Women are taught that their main goal in life is to serve others--first men, and later, children. This prescription leads to enorm...ous problems, for it is supposed to be carried out as if women did not have needs of their own, as if one could serve others without simultaneously attending to one's own interests and desires. Carried to its "perfection," it produces the martyr syndrome or the smothering wife and mother.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A woman spent all Christmas Day in a telephone box without ringing anyone. If someone comes to phone, she leaves the box, then res...umes her place afterwards. No one calls her either, but from a window in the street, someone watched her all day, no doubt since they had nothing better to do. The Christmas syndrome.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[T]he syndrome known as life is too diffuse to admit of palliation. For every symptom that is eased, another is made worse. The ho...rse leech's daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum cannot vary.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I always used to suffer a great deal if I let myself get too close to reality since the definitive world of the everyday with its ...hard edges and harsh light did not have enough resonance to echo the demands I made upon experience. It was as if I never experienced experience as experience. Living never lived up to the expectations I had of it--the Bovary syndrome.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A married guy is responsible for everything, no matter what. Women, thanks to their having been oppressed all these years, are bla...meless, free as birds, and all the dirt they do is the result of premenstrual syndrome or postmenstrual stress or menopause or emotional disempowerment by their fathers or low expectations by their teachers or latent unspoken sexual harassment in the workplace, or some other airy excuse. The guy alone is responsible for every day of marriage that is less than marvelous and meaningful.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It was so hard to pry this door open, and if I mess up I know the people behind me are going to have it that much harder. Because ...then there's living proof. They can sit around and say, "See? It doesn't work." I don't want to be their living proof.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The most important distinction between aggression and assertion is its intent. During assertion, we move ourselves toward another;... during aggression, we move ourselves against another. Assertion is vital within a relationship. Aggression is not.... The truth is, reports indicate that both men and women enjoy a partner who is assertive. Such a partner eliminates the need for second-guessing and mind-reading. Such a partner gives his or her mate implicit permission to be similarly assertive. Aggression, however, often evokes more aggression--thrusts, parries, and strategies for defense.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Any adequate analysis or (if I may use the term) rational reconstruction of the method of science must comprise the statement that... the scientist qua scientist accepts or rejects hypotheses; and further that an analysis of that statement would reveal it to entail that the scientist qua scientist makes value judgments.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he will not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or b...ase for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say "In spite of all!" has the calling for politics.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One can say that three pre-eminent qualities are decisive for the politician: passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of... proportion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »