text:
Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (11 October 1884 – 7 November 1962) was a social activist, first lady and the wife of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Quotes

 * Oh! I want to put my arms around you, I ache to hold you close. Your ring is a great comfort. I look at it and think she does love me or I wouldn't be wearing it!
 * In a letter to Lorena Hickok, March 7, 1933

 * Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be "damned if you do, and damned if you don't."
 * As quoted in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1944; 1948) by Dale Carnegie; though Roosevelt has sometimes been credited with the originating the expression, "Damned if you do and damned if you don't" is set in quote marks, indicating she herself was quoting a common expression in saying this. Actually, this saying was coined in 1836 by evangelist Lorenzo Dow.

 * Understanding is a two-way street.
 * As quoted in Modern Quotations for Ready Reference (1947) by Arthur Richmond, p. 455

 * It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
 * Voice of America broadcast (11 November 1951)

 * We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.
 * The New York Times (1960), as cited in The Beacon Book of Quotations by Women (1992) by Rosalie Maggio, p. 156

 * To me who dreamed so much as a child, who made a dreamworld in which I was the heroine of an unending story, the lives of people around me continued to have a certain storybook quality. I learned something which has stood me in good stead many times — The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.
 * Preface (December 1960) to The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (1961), p. xvi; the last line was originally used in the initial edition of her autobiography: This Is My Story (1937)

 * Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
 * Preface (December 1960) to The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (1961), p. xix

 * My husband plunged into work on a speech and I went off to work on an article. Midnight came and bed for all, and all that was said was "good night, sleep well, pleasant dreams, with the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.'
 * from "My Day" (January 8, 1936)

 * I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.
 * From article "In Defense of Curiosity" appearing in The Saturday Evening Post 208 (August 24, 1935); 8-9, 64-66.

 * When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.
 * As quoted in Eleanor : The Years Alone (1972) by Joseph P. Lash

 * I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
 * As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1972) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 5

 * Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
 * As quoted in The Beacon Book of Quotations by Women (1992) by Rosalie Maggio, p. 130

 * When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?
 * As quoted in "On The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" by Hillary Rodham Clinton in Issues of Democracy Vol. 3, No. 3 (October 1998), p. 11

 * You get more joy out of the giving to others, and should put a good deal of thought into the happiness you are able to give.
 * As quoted in Sheroes: Bold, Brash, and Absolutely Unabashed Superwomen from Susan B. Anthony to Xena (1998) by Varla Ventura, p. 150

 * I think I have a good deal of my Uncle Theodore in me, because I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on.
 * As quoted in The Three Roosevelts: Patrician Leaders Who Transformed America (2002) by James MacGregor Burns ad Susan Dunn, p. 563
 * Variant: I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on.

 * I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: "No good in a bed, but fine against a wall".
 * From a speech given at the White Shrine Club, Fresno, California, quoted in The Event Makers I’ve Known (2012) by Elvin C. Bell, p. 161. She is described as being in her late 70s, so c. 1960–1962

This Is My Story (1937)

 * Up to a certain point it is good for us to know that there are people in the world who will give us love and unquestioned loyalty to the limit of their ability. I doubt, however, if it is good for us to feel assured of this without the accompanying obligation of having to justify this devotion by our behavior.

 * The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.

You Learn by Living (1960)

 * The purpose of life...is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.
 * Foreword (January 1960)

 * One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In stopping to think through the meaning of what I have learned, there is much that I believe intensely, much I am unsure of. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
 * Foreword (January 1960)

 * One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. … All you need to do is to be curious, receptive, eager for experience. And there's one strange thing: when you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.
 * p. 14

 * You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
 * p. 29–30

 * A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.
 * p. 63

 * Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively.
 * p. 95

We must all face an unpalatable fact that we have, too often, a tendency to skim over; we proceed on the assumption that all men want freedom. This is not as true as we would like it to be. Many men and women who are far happier when they have relinquish their freedom, when someone else guides them, makes their decisions for them, takes the responsibility for them and their actions. They don't want to make up their minds. They don't want to stand on their own feet.
 * "Anxiety," Kierkegaard said, "is the dizziness of freedom." This freedom of which men speak, for which they fight, seems to some people a perilous thing. It has to be earned at a bitter cost and then — it has to be lived with. For freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.
 * p. 152

My Day (1935–1962)

 * Her daily newspaper column : selections at PBS

 * It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death. (1 April 1939)

 * I was one of those who was very happy when the original prohibition amendment passed. I thought innocently that a law in this country would automatically be complied with, and my own observation led me to feel rather ardently that the less strong liquor anyone consumed the better it was. During prohibition I observed the law meticulously, but I came gradually to see that laws are only observed with the consent of the individuals concerned and a moral change still depends on the individual and not on the passage of any law. (14 July 1939)

 * Little by little it dawned upon me that this law was not making people drink any less, but it was making hypocrites and law breakers of a great number of people. It seemed to me best to go back to the old situation in which, if a man or woman drank to excess, they were injuring themselves and their immediate family and friends and the act was a violation against their own sense of morality and no violation against the law of the land. (14 July 1939)

 * Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people? (16 October 1939)

 * No writing has any real value which is not the expression of genuine thought and feeling. (20 December 1939)

 * When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor. (23 February 1940)

 * I have a great belief in spiritual force, but I think we have to realize that spiritual force alone has to have material force with it so long as we live in a material world. The two together make a strong combination. (17 May 1940)

 * Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little. (1 July 1940)

 * One should always sleep in all of one's guest beds, to make sure that they are comfortable. (11 September 1941)

 * Long ago, I made up my mind that when things were said involving only me, I would pay no attention to them, except when valid criticism was carried by which I could profit. (14 January 1942)

 * One of the blessings of age is to learn not to part on a note of sharpness, to treasure the moments spent with those we love, and to make them whenever possible good to remember, for time is short. (5 February 1943)

 * At all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want — for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war. (15 April 1943)

 * One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education... The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books but by controlling all the other ways in which ideas are transmitted. (11 May 1943)

 * Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth. (22 August 1944)

 * I have never felt that anything really mattered but the satisfaction of knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could. (8 November 1944)

 * It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself. (15 June 1946)

 * I have waited a while before saying anything about the Un-American Activities Committee's current investigation of the Hollywood film industry. I would not be very much surprised if some writers or actors or stagehands, or what not, were found to have Communist leanings, but I was surprised to find that, at the start of the inquiry, some of the big producers were so chicken-hearted about speaking up for the freedom of their industry. One thing is sure — none of the arts flourishes on censorship and repression. And by this time it should be evident that the American public is capable of doing its own censoring. Certainly, the Thomas Committee is growing more ludicrous daily. (29 October 1947)

 * The film industry is a great industry with infinite possibilities for good and bad. Its primary purpose is to entertain people. On the side, it can do many other things. It can popularize certain ideals, it can make education palatable. But in the long run, the judge who decides whether what it does is good or bad is the man or woman who attends the movies. In a democratic country I do not think the public will tolerate a removal of its right to decide what it thinks of the ideas and performances of those who make the movie industry work. (29 October 1947)

 * What is going on in the Un-American Activities Committee worries me primarily because little people have become frightened and we find ourselves living in the atmosphere of a police state, where people close doors before they state what they think or look over their shoulders apprehensively before they express an opinion. I have been one of those who have carried the fight for complete freedom of information in the United Nations. And while accepting the fact that some of our press, our radio commentators, our prominent citizens and our movies may at times be blamed legitimately for things they have said and done, still I feel that the fundamental right of freedom of thought and expression is essential. If you curtail what the other fellow says and does, you curtail what you yourself may say and do. In our country we must trust the people to hear and see both the good and the bad and to choose the good. The Un-American Activities Committee seems to me to be better for a police state than for the USA. (29 October 1947)

 * The mobilization of world opinion and methods of negotiation should be developed and used by every nation in order to strengthen the United Nations. Then if we are forced into war, it will be because there has been no way to prevent it through negotiation and the mobilization of world opinion. In which case we should have the voluntary support of many nations, which is far better than the decision of one nation alone, or even of a few nations. (16 April 1954)

 * This is a time for action — not for war, but for mobilization of every bit of peace machinery. It is also a time for facing the fact that you cannot use a weapon, even though it is the weapon that gives you greater strength than other nations, if it is so destructive that it practically wipes out large areas of land and great numbers of innocent people. (16 April 1954 )

 * If the use of leisure time is confined to looking at TV for a few extra hours every day, we will deteriorate as a people. (5 November 1958)

 * The arts in every field — music, drama, sculpture, painting — we can learn to appreciate and enjoy. We need not be artists, but we should be able to appreciate the work of artists. (5 November 1958)

 * If man is to be liberated to enjoy more leisure, he must also be prepared to enjoy this leisure fully and creatively. For people to have more time to read, to take part in their civic obligations, to know more about how their government functions and who their officials are might mean in a democracy a great improvement in the democratic processes. Let's begin, then, to think how we can prepare old and young for these new opportunities. Let's not wait until they come upon us suddenly and we have a crisis that we will be ill prepared to meet. (5 November 1958)

 * In times past, the question usually asked by women was "How can we best help to defend our nation?" I cannot remember a time when the question on so many people's lips was "How can we prevent war?" There is a widespread understanding among the people of this nation, and probably among the people of the world, that there is no safety except through the prevention of war. For many years war has been looked upon as almost inevitable in the solution of any question that has arisen between nations, and the nation that was strong enough to do so went about building up its defenses and its power to attack. It felt that it could count on these two things for safety. (20 December 1961)

 * A consciousness of the fact that war means practically total destruction is the reason, I think, for the rising tide to prevent what seems such a senseless procedure. I understand that it is perhaps difficult for some people, whose lives have been lived with a sense of the need for military development, to envisage the possibility of being no longer needed. But the average citizen is beginning to think more and more of the need to develop machinery to settle difficulties in the world without destruction or the use of atomic bombs. (20 December 1961)

 * We should begin in our own environment and in our own community as far as possible to build a peace-loving attitude and learn to discipline ourselves to accept, in the small things of our lives, mediation and arbitration. As individuals, there is little that any of us can do to prevent an accidental use of bombs in the hands of those who already have them. We can register, however, with our government a firm protest against granting the knowledge and the use of these weapons to those who do not now have them. (20 December 1961)

 * As long as we are not actually destroyed, we can work to gain greater understanding of other peoples and to try to present to the peoples of the world the values of our own beliefs. We can do this by demonstrating our conviction that human life is worth preserving and that we are willing to help others to enjoy benefits of our civilization just as we have enjoyed it. (20 December 1961)

Tomorrow Is Now (1963)

 * We face the future fortified with the lessons we have learned from the past. It is today that we must create the world of the future. Spinoza, I think, pointed out that we ourselves can make experience valuable when, by imagination and reason, we turn it into foresight.
 * p. xv

 * Human resources are the most valuable assets the world has. They are all needed desperately.
 * p. 71

 * There never has been security. No man has ever known what he would meet around the next corner; if life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.
 * p. 80

 * We must know what we think and speak out, even at the risk of unpopularity. In the final analysis, a democratic government represents the sum total of the courage and the integrity of its individuals. It cannot be better than they are. … In the long run there is no more exhilarating experience than to determine one's position, state it bravely and then act boldly.
 * pp. 119–120

 * What we must learn to do is to create unbreakable bonds between the sciences and the humanities. We cannot procrastinate. The world of the future is in our making. Tomorrow is now.
 * p. 134

 * Example is the best lesson there is.

Disputed

 * No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
 * Sometimes claimed to appear in her book This is My Story, but in The Quote Verifier by Ralph Keyes (2006), Keyes writes on p. 97 that "Bartlett's and other sources say her famous quotation can be found in This is My Story, Roosevelt's 1937 autobiography. It can't. Quotographer Rosalie Maggio scoured that book and many others by and about Roosevelt in search of this line, without success. In their own extensive searching, archivists at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York, have not been able to find the quotation in This Is My Story or any other writing by the First Lady. A discussion of some of the earliest known attributions of this quote to Roosevelt, which may be a paraphrase from an interview, can be found in this entry from Quote Investigator.

 * The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
 * Often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt without an original source in her writings, for example in the introduction to It Seems to Me : Selected Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt (2001) by Leonard C. Schlup and Donald W. Whisenhunt, p. 2. But archivists have not been able to find the quote in any of her writings, see the comment from Ralph Keyes in The Quote Verifier above.

 * Women are like tea bags. You never know how strong they are until you put them in hot water.
 * Another quote often attributed to her without an original source in her writings, as in The Wit and Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt (1996), p. 199. But once again archivists have not been able to find the quote in any of her writings, see the comment from Ralph Keyes in The Quote Verifier above.
 * A very similar remark was attributed to Nancy Reagan, in The Observer (29 March 1981): "A woman is like a teabag — only in hot water do you realize how strong she is."
 * Variants:
 * A woman is like a teabag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.
 * A woman is like a tea bag, you can not tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.
 * A woman is like a tea bag; you can't tell how strong she is and how much to trust her until you put her in hot water.

 * Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
 * Some evidence for Henry Buckle (1821-1862) as the source: see p.33 quotation
 * There are many published incidents of this as an anonymous proverb since at least 1948, and as a statement of Eleanor Roosevelt since at least 1992, but without any citation of an original source. It is also often attributed to Admiral Hyman G. Rickover but, though Rickover quoted this, he did not claim to be the author of it; in "The World of the Uneducated" in The Saturday Evening Post (28 November 1959), he prefaces it with "As the unknown sage puts it..."
 * Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and little minds discuss people.
 * In this form it was quoted as an anonymous epigram in A Guide to Effective Public Speaking (1953) by Lawrence Henry Mouat
 * New York times Saturday review of books and art, 1931: ...Wanted, the correct quotation and origin of this expression: Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people...
 * Several other variants or derivatives of the expression exist, but none provide a definite author:
 * Great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events, small minds discuss personalities.
 * Great minds discuss ideas Average minds discuss events Small minds discuss people
 * Small minds discuss things Average minds discuss people Great minds discuss ideas
 * ...Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas. (Marie Curie, undated (died 1934), as quoted in Living Adventures in Science by Henry and Dana Lee Thomas, 1972)
 * ...Some professor of psychology who has been eavesdropping for years makes the statement that "The best minds discuss ideas; the second in ranking talk about things; while the third group, or the least in mentality, gossip about people"… (Hardware age, Volume 123, 1929)
 * ...He now reports that, "the best minds discuss ideas; the second ranking talks about things; while the third and lowest mentality – starved for ideas – gossips about people." (, Volume 139, Issue 2, 1927, p. 87)
 * ...It has been said long ago that there were three classes of people in the world, and while they are subject to variation, for elemental consideration they are useful. The first is that large class of people who talk about people; the next class are those who talk about things; and the third class are those who discuss ideas... (H. J. Derbyshire, "Origin of mental species", 1919)
 * ...Mrs. Conklin points out certain bad conversational habits and suggests good ones, quoting Buckle's classic classification of talkers into three orders of intelligence — those who talk about nothing but persons, those who talk about things and those who discuss ideas... (review of Mary Greer Conklin's book Conversation: What to say and how to say it in The Continent, Jan. 23, 1913, p. 118)
 * ...[ 's ] thoughts and conversations were always on a high level, and I recollect a saying of his which not only greatly impressed me at the time, but which I have ever since cherished as a test of the mental calibre of friends and acquaintances. Buckle said, in his dogmatic way: "Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons, the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas"… (Charles Stewart, "Haud immemor. Reminescences of legal and social life in Edinburgh and London. 1850-1900", 1901, p. 33).

 * Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift... that's why they call it the present.
 * The quote is usually regarded as anonymous, but is often attributed to her on several websites, as well as in several books, including My Life Is an Open Book (2008), The Spirituality of Mary Magdalene (2008), Mis cuatro estaciones (2008), and Gilles Lamontagne (2010). None of these works cite any original reference.

 * Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself
 * Cited as a piece of anonymous folk-wisdom from the 1940s onwards. Not attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt until 2001.

Misattributed

 * America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, bad-ass speed.
 * Deliberately misattributed for comic effect in the opening of the film Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

 * I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.
 * Not by Roosevelt, but from Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989).

B

 * We know now, thanks to historian Blanche Weisen Cook, that Eleanor had a very complicated, intimate, most-probably sexual relationship with Lorena Hickok, who was a journalist. At one point, Eleanor moved her into the White House with her. And that Hickok's reporting upon Eleanor Roosevelt was integral to Eleanor Roosevelt's promotion of herself as a social reformer. Along with this, we do know that Eleanor Roosevelt had a wide, wide circle of female friends, many of whom were lesbians, many of whom were involved with social work. These women as an aggregate were called "Roosevelt's Brain Trust." And, in fact, Eleanor brought them to Washington and they were instrumental in forming the New Deal. Francis Perkins, one of Eleanor's intimate friends, was the first woman to head the Labor Department. So I think when we're looking at Eleanor Roosevelt's life, it's not just interesting that she had this affair with a woman-- she also apparently had an affair with her chauffer, named Earl Miller, as well, so Eleanor's life was complicated-- but what is really amazing that there is this circle of friends--which, again, Blanche Weisen Cook calls "female support networks"--that literally changed our very notions of how social work functions in American society and how reform functions. All again based upon lesbian--or women being intimate with women--relationships.
 * Michael Bronski Interview (2012)

C

 * Eleanor Roosevelt came to New York City and I was in a, a contest, a debating contest, and I won the debate in the whole city of New York…I'll never forget this tall woman, her hair in a chignon, and this little porkpie hat on, and she was ugly. She was very ugly. But Eleanor, the moment she opened her mouth, you felt a warmth. It was beautiful.
 * 2002 interview in Shirley Chisholm: The Last Interview: And Other Conversations (2021)

M

 * Eleanor Roosevelt, fine, precise, hand-worked like ivory. Her voice was almost attractive ... One had the impression of a lady who was finally becoming a woman, which is to say that she was just a little bitchy about it all; nice bitchy, charming, it had a touch of art to it, but it made one wonder if she were not now satisfying the last passion of them all, which was to become physically attractive, for she was better-looking than she had ever been.
 * Norman Mailer, ''Superman Comes to the Supermarket. (November 1960)

 * Her real need to be of service overcame the hurt caused by her critics however, and she worked tirelessly  all the years of Franklin's presidency. When he died she filled the void by working all the more. She had believed that When she was out of the White House there would he  nothing more for her to do, "because she considered herself  as an auxiliary to her husband and felt that her own value  had been as First lady, not Eleanor Roosevelt. President  Truman felt otherwise however, prevailing upon her to work for the newly formed United Nations. She spent the  last years of her life travelling and working for the possibility of permanent world peace... she never stinted on her own time, energy, money, or compassion to help a stranger in need. Her greatness was in her kindness and empathy not, as her critics often pointed out, in her  intellect ... She was given more tributes, medals and awards than any other woman in American history. Her books were translated into all  major European languages, including Russian and Serbo Croatian, four Indian dialects and Hebrew, but in spite of all this Eleanor was not satisfied. She judged herself  not on what she had accomplished, but what yet remained to be done, commenting that the knowledge of how little one can do alone had taught her humility. So she kept up her struggle against the injustices of the world.
 * Eleanor Roosevelt: portrait of a leader, by Genie Lynn Des Marteau (1977)

O

 * I buy 100 copies at a time of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was Eleanor Roosevelt's great work...I sometimes, if it's an adult audience, ask how many of them are familiar with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Most highly educated people have never read it. It's a tragic erasure of our heritage.   It was such a time of hope. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes economic rights.
 * Tillie Olsen, https://progressive.org/magazine/tillie-olsen-interview/ Interview] with The Progressive Magazine (1999)

S

 * Besides giving me the most interesting job I could possibly imagine, the Women's Trade League brought many wonderful friends into my life. Among them were Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. I first met her when I was raising money for the League clubhouse. She called me her teacher, for she said I taught her all she knew about trade unionism. Always generous and understanding, she never refused me anything I asked for. This is quite a statement coming from me because, though I find it hard to ask for things for myself, I could ask for the moon if I needed it for the League. For twelve weeks during the depression, when we were having a hard time meeting our obligations, she shared her broadcasting fees with us. That $300 each week kept us going at a time when many of our supporters, hard-hit by the stock-market crash, could not help us.
 * Rose Schneiderman All for One (1969)

 * I have lost more than a beloved friend. I have lost an inspiration. She would rather light candles than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world.
 * Adlai Stevenson, in a eulogy in the United Nations General Assembly (7 November 1962) adapting a statement that is the motto of the The Christophers, derived from a Chinese proverb (which has sometimes been attributed to Confucius).

 * She thought of herself as an ugly duckling, but she walked in beauty in the ghettos of the world, bringing with her the reminder of her beloved St. Francis, "It is in the giving that we receive." And wherever she walked beauty was forever there.
 * Adlai Stevenson, addressing the Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey (27 August 1964); as quoted in Adlai Stevenson (1966) by Lillian Ross, p. 28; reproduced in America's Political Dynasties: From Adams to Clinton (2015) by Stephen Hess, p. 203

V

 * Part of my job in Noumea consisted in briefing frequent important visitors. One was Mrs. Roosevelt, who had tried unsuccessfully to visit us on Guadalcanal. She now turned up sporting a letter from the President to Halsey and me- she would go to the island provided we could take satisfactory security precautions, which we did. Eleanor Roosevelt was a remarkable woman, seemingly tireless during her frequent peregrinations. When Halsey and I met her in Noumea we proposed to take her to the Red Cross center where she could comfortably rest from her long flight. No, indeed- she insisted on going directly to the nearest hospital. She spent the bulk of her time in new Caledonia visiting our sick and wounded, talking to them by the hundreds. In each case she took the man's home address and upon her return to America wrote his family.
 * Alexander Vandegrift, Once A Marine: The Memoirs of General A.A. Vandegrift, U.S.M.C. (1964), p. 221

W

 * such courageous spirits as Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.
 * Lillian Wald Windows on Henry Street (1934)

Y

 * I think of Eleanor Roosevelt as a woman of such human and uncompromising qualities that they make her not just in name but truly the first lady of the land.
 * Art Young: His Life and Times (1939)

title: Eleanor Roosevelt


text:
Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth (c. 1797 – November 26, 1883), originally named Isabella Bomefree, then Baumfree, was a black woman who was born into slavery, and later became a prominent author, and social activist.

Quotes

 * "Honey, I jes' walked round an' round in a dream. Jesus loved me! I knowed it - I fel it. Jesus was my Jesus. Jesus would love me always. I did n't dare tell nobody; it was a great secret. Everything had been got away from me that I ever had; an' I thought that ef I let white folks know about this, maybe they'd get him away - so I said, 'I'll keep this close. I wont let any one know.'"
 * Olive Gilbert & Sojourner Truth (1878), Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Bondswoman of Olden Time, page 159. (text at sojournertruth.org)

 * "But then there came another rush of love through my soul, an' I cried out loud,- 'Lord, Lord, I can love even de white folks!'"
 * Olive Gilbert & Sojourner Truth (1878), Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Bondswoman of Olden Time, page 159.

 * "I am pleading for my people, a poor downtrodden race Who dwell in freedom's boasted land with no abiding place I am pleading that my people may have their rights restored, For they have long been toiling, and yet had no reward They are forced the crops to culture, but not for them they yield, Although both late and early, they labor in the field. While I bear upon my body, the scores of many a gash, I'm pleading for my people who groan beneath the lash. I'm pleading for the mothers who gaze in wild despair Upon the hated auction block, and see their children there. I feel for those in bondage—well may I feel for them. I know how fiendish hearts can be that sell their fellow men. Yet those oppressors steeped in guilt—I still would have them live; For I have learned of Jesus, to suffer and forgive! I want no carnal weapons, no machinery of death. For I love to not hear the sound of war's tempestuous breath. I do not ask you to engage in death and bloody strife. I do not dare insult my God by asking for their life. But while your kindest sympathies to foreign lands do roam, I ask you to remember your own oppressed at home. I plead with you to sympathize with signs and groans and scars, And note how base the tyranny beneath the stripes and stars.
 * Olive Gilbert & Sojourner Truth (1878), Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Bondswoman of Olden Time, page 303.

 * Sisters, I ain't clear what you be after. If women want any rights more than they's got, why don't they just take them, and not be talking about it?
 * As quoted in Sojourner Truth : A Self-made Woman (1974) by Victoria Ortiz

 * Well, children, when there is so much racket there be must something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the Negroes of the South and the women of the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
 * Sojourner Truth, as quoted in The Harbrace Guide to Writing, Concise, p. 50, by Cheryl Glenn. Editorial Cengage Learning, 2011. ISBN 113317146X.

Ain't I a Woman? Speech (1851)

 * delivered 1851, at the Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio.

 * That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man — when I could get it — and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

 * That little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Jesus Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

 * If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, the women together ought to be able to turn back and get it right side up again! and now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

About Sojourner Truth

 * Sojourner combined in herself the two most hated elements of humanity. She was black and she was a woman, and all the insults that could be cast upon color and sex were together hurled at her.
 * Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words edited by Lynn Sherr (1995)

 * Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Nation, and Sojourner Truth were not evolutionaries, they were revolutionaries, just as many of the young women in today’s society and more and more women must join their rank.
 * Shirley Chisholm, Speech (1972)

 * At Battle Creek, between a housing project dedication at which I spoke and a meeting with local Democratic officials, we made time to visit the grave of another black woman, not a little one but a giant physically as well as spiritually. I put a wreath on her grave and read the sign there: "Sojourner Truth, a renowned lecturer and reformer who championed anti-slavery, rights of women and the freedmen, rests here."
 * Shirley Chisholm The Good Fight (1973)

 * Aymar Jean Christian of Northwestern University historically contextualizes and updates the notion of intersectional storytelling in his recent book Race and Media: Critical Approaches. “Most creators are ‘intersectional,’ meaning they identify with multiple communities marginalized by their race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, disability, or citizenship status,” he writes. He argues that the framework of intersectionality was developed throughout the 20th century by women writers of color like Sojourner Truth, Audre Lorde, and Kimberlé Crenshaw. Those early intersectional writers sought to describe “the interlocking nature of oppression and the specificity of being both Black and woman (and often queer).”
 * Grace Dillon "Why intersectionality in fiction matters" in Grist (2021)

 * She's quoted as if she was speaking in heavy Southern dialect, but it was what was leftover from Dutch.
 * Ellen DuBois Interview (2020)

 * On another occasion, I returned to Boston, where Cell 16 had fulfilled one of my dreams by organizing a forum in historic Fannueil Hall in old Boston. In that hall, Lucy Stone, the Grimké sisters, Sojourner Truth, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, and Frederick Douglass had held antislavery and profeminist meetings during the decades before the Civil War. Their legacy had motivated me to move to Boston to launch female liberation.
 * Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years 1960-1975 (2002)

 * Most will remember Ms. Truth’s oration for its vivid descriptions regarding physical labor; Black women were forced to plough, plant, herd, and build — just as men. Yet far too little attention centers on her condemnation of that system, which made sexual chattel of Black women, and then cruelly sold off Black children. This was human trafficking in the American form, and it lasted for centuries.
 * Michele Goodwin, “The Racist History of Abortion and Midwifery Bans”, ACLU, (July 1, 2020)

 * Who is a revolutionary woman? A revolutionary woman wants change, not mere cosmetic change but change to the status quo, and she is willing to sacrifice to make this happen. We have some extraordinary examples: Sojourner Truth, Las Adelitas, Frida Kahlo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Dorothy Day, Malala Yousafzai, Coretta Scott King, and others.
 * Dolores Huerta "Reflections on Revolutionary Women" in Revolutionary Women of Texas and Mexico by Kathy Sosa (2020)

 * First a name, just a person's name, you've heard it before. Sojourner Truth. That name is a language in itself. But Sojourner Truth spoke the unlearned language; about a hundred years ago, talking it in a public place, she said, "I have been forty years a slave and forty years free and would be here forty years more to have equal rights for all." Along at the end of her talk she said, "I wanted to tell you a mite about Woman's Rights, and so I came out and said so. I am sittin' among you to watch; and every one and awhile I will come out and tell you what time of night it is." She said, "Now I will do a little singing. I have not heard any singing since I came here."
 * Ursula K. Le Guin Bryn Mawr Commencement Address (1986)

 * It was only after the development of the Negro women's club movement that feminist consciousness first appeared among black women, and here, too, it is an exceptional attitude rather than a pervasive one. One must note here the single exception, the strong feminism of Sojourner Truth, who was distinctly a forerunner and whose ideas were not shared by black women of her day.
 * Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History’’ (1979)

 * In the person of Sojourner Truth, the fusion of the abolition and woman's rights movements seemed personified.
 * Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History’’ (1979)

 * Sojourner Truth said it very well. You know, after the Civil War in the large women's meeting in 1898 which took place with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and all the rest, the woman's rights, feminists' rights meeting at which Sojourner Truth spoke. She said that they say that women need to be helped, that they cannot drive horses, they cannot work, they cannot walk, but I have walked so many miles; I have worked as a blacksmith; I have drawn carriages, never mind driven them, and am I not a woman? right? So, the economic basis of the kinds of prejudices and stereotypes of racism, of sexism, are very obvious. When we need strong, pioneer women to cut down forests, to work beside "their men" that's fine. But on the other hand, when that need passes, we tie them into girdles, if they're white. We set them in a drawing room, and we say they have vapors.
 * 1975 interview in Conversations with Audre Lorde (2004)

 * Black women have been doing this for centuries, not only in Africa but certainly in the United States of America, whether it was picking cotton with the children bound on our backs, whether it is heading for freedom with the underground railroad, with the Sojourner Truths. This is part of our history: we know we can bear arms and children. This is one of the functions of myth: To underline the fact that even in our dreams and our visions we are not alone. And to have them be black women, because I am tired of seeing only white Christs and white Virgins and white goddesses-all the time I was growing up. I raised a girl child, and I know I wanted to have black images, I wanted to have black queens I could tell her about in her bedtime stories. I wanted to have these images. That is important because that is how we raise children.
 * 1987 interview in Conversations with Audre Lorde (2004)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Sojourner Truth


text:
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (5 November 1850 – 30 October 1919) was an American poet.

Quotes

 * How fleeting the sorrows of youth, how slight the foundations on which the young build towers of despair
 * "Forward" to Yesterdays 1910 edition

 * There is no language that love does not speak
 * "Love's Language", Poems of Progress 1913 edition

 * The world needs divine power in every human being the recognition of which is the secret to all success and happiness
 * Introduction to Poems of Power 1918 edition

What know you of the soul from whence it sprung
 * Oh you who read some song I have sung
 * from The Poets Song in Poems of Passion 1883 edition

 * It is impossible to pursue a successful literary career and follow the advice of all one's 'best friends'. I feel compelled to follow the light which my own intellect & judgement cast upon my way, rather than any one of the many conflicting rays which other minds would lend me.
 * from Preface to Poems of Passion 1883 edition

Poetry quotes

Weep, and you weep alone. For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own.''' Sing, and the hills will answer; Sigh, it is lost on the air. The echoes bound to a joyful sound, But shrink from voicing care.
 * '''Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
 * Solitude

Grieve, and they turn and go. They want full measure of all your pleasure, But they do not need your woe.''' Be glad, and your friends are many; Be sad, and you lose them all. '''There are none to decline your nectared wine, But alone you must drink life's gall.'''
 * '''Rejoice, and men will seek you;
 * Solitude

For a long and lordly train, But one by one we must all file on Through the narrow aisles of pain.
 * There is room in the halls of pleasure
 * Solitude

Here, should we labor and love.
 * Here, on this side of the grave,
 * Here and Now

So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind Is all the sad world needs.'''
 * '''So many gods, so many creeds;
 * The World's Need

Just what the result will be; But with every deed you are sowing a seed, Though the harvest you may not see.''' Each kindly act is an acorn dropped In God's productive soil; You may not know, yet the tree shall grow And shelter the brows that toil. You never can tell what your thoughts will do In bringing you hate or love; For thoughts are things, and their airy wings Are swifter than carrier doves. They follow the law of the universe — '''Each thing must create its kind; And they speed o'er the track to bring you back Whatever went out from your mind.'''
 * '''You never can tell when you do an act
 * You Never Can Tell (1895).

Poems of Pleasure (1900)
Than darkness in the world; mine eyes are quick To catch the first dim radiance of the dawn, And slow to note the cloud that threatens storm.
 * I'm no reformer; for I see more light
 * Optimism

Well worth the price of anguish. '''I detect More good than evil in humanity. Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes, And men grow better as the world grows old.'''
 * I find a rapture linked with each despair,
 * Optimism

Until it is settled right.'''
 * '''No question is ever settled
 * Settle the Question Right.

New Thought Pastels (1913)

The missing link of Love has left a void. '''Supply the link, and earth with Heaven will join In one continued chain of endless life.'''
 * Between the finite and the infinite
 * The Way (1913).

Is Love's location.''' No dogmatic creed, No austere faith based on ignoble fear Can lead thee into realms of joy and peace. '''Unless the humblest creatures on the earth Are bettered by thy loving sympathy Think not to find a Paradise beyond.'''
 * '''Hell is wherever Love is not, and Heaven
 * The Way (1913).

Slow is the ascent by the path of Love.'''
 * '''There is no sudden entrance into Heaven.
 * The Way (1913).

To make the Creature, human and divine. '''Of this great trinity no part deny. Affirm, affirm, the Great Eternal I.'''
 * Body and mind, and spirit, all combine
 * Affirm

The earth-expression of immortal soul. Affirm the mind, the messenger of the hour, To speed between thee and the source of power. '''Affirm the spirit, the Eternal I — Of this great trinity no part deny.'''
 * Affirm the body, beautiful and whole,
 * Affirm

Or base, or kind, Completes its circuit, then with added force Seeks its own source.
 * Each mental wave we send out from the mind,
 * Effects.

And polish it up with art, '''But the word that sways, and stirs, and stays, Is the word that comes from the heart.''' You may work on your word a thousand weeks, But it will not glow like one That all unsought, leaps forth white hot, When the fountains of feeling run.
 * You may choose your word like a connoisseur,
 * The Word

And not to any man, for light. '''Look in; and learn the wrong, and right, From your own soul's unwritten laws. And when you question, or demur, Let Love be your Interpreter.'''
 * Look to the Great Eternal Cause
 * Assistance

I'd rather feed, and shelter full a score, Than hide behind the black portcullis, doubt, And run the risk of barring one Truth out. '''And if pretension for a time deceive, And prove me one too ready to believe, Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act, I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.'''
 * If fallacies come knocking at my door,
 * Credulity

That in the start, demands the end be shown, And at each step, stops waiting for a sign; But to the tireless toiler toward the goal, Shall the great miracles of God be known And life revealed, immortal and divine.'''
 * '''Not to the curious or impatient soul
 * Conciousness.

LOVE ABSOLUTE''': Think, feel, absorb the thought; Shut out all else; until a subtle flame (A spark from God's creative centre caught) Shall permeate your being, and shall glow, Increasing in its splendour, till, YOU KNOW.
 * '''Breathe "God," in any tongue — it means the same;
 * Knowledge

Of courage and success, to friend and stranger. And from a thousand sources, far and near, Strength will be sent thee in thy hour of danger.
 * Give, and thou shalt receive. Give thoughts of cheer,
 * Give

Of what thou lovest; and ask no returning. And wheresoe'er thy pathway leads on earth, There thou shalt find the lamp of love-light burning.
 * Give of thy love, nor wait to know the worth
 * Give

'''Supreme their conquest, over Time and Fate. Love, Work, and Faith — these three alone are great.'''
 * Divine the Powers that on this trio wait.
 * Three Things.

The winding road slants downward many a time; Yet each descent is higher than the last.
 * Who climbs the mountain does not always climb.
 * Climbing

Must nerve himself through valleys of despair.'''
 * '''Who would attain to summits still and fair,
 * Climbing

Is like a mansion built upon the sand.
 * All love that has not friendship for its base,
 * Love

Makes cowards out of men.'''
 * '''To sin by silence, when we should protest,
 * Protest, contained in "Poems of Problems", pp. 154–55 (1914). This quotation is often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln.

Can circumvent or hinder or control The firm resolve of a determined soul.''' Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great; All things give way before it soon or late. What obstacle can stay the mighty force Of the sea seeking river in its course, Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?
 * '''There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
 * "Will," included in Maurine: And Other Poems, p. 145 (1888). Often quoted by Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji.

title: Ella Wheeler Wilcox


text:
The Matrix Revolutions

The Matrix Revolutions is the third film in The Matrix series (see below). The film, a combination of philosophy and action like its predecessors, sought to conclude the questions raised in the previous film, The Matrix Reloaded. The film was written and directed by The Wachowskis. It was released simultaneously in sixty countries on November 5, 2003. Everything That Has a Beginning Has An End.

Neo

 * [to the Deus Ex Machina] The program "Smith" has grown beyond your control. Soon he will spread through this city, as he spread through The Matrix. You cannot stop him. But I can.

The Oracle

 * Everything that has a beginning has an end. I see the end coming. I see the darkness spreading. I see death…and you are all that stands in his way.
 * One way or another, Neo, this war is going to end. Tonight, the future of both worlds will be in your hands… or in his.

Bane/Smith

 * [to Neo] Yes, that's it, Mr. Anderson. Look past the flesh. Look through the soft gelatin of these dull cow eyes and see your enemy.

 * [to Neo, during their final fight] Can you feel it, Mr. Anderson? Closing in on you? Oh, I can. I really should thank you for it. After all, it was your life that taught me the purpose of all life. The purpose of life is to end.

Dialogue

 * Neo: You believe in karma?
 * Rama-Kandra: Karma's a word. Like "love." A way of saying "what I am here to do." I do not resent my karma—I'm grateful for it. Grateful for my wonderful wife, for my beautiful daughter. They are gifts. And so I do what I must do to honor them.

 * Neo: I just have never...
 * Rama-Kandra: ...heard a program speak of love?
 * Neo: It's a…human emotion.
 * Rama-Kandra: No, it is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies. I see that you are in love. Can you tell me what you would give to hold on to that connection?
 * Neo: Anything.
 * Rama-Kandra: Then perhaps the reason you're here is not so different from the reason I'm here.

 * Oracle: What did you do with Sati?
 * Smith: Cookies need love like everything does. [laughs]
 * Oracle: You are a bastard.
 * Smith: You would know, Mom.

 * [Trinity, Morpheus and Seraph arrive at the Hel-Club entrance in a parking garage]
 * Q-Ball Gang Member #1: You’ve got to be kidding…
 * Q-Ball Gang Member #2: Holy shit, it’s Wingless.
 * Q-Ball Gang Member #1: I get it. You must be ready to die.
 * Seraph: I need to speak with him.
 * Q-Ball Gang Member #1: The only way you’re getting through this door is over my big dead ass.
 * Seraph: So be it.

 * [In the Hel-Club elevator]
 * Seraph: There are no weapons allowed in the club. At the bottom of this elevator, there is a coat check girl. And if we’re lucky, one man for checking guns.
 * Trinity: And if we’re unlucky?
 * Seraph: There will be many men.

 * [At the Hel Club entrance]
 * Coat Check Girl: Can I take your… oh my God.

 * [After a shootout they enter the VIP lounge]
 * Merovingian: What in the hell? [laughs] I don’t believe this. [to the DJ] Hey. Hey! [to Seraph] The prodigal child returns. L’ange sans ailes [Translation: The angel without wings]. Are you here for the bounty, Seraph? [Laughs heartily] Tell me, how many bullets are there in those guns? I don’t know, but I don’t think you have enough.
 * Seraph: We only want to talk.
 * Merovingian: Oh yes, I’m sure you do, you have fought through hell to do so, yes? I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Put down the guns and I will promise you safe passage out of here.
 * Seraph: All three of us.
 * Merovingian: Oh yes, yes. Of course.
 * [Trinity, Seraph, and Morpheus put down the guns and are escorted up the stairs]
 * Merovingian: [Laughs] Quelle bonne surprise, n’est pas? [Translation: What a fine surprise, isn’t it?] Who could’ve guessed we’d all be seeing each other so soon after our last meeting? A fate too kind. And since you, my little Judas, have […] here, I can only surmise that the fortune teller has found herself another shell? Disappointing, but not unexpected. I do hope, however, she has the good manners to learn her lesson, and to remember that there is no action without consequence. And if you take something from me you will pay the price.
 * Seraph: You know why we are here.
 * Merovingian: [Laughs] Come, now. What kind of question is this? Of course I know. It’s my business to know. Some might think this a strange coincidence, but I do not. I am curious, though, as to how it actually happened. Do you know?
 * Trinity: No.
 * Merovingian: No? I didn’t think so. But it is always best to ask. We want to make a deal. [Laughs] Always straight to business, huh, Morpheus? Okay. I have something you want. To make a deal, you must have something I want, yes? And it so happens there is something I want. Something I’ve wanted ever since I first came here. It is said they cannot be taken, they can only be given.
 * Morpheus: What?
 * Merovingian: The eyes of the Oracle. [Laughs] I have told you before, there’s no escaping the nature of the universe. It is that nature that has again brought you to me. Where some see coincidence, I see consequence. Where others see chance, I see cost. Bring me the eyes of the Oracle, and I will give you back your savior. That seems a particularly fair and reasonable deal to me. Yes, no?
 * Trinity: I don’t have time for this shit. [A fight ensues] You wanna make a deal, how about this? You give me Neo, or we all die right here, right now.
 * Merovingian: Interesting deal. You are really ready to die for this man?
 * Trinity: [Cocks gun at them] Believe it.
 * Persephone: She’ll do it. If she has to, she’ll kill every one of us. She’s in love.
 * Merovingian: It is remarkable how similar the pattern of love is to the pattern of insanity.
 * Trinity: Time’s up. What’s it gonna be, Merv?

 * Smith: Mr. Anderson, welcome back. We missed you. [pauses; looks around] You like what I've done with the place?
 * Neo: It ends tonight.
 * Smith: I know it does, I've seen it. That's why the rest of me is just going to enjoy the show because we already know that I'm the one that beats you.

 * Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson? Why, why, why? Why do you do it? Why? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? [visibly agitated] Is it freedom or truth?! Perhaps peace?! Could it be for love?! Illusions, Mr. Anderson, vagaries of perception! Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose! And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love! You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson! You must know it by now! You can't win! It's pointless to keep fighting! [Now clearly enraged] Why, Mr. Anderson?! Why?! WHY DO YOU PERSIST?!
 * Neo: [Manages to stand] Because I choose to.

 * [The Architect and the Oracle meet in a park]
 * Oracle: Well, now, ain't this a surprise?
 * Architect: You played a very dangerous game.
 * Oracle: Change always is.
 * Architect: Just how long do you think this peace is going to last?
 * Oracle: As long as it can. [the Architect starts to walk off] What about the others?
 * Architect: [stops] What others?
 * Oracle: The ones that want out.
 * Architect: Obviously they will be freed.
 * Oracle: I have your word?
 * Architect: [contemptuously] What do you think I am? Human?

 * [Driving in the Matrix]
 * Morpheus: Are you ready for us?
 * Link: Almost, sir. They got some pretty ancient hacks here, we’re working on it. Did you find Neo?
 * Morpheus: Can’t you see him?
 * Link: No, sir. We were reading something but I couldn’t tell what it was.
 * Neo: I can’t leave yet. [Trinity looks over at him] I have to see her.
 * Trinity: Now?
 * Neo: This is my last chance.

 * [In the Oracle’s kitchen]
 * Oracle: That’s it. That’s the secret. You’ve got to use your hands.
 * Sati: Why?
 * Oracle: Cookies need love like everything does.
 * Sati: Neo!
 * Oracle: I was hoping to have these done before you got here. Oh well. Sati, honey, I think it’s time for a tasting. Take the bowl to Seraph and find out if they’re ready.
 * Sati: Okay. [to Neo] I’m glad you got out.
 * Neo: Me too.
 * Oracle: So, do you recognize me?
 * Neo: A part of you.
 * Oracle: Yeah, that’s how it works. Some bits you lose, some bits you keep. I don’t yet recognize my face in the mirror, but… I still love candy. [Offers Neo a piece of red candy]
 * Neo: No, thank you.
 * Oracle: Remember what you were like when you first walked through my door, jittery as a junebug? And now just look at you. You sure did surprise me, Neo, and you still do.
 * Neo: You gave me a few surprises, too.
 * Oracle: I hope I helped.
 * Neo: You helped me to get here, but my question is why? Where does this go? Where does it end?
 * Oracle: I don’t know.
 * Neo: You don’t know or you won’t tell me?
 * Oracle: I told you before. No one can see beyond a choice they don’t understand, and I mean no one.
 * Neo: What choice?
 * Oracle: It doesn’t matter. It’s my choice. I have mine to make, same as you have yours.
 * Neo: Does that include what things to tell me and what not to tell me?
 * Oracle: Of course not.
 * Neo: Then why didn’t you tell me about the Architect? Why didn’t you tell me about Zion, the Ones before me – why didn’t you tell me the truth?
 * Oracle: Because it wasn’t time for you to know.
 * '''Neo: Who decided it wasn’t time?
 * Oracle: You know who. [Points at the Temet Nosce sign above the door]
 * Neo: I did. [Oracle nods] Then I think it’s time for me to know a few more things.
 * Oracle: So do I.
 * Neo: Tell me how I separated my mind from my body without jacking in. Tell me how I stopped four sentinels by thinking it. Tell me just what the hell is happening to me.
 * Oracle: The power of the One extends beyond this world. It reaches from here all the way back to where it came from.
 * Neo: Where?
 * Oracle: The Source. That’s what you felt when you touched those Sentinels. But you weren’t ready for it. You should be dead, but apparently you weren’t ready for that, either.
 * Neo: The Architect told me that if I didn’t return to the Source, Zion would be destroyed by midnight tonight.
 * Oracle: [Rolls eyes] Please… You and I may not be able to see beyond our own choices, but that man can’t see past any choices.
 * Neo: Why not?
 * Oracle: He doesn’t understand them – he can’t. To him they are variables in an equation. One at a time each variable must be solved and countered. That’s his purpose: to balance an equation.
 * Neo: What’s your purpose?
 * Oracle: To unbalance it.
 * Neo: Why? What do you want?
 * Oracle: I want the same thing you want, Neo. And I am willing to go as far as you are to get it.
 * Neo: The end of the war. [Oracle nods] Is it going to end?
 * Oracle: One way, or another.
 * Neo: Can Zion be saved?
 * Oracle: I’m sorry, I don’t have the answer to that question, but if there’s an answer, there’s only one place you’re going to find it.
 * Neo: Where?
 * Oracle: You know where. And if you can’t find the answer, then I’m afraid there may be no tomorow for any of us.
 * Neo: What does that mean?
 * Oracle: Everything that has a beginning has an end. I see the end coming. I see the darkness spreading. I see death. And you are all that stands in his way.
 * Neo: Smith.
 * Oracle: [Nods] Very soon he’s going to have the power to destroy this world, but I believe he won’t stop there; he can’t. He won’t stop until there’s nothing left at all.
 * Neo: What is he?
 * Oracle: He is you. Your opposite, your negative, the result of the equation trying to balance itself out.
 * Neo: What if I can’t stop him?
 * Oracle: One way or another, Neo, this war is going to end. Tonight, the future of both worlds will be in your hands… or in his.

 * [In the Hammer hovership]
 * Trinity: How are you feeling? Are you all right?
 * Neo: I need time.
 * Roland: That figures.
 * Maggie: Captain Roland!
 * Roland: What’s up, Maggie?
 * Maggie: It’s Bane. he’s conscious.
 * Roland: Good. Maybe he’s got some answers.

 * [In the Oracle’s kitchen]
 * Oracle: Mmm, I love that smell. I sure am gonna miss it.
 * Seraph: Oracle.
 * Oracle: I know, I know. Sati, honey! Take a few cookies and go with Seraph.
 * Sati: Can I come back? I would like to come back!
 * Oracle: I would like that too.
 * Sati: So I’ll see you tomorrow.
 * Oracle: I hope so, honey, I hope so.

 * [Outside of the of the Oracle’s apartment]
 * Sati: I’m scared, Seraph.
 * Seraph: Come.
 * Sati: He’s following us.

 * Smith: Well, well, it’s been a long time. I remember chasing you was like chasing a ghost.
 * Seraph: I have beaten you before.
 * Smith: That’s true, but as you can see, things are a little different now. [to Sati] And you must be the last exile.
 * Sati: The Oracle told me about you.
 * Smith: Really? And what did she say about me?
 * Sati: That you’re a bad man.
 * Smith: Oh, I’m not so bad once you get to know me.

 * [In the Oracle’s kitchen]
 * Smith: The great and powerful Oracle. We meet at last. I suppose you’ve been expecting me, right? The all-knowing Oracle is never surprised. How can she be, she knows everything. But if that’s true, then why is she here? If she knew I was coming, why didn’t she leave? [Sweeps plate of cookies off table] Maybe you knew I was going to do that, maybe you didn’t. If you did, that means you baked those cookies and set that plate right there deliberately, purposefully. Which means you’re sitting there also deliberately, purposefully.
 * Oracle: What did you do with Sati?
 * Smith/Sati: Cookies need love like everything does.
 * Smiths: [Laughs]
 * Oracle: You are a bastard.
 * Smith: You would know, Mom.
 * Oracle: Do what you’re here to do.
 * Smith: Yes, ma’am. [copies himself onto the Oracle]
 * Smith/Oracle: [Laughs maniacally]

 * [In the Hammer hovership mess]
 * Bane: I really wish I could help, but I just… I don’t remember any of it.
 * Roland: What about the cuts on your arms? Those cuts are more than one day old.
 * Bane: Yeah, definitely. You’re right about that, sir. They look like they might be self-inflicted. Why would I do something like that to myself? Unless, of course, I wasn’t myself… but… if I’m not me, then who am I?
 * Roland: Has this man been tested for VDTs?
 * Maggie: Yes, sir, it was negative. But he is showing a lot of unusual neural activity. Some cross-synaptic firing as well as signs of recent trauma, with fresh fibrotic scarring throughout the cortex.
 * Roland: I want the truth, I don’t care what it takes. Make him remember.

 * [In the Hammer main deck]
 * [Man: Sir? We found her!
 * Roland: The Logos?
 * Man: Yes, sir.
 * Roland: ‘Bout time we had some goddamn good news.

 * [Kid spills cart of ammo boxes]
 * Mifune: What the shit is going on over here?!
 * Kid: An accident, sir! I didn’t see… I’m sorry!
 * Mifune: Who the hell are you?!
 * Kid: I’m here to volunteer, sir.
 * Mifune: What’s a pod-born pencil-neck like you doin’ volunteering for my corps?!
 * Kid: I wanna do my part, sir! We gotta hold the dock!
 * Mifune: How old are you, kid?!
 * Kid: Eighteen.
 * Mifune: Shoulda said sixteen, I mighta believed that!
 * Kid: Okay, I’m sixteen.
 * Mifune: Minimal age for the corps is eighteen, sixteen’s too young!
 * Kid: The machines don’t care how old I am! They’ll kill me just the same!
 * Mifune: Ain’t that the goddamned truth!
 * Kid: Give me a chance, sir! I won’t let you down!
 * Mifune: You do… you’ll find me and the machines have something in common.

Cast

 * Keanu Reeves - Neo
 * Laurence Fishburne - Morpheus
 * Carrie-Anne Moss - Trinity
 * Hugo Weaving - Agent Smith
 * Mary Alice - The Oracle
 * Helmut Bakaitis - The Architect
 * Lambert Wilson - The Merovingian
 * Ian Bliss - Bane/Smith

title: The Matrix Revolutions


text:
Thomas Browne

Sir Thomas Browne, MD (19 October 1605 – 19 October 1682) was an English author of varied works which disclose his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric.

Quotes

 * When we desire to confine our words, we commonly say they are spoken under the rose.
 * Pseudodoxia Epidemica Book 5, Ch. 22, sect. 6

 * Who will not commend the wit of astrology? Venus, born out of the sea, hath her exaltation in Pisces.
 * Commonplace notebooks, Part I

Part I

 * I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgement for not agreeing with me in that, from which perhaps within a few days I should dissent myself.
 * Section 6

 * A man may be in as just possession of Truth as of a City, and yet be forced to surrender.
 * Section 6

 * Rich with the spoils of Nature.
 * Section 8

 * I love to lose myself in a mystery to pursue my reason to an O altitudo.
 * Section 9

 * I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret Magic of numbers.
 * Section 12

 * The severe Schools shall never laugh me out of the Philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible.
 * Section 12

 * We carry with us the wonders, we seek without us: There is all Africa, and her prodigies in us; we are that bold and adventurous piece of nature, which he that studies, wisely learns in a compendium, what others labour at in a divided piece and endless volume.
 * Section 15

 * Art is the perfection of nature.
 * Section 16

 * All things are artificial, for nature is the Art of God.
 * Section 16

 * Obstinacy in a bad cause, is but constancy in a good.
 * Section 25

 * Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant Religion.
 * Section 25

 * Thus is man that great and true Amphibium, whose nature is disposed to live not only like other creatures in diverse elements, but in divided and distinguished worlds.
 * Section 34

 * This reasonable moderator, and equal piece of justice, Death.
 * Section 38

 * I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof; 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, Wife, and Children stand afraid and start at us.
 * Section 40

 * Men that look no further than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but I that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that fabric hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my God that we can die but once.
 * Section 44
 * Compare: "I know death hath ten thousand several doors / For men to take their exits.", John Webster, Duchess of Malfi (1623); Act IV, scene ii.

 * We vainly accuse the fury of guns, and the new inventions of death; it is in the power of every hand to destroy us, and we are beholden unto every one we meet he doth not kill us.
 * Section 44

 * I believe the world grows near its end, yet is neither old nor decayed, nor will ever perish upon the ruins of its own principles.
 * Section 45

 * How shall the dead arise, is no question of my faith; to believe only possibilities, is not faith, but mere philosophy.
 * Section 48

 * The heart of man is the place the devil dwells in; I feel sometimes a hell within myself.
 * Section 51

 * There is no road or ready way to virtue.
 * Section 55

Part II

 * It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million of faces there should be none alike.
 * Section 2

 * There is surely a Physiognomy, which those experienced and Master Mendicants observe… For there are mystically in our faces certain Characters that carry in them the motto of our Souls, wherein he that cannot read A.B.C. may read our natures.
 * Section 2

 * I intend no Monopoly, but a Community in Learning; I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves.
 * Section 3

 * They that endeavour to abolish vice destroy also virtue, for contraries, though they destroy one another, are yet the life of one another.
 * Section 4

 * No man can justly censure or condemn another, because indeed no man truly knows another.
 * Section 4

 * But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world, yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were, his own executioner.
 * Section 4

 * I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar act of coition; It is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life, nor is there anything that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed.
 * Section 9

 * I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of a horse. It is my temper, & I like it the better, to affect all harmony, and sure there is music even in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. For there is a music wherever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres.
 * Section 9

 * I can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others
 * Section 9

 * We all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.
 * Section 9

 * There is no man alone, because every man is a Microcosm, and carries the whole world about him.
 * Section 10

 * For the world, I count it not an Inn, but a Hospital, and a place, not to live, but to die in.
 * Section 11

 * Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition, and fortunes, do err in my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders.
 * Section 11

 * There is surely a piece of Divinity within us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun.
 * Section 11

 * I am in no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company, yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof.
 * Section 11

 * The world that I regard is my selfe, it is the Microcosme of mine owne frame, that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my Globe, and turne it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing onely my condition, and fortunes, do erre in my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders.
 * Section 12

 * We term sleep a death, and yet it is waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life.
 * Section 12

 * I thanke God for my happy Dreams|dreames, as I doe for my good rest, for there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happinesse; and surely it is not a melancholy conceite to thinke we are all asleepe in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as meare dreames to those of the next, as the Phantasmes of the night, to the conceit of the day. There is an equall delusion in both, and the one doth but seeme to bee the embleme or picture of the other;
 * Section 12

 * Sleep is a death; oh, make me try By sleeping what it is to die, And as gently lay my head On my grave as now my bed.
 * Section 12

 * Aristotle whilst he labours to refute the ideas of Plato, falls upon one himself: for his summum bonum, is a Chimera, and there is no such thing as his Felicity.
 * Section 15

On Dreams

 * Half our days we pass in the shadow of the earth; and the brother of death exacteth a third part of our lives.

 * Happy are they that go to bed with grave music like Pythagoras.

 * A little water makes a sea, a small puff of wind a Tempest.

 * That some have never dreamed is as improbable as that some have never laughed.

 * That children dream not the first half year, that men dream not in some countries, with many more, are unto me sick men's dreams, dreams out of the Ivory gate, and visions before midnight.

Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)
.
 * Times before you, when even the living men were Antiquities; when the living might exceed the dead, and to depart this world, could not be properly said, to go unto the greater number.
 * Dedication

 * I look upon you as a gem of the old rock.
 * Dedication

 * In the deep discovery of the Subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfy some enquirers.
 * Chapter I

 * A Dialogue between two Infants in the womb concerning the state of this world, might handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in Plato's Den, and are but Embryon Philosophers.
 * Chapter IV

 * Were the happiness of the next world as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to live.
 * Chapter IV

 * Time which antiquates Antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things.
 * Chapter V

 * The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.
 * Chapter V

 * What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.
 * Chapter V. Cf Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars: "Tiberius," Ch 70

 * To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history. But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the Pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the Temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it.
 * Chapter V

 * Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? Without the favour of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle. Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man. Twenty seven names make up the first story before the flood, and the recorded names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the Æquinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetick, which scarce stands one moment.
 * Chapter V

 * Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory, a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables.
 * Chapter V

 * But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of Bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.''
 * Chapter V

The Garden of Cyrus (1658)

 * That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana the fourth day after their Nativities, according to Gentile Theology, may pass for no blind apprehension of the Creation of the Sun and Moon, in the work of the fourth day.
 * Opening lines of Ch. 1

 * Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living: All things fall under this name. The Sun itself is but the dark simulacrum, and the light but the shadow of God.
 * Ch. 4

 * But the Quincunx of Heaven runs low, and 'tis time to close the five ports of knowledge. We are unwilling to spin out our awaking thoughts into the phantasmes of sleep, which often continueth præcogitations; making Cables of Cobwebbes and Wildernesses of handsome Groves. Beside Hippocrates hath spoke so little and the Oneirocriticall Masters, have left such frigid Interpretations from plants, that there is little encouragement to dream of Paradise it self. Nor will the sweetest delight of Gardens afford much comfort in sleep; wherein the dulnesse of that sense shakes hands with delectable odours; and though in the Bed of Cleopatra, can hardly with any delight raise up the ghost of a Rose.
 * Ch. 5

 * To keep our eyes open longer were but to set our Antipodes. The Huntsmen are up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia. But who can be drowsy at that hour which freed us from everlasting sleep? or have slumbering thoughts at that time, when sleep itself must end, and as some conjecture all shall awake again?
 * Ch. 5

Letter to a Friend (circa 1656)

 * To make an end of all things on Earth, and our Planetical System of the World, he (God) need but put out the Sun

 * Not to be content with Life is the unsatisfactory state of those which destroy themselves; who being afraid to live, run blindly upon their own Death, which no Man fears by Experience.

 * And surely, he that hath taken the true Altitude of Things, and rightly calculated the degenerate state of this Age, is not like to envy those that shall live in the next, much less three or four hundred Years hence, when no Man can comfortably imagine what Face this World will carry.

 * Pursue Virtue virtuously.
 * These words also appear in Christian Morals, Part I, Section I

 * Be charitable before Wealth makes thee covetous.

Christian Morals (first pub. post. 1716)

 * Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others.
 * Part I, Section XIX

 * The noblest Digladiation is in the Theatre of ourselves.
 * Part I, Section XXIV

 * He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth himself.
 * Part I, Section XXXIV

 * There is nothing more acceptable unto the ingenious World, than this noble Eluctation of Truth; wherein, against the tenacity of Prejudice and Prescription, this Century now prevaileth. What Libraries of new Volumes aftertimes will behold, and in what a new World of Knowledge the eyes of our Posterity may be happy, a few Ages may joyfully declare; and is but a cold thought unto those who cannot hope to behold this Exantlation of Truth, or that obscured Virgin half out of the Pit.
 * Part II, Section IV
 * Burden not the back of Aries, Leo, or Taurus, with thy faults, nor make Saturn, Mars, or Venus, guilty of thy Follies.
 * Part III, Section VII

 * To ruminate upon evils, to make critical notes upon injuries, and be too acute in their apprehensions, is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the arrows of our enemies, to lash ourselves with the scorpions of our foes, and to resolve to sleep no more.
 * Part III, Section XII

 * The created World is but a small Parenthesis in Eternity.
 * Part III, Section XXIX

title: Thomas Browne