Dictators fall when they're overconfident; they stay in power when they're paranoid.
Masha GessenRead
... fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there-because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don't think it should exist.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Masha Gessen argues that the fight for gay marriage involves a misconception about the state of marriage, suggesting it should evolve beyond its traditional definition.
In this quote, Masha Gessen highlights the inherent contradictions in the fight for gay marriage. They point out that advocates often claim that the institution of marriage will not change with the inclusion of same-sex couples, which they argue is not true. Gessen believes that marriage, as it currently exists, should undergo transformation to reflect modern values and realities, implying that the fight for gay marriage is not merely about inclusion, but about rethinking what marriage should represent in society.
Themes
MarriageGay MarriageChangeInstitutionRelationships
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the evolution of societal norms regarding relationships.
More from Masha Gessen
All quotes βWhen you lose your freedom, you lose, first and foremost, the opportunity to choose the company you keep.
Masha GessenRead
There's the hypothesis that things just keep happening to Russians, things that keep turning them into the same kind of subjects, as opposed to citizens. The more credible hypothesis, I think, is that there is a kind of trauma, a social trauma that is passed on from generation to generation.
Masha GessenRead
We learn to think of history as something that has already happened, to other people. Our own moment, filled as it is with minutiae destined to be forgotten, always looks smaller in comparison.
Masha GessenRead
Russia, at the start of the 21st century, at least in its larger cities, very much resembled the United States of the early 1990s: being gay was no longer criminal or shameful, but it was still not a topic for polite conversation or public discussion.
Masha GessenRead
Any country is either becoming more democratic or less democratic. I think the United States hasn't tended to its journey toward democracy in a long time.
Masha GessenRead
Similar quotes
Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?
Haruki MurakamiRead
God calls all of his children to the table. We can disagree and even say a lot of hateful things, but what we can't do in good conscience is leave the table. Or demand that someone else not be at the table.
Gene RobinsonRead
She was not good on the phone. She needed the face, the pattern of eyes, nose, trembling mouth... People talking were meant to look at a face, the disastrous cupcake of it, the hide-and-seek of the heart dashing across. With a phone, you said words, but you never watched them go in. You saw them off at the airport but never knew whether there was anyone there to greet them when they got off the plane.
Lorrie MooreRead
We had people of all backgrounds coming together - all races, all creeds, all colors, all status in life. And coming together there was a kind of quiet dignity and a kind of sense of caring and a feeling of joint responsibility.
Dorothy HeightRead
People who do not need to please are irresistible because they radiate wholeness, a rare delicacy in a world of hungry hearts.
Alan CohenRead
At the most basic level, therefore, secure attachments in both childhood and adulthood are established by two individual's sharing a nonverbal focus on the energy flow (emotional states) and a verbal focus on the information-processing aspects (representational processes of memory and narrative) of mental life. The matter of the mind matters for secure attachments.
Daniel J. SiegelRead