My mind is reeling. I am heartbroken. Worried about our future.
Below is a small collection of quotes that played havoc with my thoughts this election cycle.
Some are from a book I was reading, others are from brief encounters with other texts while volunteering at the library. All these thoughts continue to swirl in my mind, I feel I am trying to put a puzzle together without all the pieces. To make sense of it all.
From Mother Daughter Traitor Spy by Susan Ella McNeal
“True love of country is a regard for all people of one’s country…We’re all in this American experiment together.” (109)
“There was a dazzle of danger in his gaze, the hypnotic promise of power. It was exhilarating. Narcotic. And terrifying. Fuhrer Kontakt, it was called with Hitler - an intense magnetism that could make people believe, in that moment, they were the only one in the room, the center of the universe. It made them willing to follow him anywhere.” (258)
“It could never happen here - and it not only could have, but almost did. And there’s every reason to believe it could happen again in the future.” (302)
From: 1984 by George Orwell
“A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves, and traitors are not victims…but accomplices.” (Introduction)
“Before we can study the central issues of life today, we must destroy the prejudices and fallacies born of previous centuries.” - Leo Tolstoy (Introduction)
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to be free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
-Emma Lazarus, inscription on the Statue of LIberty (Introduction)
From: Final campaign speech of 1940
“We Americans…are characters in this living book of democracy. But we are also its author. It falls upon us now to say whether the chapters that are to come will tell a story of retreat or a story of continued advance.” - President Franklin D. Roosevelt
I think what bothers me the most is I am feeling a tad bit cynical. Believing only selfishness motivates people. I am going to move in a positive direction. Hope, not hatred and ugliness. Kindness. Empathy. Love.
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