Kantiara

Sometimes life will kick you around, but sooner or later you realize you’re not just a survivor, you’re a warrior. And you’re stronger than anything life throws your way.

You can’t allow for your fear to drive you. You can’t allow for your past to hold you back. You must free yourself. Yes, free yourself. See the purpose of your life, and don’t let anything stop you from reaching your beautiful potential.

You can’t force someone to respect you, but you can choose not to be disrespected.

And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of new beginnings.

To make the right choices in life you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude - which most people are afraid of because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions.

You cannot continue to victimize someone else just because you yourself were a victim once—there has to be a limit

And you have to ask those two questions – who am I linked with in my oppression and have I myself become an oppressor inadvertently or deliberately, thinking that my historical victim status makes it definitionally impossible for me to oppress others?

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn’t trust the evidence of one’s eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.

There is nothing mysterious or natural about authority. It is formed, irradiated, disseminated; it is instrumental, it is persuasive; it has status, it establishes canons of taste and value; it is virtually indistinguishable from certain ideas it dignifies as true, and from traditions, perceptions, and judgements it forms, transmits, reproduces. Above all, authority can, indeed must, be analyzed.

“I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.”

Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.