Quotes & Sayings About Privileges In Life

I live a very different life now, with incredible privileges, but looking back I realise that growing up in Russia gave me tools that other people don't necessarily have - such as the will to push that bit further, to make things happen, to succeed. — Natalia Vodianova

To pass its threshold was to return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet tranquil Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and her only, was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my walk, - to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very privileges of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What good it would have done me at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an uncertain struggling life, and to have been taught by rough and bitter experience to long for the calm amidst which I now repined! Yes, just as much good as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a "too easy chair" to take a long walk: and just as natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances, as it would be under his. — Charlotte Bronte

We discovered that peace at any price is no peace at all ... that life at any price has no value whatever; that life is nothing without the privileges, the prides, the rights, the joys that make it worth living and also worth giving ... and that there is something more hideous, more atrocious than war or than death; and that is to live in fear. — Eve Curie

The intoxication of frenzy and, ultimately, some suitable crime reveal
in a moment the whole meaning of a life. Without exactly advocating crime, the romantics insist on
paying homage to a basic system of privileges which they illustrate with the conventional images of the
outlaw, the criminal with the heart of gold, and the kind brigand. Their works are bathed in blood and
shrouded in mystery. The soul is delivered, at a minimum expenditure, of its most hideous desires
desires that a later generation will assuage in extermination camps. Of course these works are also a
challenge to the society of the times. But romanticism, at the source of its inspiration, is chiefly concerned
with defying moral and divine law. That is why its most original creation is not, primarily, the
revolutionary, but, logically enough, the dandy. — Albert Camus

Slippery use of the word "privilege" is part of a vogue of calling achievements "privileges" - a vogue which extends far beyond educational issues, spreading a toxic confusion in many other aspects of life. — Thomas Sowell

Each of us is in the world for no very long time, and within the few years of his life has to acquire whatever he is to know of this strange planet and its place in the universe. To ignore our opportunities for knowledge, imperfect as they are, is like going to the theatre and not listening to the play. The world is full of things that are tragic or comic, heroic or bizarre or surprising, and those who fail to be interested in the spectacle that it offers are forgoing one of the privileges that life has to offer. — Bertrand Russell

Don Ricardo wanted a successor worthy of himself. Jorge would always be cocooned in the privileges of his class, hiding from his mediocrity in creature comforts. Penelope, the beautiful Penelope, was a woman, and therefore a treasure, not a treasurer. Julian, who had the soul of a poet, and therefore the soul of a murderer, fulfilled all the requirements. It was only a question of time. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Fourteenth Amendment repudiated the prewar Dred Scott decision by declaring that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" were citizens. It also seemed to make a powerful statement for racial equality, severely limiting "states' rights": No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. — Howard Zinn

And still greater sin is theirs who profess to know God and to keep his commandments, yet who deny Christ in their character and their daily life. In the light of the Saviour's warning, the fate of Sodom is a solemn admonition, not merely to those who are guilty of outbreaking sin, but to all who are trifling with heaven-sent light and privileges. — Ellen G. White

Case in point: Byrdie, the son growing effortlessly into lifelong boyhood. Still a schoolboy, soon to be an old boy, blithely accepting accidents as privileges - for instance, his natural immunity to HIV. (Byrdie liked studious, upper-class females. They were not exactly high risk.) Byrdie was the phoenix edition of Lee, adapted to the novel environment, and Lee was a useless relic. He had positioned himself all his life as a rebel against a hegemonic order no one was interested in questioning anymore. It had lost its power to crush and all its clumsy weapons that inspired active fear. Its dominance was equal, but separate. — Nell Zink

I feel conscious that I should find no reason to regret abandoning so pleasant a manner of life and such valuable privileges to become a wife of anyone. Beside, marriag is not in my opinion, so exceedingly desirable as some persons think. A woman's career is over when she marries. Once married, all is fixed - certainty takes the place of all her pleasant dreams. For her, no more hopes, no more doubts, no more suspense, no more possibility of anything better. She knows what she is and will be until death. For my part, I like to give free scope to my thoughts. — Klementyna Tanska Hoffmanowa

Life and work are not things apart. Work is more than gaining privileges and possessions; it is ongoing, ecstatic, LIVING experience. When we tap into living experience, we no longer feel as though we must be king. We can just be ALIVE at work! When we live in the bliss, there is no difficulty which is insurmountable. If we miss the bliss, there is no compensation which is adequate. — Laurence Boldt

Religion is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue. — Edmund Burke

No society has succeeded in abolishing the distinction between ruler and ruled ... to be a ruler gives one special status and, usually, special privileges. During the Communist era, important officials in the Soviet Union had access to special shops selling delicacies unavailable to ordinary citizens; before China allowed capitalist enterprises in its economy, travelling by car was a luxury limited to tourists and those high in the party hierarchy Throughout the 'communist' nations, the abolition of the old ruling class was followed by the rise of a new class of party bosses and well-placed bureaucrats, whose behaviour and life-style came more and more to resemble that of their much-denounced predecessors. In the end, nobody believed in the system any more. That, couple with its inability to match the productivity of the less bureaucratically controlled, more egoistically driven capitalist economies, led to its downfall. — Peter Singer

A righteous politician will make all his citizens leaders. He will know all the lives of his countrymen. He will know each family by name, when they were born, their problems and anxieties and he will wipe away all pain. He will know what his citizens have eaten, where they have slept and he will know all grazing and hunting animals. He will not have privileges and he will govern alongside his cittizens. He will not govern on the basis of death because he is a leader of life. He will not allow death to occur or appear in his country. He will not lead his country to battle and no sickness will prevail under his rule. In his country there will be neither poor nor rich. He will know the fish in the sea, the birds of the air in number and will know all wildlife. He will know all particles of dust in formation. He will know all seasons and foretell a million years to come. He will have no blood on his hands and will not suffer from guilt. His citizens will suffer from no want. — David Ssembajjo

A man may have the right to criticize the Government, but I'm hanged if he has a right to brazenly use his free speech to attack our way of life. More and more we see men in science and profession and academy abusing their privileges of expression by crying that their real liberties are threatened by patriotism. Is patriotism above these men? Do they have a right to express their views, to carry on their work, to be free men unless they are patriotic to our society? I say no sir! Loyalty is one of the prerogatives of freedom — James Aldridge

Yet there was this to be said for unfavorable relationships in the wealth-distribution equation. It meant the existence of a leisure class and the development of an attractive way of life which, at its best, encouraged culture and grace. As long as the other end of the scale was not too badly off, as long as the leisure classes did not entirely forget their responsibilities while enjoying their privileges, as long as their culture took no obviously unhealthy turn, there was always the tendency in Eternity to forgive the departure from the ideal wealth-distribution pattern and to search for other, less attractive maladjustments. — Isaac Asimov

No longer enslaved or made dependent by force of law, the great majority are so by force of poverty; they are still chained to a place, to an occupation, and to conformity with the will of an employer, and debarred, by the accident of birth both from the enjoyments, and from the mental and moral advantages, which others inherit without exertion and independently of desert. That this is an evil equal to almost any of those against which mankind have hitherto struggled, the poor are not wrong in believing. Is it a necessary evil? They are told so by, those who do not feel it
by those who have gained the prizes in the lottery of life. But it was also said that slavery, that despotism, that all the privileges of oligarchy, were necessary. — John Stuart Mill

Sin grieves God. We must not down-play the seriousness of it in the life of a believer. But we must come to terms with the fact that God's Grace is GREATER THAN ALL OUR SINS. Repentance is one of the Christian's highest privileges. A repentant Christian focuses on God's mercy and God's grace. Any moment in our lives when we bask in God's mercy and grace is our highest moment. Higher than when we feel smug in our decent performance and cannot think of anything we need to confess. — Jerry Bridges

One of the privileges you have of living the life of an artist and creating your own world and everything is the fact that, in-between times, you can kind of spend them however you want. Because, you know, once you open up your candy store again, you're open for business. And you have to be responsible. You have to be available. — Quentin Tarantino

God, our Heavenly Father, loves us, His children - and one of our greatest privileges is coming to Him in prayer. And because He already knows our needs, we can be confident His answer will be best. If He didn't know our needs, why bother to pray? But He does, and this should give us confidence in prayer. Thank God that He knows your needs and wants you to come to Him in prayer. Remember: His Son gave His life "that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). — Billy Graham

Early in life she had discovered the important truth that nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion; and by a series of reckless escapades, half of them quite harmless, she had acquired all the privileges of a personality. — Oscar Wilde

Materialism has come to the rescue of India in a certain sense by throwing open the doors of life to everyone, by destroying the exclusive privileges of caste, by opening up to discussion the inestimable treasures which were hidden away in the hands of a very few who have even lost the use of them. Half has been stolen and lost; and the other half which remains is in the hands of men who, like dogs in the manger, do not eat themselves and will not allow others to do so. — Swami Vivekananda

Whenever I think about all the things I appreciate in life, I also think about my privileges, as well. Try to keep that all in balance. Gratitude for what I have, trying to be part of movements that make it easy for people who have it harder than they ever should have it. — Emily Saliers

The ordinary politician has a very low estimate of human nature. In his daily life he comes into contact chiefly with persons who want to get something or to avoid something. Beyond this circle of seekers after privileges, individuals and organized minorities, he is aware of a large unorganized, indifferent mass of citizens who ask nothing in particular and rarely complain. The politician comes after a while to think that the art of politics is to satisfy the seekers after favors and to mollify the inchoate mass with noble sentiments and patriotic phrases. — Walter Lippmann

What Francis heard on February 24, 1208, was this: go and preach, even without formation or ordination! No gold, no silver, no money not even for alms! No bag for provisions! One habit only! No shoes, no staff! It was an amputation of every superfluous item, of every precaution for life, and, at the same time, of every protection that an institution like the church could provide at the time. It was also a refusal to he recognized as a regular order, a refusal of the legal privileges associated with such status, and a refusal of priestly ordination. Poverty in the institutional sense means to he excluded from privileges.

. . . "No brother is to hold a position of power or a ruling office, especially not among the brothers themselves. No one in this way of living is to be called prior; instead all are to be known simply as minor brothers. And all are to wash one another's feet" (rule of 1221). — Dorothee Solle

If a fast doesn't include any sacrifices, then it's not a fast. The discomfort is where the magic happens. Life zips along, unchecked and automatic. We default to our lifestyles, enjoying our privileges tra la la, but a fast interrupts that rote trajectory. Jesus gets a fresh platform in the empty space where indulgence resided. — Jen Hatmaker

Psalm 111:10. The fear of God. The awe and dread of all that spooky action at a distance. And the Devil was understood to be less an adversary than a particularly evil employee of God. He was that bastard in the Human Resources Department who looks for ways to screw with your life. Satan was real. And he wandered around each day with an eye out for opportunities to tempt ordinary people into sinning. And God allowed it. There was presumably a housing crisis in Heaven or something, and he let Satan roam the earth, tricking people out of their renting privileges in the afterlife. — Warren Ellis

There were history's gifts to my family-and if the resources of that grocer, the fruits of those riots, the possibilities of that culture, and the privileges of that skin tone had been extended to others, how many more would now live a life of fulfillment, in a beautiful house high on a hill? — Malcolm Gladwell

Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us. You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you. For if you seek the votes of your fellow citizens, they will withhold them, and if you seek only their esteem, they will feign to refuse even that. You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellow creatures, they will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in turn. Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death. — Alexis De Tocqueville

I still think Connie was a human man, a very, very good one - but a man. I have been wrong in my judgments many times before; if now I am ignorant and blind, I'm sorry, but it's no new thing. If that should be the case though, it means that I have had great privileges in my life, perhaps more so than any man alive today. Because it means that on the fields and farms of England, on the airstrips of the desert and the jungle, in the hangars of the Persian Gulf and on the tarmacs of the southern islands, I have walked and talked with God. — Nevil Shute

Love is life is love. There is no way to envision life without love, and at this point in my life, I don't think there is anything more important - love of family, love of nature, love of travel, love of learning, love of life in every way - all of it. Love is being thankful, love is paying attention, love is being open and compassionate. Love is using all the privileges you possess to help those who are in need. Love is giving voice to those who don't have one. Love is a way of feeling alive and respecting life. I have been in love many times, but — Diane Von Furstenberg