavior and a strong attraction to the beauty in nature. ~ Dennis Stock

When someone comes to a pastor or a close friend and says "I think I'm gay", rest assured 99% are. How we respond creates light or darkness.
Please be aware that when you've never heard anything positive about being gay and you've laboured secretly over this for ages, you don't make a declaration like that lightly. It takes an enormous amount of courage to eventually tell someone. This is not an empowering coming out though or finally finding a place of self-acceptance; the statement is cloaked in fear and shame. The statement "I think I'm gay" is not really about doubt or confusion it's more likely they are saying "I'm gay, but it scares the shit out of me and I don't want to be. Help!"
At that point the pastor or friend has the privileged opportunity to provide a place of safety and compassion that will lead them on into self-acceptance and an authentic life. Handled unwisely could lead them into years of internal torment. ~ Anthony Venn-Brown

As we age, many of us who are privileged . . . those with some assured place and pattern in their lives, with some financial security---are in danger of choosing to stay right where we are, to undertake each day's routine, and to listen to our arteries hardening. . . . Instead, we should make use of our security, our seniority, to take risks, to make noise, to be courageous, to become unpopular. ~ Carolyn G. Heilbrun

The "health, education, and welfare" section of government is another boondoggle. First we manufacture indigent and superfluous people by legal monopolies in land, money and idea patents, erecting tariff barriers to protect monopolies from foreign competition, and taxing laborers to subsidize rich farmers and privileged manufacturers. Then we create "social workers, " etc., to care for them and thereby establish a self-aggravating and permanent institutionalized phenomenon ... ~ Laurance Labadie

I learned that female professors and departmental secretaries are the natural enemies of the academic world, as I was privileged to overhear discussions of my sexual orientation and probable childhood traumas from ten to ten-thirty each morning through the paper-thin walls of the break room located adjacent to my office. By these means I learned that although I was in desperate need of a girdle, I was better off than one of the other female professors, who would never lose all that baby weight by working all of the time. As ~ Hope Jahren

Pandora made the mistake of looking up. No woman would have been unaffected by the sight of that archangel's face above hers. So far, the privileged young men she had met during the Season seemed to be striving for a certain ideal, a kind of cool aristocratic confidence. But none of them came remotely close to this dazzling stranger, who had undoubtedly been indulged and admired his entire life. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Start taking money away from the privileged, and they can turn just as savage as any animal that gets shoved into Philippa's arena. ~ Peter F. Hamilton

I have listened to much dull and heavy conversation in America, but rarely to any that I could strictly call silly (if I except the every where privileged class of very young ladies). ~ Frances Trollope

Here in the United States, why do black performances of masculinity, compared to white middle-class performances of masculinity, elicit different responses from the mainstream media? How is covert 'whiteness' in the United States maintained by sensationalizing and reprimanding DMX and Michael Vick for animal torture and cruelty, while ignoring the 'animal gaming' pastimes of white privileged males, casting them as nondeviant 'normative' behaviors? ~ A. Breeze Harper

believe You're my healer. I believe You are all I need. I believe You're my portion. I believe You're more than enough for me. Jesus You're all I need. So I stood there with tears, hands raised, trusting Jesus to be enough. As I reduce, He is enough. As I simplify, He is enough. He is my portion where food and clothes and comfort fall woefully short. He can heal me from greed and excess, materialism and pride, selfishness and envy. While my earthly treasures and creature comforts will fail me, Jesus is more than enough. In my privileged world where "need" and "want" have become indistinguishable, my only true requirement is the sweet presence of Jesus. So I wrote my offering on an index card and left it: "All of me. ~ Jen Hatmaker

The double 0 numerals signify an agent who has killed and who is privileged to kill on active service. ~ Ian Fleming

Concentration of ownership in the media is high and increasing. Furthermore, those who occupy managerial positions in the media, or gain status within them as commentators, belong to the same privileged elites, and might be expected to share the perceptions, aspirations and attitudes of their associates, reflecting their own class interests as well ... ~ Noam Chomsky

I'm ashamed to say that I'm from a very privileged background. ~ David Lagercrantz

I sometimes think that Thomas Cook should be numbered among the secular saints. He took travel from the privileged and gave it to the people. ~ Robert Runcie

The architect's role is to fight for a better world, where he can produce an architecture that serves everyone and not just a group of privileged people. ~ Oscar Niemeyer

We also know how dangerous it is to simplify society by the use of examples in nature. However, many Americans still value the honey bee as a symbol of thrift and industry. This value seems to be one of the lingering philosophies from seventeenth-century England, in which the royal authorities and clergy dictated that the lower classes and unemployed should be "busy as bees" so they would not rebel. When the English began to label their own members of society as "drones," they privileged a new set of values based on work, thrift, and efficiency. The American Dream still seems to be based on these very values. And if somehow people do not attain the American Dream, we tend to think that they have not worked hard enough or did not save their money - in short, they are too much like drones. It could be argued that many American social policies - so conscious of work, labor, and time - are still based on the beehive model first adopted during the seventeenth century in England. For all its rhetoric of new opportunities, America still sees poverty as a sin, as if somehow the poor aren't thrifty or busy as bees. ~ Tammy Horn

I came from this very traditional background and I benefited hugely from feminism. I felt privileged going to university and doing a PhD. Most people of my background don't get to do that. ~ Denise Mina

I'm privileged, because I have a lot of freedom. I want to use it to make as warm and normal a life as I can for our daughters. ~ Jennifer Garner

I have indeed lived and worked to my taste either in art or science. What more could a man desire? Knowledge has always been my goal. There is much that I shall leave behind undone ... but something at least I was privileged to leave for the world to use, if it so intends ... As the Latin poet said I will leave the table of the living like a guest who has eaten his fill. Yes, if I had another life to spend, I certainly would not waste it. But that cannot be, so why complain? ~ Leon Camille Marius Croizat

Generally speaking, the less privileged groups in democratic society, as they become aware of their interests and their political power, will be found to press for ever more state intervention in practically all fields. ~ Gunnar Myrdal

The worries that are the burden of which the privileged person makes an excuse in dealing with the oppressed person are in fact the worries about preserving his privileged condition. ~ Franz Kafka

When you are trying to understand the world, it is unwise to assume that you occupy a privileged position in it. ~ Jim Holt

It is one of history's ironies that Communism, advertised as a classless society, tended to breed a privileged class of feudal proportions. ~ Henry Kissinger

It was from him, and from this picture in particular, that Henri Cartier-Bresson had developed the ideal of the decisive moment. Photography seemed to me, as I stood there in the white gallery with its rows of pictures and its press of murmuring spectators, an uncanny art like no other. One moment, in all of history, was captured, but the moments before and after it disappeared into the onrush of time; only that selected moment itself was privileged, saved, for no other reason than its having been picked out by the camera's eye. ~ Teju Cole

There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead. ~ Elizabeth Berg

It has been the struggle between privileged men who have managed to get hold of the levers of power and the people in general withtheir vague and changing aspirations for equality, for justice, for some kind of gentler brotherhood and peace, which has kept that balance of forces we call our system of government in equilibrium. ~ John Dos Passos

Posture and Social Status...
During the 18th century in European and American society, aspects including station in life, status and dress could easily identify those of financial means. In fact, the garments of this era would hold the wearer in a position that would support and require proper posture. Women, and sometimes men, wore stays in order to shape the torso. Among the more privileged, even children wore stays since people believed these improved their posture and enhanced straight spinal growth. Certain movements were constrained by the cut and design of many garments, including details of the sleeve and back that would hold the person in proper posture. ~ Cindy Ann Peterson

Because of how rarely our privilege is examined, even our social justice movements will tend to focus on the most privileged and most well represented people within those groups. Anti-racism groups will often tend to prioritize the needs of straight men of color, feminist groups will tend to prioritize the needs of white women, LGBTQ groups will tend to prioritize the needs of white gay cisgender men, disability rights groups will tend to prioritize the needs of disabled white men...Because the needs of the most privileged are usually the ones prioritized, they are often the only ones considered when discussing solutions to oppression and inequality. These solutions, not surprisingly, often leave the underprivileged populations in our movements behind. ~ Ijeoma Oluo

We are privileged, and the duty of privilege is absolute integrity. ~ John O'Donohue

Take away from the courts, if it could be taken away, the power to issue injunctions in labor disputes, and it would create a privileged class among the laborers and save the lawless among their number from a most needful remedy available to all men for the protection of their business interests against unlawful invasion ... The secondary boycott is an instrument of tyranny, and ought not to be made legitimate. ~ William Howard Taft

For all of its faults, it gives most hardworking people a chance to improve themselves economically, even as the deck is stacked in favor of the privileged few. Here are the choices most of us face in such a system: Get bitter or get busy. ~ Bill O'Reilly

[W]e currently live with a stupefying cultural value that makes being uncomfortable something to be avoided at all costs. Even at the cost of living a false life at the expense of others in an unjust society. We have a concept of happiness that excludes asking uncomfortable questions and saying things that are true but which might make us and others uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable or asking others to be uncomfortable is practically considered antisocial because the revelation of truth is tremendously dangerous to supremacy. As a result, we have a society in which the happiness of the privileged is based on never starting the process towards becoming accountable. If we want to transform the way we live, we will have to reposition being uncomfortable as a part of life,
as part of the process of being a full human being, and as a personal responsibility. ~ Sarah Schulman

It matters what you believe. Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness and the feeling of being especially privileged. Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies. ~ Sophia Lyon Fahs

For privileged people, equality in an unequal world is a bonanza. ~ Vijay Prashad

Why do you think politicians send soldiers to the wars they declare, if, of course, they still go to the bother of declaring them ... mediation, keeping a distance from the actual events and being privileged enough not to have to witness them. ~ Javier Marias

I've been very fortunate and privileged as a player and manager - I've been successful and picked up a lot of knowledge and experience, ~ John Toshack

I have chosen the way of my death, which is something few of us are privileged to do. ~ Linda Sue Park

The problem with borders, I was beginning to realize, isn't that they are monstrous, offensive, and unnatural constructions. The problem with borders is the same as the problem with evil that Hannah Arendt identified: their banality. We subconsciously accept them as part of the landscape--at least those of us privileged by them, granted meaningful passports--because they articulate our deepest, least exalted desires, for prestige and permanence, order and security, always at the cost of someone or something else. Borders reinforce the idea of the alien, the Other, stories separate and distinct from ourselves. But would such fictions continue to stand if most of us didn't agree with them, or at least quietly benefit from the inequalities they bolster? The barbed wire begins here, inside us, cutting through our very core. ~ Kate Harris

Just spunk won't be enough; you've got to have gumption. You've got to bear it in mind that nobody that ever lived is specially privileged; the axe can fall at any moment, on any neck, without any warning or any regard for justice. You've got to keep your mind off of pitying your own rotten luck and setting up any kind of howl about it. You've got to remember that things as bad as this and a hell of a lot worse have happened to millions of people before and that they've come through it and you can too. You'll bear it because there isn't any choice
except to go to pieces ... It's kind of a test, Mary, and it's the only kind that amounts to anything. When something rotten like this happens. Then you have your choice. You start to really be alive, or you start to die. That's all. ~ James Agee

I feel very privileged to be part of this mission, and when my nomination was announced, I was really very, very happy to be selected for this mission. ~ Claude Nicollier

The maturing of a woman who has continued to grow is a beautiful thing to behold. Or, if your ad revenue or your seven-figure salary or your privileged sexual status depend on it, it is an operable condition. ~ Naomi Wolf

[The Truth Seeker is] Devoted to: science, morals, free thought, free discussions, liberalism, sexual equality, labor reform, progression, free education and whatever tends to elevate and emancipate the human race.
Opposed to: priestcraft, ecclesiasticism, dogmas, creeds, false theology, superstition, bigotry, ignorance, monopolies, aristocracies, privileged classes, tyranny, oppression, and everything that degrades or burdens mankind mentally or physically. ~ De Robigne Mortimer Bennett

Jessabelle,
I'm sorry to just leave, but I need some time.
Time to get my head back on straight.
Time to remember who I really am.
Time with my Creator, the one who knew before the foundations of the earth what would happen over the last few days.

I wish more than anything, that I could process all of this with you, go through all of this together, because I'm coming to understand that, out of all the men in the world, God picked me for you. It's so much more than lineage. It's you. How you've come into your own. How you've blossomed and grown. I'm so privileged to see that secret side of you-the side no one else gets to see. The side where you secretly paint your second toenail a different color because everyone else does the fourth one, but you're not sure my mother would approve so you never wear open-toed shoes to show them off. You only eat M&Ms in odd numbers. You use your right hand to put hair behind your ear, but never your left.
You didn't know I knew those things, did you?
I've watched you over the last few months and learned more about you than I realized until I tried to put my thoughts on paper. You're sleeping just feet away from me as I write this. Your even breathing brings some peace to my troubled soul. The small smile on your face makes me wonder what your dreaming about and if, in your sleep, you've managed to find happiness instead of the turmoil life always seems to bring. I have to stop myself ~ Carol Moncado

He was a privileged tourist in a primitive country: flatteringly curious, unknowingly insulting, quite certainly unable to survive if left to his own devices. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Now at the breakfast table, watching him eat my toast, "Don't take no for an answer" seemed like the attitude of a privileged guy who didn't care who got hurt, so long as his wife had the cute statues she wanted to display in her summer house. ~ E. Lockhart

But integration and equality are myths; they disguise a new segregation and a new equality ... Every social order institutes its own program of separation or segregation. A particular faith and morality is given privileged status and all else is separated for progressive elimination. ~ R.J. Rushdoony

It is a mistake to think that Marxism is simply a type of interpretation that takes the economic "sequence" as that ultimately privileged code into which the other sequences are to be translated. Rather, for Marxism the emergence of the economic, the coming into view of the infrastructure itself, is simply the sign of the approach of the concrete. ~ Fredric Jameson

To me, art is not a solitary delight. It is a means of stirring the greatest number of men by providing them with a privileged image of our common joys and woes. ~ Albert Camus

Nobody is fit to rule anybody else. It is not alleged that Mankind is perfect, or that merely through his/her natural goodness (or lack of same) he/she should (or should not) be permitted to rule. Rule as such causes abuse. There are no superpeople nor privileged classes who are above 'imperfect Mankind' and are capable or entitled to rule the rest of us. Submission to slavery means surrender of life. ~ Albert Meltzer

Colleges have now become privileged finishing schools for girls. Except rather than teaching manners, they teach women that men are the enemy and men are treated as such on campus, unless they go along with the program that keeps them cowed or striking a PC pose. Many men have just decided that they don't belong in college and are going on strike, consciously or unconsciously. How will this affect their wages and lifestyles in the coming decades? If nothing changes and more and more men drop out of college or never attend, how will this change society? Will men continue to become the other, and be further relegated to second-class status where women and society are afraid of them and they are hesitant to participate fully in the public sphere? Is this already happening? The next chapter explores these questions. ~ Helen Smith

Feminism is dated? Yes, for privileged women like my daughter and all of us here today, but not for most of our sisters in the rest of the world who are still forced into premature marriage, prostitution, forced labor - they have children that they don't want or they cannot feed. ~ Isabel Allende

The fact that illness is associated with the poor
who are, from the perspective of the privileged, aliens in one's midst
reinforces the association of illness with the foreign with an exotic, often primitive place. ~ Susan Sontag

Confidence makes you strong, not proud.
Composure makes you tough, not timid.
Courage makes you bold, not arrogant.
Prudence makes you practical, not intolerant.
Respect makes you honorable, not weak.
Humility makes you modest, not spineless.
Silence makes you prudent, not feeble.
Meekness makes you gentle, not helpless.
Kindness makes you caring, not vulnerable.
Charity makes you compassionate, not spineless.
Mercy makes you sympathetic, not fragile.
Patience makes you cautious, not powerless.
Piety makes you noble, not bigoted.
Loyalty makes you trustworthy, not foolish.
Justice makes you fair, not vengeful.
Integrity makes you strong, not stern.
Chastity makes you disciplined, not narrow.

Wealth makes you prominent, not selfish.
Power makes you influential, not self centered.
Honor makes you important, not narcissistic.
Fame makes you privileged, not spoiled.
Servitude makes you respectable, not sycophantic.
Self-control makes you dignified, not self-righteous.
Discipline makes you focused, not obsessed.
Imagination makes you special, not odd.
Pleasure makes you happy, not corruptible.
Goodness makes you saintly, not narrow.
Faith makes you spiritual, not obstinate.
Love makes you mystical, not religious.
God makes you transcendent, not ordinary. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

In general children from low-income families are at risk of being failed by schools because of the erroneous belief that their parents lack ambition for them. A focus on the need for aspirations as widely set is necessary for closing the achievement gap between marginalized and privileged people. Yet an environment where students may not see themselves represented in person or on the page, what exactly are they inspiring to? Who sets those standards and are they achievable in the wider world without culturally sensitive and competent teachers? ~ Mikki Kendall

If you are called upon to play a church service, it is a greater honor than if you were to play a concert on the finest organ in the world ... Thank God each time when you are privileged to sit before the organ console and assist in the worship of the Almighty. ~ Albert Schweitzer

The natural fact that in every society exist children and adults, young and old, women and men, sick and healthy, weak and strong, as well as the socially marginalized and privileged, poor and rich, attracts the attention of sociologists and particularly lawyers only when problems appear in the social relations between these groups. ~ Milovan M. Mitrović

Fathers and teachers, what is hell? I think it is the suffering of one who can no longer love. Once, in the infinity of existence unmeasurable by time or space, a spiritual creature, upon its appearance on earth, is given the power to say: "I am and I love." Once, and only for a moment, is that creature given the knowledge of active, living love, and this is why that creature was given life on earth, and with it, time and space. And what happens? The privileged creature rejects that priceless gift, fails to appreciate it, does not even like it, sneers at it, and remains unmoved. When such a creature leaves the earth, sees Abraham, and talks with him as in the parable about Lazarus and the rich man--when he is already in sight of heaven and is allowed into the presence of the Lord, he is filled with suffering at the thought that he will appear before the Lord never having loved and will be brought into the presence of those who have loved him but whose love he has scorned. For now he sees clearly and says to himself: "I now have the knowledge and I am yearning for love; but now that my earthly life is over, there can be no self-abnegation, no sacrifice in love, and Abraham will not come to me again and bring me even a tiny drop of living water (that is, the gift of life on earth, the active life which I possessed before); since I will never again be given life and time, I will never be able to quench the fiery thirst for love that burns within me, because I scorned love while ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

From the dark horizon of my future a sort of slow, persistent breeze had been blowing toward me, all my life long, from the years that were to come. And on its way that breeze had leveled out all the ideas that people tried to foist on me in the equally unreal years I then was living through. What difference could they make to me, the deaths of others, or a mother's love, or his God; or the way a man decides to live, the fate he thinks he chooses, since one and the same fate was bound to "choose" not only me but thousands of millions of privileged people who, like him, called themselves my brothers. ~ Albert Camus

This fills me with anger, although I already know that it is in the normal order of things that the privileged oppress the unprivileged: the social structure of the camp is based on this human law. ~ Primo Levi

Privileged groups, like everyone else, want to think well of themselves and to believe that they are acting generously and justly. ~ Joanna Russ

I come from a privileged background but I worked a lot of winter seasons in the Alps and I've done lots of mundane summer jobs back in Britain where I mixed with less well off people. Maybe it comes from there but I've always felt that it's our duty to make society fairer. ~ Jonathan Trigell

One of the greatest comforts of this life is friendship; and one of the comforts of friendship is that of having someone we can trust with a secret. But friendship does not pair us off into couples, as marriage does; each of us generally has more than one friend to his name, and so a chain is formed, of which no man can see the end. When we allow ourselves the comfort of depositing a secret in the bosom of a friend, we inspire him with the wish to enjoy the same comfort for himself. It is true that we always ask him not to tell anyone else; and this is a condition which, if taken literally, would break the series of comforting confidences at once. But the general practice is to regard the obligation as one which prevents a man from passing the secret on, except to an equally trusted friend and on the same condition of silence. From trusted friend to trusted friend, the secret travels and travels along an unending chain, until it reaches the ears of the very man or men from whom the first speaker meant to keep it for ever. It would generally require a long time to get there, if each of us only had two friends - one to confide the secret to us, and another to whom we can pass it on. But there are some privileged men who have hundreds of friends, and once a secret reaches one of them, its subsequent journeys are so rapid and multitudinous that no one can keep track of them. ~ Alessandro Manzoni

The work that I do, I am grateful to do and honored and privileged to do, but I do it for my family and, if you don't have a family, then what does it mean? ~ Martha Williamson

Rules are restrictions given by other privileged men. I enjoy making up my own mind. Everyone ought to have the same human right. ~ Kerri Maniscalco

I can shoot off my big mouth and write my shows and run my shows, and I can recognize how lucky I am because my position is rare and my position is privileged. ~ Jenji Kohan

I'm privileged that I'm an artist. ~ Nelly Furtado

Bashing the elite is what I'm all about in my music because they absolutely don't deserve the privileged position that they're in, and we're seeing this around the globe right now. ~ Tom Morello

This might baffle you, but despite not being a physician, I do have some pride. Although most certainly not enough to withstand the kind of beating you're capable of dealing it. The kind of beating you've repeatedly dealt it from the first time we've met. You're right, I value honesty, so I'll tell you that I make it a practice not to find women who insult me at every opportunity attractive."
Color flooded her cheeks and traveled down her neck. Finally, she stepped away from him, too, and found the back of a chair to clutch. She looked entirely devastated. Had no one ever denied her anything? He hated the hurt in her eyes. But it was done now.
"How is telling you I'm attracted to you an insult?"
He pressed the back of his hand into his forehead. It made him feel like a drama queen in some sort of musical farce. Which this had to be. "Telling me how unworthy I am of your attraction, that's the insulting part. And, no, that's not all it is. Even if you hadn't told me at every opportunity how inferior to you I am... all I do is cook... every assumption you've made about me is insulting. Culinary school is definitely college. And Le Cordon Bleu is one of the most competitive institutions in the world. The fact that that's so wholly incomprehensible to you... that's the insulting part. And it wasn't thrown in my overly privileged lap either. I had to work my bottom off to make it in."
Ammaji had sold her dowry jewels to pay for his application, something her fa ~ Sonali Dev

Grassroots groups challenge the "business-as-usual" environmentalism that is generally practiced by the more privileged wildlife-and conservation-oriented groups. The focus of activists of color and their constituents reflects their life experiences of social, economic, and political disenfranchisement. ~ Robert D Bullard

When love of one's people becomes an absolute, it turns into racism. When love of equality turns into a supreme thing, it can result in hatred and violence toward anyone who has led a privileged life. It is the settled tendency of human societies to turn good political causes into counterfeit gods. ~ Timothy Keller

When dealing with the excessively rich and privileged, you've got your two basic approaches. One is to go in hard and deliberately working class. A regional accent is always a plus in this. Seawoll has been known to deploy a Mancunian dialect so impenetrable that members of Oasis would have needed subtitles, and graduate entries with double firsts from Oxford practise a credible Estuary in the mirror and drop their glottals with gay abandon when necessary.

That approach only works if the subject suffers from residual middle-class guilt – unfortunately the properly posh, the nouveau riche and senior legal professionals are rarely prey to such weaknesses. For them you have to go in obliquely and with maximum Downton Abbey.

Fortunately for us we have just the man. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

I feel very privileged to hear how somebody used to run around stickin' people up and stealing cars, and now they're gettin' their life back together ... I just love the stories. The stories of the fallen world, they excite us. That's the interesting stuff. ~ Denis Johnson

His mother had always approached his curse as if G wanted to spend his days as a quadruped. As if it were just another way for a privileged teenage boy to rebel. She often forgot that he didn't ask for this curse, and that if he could find a way to control it, he would give Billingsly's right arm for that information.
As if he could hear G's thoughts, Billingsly pulled his right arm in front of his body, and away from G's line of sight.
"In here, my lord," he said as he swung open the doors of the drawing room, using his left arm. ~ Cynthia Hand

The epoch of Customary Law, and of its custody by a privileged order, is a very remarkable one. ~ Henry James Sumner Maine

We, as film-makers, are privileged. We can make people cry or laugh. We can make them think and feel. It is a great privilege and a great responsibility. ~ Haskell Wexler

The world of "magick" is, nine times out of ten, a world where people can hide their deep-set insecurity and personal damage behind illusion, constructed identities and claims to privileged knowledge, power or spiritual status. A gaudy carnival magic show, conducted with props that have long since begun to disintegrate with age, that seems to function only to distract people from the real magic that is occurring all around them, in every facet of their lives, every day of their lives. While the rituals and magical techniques of the Temple seem overly simplistic in comparison with the loftier Qabalahs, tables of correspondences and secret formulae of "high" magick, they have one thing which high magick quite often forgets: a concrete function. ~ Jason Louv

I feel privileged, to be honest. ~ Shirley Manson

The Great Truth is that women in our society constitute one of the most privileged and powerful classes of human beings on earth. The challenge is to make women believe in their power. "Woman as victim" is an idea whose time has passed. The idea of woman as a survivor and a success must take its place. ~ Wendy McElroy

The emotional appeal of a conspiracy theory is in its simplicity. It explains away complex phenomena, accounts for chance and accidents, offers the believer the satisfying sense of having special, privileged access to the truth. ~ Anne Applebaum

A tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one, and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government. ~ Spiro T. Agnew