A Quote by Monique Wittig

men are not born with a faculty for the universal and ... women are not reduced at birth to the particular. The universal has been, and is continually, at every moment, appropriated by men. It does not happen by magic, it must be done. It is an act, a criminal act, perpetrated by one class against another. It is an act carried out at the level of concepts, philosophy, politics.

Monique Wittig

Quote Topics

Act Against Another Been Birth Born Carried Class Concepts Continually Does Done Every Faculty Happen Level Magic Men Moment Must Out Particular Philosophy Politics Reduced Universal Women Women Are

Quote Author

Monique Wittig
French - Author
July 13, 1935 - January 3, 2003

Why does a woman carry a gun? Because, under our system, every citizen has the latitude to act in the absence of police; the latitude to act reasonably, to act immediately, to act in defense of self, to act in defense of another, to act with lethal force, to act with her acquired training and to act not in anger but to respond in purpose. To exercise the protections of that latitude in public policy, public interest and practical safety, all that is demanded of her is that she act reasonably under the circumstances.

John Longenecker

Just as the first sign of life in an infant when born into the world is the act of breathing, so the first act of men and women when they are born again is praying.

J. C. Ryle

The time has come that Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics or the Lord will curse them. . . . Christians have been exceedingly guilty in this matter. But the time has come when they must act differently. . . . Christians seem to act as if they thought God did not see what they do in politics. But I tell you He does see it - and He will bless or curse this nation according to the course they Christians take in politics.

Charles Grandison Finney

No men can act with effect who do not act in concert; no men can act in concert who do not act with confidence; no men can act with confidence who are not bound together with common opinions, common affections, and common interests.

Edmund Burke

Virtues are dispositions not only to act in particular ways, but also to feel in particular ways. To act virtuously is not, as Kant was later to think, to act against inclination; it is to act from inclination formed by the cultivation of the virtues.

Alasdair MacIntyre

All men, and all created nature, have been at work, from the beginning of time to this day, to produce the circumstances which now influence our actions. AS soon as an act has been performed, it becomes independent of the individual performing it, and forthwith gives birth to some other act, which last gives birth to still another, and so they continue, and will continue, until the law of cause and effect shall cease to operate.

William Batchelder Greene

I know women that act queeny, I know men that are straight that act queeny, and I know gay men that act queeny... To me, those are people who think the rules don't apply to them.

Alec Baldwin

Men speak of blind destiny, a thing without scheme or purpose. But what sort of destiny is that? Each act in this world from which there can be no turning back has before it another, and it another yet. In a vast endless net. Men imagine that the choices before them are theirs to make. But we are free to act only upon what is given. Choice is lost in the maze of generations and each act in the maze is itself an enslavement for it voids every alternative and binds one ever more tightly into the constraints that make a life.

Cormac McCarthy

Some men are born committed to action: they do not have a choice, they have been thrown on a path, at the end of that path, an act awaits them, their act.

Jean-Paul Sartre

As far as leadership goes, it's important to know that we don't have to act like men to be leaders. Since men have been all we have had to look to as examples of leaders, that's how we think we have to act. But generally that's not how we have to act. We just have to act like ourselves. We do have to maintain a collaborative spirit. Also, at the end of the day you do have to step into your own power and say, "Okay, I've listened to all of these different opinions, advice, and so forth, but I am deciding this and this is how we are going to go."

Kamala Lopez

Women see better than men. Men see lazily, if they do not expect to act. Women see quite without any wish to act.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Act so that the maxim of your act could be made the principle of a universal law.

Immanuel Kant

Men's stories are seen as universal, women's as particular. What women are up against is the battle to not be marginalized.

Cheryl Strayed

Men believe death's elections to be a thing inscrutable yet every act invites the act which follows and to the extent that men put one foot before the other they are accomplices in their own deaths as in all such facts of destiny.

Cormac McCarthy

Once a month, some women act like men act all the time.