Liberation Quotes - Page 3

• Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of their own race when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race. Sexists violate the principle of equality by favoring the interests of their own sex. Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other species. The pattern is identical in each case.

  Peter Singer

  Sex, Animal, Race

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• The yoga we practice is not for ourselves alone, but for the Divine; its aim is to work out the will of the Divine in the world, to effect a spiritual transformation and to bring down a divine nature and a divine life into the mental, vital and physical nature and life of humanity. Its object is not personal Mukti, although Mukti is a necessary condition of the yoga, but the liberation and transformation of the human being. It is not personal Ananda, but the bringing down of the divine Ananda - Christ's kingdom of heaven, our Satyayuga - upon the earth.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Spiritual, Yoga, Practice

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• Bondage and Liberation are of the mind alone.

  Ramakrishna

  Mind, Bondage

  Ramakrishna, Mahendra Nath Gupta (1942). “The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna”, Ramakrishna Vivekanada Center

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• Chosen motherhood is the real liberation. The choice to have a child makes the whole experience of motherhood different, and the choice to be generative in other ways can at last be made, and is being made by many women now, without guilt.

  Betty Friedan

  Children, Real, Motherhood

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• Freeing oneself from words is liberation.

  Bodhidharma

  Oneself

  Bodhidharma (2009). “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma”, p.49, Macmillan

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• Liberation from every form of exploitation, the possibility of a more human and dignified life, the creation of a new humankind - all pass through this struggle.

  Gustavo Gutiérrez

  Struggle, Creation, Possibility

  Gustavo Gutiérrez (1988). “A theology of liberation: history, politics, and salvation”

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• Habits of thought lead us to brush aside descriptions of cruelty to animals as emotional, for "animal-lovers only"; or if not that, then anyway the problem is so trivial in comparison to the problems of human beings that no sensible person could give it time and attention. This too is a prejudice - for how can one know that a problem is trivial until one has taken the time to examine its extent?

  Peter Singer

  Taken, Emotional, Animal

  Peter Singer (1975). “Animal liberation: a new ethics for our treatment of animals”

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• It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road...A stone has no interests because it cannot suffer. The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is, however, not only necessary, but also sufficient for us to say that a being has interests - at an absolute minimum, an interest in not suffering. A mouse, for example, does have an interest in not being kicked along the road because it will suffer if it is.

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Suffering, Stones

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• For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.

  Aldous Huxley

  Philosophy, Political, Doubt

  Aldous Huxley (2001). “Complete Essays: 1936-1938”, Ivan R Dee

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• Completely trusting a way that you can't do by yourself, that you do with all sentient beings, is immediate liberation.

  Reb Anderson

  Way, Sentient Beings

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• Should one break in and free the animals? That is illegal, but the obligation to obey the law is not absolute. It was justifiably broken by those who helped runaway slaves in the American South, to mention only one possible parallel.

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Law, Broken

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• I don't see any kind of mirror of power, male power, that is, as a form of liberation. I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I don't believe this is truly freedom.

  Sandra Cisneros

  Believe, Eye, Mirrors

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• ...chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are thinking, self-aware beings, capable of planning ahead, who form lasting social bonds with others and have a rich social and emotional life. The great apes are therefore an ideal case for showing the arbitrariness of the species boundary. If we think that all human beings, irrespective of age or mental capacity, have some basic rights, how can we deny that the great apes, who surpass some humans in their capacities, also have these rights?

  Peter Singer

  Emotional, Thinking, Animal

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• The statement "I am in pain" may be one piece of evidence for the conclusion that the speaker is in pain, but it is not the only possible evidence, and since people sometimes tell lies, not even the best possible evidence. Even if there were stronger grounds for refusing to attribute pain to those who do not have language, the consequences of this refusal might lead us to reject the conclusion. Human infants and young children are unable to use language. Are we to deny that a year-old child can suffer?

  Peter Singer

  Children, Pain, Lying

  Peter Singer (1975). “Animal liberation: a new ethics for our treatment of animals”

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• So far as this argument is concerned nonhuman animals and infants and retarded humans are in the same category; and if we use this argument to justify experiments on nonhuman animals we have to ask ourselves whether we are also prepared to allow experiments on human infants and retarded adults; and if we make a distinction between animals and these humans, on what basis can we do it, other than a bare-faced - and morally indefensible - preference for members of our own species?

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Adults, Use

  Peter Singer (1975). “Animal liberation: a new ethics for our treatment of animals”

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• What is there about the notion of a person, at law, that makes every living member of the species Homo sapiens a person, irrespective of their mental capacities, but excludes every nonhuman animal - again, irrespective of their mental capacities?

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Law, Capacity

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• ...the nervous systems of other animals were not artificially constructed - as a robot might be artificially constructed - to mimic the pain behavior of humans. A capacity to feel pain obviously enhances a species' prospects of survival...it is surely unreasonable to suppose that nervous systems that are virtually identical physiologically, have a common origin and a common evolutionary function, and result in similar forms of behavior in similar circumstances should actually operate in an entirely different manner on the level of subjective feelings.

  Peter Singer

  Pain, Animal, Feelings

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• The reason why the romantic love relationship is such an intense and universally sought-after experience is that it seems to offer liberation from a deep-seated state of fear, need, lack, and incompleteness that is part of the human condition in its unredeemed and unenlightened state.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Romantic Love, Romance, Love Relationship

  Eckhart Tolle (2010). “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”, p.150, New World Library

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• We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

  Marianne Williamson

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Marianne Williamson (2012). “A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever”, p.230, Hay House, Inc

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• Nothing is more essential in the treatment of serious disease than the liberation of the patient from panic and foreboding.

  Norman Cousins

  Essentials, Disease, Panic

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• It just takes the faith of a little seed to make a way through what might to be impossibility, and the ability will match the occasion. The outcome will defy explanation. The liberation will not be televised when it arrives like lightning in the skies.

  Josh Garrels

  Faith, Inspiration, Sky

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• Liberation does not come from outside.

  Gloria Steinem

  Doe

  Interview with Lesley Stahl, www.cbsnews.com. December 20, 1999.

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• Art is the set of wings to carry you out of your own entanglement.

  Joseph Campbell

  Art, Wings, Entanglement

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• Not being tense but ready. Not thinking but not dreaming. Not being set but flexible. Liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement. It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.

  Bruce Lee

  Dream, Positivity, Power

  Bruce Lee (2015). “Bruce Lee Jeet Kune Do: Bruce Lee's Commentaries on the Martial Way”, p.377, Tuttle Publishing

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• Liberation does not concern the person, for liberation is freedom from the person. Basically the disciple and teacher are identical. Both are the timeless axis of all action and preception. The only difference is that one 'knows' himself for what he is while the other does not. The idea of being a person, an ego, is nothing other than an image held together by memory.

  Jean Klein

  Teacher, Memories, Differences

  Jean Klein (2006). “I Am”, p.11, New Harbinger Publications

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