Inspirational Quotes 81

Shallow party friends

Remember, a lot of useless advice is from age to youth.

I reject the ideas that life is supposed to be confusing, that life is supposed to be hard. These seem to be very prevalent ideas though. I also clearly reject the idea that life is supposed to be totally spontaneous except for the things those mean grown-ups make you do. I reject the notion that doing things that make you happy are “selfish” acts that should be minimized. (Truett Ogden ‏@Truett)

Fashion is a lonely, shallow world full of ‘party friends’. (Daily Mail)

Novelist Ali Shaw, author of The Girl with Glass Feet, suggests that glass delusion might simply be at the extreme end of a scale of social anxiety which many of us experience to a lesser extent. The fear of tripping and breaking is really an exaggerated fear of social humiliation. (BBC.co.uk)

‏ Saying “Oh, you’ll be fine” and dumping them in at the deep end of social situations will only reinforce their fears. (Times guide to shy children)

I don’t think you’ll ever recreate the buzz and cameraderie of working as an employee with like-minded souls once you pass the 40 mark. (commenter on Steerforth’s blog, The Age of Uncertainty)

After Hillsborough, standing was banned. After Kings X fire, all wooden escalators replaced. After
100 London cyclists killed by lorries...? (Bill Chidley ‏@BillBuffalo)

It is semi-public space outside homes that allows for social networks to develop. (Dr Elanor Warwick, Academy of Urbanism ‏@theAoU Apr 22)

Here we go again with the “agitator” narrative. Such BS & so disrespectful of the people who are rising up based on oppressive conditions. (Ida’s Disciple ‏@prisonculture)

If life begins at 40, I have some things to say about the warmup period. (@AmyDentata)

Today ... when you use words like democracy, human rights & rule of law, they immediately depict you as a leftist. (Dan Meridor)

Hollywood is full of sports captains and prom queens who want to be famous. (Eddie Marsan)

Admit it, have you ever told a cracking story to your friends but failed to include the crucial (but perhaps boring) caveat that the amusing events actually happened to someone else? A new survey of hundreds of US undergrads finds that borrowing personal memories in this way is common place. (BPS digest)

Embarrassment all round as Prince Charles's letters to ministers reveal him to be diligent, polite and well-informed. ‏(@iainmartin1)

As the population grows, so the pie needs to be shared in smaller pieces. Fairly. (@pal_ette)

The only single mother and single child in our circle, we were oddities, lonely together... Big families would invite us over with what I often perceived as a tinge of sympathy. (Single mother who lived in a suburb where you had to have a dog to fit in)

women: (exist)
men: Has Feminism Gone Too Far? (little archer boy ‏@ithinkurkewl)

Matt Allwright: You just pour in care and affection until they submit, don’t you?
Council worker: You cannot give up with young people – you just can’t.
(Housing Enforcers)

Is it a hate crime that I don’t enjoy Ted talks? (Tristis Lacerta ‏@Jugbo)

Keeping people hopeless and pessimistic - see I think there are two ways in which people are controlled - first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them. An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern. (Tony Benn)

The Queen’s Speech: profit before people, screw the young, screw the poor and forget civil liberties. Same great taste now with no liberals. (Laurie Penny ‏@PennyRed)

Stereotypes mean when I or others are being actively dehumanised and I point that out, it’s my fault for not understanding the “joke”. (@FeministAspie)

The Human Rights Act will simply be replaced with another act. They’ll remove an acronym, add “responsibilities” to the label, and claim victory. (Matthew Parrish Times 2015-05-23)

Height gives you clout and presence. I just used to look down at people and they did things. (Melanie Reid Times 2015-05-23)

"The over-arching thing is that the world is moving in a better direction” despite bad news. (George Clooney on #bbcbreakfast)

More here, and links to the rest.

Inspirational Quotes 80

Practise your smile in the mirror

Don't copy others, people will take you at your own valuation and love you for your flaws.... (yawn zzzzz).

I just hope my daughter doesn’t ever have to feel like she has to prove she is beautiful or that she has a confident smile or all that jazz. (@matthaig1)

If dating and mating is in fact a marketplace – and of course it is... (Atlantic)

A woman who has been complicit in keeping this traditional partnership in place for old-fashioned bourgeois reasons – security and income. (Observer April 2015 If she’s doing it now, it’s modern.)

An ex-barista describes stealing over-the-counter chat from a naturally sunny colleague. (Observer April 2015)

The rule of thumb seems to be that the more successful the woman, the less likely it is she will find a husband or bear a child. (Economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett in 2002)

Dating can be a form of courtship consisting of social activities done by the couple. While the term has several meanings, it usually refers to the act of meeting and engaging in some mutually agreed upon social activity in public, together, as a couple... Behavior patterns are generally unwritten and constantly changing. (Wikipedia)

Psychology researchers at the University of Michigan suggested that men prefer women who seem to be “malleable and awed”, and prefer younger women with subordinate jobs such as secretaries and assistants and fact-checkers rather than executive-type women. (Wikipedia What was that about self-confidence being attractive?)

Men really dislike a literary woman (especially if she is good)... (Dawn Powell)

Men don’t like strong women who are successful. (Katharine Hamnett March 2015)

[In the 80s] we felt we could change the world for the better. But somehow, by the end, we had £3,000 puffball skirts. (Katharine Hamnett)

I hate that “honor code” where nobody’s supposed to tell anybody that anybody’s cheating. (jezebel.com)

Single women over a certain age continue to be stigmatized. (Time May 2015)

Whom to marry and when will it happen – these two questions define every woman’s existence. (Kate Bolick, in Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own – sounds like a rerun of Live Alone and Like It)

“Everything happens for a reason” is usually what everyone says when life doesn’t go the way they wanted it to. (@madfactz)

Loneliness is bad for you. Some experts have even likened it to a kind of disease. (BPS Digest)


When I moved out on my own, I had such a difficult time adjusting to the real world that I spent years feeling like I had been duped and left on my own to figure out how to “de-weird” myself... Outsiders grow uncomfortable with your lack of familiarity with pop-culture, or find it wildly funny and strange when you miss an obvious social cue... Brene Brown wrote “Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.” ... every time you were made fun of, misunderstood, felt cheated of a life most other kids had, felt behind in your education, had to add one more thing to your list of stuff you missed out on and are trying to catch up on... even though I may not have understood all the references being made, I knew I was being mocked, made fun of, or was the topic of conversation. (Homeschool graduate)

More here, and links to the rest.