Anshen Quotes & Sayings

For the uniqueness of man lies in his capacity for self-transcendence. — Ruth Nanda Anshen

Women are always changing. We change shape. We change our minds. We change our names when we marry. That morning, I woke up and saw in the mirror that my lips had changed and I wondered what was going to change next. - — Chloe Thurlow

Man alone, during his brief existence on this earth, is free to examine, to know, to criticize, and to create. In this freedom lies his superiority over the forces that pervade his outward life. He is that unique organism in terms of matter and energy, space and time, which is urged to conscious purpose. Reason is his characteristic and indistinguishing principle. But man is only man
and free
when he considers himself as a total being in whom the unmediated whole of feeling and thought is not severed and who impugns any form of atomization as artificial, mischievous, and predatory. — Ruth Nanda Anshen

Knowledge is a process, not a product ... — Ruth Nanda Anshen

The poet dreams of the classroom

I dreamed
I stood up in class
And I said aloud:

Teacher,
Why is algebra important?

Sit down, he said.

Then I dreamed
I stood up
And I said:

Teacher, I'm weary of the turkeys
That we have to draw every fall.
May I draw a fox instead?

Sit down, he said.

Then I dreamed
I stood up once more and said:

Teacher,
My heart is falling asleep
And it wants to wake up.
It needs to be outside.

Sit down, he said. — Mary Oliver

Marriages that made out of love (so-called "love-matches") have error as their father and misery (necessity) as their mother. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm a very heady person; I'm in my head a lot. — Emma Watson

Law! What do I care about the law? Ain't I got the power? — Cornelius Vanderbilt

[B]eyond the divisiveness among men there exists a primordial unitive power since we are all bound together by a common humanity more fundamental than any unity of dogma. — Ruth Nanda Anshen

She, uh, came out of the closet recently, my niece. Um ... She announced to the family that she's a lesbian and ... She's seven, did I mention that? And, uh, I don't even know if she knows what a lesbian is, but I support her completely. And, uh ... I'll tell you what's heartbreaking. My sister punished her for it. Can you believe that? No pussy for a week. Which to us may not sound like ... But when you're seven, you know, a week is a long time. — Sarah Silverman

The waste of words
continues with a stunning persistence
for all who laugh at us-
no matter, no matter
as long as your shoes are tied and
nobody is walking too close behind.
those constipated minds that seek
larger meaning will be dispatched
with the other garbage.
back off.
if there is light
it will find
you ... — Charles Bukowski

Information is not synonymous with knowledge. Information is only data, parts of the whole. Knowledge has a moral imperative to enhance intellectual and spiritual unity. — Ruth Nanda Anshen

Even as the cell is the unit of the organic body, so the family is the unit of society. — Ruth Nanda Anshen

I am a maker of useful things. — Eva Zeisel

Knowledge [...] no longer consists in a manipulation of man and nature as opposite forces, nor in the reduction of data to mere statistical order, but is a means of liberating mankind from the destructive power of fear, pointing the way toward the goal of the rehabilitation of the human will and the rebirth of faith and confidence in the human person. — Ruth Nanda Anshen