Quote

The surprise of animals... in and out, cats and dogs and a milk goat and chickens and guinea hens, all taken for granted, as if man was intended to live on terms of friendly intercourse with the rest of creation instead of huddling in isolation on the fourteenth floor of an apartment house in a city where animals occurred behind bars in the zoo.

Elizabeth Janeway

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Elizabeth Janeway
Age: 91 †
Born: 1913
Born: October 7
Died: 2005
Died: January 15
Author
Feminist
Historian
Literary Critic
Novelist
Brooklyn
New York
Term
City
Friendly
Cats
Fourteenth
Taken
Behinds
Bars
Intended
Goat
House
Creation
Cat
Isolation
Hens
Live
Behind
Granted
Chickens
Guinea
Men
Instead
Surprise
Apartment
Zoos
Rest
Animals
Floor
Goats
Cities
Dog
Milk
Intercourse
Animal
Terms
Dogs
Occurred
Huddling

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Growing up human is uniquely a matter of social relations rather than biology. What we learn from connections within the family takes the place of instincts that program the behavior of animals which raises the question, how good are these connections?
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Art is a framework, a kind of living trellis, on which public dreaming can shape itself.
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If there's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, there is nothing more ubiquitously pervasive than an idea whose time won't go.
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a problem that presents itself as a dilemma carries an unfortunate prescription: to argue instead of act.
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Humor is an antidote to isolation.
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I admire people who are suited to the contemplative life. They can sit inside themselves like honey in a jar and just be.
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Unless I am what I am and feel what I feel - as hard as I can and as honestly and truly as I can - then I am nothing. Let me feel guilty ... don't try to educate me ... don't protect me.
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Creeds and causal systems have argued with each other for millennia, and even so we and our ancestors have managed to live in a world of differing opinions. Philosophical disputes don't often affect the price of fish or wine.
Elizabeth Janeway
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We haven't come a long way, we've come a short way. If we hadn't come a short way, no one would be calling us baby.
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This is the power of the powerful to define, to structure, to say, 'This is the way the world works.' It's enormous power. Among the powers of the weak, I think the first one is the power not to believe the powerful.
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By setting the passenger seat of my car far back, and opening the glove compartment, I nestle in a very large sheet of thick fiberboard. It's big enough to hold a table easel, my big palette and a water container. Winter is not going to lock me indoors!
Elizabeth Janeway
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reaction isn't action - that is, it isn't truly creative.
Elizabeth Janeway
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I am not sure how many sins I would recognize in the world. Some would surely be defused by changed circumstances. But I can imagine none that is more irredeemably sinful than the betrayal, the exploitation, of the young by those who should care for them.
Elizabeth Janeway
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Whatever class and race divergences exist, top cats are tom cats.
Elizabeth Janeway
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If one is going to change things, one has to make a fuss and catch the eye of the world.
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Few cultures have not produced the idea that in some past era the world ran better than it does now.
Elizabeth Janeway
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We don't get offered crises, they arrive.
Elizabeth Janeway
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We put up with a lot to be saved from chaos. We always have.
Elizabeth Janeway
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We are in a double bind. We are expected to feel inferior not only as women, but because we are old.
Elizabeth Janeway
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The idea of power as a possession, whose asset can be banked and drawn on when needed, comes easy to a society whose rules grow out of the methods of finance capitalism.
Elizabeth Janeway