I have me brave women who are exploring the outer edge of human possibility, with no history to guide them, and with a courage to make themselves vulnerable that I find moving beyond words.
Gloria SteinemRead
If you hear a statistic, you will make up a story to go with it, because our brains are organized on narrative. And you may very well make up a wrong story because you only have one fact, which is a statistic.
Interpretation
Our understanding of statistics can be clouded by our natural inclination to create narratives, often leading to misconceptions.
Gloria Steinem's quote highlights the human tendency to construct stories around isolated facts, like statistics, in order to make sense of them. This process is based on our brain's organization around narratives, but it also exposes us to the risk of creating incorrect interpretations when we draw conclusions from limited information.
In practice
In a speech discussing the importance of data literacy, this quote can remind the audience to critically analyze statistics.
I have me brave women who are exploring the outer edge of human possibility, with no history to guide them, and with a courage to make themselves vulnerable that I find moving beyond words.
If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?
Age brings a freedom. When you're young, you're much more subject to the idea of what feminine is or how you should look or how you should behave.
All those chemicals that create empathy only work when you are in a room together.
Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.
Obviously, there is much similarity among the challenges of transgender people and all women - from health care to harassment to discrimination in the workplace.
Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.
And if anyone knows anything about anything," said Bear to himself, "it's Owl who knows something about something," he said, "or my name's not Winnie-the-Pooh," he said. "which it is," he added. "so there you are.
When you are mute, you become a good listener - it's all one-way. You appreciate the written word. You appreciate the sound.
Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey's end.
You can enter yoga, or the path of yoga, only when you are totally frustrated with your own mind as it is. If you are still hoping that you can gain something through your mind, yoga is not for you.
Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance.
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