Quotes
- Date Started: 20th of August, 2025
- Tags: #Quotes #Poetry #Philosophy
- Literature Index / Philosophy Index
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| Quote | Author & Source | Character | Tags | Image(s) |
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| "He would not - and this was the test - pretend to care about women when the only sex that attracted him was his own. He loved men and always had loved them. He longed to embrace them and mingle his being with theirs. Now that the man who returned his love had been lost, he admitted this.” | E.M. Forster, “Maurice”, p.g., 58 - 59 | Narrator of “Maurice” | #Homosexuality #Love |
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| Now Durham stretched up to him, stroked his hair. They clasped one another. They were lying breast against breast soon, head was on shoulder, but just as their cheeks met someone called 'Hall' from the court, and he answered: he always had answered when people called. Both started violently, and Durham sprang to the mantelpiece where he leant his head on his arm. | E.M. Forster, “Maurice”, p.g., 55 | Narrator of “Maurice” | #Homosexuality #Love |
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| He wrote often to Durham - long letters trying carefully to express shades of feeling. Durham made little of them and said so. His replies were equally long. Maurice never let them out of his pocket, changing them from suit to suit and even pinning them in his pyjamas when he went to bed. He would wake up and touch them and, watching the reflections from the street lamp, remember how he used to feel afraid as a little boy. | E.M. Forster, “Maurice”, p.g., 52 | Narrator of “Maurice” | #Homosexuality #Love |
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| They walked arm in arm or arm round shoulder now. When they sat it was nearly always in the same position - Maurice in a chair, and Durham at his feet, leaning against him. In the world of their friends this attracted no notice. Maurice would stroke Durham's hair. | E.M. Forster, “Maurice”, p.g., 46 | Narrator of “Maurice” | #Homosexuality #Love |
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| "On reaching home he talked about Durham [...]. Ada wondered whether it was brother to a certain Miss Durham [...] while Mrs Hall confused it with a don named Cumberland. Maurice was deeply wounded. One strong feeling arouses another, and a profound irritation against his womenkind set in. His relations with them hitherto had been trivial but stable, but it seemed iniquitous that anyone should mispronounce the name of the man who was more to him than all the world.” | E.M. Forster, “Maurice”, p.g., 58 - 59 | Narrator of “Maurice” |  |
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| “[…] the psychoanalyst diagnosed Foucault’s problem as homosexuality” | Michael Sugrue, PhD, Foucault Power, Knowledge and Post-structuralism, 6:22 - 6:25 | #Foucault #Philosophy |  |
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| “[…] Foucault wants to liberate the body by liberating us from the soul” | Michael Sugrue, PhD, Foucault Power, Knowledge and Post-structuralism, 5:48 - 6:25 | #Foucault #Philosophy |  |
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| “The Conscious Egoist asserts that all actions of men are taken either in the quest of happiness or in the avoidance of pain. This is the groundwork upon which he builds up his reasoning.” | Morse Monroe, Egoism: Conscious and Unconscious., P.g., 7 of Vol. 2 No. 5. (Sept. 1902) of The Eagle and the Serpent | #Philosophy #Egoism | ||
| BRETHREN, we must become more bitter. Bitterness is the best antidote to the Christian slave-pox which for two thousand years has poisoned our blood. Said Emerson (my faithful ally in this and many another matter) "The doctrine of hatred must be preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules and whines." We are all pullers and whiners to-day-we are born such and rarely out-grow it. Bitterness is the only thing which can tear the bandage of Idealism from our eyes and enable us to see life as the old unseduced Greeks and Romans saw it. And when we can see life as the Greeks and Romans saw it, perhaps we shall have no further use for bitterness and can then throw it away. When the poison of Idealism is extirpated, then, perhaps, will come to pass the saying of Zarathustra, "Growth in wisdom is measured by decrease in bitterness. | JOHN ERWIN McCALL (pseud. of John Basil Barnhill), P.g., 4 of Vol. 2 No. 5. (Sept. 1902) of The Eagle and the Serpent | #Philosophy #Egoism #AntiChristianity | ||
| "Love dreams things, hate does things. The highest types of love-Jesus and Tolstoi-are non-resistants, non-doers. The greatest doers have been the best haters. Hannibal, Mahomet, Attila, Napoleon, Parnell-hate was their common inspirer Byron said he owed all his fame to the hatred evoked by the criticisms on the Hours of Idleness” | JOHN ERWIN McCALL (pseud. of John Basil Barnhill), P.g., 4 of Vol. 2 No. 5. (Sept. 1902) of The Eagle and the Serpent | #Philosophy #Egoism #AntiChristianity | ||
| "It is an unconscious recognition of his own mental need which turns a man to what he calls Altruism. [...] It is a recognition, again, of mental need, which gives man a longing for wholeness and continence of body and mind, and breeds in him the thing called morality.” | Morse Monroe, P.g., 9 of Vol. 2 No. 5. (Sept. 1902) of The Eagle and the Serpent | #Philosophy #Egoism | ||
| A doctrine is a structure of reasoning raised upon a foundation of fact. The reasoning may be correct or fallacious, but this has nothing to do with the fact upon which it is based. If the doctrine is wrong, and mankind becomes conscious that it is wrong, then the doctrine will die out ; but the fact remains, and another doctrine, more in harmony with it, will be raised upon its foundation. Were Egoism a doctrine, the Conscious Egoist would approach you with these words, "Be selfish, ,or it is best that you should be so." Instead of which, he comes to you and says, "You are selfish; you cannot help it. Therefore you had best recognise the fact.'' I say again, Egoism is given forth as a fact and not as a doctrine. [...] If I do a good action, it is the result of Egoism. If I do a bad action, it is the result of Egoism. I am brave by reason of my Egoism, and cowardly by the same reason. |
Morse Monroe, P.g., 10 of Vol. 2 No. 5. (Sept. 1902) of The Eagle and the Serpent | #Philosophy #Egoism | ||
| Egoism is not the ego but the law of the ego. Difference in men's actions is no sign of difference in their motives. It is simply a proof of difference [...]. Therefore there is no unreasonableness in saying that good actions and bad actions (by which I mean actions beneficial to the world and actions detrimental to it) are inspired by Egoism, the mere realisation of self. |
Morse Monroe, P.g., 10 of Vol. 2 No. 5. (Sept. 1902) of The Eagle and the Serpent | #Philosophy #Egoism | ||
| "in the day I'm the one and only enby pop star but during the night time I'm an enby pornstar” | Xofilo, Cashapp | #Funny |
| Quote ( Tasmin Spargo, “Foucault and Queer Theory”) | Author & Source | Tag | Image(s) |
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| “Queer theory is not a singular or systematic conceptual or methodological framework, but a collection of intellectual engagements with the relations between sex, gender and sexual desire.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 9 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Foucault #Philosophy |  |
| “Foucault rejected this ‘repressive hypothesis’ and claimed that evidence from the 19th century pointed not to a prohibition on speaking about sexuality but to a remarkable proliferation of discourses about sexuality. So what was, is, sexuality? A vital feature of Foucault’s argument is that sexuality is not a natural feature or fact of human life but a constructed category of experience which has historical, social and cultural, rather than biological, origins.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 12 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Foucault #Philosophy #Homosexuality |
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| ”[…] having so much invested in believing sexuality to be natural doesn’t mean that it is. This does not mean that Foucault ruled out any biological dimension, but rather that he prioritised the crucial role of institutions and discourses in the formation of sexuality. As David Halperin, author of Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography, notes, Foucault did not comment explicitly on the causes of same-sex desires. When asked about the distinction between innate predisposition to homosexuality and social conditioning, his response was: ‘On this question I have absolutely nothing to say. “No comment.”’ Instead of pursuing the illusory ‘truth’ of human sexuality, Foucault set out to examine its production.” |
Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 13 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Foucault #Philosophy #Homosexuality |
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| “From the 18th century onwards, Foucault argued, sexuality was regarded as something to be regulated and administered rather than judged. The Church and the Law had long been concerned with the regulation of sexuality, but in the Age of Enlightenment new governmental regimes were developed which focused on the embodied and sexual individual. Modified, secular versions of the confession were at the heart of a variety of techniques for internalising social norms. It was in this context that many of the ways of understanding sexuality that are still dominant today, including the opposition between homosexuality and heterosexuality, began to be formulated.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 16 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Foucault #Philosophy #Homosexuality |
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| “[…] modern homosexuality is of comparatively recent origin. Many historians of homosexuality had been keen to trace connections and continuities between 20th-century homosexual identities and behaviours and those of earlier periods. Foucault, in contrast, insisted that the category of the homosexual grew out of a particular context in the 1870s and that, like sexuality generally, it must be viewed as a constructed category of knowledge rather than as a discovered identity. Foucault did not suggest that sexual relationships between people of the same sex did not exist before the 19th century.” |
Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 17 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Foucault #Philosophy #Homosexuality |
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| “[…] the crucial difference between this early form of regulating sexual practices and that of the late 19th century lies in the latter’s claim to identify what Foucault called a ‘species’, an aberrant type of human being defined by perverse sexuality. So while 16th century men and women might be urged to confess that they had indulged in shameful sexual practices against the law of God and the land, the late 19th century man engaging in a sexual relationship with another man would be seen, and be encouraged to see himself, as ‘homosexual’.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 18 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Foucault #Philosophy #Homosexuality |
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| “Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy onto a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul. The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species. […] It was everywhere present in him: at the root of all his actions.” | Michel Foucault, quoted by Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 19 - 20 of “Foucault and Queer Theory”. - Original source: Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984, p. 43. | #Foucault #Philosophy #Homosexuality |
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| “The fact that a subject position or identity is constructed does not make it any less real for the identified. The homosexual was pathologised as a perverse or deviant type, a case of arrested development, a suitable case for treatment, in short as an aberration from a heterosexual norm. As such, he was subject to the disciplining, marginalising and subordinating effects of social control.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 20 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Foucault #Philosophy #Homosexuality |
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| “In Greco-Roman culture, desire and sexual practices were viewed as ethical or moral concerns, but not as the ultimate shameful or repressed truth of human experience, as they would later be. Crucially, ethics was seen as a relation between the individual and itself, and not as the basis for standards or norms of behaviour; and discipline was seen as part of a practice aimed at attaining individual freedom or autonomy rather than subordinating others. […] Christianity, according to Foucault, developed universal moral codes and interdictions increasingly centred on the truth of sex. […] Christians viewed it as intrinsically evil.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 24 - 25 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Foucault #Philosophy #Homosexuality #GreeceandRome |
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| “Being gay or lesbian was a matter of pride, not of pathology; of resistance, not of self-effacement. […] gay liberation contested the representation of same-sex desires and relationships as unnatural, deviant or incomplete.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 28 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Homosexuality |  |
| “For lesbians and gay men, being ‘out’ or ‘in the closet’ became a crucial marker of their sexual politics. Coming out suggested emerging from confinement and concealment into the open, a movement from secrecy to public affirmation.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 30 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Homosexuality |  |
| “Bisexuality, transsexuality, sadomasochism and transgender identification all implicitly challenged the inclusive ideal of assimilationist politics. The incompatibility can be partly interpreted in terms of respectability. If you want to be an equal part of a straight world by proving how ordinary, how ‘just-like-you’ (but perhaps a bit more sensitive or artistic) you are, it simply won’t do to flaunt your more excessive, transgressive desires or relations.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 31 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Homosexuality #Transgender |
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| “[…] the impact of safe-sex education led to a renewed emphasis on practices rather than identities in thinking about sex and sexuality. What you did rather than what you were was the crucial issue.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 35 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Homosexuality |  |
| “[…] queer meant sexier, more transgressive, a deliberate show of difference which didn’t want to be assimilated or tolerated. This was a difference that meant to upset the status quo, to ask why we assume Bart Simpson is straight.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 38 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Homosexuality |  |
| “In theory, queer is perpetually at odds with the normal, the norm, whether that is dominant heterosexuality or gay/lesbian identity. It is definitively eccentric, ab-normal. Queer theory employs a number of ideas from poststructuralist theory, including Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic models of decentred, unstable identity, Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction of binary conceptual and linguistic structures, and, of course, Foucault’s model of discourse, knowledge and power.” |
Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 40 - 41 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Homosexuality #Philosophy #Foucault |
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| “Diana Fuss applies Jacques Derrida’s notion of the ‘supplement’ to the analysis of the opposition of heterosexual/homosexual. The supplement (here homosexual) is that which appears to be an addition to an apparently original term, but on which the supposed original (heterosexual) actually depends. So heterosexuality could be seen as a product of homosexuality, or rather of the same conceptual framework.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 45 - 46 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Homosexuality #Philosophy |
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| “Declaring oneself to be out of the closet of concealed sexuality may be personally liberating, but it entails acknowledging the centrality of heterosexuality as well as reinforcing the marginality of those who are still in the closet. It is impossible, in short, to move entirely outside heterosexuality. As Foucault’s work […] has shown, demanding the recognition of a distinct homosexual identity inevitably reaffirms a binary and unequal opposition between homosexual and heterosexual. […] queer theory could be seen as examining the ways in which the opposition has shaped moral and political hierarchies of knowledge and power.” |
Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 47 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Homosexuality #Philosophy |
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| “We do not behave in certain ways because of our gender identity, we attain that identity through those behavioural patterns, which sustain gender norms.” | Tasmin Spargo, p.g., 56 - 57 of “Foucault and Queer Theory” | #Gender |   |