Richard Erskine Quotes & Sayings

It exhibits the effort of an essentially prosaic mind to lift itself, by a prolonged muscular strain, into poetry. — Henry James

It's simple: either you have discipline or you haven't. — Edmund H. North

We came to America, either ourselves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the things that unite. — Woodrow Wilson

"Oppression" or "systems of oppression" operate as a shorthand terms in much writing and speaking so that we do not have to list all these systems of meaning and control each time (i.e. racism, ableism, xenophobia, etc.). I needed a term like that, but "oppression" implies a kind of top-down understanding of power that is at odds with the Foucaultian model I rely on in my work. — Dean Spade

The program of scientific experimentation that leads you to conclude that animals are imbeciles is profoundly anthropocentric. It values being able to find your way out of a sterile maze, ignoring the fact that if the researcher who designed the maze were to be parachuted into the jungles of Borneo, he or she would be dead of starvation in a week ... If I as a human being were told that the standards by which animals are being measured in these experiments are human standards, I would be insulted. — J.M. Coetzee

A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people. — John Cleese

A creed is an ossified metaphor. — Elbert Hubbard

India experienced the traditional state-building process in reverse order: unlike Europe, for instance, India instituted full democracy and then set about building a state. Much of the West did precisely the opposite. As a result, underdeveloped institutions have been the Achilles' heel of Indian democracy from the outset. — Milan Vaishnav

There are doubtless certain unworldly people who are indifferent to money. I myself have never met one. — Agatha Christie

This chapter provides a comprehensive definition of life scripts as a complex set of unconscious relational patterns based on physiological survival reactions, implicit experiential conclusions, explicit decisions, and/or self-regulating introjections, made under stress, at any developmental age, that inhibit spontaneity and limit flexibility in problem-solving, health maintenance and in relationship with people. — Richard G. Erskine

It would be unfair to expect other people to be as brilliant as oneself. — Oscar Wilde

The madman is a dreamer awake — Sigmund Freud

I think when your imagination goes to work, and when you're first bullied, you feel like you're going to die. School becomes a war zone, and you can't function. — Michael Steger

Sometimes the darkest challenges, the most difficult lessons, hold the greates gems of light. — Barbara Marciniak