Silencing The Past Quotes & Sayings

He places one of his long fingers over my lips, silencing me. I can smell my own musky arousal on his digit and I have the strongest urge to take it in my mouth and suck it as I did earlier during my audition. He says nothing but drills into me with those dazzling eyes. I have the strangest feeling that he is looking into my soul.
"Let us see where the wave takes us. I know I am going to enjoy the ride and I can guarantee our mutual satisfaction. Maybe we'll be washed to shore, I just don't know yet, but you can be certain of one thing ... "
I gaze up at him from his chest, breathing in the scent of his masculinity as I do.
"What's that, sir?" I ask, my voice betraying the curiosity I feel.
He looks down at me for a long, hard moment before he answers.
"I won't let you drown. — Felicity Brandon

As for major obstacles keeping young Latinos from becoming filmmakers, I think our communities are still coming into their identities as storytellers. It's such an important identity to reclaim - it's how our ancestors kept our cultures alive. But a long history of silencing, invisibility, and marginalization has kept generations of Latinos from believing in themselves, from seeing themselves as agents of their own lives. I think there needs to be a focus on this aspect to help cultivate young Latinas to see themselves as cultural producers and defenders. — Aurora Guerrero

The first stage of this tranquility consists in silencing the lips when the heart is excited. The second, in silencing the mind when the soul is still excited. The goal is a perfect peacefulness even in the middle of the raging storm. — John Climacus

They are all beasts of burden in a sense, ' Thoreau once remarked of animals, 'made to carry some portion of our thoughts.' Animals are the old language of the imagination; one of the ten thousand tragedies of their disappearance would be a silencing of this speech. — Rebecca Solnit

She didn't say anything, just a long, quiet "shhhh," as if she had learned that the troubles of the world could be absorbed and deafened by slow, steady wistfulness, and I suddenly understood that she'd been silencing the noise for the past twenty years. — Jennifer Ryan

His hand sliced through the air in a silencing motion, and he stalked to the window. "Have you seen any rats?"
Her mind spun at the sudden shift of subject. "Rats?"
"Rodents that resemble large mice."
"I know what rats are," she gritted out. "Why?"
"They're spies." He peered through the curtain into the darkness. Thick fog diffused the yellow lamplight, creating an eerie glow on the street below. "Have you seen any?"
Rodent spies? The man might be hot as hell, but he was a loon. As inconspicuously as possible, Cara inched toward the door. "I didn't see any furry little James Bonds. — Larissa Ione

we lived depravity
and called it truth, silencing
our dreaming, and
our love, discarding
things holy. — John Daniel Thieme

I never knew until then that snow made everything quiet, somehow silencing all the world's noise. — Karen Thompson Walker

Menders of all times and places have taught that silencing the thoughts in our heads and opening to the experience of the body and emotions is the basis of all healing. It's the only means by which we can reclaim our true nature or feel the subtle cues telling us how to find our way through life. — Martha N. Beck

The enemy puts full effort into silencing only the greatest voices. — Lenita Reeves

What are books good for?"
"Hitting intruders?" Nick mumbled. He rubbed his eyes again. "Doorstops. Insomnia. Special interrogation techniques. Silencing bedmates in the middle of the night. — Abigail Roux

We have an obligation to support libraries. To use libraries, to encourage others to use libraries, to protest the closure of libraries. If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future.
We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. Use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside. — Neil Gaiman

The silencing of the rainforests is a double deforestation, not only of trees but a deforestation of the mind's music, medicine and knowledge. — Jay Griffiths

Silencing the brain's ramblings gives the chance for wonderful thoughts to bloom. — Steven Redhead

Translation, an archaic way of silencing, marginalizing or disowning other people's originality, must come to an end. — Thorsten J. Pattberg

O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Your glory is higher than the heavens. 2 You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength,[*] silencing your enemies and all who oppose you. 3 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers - the moon and the stars you set in place - 4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?[*] 5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God[*] and crowned them[*] with glory and honor. 6 You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority - 7 the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, 8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents. 9 O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! — Anonymous

We don't say cannot here at Shadowfell,' Tali put in firmly, silencing him. 'And we don't say impossible. — Juliet Marillier

Let me quickly remind you that the allegation of being mentally incapable is a tried and tested method of silencing women dating back hundreds of years, a weapon to discredit us when we fought against abuses and stood up to authority. — Tom Rob Smith

He had an overwhelming urge to take possession of her lips, silencing any mention of another man's name. — Tamara Hughes

The price for standing up for Truth, no matter how severe, will always be less than the price our souls will be penalized for not speaking up for our conscience. There is no greater crime in the universe than silencing your conscience. — Suzy Kassem

The ultimate way of Being lies beyond all contradictory pairs of opposites
with which our two dimensional thinking mind operates.
As soon as we are successful in silencing the restless activity of the thinking mind
and give a chance to intuition, the pure all embracing spirit in us will manifest effortlessly. — Anagarika Govinda

I've had librarians say to me, "People in my school don't agree with homosexuality, so it's difficult to have your book on the shelves." Here's the thing: Being gay is not an issue, it is an identity. It is not something that you can agree or disagree with. It is a fact, and must be defended and represented as a fact.
To use another part of my identity as an example: if someone said to me, "I'm sorry, but we can't carry that book because it's so Jewish and some people in my school don't agree with Jewish culture," I would protest until I reached my last gasp. Prohibiting gay books is just as abhorrent ...
Discrimination is not a legitimate point of view. Silencing books silences the readers who need them most. And silencing these readers can have dire, tragic consequences. Never forget who these readers are. They are just as curious and anxious about life as any other teenager. — David Levithan

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. — John Stuart Mill

If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future. — Neil Gaiman

But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past
or more accurately, pastness
is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." p. 15
" ... But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153
Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) — Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Absolutely devout in her complete care of my body, she had only taught me to be weak and voiceless.

But I had unlearned that lesson. Our enmeshment no longer felt to me like proof of love. I was no longer willing to permit this silencing. Helplessness didn't have to be my identity, I wasn't condemned to it. I was willing - able - to change. Our enmeshment had been enabled by my belief that I needed her to help me, to take care of things for me - and to save me - but, back in the home where I'd learned this helplessness, I found I no longer felt that I was trapped in it. — Aspen Matis

The fourth estate came together in an unprecedented professional consensus. They chose insulting the other side over trying to understand what motivated them. They transformed opinion writing into a vehicle for high moral boasting. What could possibly have gone wrong with such an approach? [...] Put this question in slightly more general terms and you are confronting the single great mystery of 2016. The American white-collar class just spent the year rallying around a super-competent professional (who really wasn't all that competent) and either insulting or silencing everyone who didn't accept their assessment. And then they lost. Maybe it's time to consider whether there's something about shrill self-righteousness, shouted from a position of high social status, that turns people away. — Thomas Frank

Political correctness is America's newest form of intolerance, and it is especially pernicious because it comes disguised as tolerance. It presents itself as fairness, yet attempts to restrict and control people's language with strict codes and rigid rules. I'm not sure that's the way to fight discrimination. I'm not sure silencing people or forcing them to alter their speech is the best method for solving problems that go much deeper than speech. — George Carlin

Whether white, black, Asian, or Latino, American students rarely arrive at college as habitual readers, which means that few of them have more than a nominal connection to the past. It is absurd to speak, as does the academic left, of classic Western texts dominating and silencing everyone but a ruling elite or white males. The vast majority of white students do not know the intellectual tradition that is allegedly theirs any better than black or brown ones do. They have not read its books, and when they do read them, they may respond well, but they will not respond in the way that the academic left supposes. For there is only one 'hegemonic discourse' in the lives of American undergraduates, and that is the mass media. Most high schools can't begin to compete against a torrent of imagery and sound that makes every moment but the present seem quaint, bloodless, or dead. — David Denby

Before I can over-think it, I lean in and kiss her. She's stunned at first, and then her lips come to life under mine. She's so soft and warm. Her arms wrap around my neck, bringing her closer.
I pull away slowly, holding her bright blue gaze. I feel as if I can't breathe, my hands are shaking. I don't know what I was expecting, but that definitely wasn't it. The kiss was short and quick, but it was different. I swallow and take a step back, turning my face away from her.
"I..."
She presses her finger to my lips, silencing me.
"Don't Kristian. You'll ruin it." She watches me for a moment longer and then takes a slow step back, before spinning around and dashing away into the dark rain. — Dannielle Wicks

I told you to make yourself at home," he says. "I don't want you to feel like you have to tiptoe around, afraid of doing something wrong or hearing something you shouldn't, like phone conversations." My blood runs cold at those words. I can feel his eyes on me and not the screen. "I, uh ... " I don't know what to say. "It's okay," he says, those words silencing me. He kisses the top of my head again, subject closed as he goes back to watching the movie. A few minutes pass before Naz lets out a light laugh. "So, tell me something ... did you at least google me? — J.M. Darhower

Communication starts with the understanding that there is my point of view (my truth) and someone else's point of view (his truth). Rarely is there one absolute truth, so people who believe that they speak the truth are very silencing of others. — Sheryl Sandberg

I keep my eyes closed as tightly as I can, but in my mind, everyone in the square looks like my father and they all have his voice. I hate you all. I imagine my hands at their throats, choking, silencing them, one by one. — Marie Lu

I describe what is happening as 'food fascism' because this system can only survive through totalitarian control. With patents on seed, an illegitimate legal system is manipulated to create seed monopolies. Seed laws that require uniformity - which criminalize diversity and the use of open-pollinated seeds - are fascist in nature. Suing farmers after contaminating their crops is another aspect of this fascism. Pseudo-hygiene laws that criminalize local, artisanal food are food fascism. And attacks on scientists and the silencing of independent research are examples of knowledge fascism. — Vandana Shiva

Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest has failed. — G.K. Chesterton

An unmentored daughter is an unnurtured daughter, unnurtured in the strength she needs to Survive as an original woman in this world. Daughters, as compared to sons in a hetero-relational family, are more undernurtured in all ways by mothers and pressured prematurely to become nurturers of others - mostly of men. What also happens in this context, as Denice Yanni has pointed out, is "a silencing of woman's own needs for nurturing by making her the primary nurturer. — Janice G. Raymond

Either by silencing the mind or by opening the heart, today's man can become tomorrow's God, tomorrow's Divinity. And embodied Divinity soon becomes revealed Immortality. — Sri Chinmoy

The authentic rebel knows that the silencing of all his adversaries is the last thing on earth he wishes: their extermination would deprive him and whoever else remains alive from the uniqueness, the originality, and the capacity for insight that these enemies being human also have and could share with him. If we wish the death of our enemies, we cannot talk about the community of man. In the losing of the chance for dialogue with our enemies, we are the poorer. — Rollo May

I learned a lot about systems of oppression and how they can be blind to one another by talking to black men. I was once talking about gender and a man said to me, "Why does it have to be you as a woman? Why not you as a human being?" This type of question is a way of silencing a person's specific experiences. Of course I am a human being, but there are particular things that happen to me in the world because I am a woman. This same man, by the way, would often talk about his experience as a black man. (To which I should probably have responded, "Why not your experiences as a man or as a human being? Why a black man?") — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won't. I'll need brain surgery to cut it out of my head. — Laurie Halse Anderson