Handmaidens Quotes & Sayings

All poetry comes from repetition. — Kenneth Koch

America was a land of machines, and it was through machines, the miraculous handmaidens of mob culture, that the muses of illiteracy brought America her voice and vision during the years of the immigrants' waves. Centuries ago, movable type had given literacy to the common man. Now, through these wondrous newer machines, he would give it back. — Nick Tosches

Failure to critique US empire allows feminist projects to be used and mobilized as handmaidens in the imperial project. — Chandra Talpade Mohanty

Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. Our mission, therefore, is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated. — Kofi Annan

We lived in a culture that denied any merit to literary works, considering them important only when they were handmaidens to something seemingly more urgent
namely ideology. This was a country where all gestures, even the most private, were interpreted in political terms. The colors of my head scarf or my father's tie were symbols of Western decadence and imperialist tendencies. Not wearing a beard, shaking hands with members of the opposite sex, clapping or whistling in public meetings, were likewise considered Western and therefore decadent, part of the plot by imperialists to bring down our culture. — Azar Nafisi

My beloved Elisa, my companion and wife, whom I love and revere, is one of the most noble of our Heavenly Father's handmaidens. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

Right now, I'm dirt poor, but one day, I'm not gonna be. I will fight to make something better of myself, to be someone better. Someone you can be proud of. If you need time, then I'll give you time. If you need friendship, then I'll give you friendship. But you're mine, and when the time is right, when you're ready, I'm coming for you. — R.J. Prescott

Cows are the Devil's handmaidens. — Linda Howard

Creative expression and visual comprehension are really the handmaidens of art. One cannot thrive without the other. — Ken Danby

And so it is with us; we serve as handmaidens to Death. When we are guided by His will, killing is a sacrament. — R.L. LaFevers

Whether you regard it as infantile or as the highest achievement of the European mind, what we find in Kant are the philosophical roots of our modern identification of freedom with choice, where choice is understood as a pure flashing forth of the unconditioned will. This is important for understanding our culture because thus understood, choice serves as the central totem of consumer capitalism, and those who present choices to us appear as handmaidens to our own freedom.
When the choosing will is hermetically sealed off from the fuzzy, hard-to-master contingencies of the empirical world, it becomes more "free" in a sense: free for the kind of neurotic dissociation from reality that opens the door wide for others to leap in on our behalf, and present options that are available to us without the world-disclosing effort of skillful engagement. — Matthew B. Crawford

Look beyond a person's actions and see their heart. Look for what's causing them to act the way they act, then you'll understand them better. — Ginny L. Yttrup

As I was to learn, patience and latitude and even humility are, paradoxically, the handmaidens of wealth, because virtue is costly only for those who own nothing else. — James Lee Burke

The 'America at Home' project was aimed at being the most extensive record of American home life ever attempted, and we were amazed at how many people were willing to participate as photographers or to welcome the photographers into their homes. — Rick Smolan

There are songs that I have to play! — Mavis Staples

I would have gone to bed with him that night. If he had asked. If he had come and kissed me. Not for his sake, but for being alive's. — John Fowles

The giant industries that are polluting our planet as well as violating human rights worldwide are the ones nearest and dearest to the hearts of American politicians. — Woody Harrelson

Our religious institutions have far too often become handmaidens of the status quo, while the genuine religious experience is anything but that. True religion is by nature disruptive of
what has been, giving birth to the eternally new. — Marianne Williamson

I now wondered if the lullaby of death was not a lovely song, but the droning of flies. If flies and maggots were all Death's handmaidens. — Sarah J. Maas

There was a feeling on the air like the eve of the end of the world ... — Billie-Jo Williams

So many nurses had turned into emotionally disturbed handmaidens of the war, in their yellow-and-crimson uniforms with bone buttons. — Michael Ondaatje

To diminish the worth of women, men had to diminish the worth of the moon. They had to drive a wedge between human beings and the trees and the beasts and the waters, because trees and beasts and waters are as loyal to the moon as to the sun. They had to drive a wedge between thought and feeling ... At first they used Apollo as the wedge, and the abstract logic of Apollo made a mighty wedge, indeed, but Apollo the artist maintained a love for women, not the open, unrestrained lust that Pan has, but a controlled longing that undermined the patriarchal ambition. When Christ came along, Christ, who slept with no female ... Christ, who played no musical instrument, recited no poetry, and never kicked up his heels by moonlight, this Christ was the perfect wedge. Christianity is merely a system for turning priestesses into handmaidens, queens into concubines, and goddesses into muses. — Tom Robbins

Exhaustion and exasperation are frequently the handmaidens of legislative decision. — Barber Conable

But fairness is where we're heading, at least in regard to marriage, which has emerged as the terrain on which Americans are hashing out their feelings about gays and lesbians. The trajectory is undeniable. The trend line is clear. And the choice before the justices is whether to be handmaidens to history, or whether to sit it out. — Frank Bruni

When you really want something, when you lust, seek, desire, await, anticipate or expect, when you sit in front of the TV after the late news twirling a plastic spoon in a bowl of lukewarm skim milk and saturated puffs of Special K, praying for nine or so hours to pass so that you can check the morning mail to see if the college accepted, the one-night stand wrote, the tax refund arrived or Publisher's Clearing House made you the winner of a dream house in Wisconsin, when you're really looking forward to something, that's when Fortuna dispatches a couple of her handmaidens to drop a load of shit on you. — Martin Fillmore Clark

We speak of facts, yet facts exist only partially to us if they are not repeated and re-created through emotions, thoughts and feelings. To me it seemed as if we had not really existed, or only half existed, because we could not imaginatively realize ourselves and communicate to the world, because we had used works of imagination to serve as handmaidens to some political ploy. — Azar Nafisi

Naturally, the workers are perfectly free; the manufacturer does not force them to take his materials and his cards, but he says to them..'If you don't like to be frizzled in my frying- pan, you can take a walk into the fire. — Friedrich Engels

Art is maybe a subversive activity. There is a certain rebellion when you are an artist at heart, even if only in the art of living. — Philippe Petit

What place does a woman have here, in the realm of men? — Lisa Ann Sandell

Bear with my weakness. My old brain is troubled.
Be not disturbed with my infirmity. — William Shakespeare

The soul's calm sunshine and heartfelt joy. — Alexander Pope

You're angry."
"Wow. You really are good."
"And guarded. You've been hurt, but you still crave connection. Understanding. So you throw yourself into risk in a calculated way. You're a paradox: a careful daredevil. — Leah Raeder