I am not good. I am not virtuous. I am not sympathetic. I am not generous. I am merely and above all a creature of intense passionate feeling. I feel—everything. It is my genius. It burns me like fire.
Interpretation
The speaker acknowledges their emotional intensity over traditional virtues.
In this quote, Mary MacLane emphasizes that her essence is rooted in deep emotional experiences rather than conventional qualities such as goodness or generosity. She suggests that her passionate feelings are her true strength and worth, portraying a view of authenticity that values emotional depth over moral categories.
In practice
During a motivational speaking event, one might use this quote to discuss the importance of embracing one's emotions.
Race and class are rendered distinct analytically only to produce the realization that the analysis of the one cannot proceed without the other. A different dynamic it seems to me is at work in the critique of new sexuality studies.
God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one.
As long as I am content to know that He is infinitely greater than I, and that I cannot know Him unless He shows himself to me, I will have Peace, and He will be near me and in me, and I will rest in Him.
In the colonial context the settler only ends his work of breaking in the native when the latter admits loudly and intelligibly the supremacy of the white man's values.
Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.
I don't know whether God exists or not. ... Some forms of atheism are arrogant and ignorant and should be rejected, but agnosticism—to admit that we don't know and to search—is all right. ... When I look at what I call the gift of life, I feel a gratitude which is in tune with some religious ideas of God. However, the moment I even speak of it, I am embarrassed that I may do something wrong to God in talking about God.
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