Quote

we have made an extraordinary transition. From moral absolutes to moral relativism. ... Moral problems become medical ones and yesterday's sinners become today's patients.

Ellen Goodman

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Ellen Goodman
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: April 11
Journalist
Newton
Massachusetts
Made
Morality
Sinners
Extraordinary
Patients
Ones
Sinner
Problems
Transition
Moral
Absolutes
Become
Medical
Problem
Yesterday
Today
Patient
Relativism

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We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?
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Without even knowing it, we are assaulted by a high note of urgency all the time. We end up pacing ourselves to the city rhythm whether or not it's our own. In time we even grow hard of hearing to the rest of the world. Like a violinist stuck next to the timpani, we may lose the ability to hear our own instrument.
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I vote because it's what small-d democracy is about. Because there are places where people fight for generations and stand for hours to cast a ballot knowing what we ought to remember: that it makes a difference. Not always a big difference. Not always an immediate difference. But a difference.
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The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves.
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I regard this novel as a work without redeeming social value, unless it can be recycled as a cardboard box.
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She goes in with a prejudice and comes out with a statistic.
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