WIST Quotations

Jarman, Derek -- At Your Own Risk: A Saint’s Testament (1992)

Dave — Tue, 26 May 2020 15:52:35 +0000

Heterosexuality isn’t normal. It’s just common.

Derek Jarman (1942-1994) English film director, gay rights activist, author
At Your Own Risk: A Saint’s Testament (1992)

Often attributed to Dorothy Parker.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- “Nature,” ch. 8, Nature: Addresses and Lectures (1849)

Dave — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 04:08:02 +0000

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Nature,” ch. 8, Nature: Addresses and Lectures (1849)
(Source)

Thoreau, Henry David -- Journal (22 Mar 1842)

Dave — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 13:05:08 +0000

I have not succeeded if I have an antagonist who fails. It must be humanity’s success.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer
Journal (22 Mar 1842)

Baldwin, James -- “An interview with James Baldwin” by Studs Terkel (1961), in Conversations With James Baldwin (1989)

Dave — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:11:25 +0000

You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discover that it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevsky. This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important. Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important.

James Baldwin (1924-1987) American novelist, playwright, activist
“An interview with James Baldwin” by Studs Terkel (1961), in Conversations With James Baldwin (1989)
(Source)

Baldwin revisited this theme multiple times.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people. An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian.
[Interview with Jane Howard, Life Magazine (24 May 1963)]

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
["James Baldwin Recalls His Childhood," quoting from a television program, New York Times (31 May 1964)]

King, Martin Luther -- “I Have a Dream,” speech, Washington, DC (28 Aug 1963)

Dave — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 09:58:51 +0000

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood; that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“I Have a Dream,” speech, Washington, DC (28 Aug 1963)