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Welfare is ... the victim of national compassion fatigue.

Ellen Goodman

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Ellen Goodman
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: April 11
Journalist
Newton
Massachusetts
Fatigue
Welfare
Victim
National
Compassion

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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 great myth of our work-intense era is 'quality time.' We believe we can make up for the loss of days or hours, especially with each other, by concentrated minutes. But ultimately there is no way to do one-minute mothering. There is no way to pay attention in a hurry.
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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 have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference.
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In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right.
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Saving time, it seems, has a primacy that's too rarely examined.
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Maybe at 20 you can write well, but I don't think you could do what I do. Some things have to happen to you first.
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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.
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