The revolutionary woman knows the world she seeks to overthrow is precisely one in which love between equal human beings is well nigh impossible. We are still part of the ironical working-out of this, our own cruel contradiction. One of the most compelling facts which can unite women and make us act is the overwhelming indignity or bitter hurt of being regarded as simply __he other_, __n object_, __ommodity_, __hing_. We act directly from a consciousness of the impossibility of loving or being loved without distortion. But we must still demand now the preconditions of what is impossible at the moment. It is a most disturbing dialectic, our praxis of pain.
Boys and girls are only little men and women. And WE are much harder and hardier than they are--" (Peter liked the "we." Perhaps the Doctor had known he would.)--"and much stronger, and things that hurt THEM don't hurt US. You know you mustn't hit a girl--""I should think not, indeed," muttered Peter, indignantly."Not even if she's your own sister. That's because girls are so much softer and weaker than we are; they have to be, you know," he added, "because if they weren't, it wouldn't be nice for the babies. And that's why all the animals are so good to the mother animals. They never fight them, you know.""I know," said Peter, interested; "two buck rabbits will fight all day if you let them, but they won't hurt a doe.""No; and quite wild beasts--lions and elephants--they're immensely gentle with the female beasts. And we've got to be, too.""I see," said Peter."And their hearts are soft, too," the Doctor went on, "and things that we shouldn't think anything of hurt them dreadfully. So that a man has to be very careful, not only of his fists, but of his words. They're awfully brave, you know," he went on. "Think of Bobbie waiting alone in the tunnel with that poor chap. It's an odd thing- -the softer and more easily hurt a woman is the better she can screw herself up to do what HAS to be done. I've seen some brave women-- your Mother's one," he ended abruptly."Yes," said Peter."Well, that's all. Excuse my mentioning it. But nobody knows everything without being told. And you see what I mean, don't you?
The Railway Children
Quote Detail
Boys and girls are only little men and women. And WE are much harder and hardier than they are--" (Peter liked the "we." Perhaps the Doctor had known he would.)--"and much stronger, and things that hurt THEM don't hurt US. You know you mustn't hit a girl--""I should think not, indeed," muttered Peter, indignantly."Not even if she's your own sister. That's because girls are so much softer and weaker than we are; they have to be, you know," he added, "because if they weren't, it wouldn't be nice for the babies. And that's why all the animals are so good to the mother animals. They never fight them, you know.""I know," said Peter, interested; "two buck rabbits will fight all day if you let them, but they won't hurt a doe.""No; and quite wild beasts--lions and elephants--they're immensely gentle with the female beasts. And we've got to be, too.""I see," said Peter."And their hearts are soft, too," the Doctor went on, "and things that we shouldn't think anything of hurt them dreadfully. So that a man has to be very careful, not only of his fists, but of his words. They're awfully brave, you know," he went on. "Think of Bobbie waiting alone in the tunnel with that poor chap. It's an odd thing- -the softer and more easily hurt a woman is the better she can screw herself up to do what HAS to be done. I've seen some brave women-- your Mother's one," he ended abruptly."Yes," said Peter."Well, that's all. Excuse my mentioning it. But nobody knows everything without being told. And you see what I mean, don't you?
Quick Answer
What this quote page tells you
This canonical quote page keeps the full saying, the attributed author, any linked work, and the topic tags together so the quote can be cited from one stable URL.
Related Quotes
More quote cards from the same area
When a Wanderess has been caged, or perched with her wings clipped, She lives like a Stoic, She lives most heroic, smiling with ruby, moistened lips once her cup of Death is welcome sipped.
A truly happy woman drives some men and almost every other woman absolutely crazy
When we strike a balance between the challenge of an activity and our skill at performing it, when the rhythm of the work itself feels in sync with our pulse, when we know that what we're doing matters, we can get totally absorbed in our task. That is happiness.The life coach Martha Beck asks new potential clients, "Is there anything you do regularly that makes you forget what time it is?" That forgetting -- that pure absorption -- is what the psychologist Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi calls "flow" or optimal experience. In an interview with Wired magazine, he described flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."In a typical day that teeters between anxiety and boredom, flow experiences are those flashes of intense living -- bright against the dull. These optimal experiences can happen when we're engaged in work paid and unpaid, in sports, in music, in art. The researchers Maria Allison and Margaret Duncan have studied the role of flow in women's lives and looked at factors that contributed to what they call "antiflow." Antiflow was associated with repetitive household tasks, repetitive tasks at work, unchallenging tasks, and work we see as meaningless. But there's an element of chaos when it comes to flow. Even if we're doing meaningful and challenging work, that sense of total absoprtion can elude us. We might get completely and beautifully lost in something today, and, try as we might to re-create the same conditions tomorrow, our task might jsut feel like, well, work. In A Life of One's Own, Marion Milner described her effort to re-create teh conditions of her own recorded moments of happiness, saying, "Often when I felt certain that I had discovered the little mental act which produced the change I walked on air, exulting that I had found the key to my garden of delight and could slip through the door whenever I wished. But most often when I came again the place seemed different, the door overgrown with thorns and my key stuck in the lock. It was as if the first time I had said 'abracadabra' the door had opened, but the next time I must use a different word. (123-124).
So he caught her in his arms and kissed her, and they were very happy, and told each other what a beautiful world it was, and how wonderful it was that they should have found each other, seeing that the world is not only beautiful but rather large.
She was like the sun, She knew her place in the world - She would shine again regardless of all the storms and changeable weather She wouldn't adjust her purpose for things that pass.