A Quote by Avery Brooks

What I am is a thinking, feeling human being compelled by history. — © Avery Brooks
What I am is a thinking, feeling human being compelled by history.
Music expresses feeling, that is to say, gives shape and habitation to feeling, not in space but in time. To the extent that music has a history that is more than a history of its formal evolution, our feelings must have a history too. Perhaps certain qualities of feeling that found expression in music can be recorded by being notated on paper, have become so remote that we can no longer inhabit them as feelings, can get a grasp of them only after long training in the history and philosophy of music, the philosophical history of music, the history of music as a history of the feeling soul.
I was being honest - I have nothing to hide. All I do, all the time, with everybody, is tell them what I am thinking, what I am feeling.
I have collected the history of 'domestic,' 'indoor' socialism, bit by bit. The history of how it played out in the human soul. I am drawn to that small space called a human being... a single individual. In reality, that is where everything happens.
Certainly one is brought to the brink of one's sense of who one is, what one has to do, why me, why now, why in this time in history? I am really driven, believe it or not, am awakened by a sense of being in this powerful axis, this turning point in human history.
I AM is a feeling of permanent awareness. The very center of consciousness is the feeling of I AM. I may forget who I am, where I am, what I am, but I cannot forget that I Am. The awareness of being remains, regardless of the degree of forgetfulness of who, where, and what I am.
What borders on the criminal is the poor teaching and neglect of those subjects that deal with the history of ideas and ideals, a knowledge of which is essential to all youth who would assume their place in society as thinking, feeling human beings.
If we do not learn from history, we shall be compelled to relive it. True. But if we do not change the future, we shall be compelled to endure it. And that could be worse.
When I'm dancing, I'm not thinking about anything. I am here. I am totally there. You know? And the feeling is a sensation of being away from myself. My soul dances with the angels, and my body dances with my wife.
I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow; I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment; but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.
I am a human being: sometimes I am happy, but sometimes I am not feeling that great or not in a mood.
Four years ago, I was thinking… no Olympics, who am I? Probably in ’04, I was identified with gymnastics. I thought gymnastics was who I am and I have to be an Olympian and I have to make this team. That’s probably why I was a little bit devastated when I didn’t make it. You know, I was kinda lost. Now I realize that we’re all magnificent, regardless of what we do or whatever career path we choose, you know, that career doesn’t have to define us as a human being. There’s so much more to being human than all of this.
I am a slave to the rhythm. I am a palette. I just go with the moment. You've got to do it that way because if you're thinking, you're dead. Performing is not about thinking; it's about feeling.
I am a very emotional human being and would say that I handle emotional pain in a healthy way by always letting it out and not keeping it in. There is no better feeling than allowing those tears to flow when I am feeling emotionally constricted. Crying feels so good sometimes, and I do it when I'm happy, sad, stressed, scared. I like to believe that tears are my friend.
Of course, nobody would deny the importance of human beings for theological thinking, but the time span of history that theologians think about is a few thousand years of human culture rather than the fifteen billion years of the history of the universe.
Prejudice of any kind implies that you are identified with the thinking mind. It means you don't see the other human being anymore, but only your own concept of that human being. To reduce the aliveness of another human being to a concept is already a form of violence.
Thinking is the great enemy of perfection. The habit of profound reflection, I am compelled to say, is the most pernicious of all the habits formed by civilized man.
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