Barbara Deming
(1917-1984)

American Writer & Women's Rights Advocate

birthdate: July 23
birthplace:
New York City

QUOTES

The longer we listen to one another - with real attention - the more commonality we will find in all our lives. That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories and not simply opinions.

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

I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision. . . is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive

I learned always to trust my own deep sense of what I should do, and not just obediently trust the judgment of others – even others better than I am.

Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people's minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide.

A great many of us must move from words to acts

It is my stubborn faith that if, as revolutionaries, we will wage battle without violence, we can remain very much more in control - of our selves, of the responses to us which our adversaries make, of the battle as it proceeds, and of the future we hope will issue from it.

What is the revolution that we need? We need to dissolve the lie that some people have a right to think of other people as their property. And we need at last to form a circle that includes us all, in which all of us are seen as equal... we do not belong to the other, but our lives are linked; we belong in a circle of others.

"We need to dissolve the lie that some people have a right to think of other people as their property. And we need at last to form a circle that includes us all, in which all of us are seen as equal.

 

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