Quotes of: Keller Keyword

Homo homini lupus [man is wolf to man]. Who in the face of all his experience of life and of history, will have the courage to dispute this assertion?

Civilization and Its Discontents

We are so constituted that we can gain intense pleasure only from the contrast, and only very little from the condition itself.

Civilization and Its Discontents

And this was to save rats, right? Or mice? You spent all this money to save mice the problem of developing tumors?

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

I went on a blind date—with a descendent of Helen Keller.

At even one penny, this book would be overpriced. In fact, free is too expensive, because you'd still waste time by reading it.

Religious doctrines … are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.

The Future of an Illusion (The Standard Edition)

No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere.

The Future of an Illusion (The Standard Edition)

Where the questions of religion are concerned people are guilty of every possible kind of insincerity and intellectual misdemeanor.

The Future of an Illusion (The Standard Edition)

A transference neurosis corresponds to a conflict between ego and , a corresponds to that between between ego and super-ego, and a psychosis to that between ego and outer world.

General Psychological Theory

A blanket could be used to spot the blind. I’d spot Helen Keller nine points in a ten-point basketball game. 

Brick and Blanket Test in Brick City (Ocala) Florida

Healthy" and "diseased," as Susan Sontag points out...are often subjective judgments that society makes for its own purposes. Women have long been defined as sick as a means of subjecting them to social control.

The Beauty Myth

The surgeons' market is imaginary, since there is nothing wrong with women's faces or bodies that social change won't cure; so the surgeons depend for their income on warping female self-perception and multiplying female self-hatred.

The Beauty Myth

The economics of industrialized countries would collapse if women didn't do the work they do for free: According to economist Marilyn Waring, throughout the West it generates between 25 and 40 percent of the gross national product.

The Beauty Myth

A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.

The Beauty Myth

If we are strong, and have faith in life and its richness of surprises, and hold the rudder steadily in our hands. I am sure we will sail into quiet and pleasent waters for our old age.

Freya Stark

I wanted to explore cancer not just biologically, but metaphorically. The idea that tuberculosis in the 19th century possessed the same kind of frightening and decaying quality was very interesting to me, and it seemed that one could explore the idea...

Siddhartha Mukherjee

If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them - not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.

Anne Bronte

Sometimes I feel very alone. I am a bit of a nomad. Many people in sort of emerging countries, emerging economies, find themselves displaced. So there is that sense, and so I'm part of a whole, I think, group of displaced people.

Chris Abani

To fund major cultural efforts, we must not rely alone on government and foundation patronage; if the farmer can spend for beer, he can pay for good entertainment which he can understand, which he can identify with and which will fortify his spirit.

F. Sionil Jose

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will ...

Franz Kafka

Going on the road for long stretches can seem daunting, and I certainly miss being home sometimes, but the chance to see so many different cities, let alone perform in them, is something I am really grateful for.

John Mulaney