Commoner Quotes (page 55)
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We like to stress the commonness of heroes. Essences seem undemocratic. We feel oppressed by the call to greatness. We regard an interest in glory or perfection as a sign of mental unhealthiness, and have decided that high achievers, who are called overachievers, owe their surplus ambition to a defect in mothering (either too little or too much). We want to admire but think we have a right not to be intimidated. We dislike feeling inferior to an ideal. So away with ideals, with...
Susan Sontag
It is not possible to be intimate with nore than very few, because there are only very few in the world with whom we have practically everything in common. There is, however, one universal basis for friendship with all men: we are all loved by God, and I should desire them all to love Him with all their power.... the truth remains that our destiny is to love one another as Christ has loved us.
Thomas Merton
I sing your restless longing for the statue, your fear of the feelings that await you in the street. I sing the small sea siren who sings to you, riding her bicycle of corals and conches. But above all I sing a common thoughtthat joins us in the dark and golden hours. The light that blinds our eyes is not art. Rather it is love, friendship, crossed swords.
Federico Garcia Lorca
Then I will tell you something. I do not believe in it. Forty years among men has consistently taught me that they are not amenable to common sense. Show them the red tail of a comet, fill them with black terror, and they will all come running out of their houses and break their legs. But tell them one sensible proposition and support it with seven reasons, and they will simply laugh in your face
Bertolt Brecht
