Pro Choice Quotes

I never really called myself pro-choice. ~ Mitt Romney

Together, whether we are pro-life or pro-choice, Democrat or Republican," says Chai, "we can all agree that the systemic elimination of girls simply because they're girls is a crime that has to be stopped. ~ Marian V. Liautaud

Your moral stance depends on what you think is being aborted. If you don't believe it to be a person but part of a woman's body, of course you will be pro-choice. I would be virulently pro-choice if I didn't believe it to be a person. ~ Louise Mensch

We're always going to argue about abortion. It's a hard choice and it's controversial, and that's why I'm pro-choice, because I want people to make their own choices. ~ Hillary Clinton

EMILY's List members are deeply committed to electing pro-choice Democratic women whom we trust to stand up for our rights, treat us honestly, and make us proud. Our candidates fight for us every day. Blanche Lincoln failed to hold up her end of the bargain. ~ Ellen Malcolm

Earlier feminists were almost universally pro-choice and have dominated political debate until now. Having access to abortion was viewed as the only way women could have full equality with men, who, until recently, couldn't get pregnant. ~ Kathleen Parker

I have a lifetime 100% pro-choice voting record. I understand that people disagree on this issue, but I believe that it is a woman's decision, it's a difficult decision, but it's a decision between her and her physician. I will do everything that I can in 50 states of this country to make sure that women have a choice. ~ Bernie Sanders

Adoption was such a positive alternative to abortion, a way to save one life and brighten two more: those of the adoptive parents. ~ George W. Bush

My argument has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive. ~ Camille Paglia

Mom was adamantly pro-choice. She had a bumper sticker on the car that read If you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child? But in her case the choice was to keep me. ~ Gayle Forman

I think the Republican Party should be a pro-life party. I am pro-life. I do not apologize for that. On the flip side of that coin, the Republican Party has been big enough to allow pro-choice advocates to be heard. ~ J. C. Watts

I am politically pro-choice, but personally pro-life. I have my faith but refuse to force it on the world at large - especially this world, so brutal and unjust. I cannot make these wrenching personal life and death decisions for others - nor do I believe they should be made by a church run by childless men. ~ Julianna Baggott

Careful to devalue life in your youth. The young may very well devalue you when you are old. ~ A.E. Samaan

There is no such thing as illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents. ~ J.Adam Snyder

Social conservatives do have a pretty decent predictive track record, including in many cases where their fears were dismissed as wild and apocalyptic, their projections as sky-is-falling nonsense, their theories of how society and human nature works as evidence-free fantasies. . . . If you look at the post-1960s trend data - whether it's on family structure and social capital, fertility and marriage rates, patterns of sexual behavior and their links to flourishing relationships, or just trends in marital contentment and personal happiness more generally - the basic social conservative analysis has turned out to have more predictive power than my rigorously empirical liberal friends are inclined to admit. . . .
In the late 1960s and early '70s, the pro-choice side of the abortion debate frequently predicted that legal abortion would reduce single parenthood and make marriages more stable, while the pro-life side made the allegedly-counterintuitive claim that it would have roughly the opposite effect; overall, it's fair to say that post-Roe trends were considerably kinder to Roe's critics than to the "every child a wanted child" conceit. Conservatives (and not only conservatives) also made various "dystopian" predictions about eugenics and the commodification of human life as reproductive science advanced in the '70s, while many liberals argued that these fears were overblown; today, from "selective reduction" to the culling of Down's Syndrome fetuses to worldwide tr ~ Ross Douthat

Apparently the pro-choice types who jump up and down in the street demanding that you keep your rosaries off their ovaries are entirely relaxed about the government getting its bureaucratics all over your lymphatics. ~ Mark Steyn

Women deserve better than propaganda and lies to get into panties. Propaganda and lies to get into office, to get out of court, to get out of paying child support. Get the fuck out of our decisions and give us back our voice. Women deserve better; women deserve choice. ~ Sonya Renee Taylor

All I'm asking for is the law that's been on the books for the last 33 years, no public funding for abortion. We are both saying the same thing, pro-life, pro-choice. Let's find the language that works for both of us so we can pass health care. ~ Bart Stupak

I thought I was going to die. I was a teenager. It was the hardest thing I'd ever gone through. It'd be contradictory if I said I wasn't pro-choice. I wasn't ready. I didn't have anything to offer a child. ~ Nicki Minaj

(T)he Left has moved so far to the left that this pro-choice, lesbian feminist is now considered a Right-Winger! ~ Tammy Bruce

It is time to renew the battle for reproductive rights. We have been outmaneuvered, outspent, outpostured, and outvoted by a group of single-issue activists. It has taken them nearly two decades to turn back the principles of Roe. Let's make sure it takes us a shorter time to replace protection for reproductive choice. ~ Sarah Weddington

I don't know what happens to our consciousness when we're unwound," says Connor. "I don't even know when that consciousness starts. But I do know this." He pauses to make sure all of them are listening. "We have a right to our lives!"
The kids go wild.
"We have a right to choose what happens to our bodies!"
The cheers reach fever pitch.
"We deserve a world where both those things are possible - and it's our job to help make that world. ~ Neal Shusterman

No, I'm the human here. I'm the life at stake. I'm the one with fingernails, who feels pain.

Me. ~ Alicen Grey

I'm not pro-life. I'm very emphatically pro-choice. ~ Will Sheff

I have seen a lot of people, by the way, who were pro-life become pro-choice. No one seems to have any difficulty with that at all. That's easily accepted. But, if you are pro-choice and you become pro-life, there are a lot of folks, particularly in the media, who find that unacceptable. ~ Mitt Romney

When she passed on the ham the explanation was she was a vegetarian. Kat had asked why she was eating eggs, then, if she didn't eat meat. Smiling, she replied, I don't kill animals for food, but I am pro-choice. ~ James R Tuck

We do not believe in murder! We believe in convenience in our careers, in our cuisine, in our kills, and in our definitions. ~ Danielle Valenilla

You're not really mad that I'm not having children.

In fact, I would probably love to one day.

You're mad that I'm expressing autonomy of choice.

You're mad that I'm considering other options.

You're mad that I don't view that as my ultimate potential.

You're mad that I dare be selfish enough to make choices based on my best interest, something women are not supposed to do.

You're mad that I consider it a choice, and that I, a woman, am exercising choice.

You're not mad that I'm not having babies.

You're mad because I'm acting like a man. ~ Alice Minium

My father despises cats. He believes them to be Democrats. He considers them to be little mean hillary clintons covered all over with feminist legfur. Cats would have abortions, if given half a chance. Cats would have abortions for fun. Consequently our own soft sinner, a soulful snowshoe named Alice, will stay shut in the bedroom upstairs, padding back and forth on cashmere paws, campaigning for equal pay, educating me about my reproductive system, and generally plotting the downfall of all men. ~ Patricia Lockwood

Pro-choice is the only way to be
because women are human beings, after all, and should be treated as such. ~ Julia Child

Pregnancy and childbirth are not only physical and medical experiences, after all. They are also social experiences that, in modern America, just as when abortion was criminalized in the 1870s, serve to restrict women's ability to participate in society on equal footing with men. ~ Katha Pollitt

If you are against abortions, don't have one. ~ Scott Andrews

The lie that abortion is murder is right-wing propaganda designed to demonize Democrats. Abortion is legal all over the world because a fetus without a cerebral cortex cannot think or feel before the 27th week. According to the CDC almost all abortions happen before the 13th week. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

Republicans were more pro-choice than Democrats up until the late 1980s. ~ Jill Lepore

The nation was tearing itself apart over pro-life and pro-choice but completely ignored the problems of the kids who were already here. I mean, no schools, no work, no clue if they'd even have a future. They just went nuts! ~ Neal Shusterman

There appears no assurance that in the times of our own grandchildren the world will contain viable populations of wild African Lions, Tigers, Polar Bears, Emperor Penguins, gorillas, or coral reefs. These are the animals expectant parents pain on nursery room walls. Their implied wish: to welcome precious new life in to a world endowed with the magnificence and delight and fright of companions we have traveled with since the beginning. Some people debate the "rights of the unborn" as though a human life begins at conception but we don't need to concern ourselves with its prospects after birth. Raging over the divine sanctity of anyone else's pregnancy is a little overwrought and a little too easy when nature itself terminates one out of four by the sixth week. There are much bigger, more compassionate pro-life fish to fry. Passing along a world that can allow real children to flourish and the cavalcade of generations to unfold, and the least to live in modest dignity would be the biggest pro-life enterprise we could undertake. ~ Carl Safina

Many American boys that fought in WWII had been sterilized under eugenic laws passed by the the United States Supreme Court under the 1927 case of Buck v. Bell. Over 80,000 Americans would be forcibly sterilized under that legal precedent. Coincidentally, Buck v Bell is also the legal precedent cited in Roe v. Wade, the famous abortion rights case. ~ A.E. Samaan

With the fate of Roe v. Wade now hanging in the balance, I'm calling for a special 'pro-life tax.' If the fervent prayers of the religious right are answered and abortion is banned, let's take it a step further. All good Christians should legally be required to pony up; share the financial burden of raising an unwanted child. That's right: put your money where your Bible is. I'm not just talking about paying for food and shelter or even a college education. All those who advocate for driving a stake through the heart of a woman's right to choose must help bear the financial burden of that child's upbringing. They must be legally as well as morally bound to provide the child brought into this world at their insistence with decent clothes to wear; a toy to play with; a bicycle to ride -- even if they don't consider these things 'necessities.' Pro-lifers must be required to provide each child with all those things they would consider 'necessary' for their own children. Once the kid is out of the womb, don't wash your hands and declare 'Mission Accomplished!' It doesn't end there. If you insist that every pregnancy be carried to term, then you'd better be willing to pay the freight for the biological parents who can't afford to. And -- like the good Christians that you are -- should do so without complaint. ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

Rina!" I shouted, but the radio was up loud -something sad and gooey- and she didn't hear me. I hit the horn, twice, startling the minivan with a Pro-Choice sticker in front of me, which quickly changed lanes. We kept cruising neck and neck, with Rina full-out brawling now, singing along with the radio, tears running down her face, completely oblivious to both me and the speed limit. I reached under my seat and searched around until I came up with an empty plastic Coke bottle, which I then hurled at her windshield. she jerked back from the wheel as it bounced off, then whipped her around, eyes wide, and finally saw me.
"Shit!" she screamed, hitting the automatic window control to open the one nearest me. "What the hell are you doing? ~ Sarah Dessen

I have made it clear that future candidates need to be completely understanding that they will be expected to vote pro-choice on any bills. ~ Justin Trudeau

A pro-choice advocate sees abortion as a decision to be made in accordance with the best scientific opinion as to when the beginning of life, as we know it, occurs. ~ Stanley Fish

I won't use abortion as a litmus test with a pro-choice individual. Someone that is an activist on the abortion issue, I think, goes outside the pale, and I cannot support an activist on the abortion issue. ~ Ken Buck

I was and am, like many women, both pro-life and pro-choice. ~ Patricia Schroeder

Zach, it doesn't matter which talking heads the Republicrats put up as their candidates. Either way you're voting to maintain the status quo. Is that what you want?"
"Ummm...."
"Are you pro-choice?"
"Sure, I guess." Abortion's not something a gay man has to think about often.
"And you must be in favour of allowing gays to marry?"
"Of course." But I'd have to be dating someone first, right?
"And you believe in the decriminalization of marijuana?"
"I suppose." There was no way i was going to to argue with a man who sold bongs for a living on that one.
"Don't you think you should be able to vote against our out-of-control welfare state without having to vote against those basic rights? Basic rights which should be protected by our constitution?"
"Well-"
"Have you even read the constitution, Zach?"
"I don't think so," I admitted in surprise.
He shook his head at me. "Neither has the president, Zach. Think about that."
He left a stack of pamphlets on the counter and headed for Ruby's. It was going to be a long campaign season. ~ Marie Sexton

I should have known better. Pro-life arguments are now based on scientific evidence and the pro-choice arguments are not. That is a cultural, historical fact. ~ Stanley Fish

Every one of my positions cuts - out half the country. I'm pro-choice, I'm pro-gay rights, I'm pro-immigration, I'm against guns, I believe in Darwin. ~ Michael Bloomberg

But I am, personally, not a gambler. I wouldn't spend £1 on the lottery, let alone take a punt on a pregnancy. The stakes are far, far too high. I can't agree with a society that would force me to bet on how much I could love under duress. ~ Caitlin Moran

How can we talk about the rights of a fertilized egg when we don't care enough to see that every child is born into a stable, safe, and nurturing environment? ~ Rebecca Warner

A woman decides about her body and her God is her business. Women who are pro-life can be just a good a Christian as a woman who is pro-choice and vice versa. You can be a good Christian and be pro-life. You can be a good Christian and be pro-choice. ~ Jeremiah Wright

Obviously, I have been a pro-choice candidate for my entire political career, and obviously there is controversy always surrounding this issue. ~ Claire McCaskill

I quickly realized that there are two main kinds of diversity - demographic and moral ... Once you make this distinction, you see that nobody can coherently even want moral diversity. If you are pro-choice on the issue of abortion, would you prefer that there be a wide variety of opinions and no dominant one? Or would you prefer that everyone agree with you and the laws of the land reflect that agreement? If you prefer diversity on an issue, the issue is not a moral issue for you; it is a matter of personal taste. ~ Jonathan Haidt

Is having a child actually fundamentally bettering the world as a whole in any way? There is no shortage of children. Wouldn't it be better to let people who want children have them, and leave everyone else alone? ~ Alice Minium

Pro-choice supporters are often heard using the cool language of the courts and the vocabulary of rights. Americans who are deeply ambivalent about abortion often miss the sound of caring. ~ Ellen Goodman

I want to make one thing clear: I'm pro-choice, I'm pro-affirmative action, I'm pro- environment, pro-health care, and pro-labor. And if that ain't a Democrat, then I must be at the wrong meeting. ~ Wesley Clark

[I]t is more than slightly ironic that Democrats, the fiercely pro-choice party, reserve free choice for aborting a fetus, while denying it for such matters as choosing your child's school or joining a union. ~ Charles Krauthammer

The abortion debate is more about power and control than the fate of a zygote. ~ Thor Benson

I am not saying I will vote against John Ashcroft because he is pro-life, .. But let me say if someone was nominated for attorney general who was vehemently pro choice
who in his or her career spent decades trying to find ways to expand the law abortion at nine months would be perfectly legal
wouldn't you be more upset and raise more of a voice than against a nominee who was simply pro-choice?. ~ Charles Schumer

I believe most Americans are pro-choice and anti-abortion. ~ Newt Gingrich

This is not about abortion or the antics. This is about pro choice versus anti-choice and government intervention in a woman's personal decisions about her life. ~ Kathleen Turner

It so happens that I'm pro choice. ~ Arlen Specter

The religious right is one of the most politically militant voting blocs in the country and the agenda is clear (a gun in every uterus). Time we stopped subsidizing the anti-abortion movement in the form of tax-exemptions. ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself. This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right
it is the very opposite. It is a deep wound in society. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

You can't wake up one day and say 'I'm for gay marriage,' and wake up the next day and say 'I'm against it.' Wake up one day and say, 'I'm pro-choice,' and the next day wake up and say, 'I'm pro-life.' There's no credibility there. ~ Roger Stone

Aristotle didn't have a problem with abortion," she says.
"Oh, well, good, that's a comfort," I say. ~ Deborah Meyler

In my world, you don't get to call yourself "pro-life" and be against common-sense gun control - like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don't get to call yourself "pro-life" and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don't get to call yourself "pro-life" and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children ... The term "pro-life" should be a shorthand for respect for the sanctity of life. But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity for life begins at conception and ends at birth. What about the rest of life? Respect for the sanctity of life, if you believe that it begins at conception, cannot end at birth. ~ Thomas L. Friedman

I have worked for three decades as a staunch advocate of building a 'big tent' party that includes both pro-choice and pro-life Republicans. ~ Olympia Snowe

I have met thousands and thousands of pro-choice men and women. I have never met anyone who is pro-abortion. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton

The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

If abortion is murder then blowjobs are cannibalism. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

I'm pro-choice because I've never been a fourteen-year-old incest victim pregnant by her father, or a woman who's going to die if her pregnancy continues, or even a teenager who made a mistake or a rape victim. I want women to have choices, but I also believe that it's a life, especially once it's big enough to live outside the womb. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

Too many people in America believe that if you are pro-choice that means pro-abortion. It doesn't. I don't want abortion. Abortion should be the rarest thing in the world. I am actually personally opposed to abortion. But I don't believe that I have a right to take what is an article of faith to me and legislate it to other people. That's not how it works in America. ~ John F. Kerry

I wasn't just pro-choice, I was pro-everything, until I started taking everything off the table and began looking at things and asking if this view was consistent with that view. ~ Glenn Beck

If 'feminism' can mean anything from behaving like a man (Miller), being pro-choice (Valenti), being pro-life (Palin), and being pro-war (the Republican administration), then we may simply need to abandon the term, or at the very least, restrict its usage to those situations in which we make quite certain we explain what we mean by it. ~ Nina Power

We don't have a caucus, because we differ on so many views. Some of us are pro-choice, some are not. We'll take the issue of drilling, for example: Lisa Murkowski would want to drill in ANWAR, Maria Cantwell, Barbara Boxer, and most of us would say no, and so we don't. But we get together once a month for dinner, and we have three rules: no memos, no staff, and no leaks; and we get together for friendship. In fact, we're having a dinner tonight. We just have drinks and talk about life and times. ~ Barbara Mikulski

I've always been progressive on social issues: pro-choice, pro-gun control, and pro-gay rights - even when I was a Republican. The big difference is that I once believed the private sector would address America's social problems. But then I saw firsthand that this wasn't going to happen. ~ Arianna Huffington

You've got a movie where the pro-choice family gives their daughter no choice. The pro-life family murders. What seems to be the good mother, the kind of hippie painter, sweet and cute mother has no love for her daughter really. ~ Ellen Barkin

With regards to my views on protecting a woman's right to choose, I've been very clear on that. I will preserve and protect a woman's right to choose. And I'm devoted and dedicated to honoring my word in that regard. I am pro-choice. ~ Mitt Romney

I am pro-choice, but I don't consider that inconsistent at all with pro-life - there's no way that having an abortion, ever, is an easy decision, and it more often errs on the side of absolutely wrenching, not to mention physically debilitating. ~ Rachel Sklar

When we consider that women are treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

If you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child? ~ Gayle Forman

I want a future abortion conversation known for its openness, respect and empathy, so instead of generating more heat, anger and conflict, I practice pro-voice. ~ Aspen Baker

I think abortion's wrong, but it's none of my business to tell somebody what's wrong, he said. So I'm pro-choice. I want to keep my nose out of other people's personal business. I guess I fall into conservative when it comes to protecting the United States in a world where a lot of people hate the United States. ~ Dennis Miller

The pro-death view should be of interest even to those who do not accept it. One of its valuable features is that it offers a unique challenge to those pro-lifers who reject a legal right to abortion. Whereas a legal pro-choice position does not require a pro-lifer to have an abortion - it allows a choice - a legal pro-life position does prevent a pro-choicer from having an abortion. Those who think that the law should embody the pro-life position might want to ask themselves what they would say about a lobby group that, contrary to my arguments in Chapter 4 but in accordance with pro-lifers' commitment to the restriction of procreative freedom, recommended that the law become pro-death. A legal pro-death policy would require even pro-lifers to have abortions. Faced with this idea, legal pro-lifers might have a newfound interest in the value of choice. ~ David Benatar

I'm pro-choice. But I hope that choice will be life. ~ Rush Limbaugh

No Republican presidential candidate is a viable option for pro-choice voters of any political philosophy - Democrat, Republican or otherwise. ~ Christine Pelosi

Felicity was in the process of unpacking her valise on the bed. "Then let us make sure no one else makes that mistake," she said, pulling out ribbons and laces, a set of fancy hair combs and a few cosmetic pots. "Nanny Tasha always said a lady's age should be a mystery." Miranda closed her eyes. Truly, she was starting to wonder about Lord Langley's choice of nannies for his daughters. Most of what the girls repeated from their dear caretakers sounded more like the advice of an experienced Cyprian, not that of a doting governess for small, impressionable children. Felicity ~ Elizabeth Boyle

He remarked as much to Charlotte on his return, and she was inclined to agree with him. 'As life draws us along,' she replied, 'we think we are acting of our own volition, ourselves choosing what we shall do and what we shall enjoy; but when we look more closely we see they are only the intentions and inclinations of the age which we are being compelled to comply with. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I decided the map was clearly written by masochistic-doodling ancient Egyptians because everything was hieroglyphics and unreadable doodads.

I cursed the map.

"BY MOTHRA'S NIPPLES! I FUCKING HATE THIS MAP!"

Irrational anger bubbled to the surface and all I could think about was murdering the map. I would show the map who was boss.

I was boss.

Not some evil, wrong map from hell. I had no choice but to hit the map against the steering wheel several times, grunting and releasing a string of curses that would have made my sailor father proud. And maybe blush.

Then I opened my driver's side door, still grunting and raging, and slammed the map against the car, threw it on the ground, stomped on it, kicked it, and just generally assaulted it in every way I could think of. I'm a little embarrassed to admit, in my mindlessness I was also taunting the map, questioning its virility, flipping it the bird, and cursing now in Spanish as well as English.

It was the most cardio I'd done in over twelve months.

Stupid map, making me do cardio. I'll kill you! ~ Penny Reid

If we are with someone out of choice, we should act accordingly, and choose to communicate rather than deteriorate. ~ Lauren Klarfeld

You could say that this was where an accidental wind blew him but I don't think so. I would rather think that in a "long shot" he saw a new way of measuring our jerky hopes and graceful rogueries and awkward sorrows, and that he came here from choice to be with us to the end. Like the plane coming down into the Glendale airport into the warm darkness. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

I realize that two years is not a long time. I realize that even ten years is not a long time. But when it seems insurmountable, I need reminders like this that you can get used to it. That it can take on the comfort of the right choice. That lasting things do, in fact, last. ~ David Levithan

Like casinos, large corporate entities have studied the numbers and the ways in which people respond to them. These are not con tricks - they're not even necessarily against our direct interests, although sometimes they can be - but they are hacks for the human mind, ways of manipulating us into particular decisions we otherwise might not make. They are also, in a way, deliberate underminings of the core principle of the free market, which derives its legitimacy from the idea that informed self-interest on aggregate sets appropriate prices for items. The key word is 'informed'; the point of behavioural economics - or rather, of its somewhat buccaneering corporate applications - is to skew our perception of the purchase to the advantage of the company. The overall consequence of that is to tilt the construction of our society away from what it should be if we were making the rational decisions classical economics imagines we would, and towards something else. ~ Nick Harkaway

When a customer gets many options to choose from, as a salesperson it's your job to influence that choice. ~ Shahenshah Hafeez Khan

I eat breakfast pretty much 'round the clock - muffins in the morning, scones for lunch, cereal at night - which may be odd but is also oddly satisfying, if only because the choice is my own. ~ Caroline Knapp

Sometimes in the middle of a normal day, a life-changing choice is thrown in front of you. Right then, you're one decision away from a completely different existence. You decide your future even though you aren't even aware you're doing it. Your choice might result in finding love or death or winning the fucking lottery - you don't know. ~ Ilsa Madden-Mills

B.O.Y. means 'Beware of You'… Be aware of your power. We have the choice to live positively or in our own destruction. ~ Hayley Williams

Religions, creeds, drama, poetry, games, folklore, folk tales, mythology, moral and aesthetic codes' elements of the political and juridical life affirming a personality's value , freedom and tolerance ; philosophy, theater, galleries , museums, libraries-this is the unbroken line of human culture, the first act of which has been played in heaven between God and man. That is climbing the holy mountain , the top of which remains unreachable' marching through darkness by means of the blazing candle carried by man.
Civilization is the continuation of technical rather than spiritual progress in the same way that Darwinian evolution is the continuation of biological rather than human progress. Civilization represents the development of the potential forces that existed in our less developed ancestors. It is a continuation of the natural , mechanical elements-that is, of the unconscious, senseless elements of our existence. Therefore, civilization is neither good nor bad in itself. Man must create civilization , just as he must breathe or eat. It is an expression of necessity and of our lack of freedom. Culture ,on the contrary, is the ever-present feeling of choice and expression of human freedom. ~ Alija Izetbegovic

Both the ferial and the festal cuisine, therefore, must be seen as styles of unabashed eating. Neither attempts to do anything to food other than render it delectable. Their distinction is grounded, not in sordid dietetic tricks, but in a choice between honest frugality or generous expense. Both aim only at excellence; accordingly, neither is suitable for dieting. Should a true man want to lose weight, let him fast. Let him sit down to nothing but coffee and conversation, if religion or reason bid him to do so; only let him not try to eat his cake without having it. Any cake he could do that with would be a pretty spooky proposition - a little golden calf with dietetic icing, and no taste at all worth having.

Let us fast, then - whenever we see fit, and as strenuously as we should. But having gotten that exercise out of the way, let us eat. Festally, first of all, for life without occasions is not worth living. But ferially, too, for life is so much more than occasions, and its grand ordinariness must never go unsavored. But both ways let us eat with a glad good will, and with a conscience formed by considerations of excellence, not by fear of Ghosts. ~ Robert Farrar Capon

I love college football and I love pro football. This is how fair-weathered I am. I used to be a Giants fan, but my son who's turning 12 has really gotten into football, and he likes the Jets, so I totally jumped ships so we can root for the same team. ~ Chris Bauer

We don't need to identify concrete solutions to all our problems. We don't need to create the illusion of control amid uncertain circumstances. We need to accept that our biggest problem is fighting the way things are, and then consciously choose to stop battling ourselves. We have to choose to be in this moment instead of scheming toward something better. This moment is a new opportunity to let go of everything that's stressing us. This moment is a new chance to take a deep breath so that we don't feel so overwhelmed. This moment is a tiny lifetime, all in itself, and we have the choice to live it. ~ Lori Deschene