Barbara Deming Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“We learn best to listen to our own voices if we are listening at the same time to other women - whose stories, for all our differences, turn out, if we listen well, to be our stories also.”

“The injunction that we should love our neighbors as ourselves means to us equally that we should love ourselves as we love our neighbors.”

“Think first of the action that is right to take, think later about coping with one's fears.”

“This is the heart of my argument: We can put more pressure on the antagonist for whom we show human concern.”

“After the revolution, it might very well remain necessary to place people where they could not do harm to others. But the one under restraint should be cut off from the rest of society as little as possible.”

“Of course it can be said of jails, too, that they try - by punishing the troublesome - to deter others. No doubt, in certain instances this deterrence actually works. But generally speaking it fails conspicuously.”

“The point is to change one's life. The point is not to give some vent to the emotions that have been destroying one; the point is so to act that one can master them now.”

“People who attack others need rationalizations for doing so. We undermine those rationalizations.”

“Nonviolent tactics can move into action on our behalf men not naturally inclined to act for us.”

“There should be no censorship of mail.”