Clear eyes, full heart
a found essay in quotes
“I don’t know what you mean when you say ‘the whole world’ or ‘generations before him.’ I thought there was only us. I thought there was only now.”
- Lois Lowry, The Giver, 1993
“We are more alone than ever in an increasingly massified world that promotes individual interests and weakens the communitarian dimension of life. … As a rule, the advance of this kind of globalism strengthens the identity of the more powerful, who can protect themselves, but it tends to diminish the identity of the weaker and poorer regions, making them more vulnerable and dependent. …
As a result, there is a growing loss of the sense of history, which leads to even further breakup. A kind of “deconstructionism”, whereby human freedom claims to create everything starting from zero, is making headway in today’s culture. The one thing it leaves in its wake is the drive to limitless consumption and expressions of empty individualism.”
- Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, Oct. 3, 2020
“Fascist politicians justify their ideas by breaking down a common sense of history in creating a mythic past to support their vision for the present. They rewrite the population’s shared understanding of reality by twisting the language of ideals… Eventually… fascist politics creates a state of unreality. … As the common understanding of reality crumbles, fascist politics makes room for dangerous and false beliefs to take root… [and] seeks to naturalize group difference, thereby giving the appearance of natural, scientific support for a hierarchy of human worth.”
- James Stanley, How Fascism Work: The Politics of Us and Them, 2018
“[Indians] have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances, and, ere long, disappear.”
- Andrew Jackson, Fifth Annual Message to Congress, Dec. 3, 1833
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”
- George Orwell, 1984, 1940
“Concern about this led me to offer the young some advice. ‘If someone tells young people to ignore their history, to reject the experiences of their elders, to look down on the past and to look forward to a future that he himself holds out, doesn’t it then become easy to draw them along so that they only do what he tells them? He needs the young to be shallow, uprooted and distrustful, so that they can trust only in his promises and act according to his plans. That is how various ideologies operate: they destroy (or deconstruct) all differences so that they can reign unopposed. To do so, however, they need young people who have no use for history, who spurn the spiritual and human riches inherited from past generations, and are ignorant of everything that came before them’.”
- Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, Oct. 3, 2020
“Parents trust America’s schools to provide their children with a rigorous education and to instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation and the values for which we stand. …
‘Patriotic education’ means a presentation of the history of America grounded in:
(i) an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles;
(ii) a clear examination of how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history;
(iii) the concept that commitment to America’s aspirations is beneficial and justified; and
(iv) the concept that celebration of America’s greatness and history is proper.”
- Donald Trump, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” Executive Order, Jan. 25, 2025
“White people were, and are, astounded by the holocaust in Germany. They did not know that they could act that way. But I very much doubt whether black people were astounded—at least, in the same way. For my part, the fate of the Jews, and the world’s indifference to it, frightened me very much. I could not but feel, in those sorrowful years, that this human indifference, concerning which I knew so much already, would be my portion on the day that the United States decided to murder its Negroes systematically instead of little by little and catch-as-catch-can. I was, of course, authoritatively assured that what had happened to the Jews in Germany could not happen to the Negroes in America, but I thought, bleakly, that the German Jews had probably believed similar counsellors, and, again, I could not share the white man’s vision of himself for the very good reason that white men in America do not behave toward black men the way they behave toward each other. When a white man faces a black man, especially if the black man is helpless, terrible things are revealed. I know. I have been carried into precinct basements often enough, and I have seen and heard and endured the secrets of desperate white men and women, which they knew were safe with me, because even if I should speak, no one would believe me. And they would not believe me precisely because they would know that what I said was true.”
- James Baldwin, “Letter from a Region in My Mind,” The New Yorker, Nov. 17, 1962
“We have lived always under a dual state: the quiet often-unspoken understanding that in our society—even in times when liberals hold power—there are in-groups the law protects and does not bind, and out-groups the law binds but does not protect. Some of the out-groups, in this country’s history and present: Black people, queers, Indigenous people, Japanese people, Muslims, Arabs, South Asians, trans people, disabled people, women.”
- Sarah Thankam Mathews, “2024 in (some) writing,” Dec. 20, 2024
“One of the fundamental historical lessons to be learned from past failures to prevent the rise of fascism is the decisive and indispensable character of the fight against fascism in its incipient phases. Once allowed to conquer ground, its growth is facilitated in geometric proportion. Although the most unbridled expressions of the fascist menace are still tied to the racist domination of blacks, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Indians, it lurks under the surface wherever there is potential resistance to the power of monopoly capital, the parasitic interests which control this society.”
- Angela Davis, “Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation,” written from Marin County Jail, May 1971
When a sieve is shaken, the husks appear;
So do one’s faults when one speaks.
As the test of what the potter molds is in the furnace,
So in tribulation is the test of the just.
The fruit of a tree shows the care it has had;
So too does one’s speech disclose the bent of one’s mind.
- Sirach 27:4-6“Each agency head shall promptly rescind all guidance documents inconsistent with the requirements of this order or the Attorney General’s guidance issued pursuant to this order, or rescind such parts of such documents that are inconsistent in such manner. Such documents include, but are not limited to:
(i) “The White House Toolkit on Transgender Equality”;
(ii) the Department of Education’s guidance documents including:
(A) “2024 Title IX Regulations: Pointers for Implementation” (July 2024);
(B) “U.S. Department of Education Toolkit: Creating Inclusive and Nondiscriminatory School Environments for LGBTQI+ Students”;
(C) “U.S. Department of Education Supporting LGBTQI+ Youth and Families in School” (June 21, 2023);
(D) “Departamento de Educación de EE.UU. Apoyar a los jóvenes y familias LGBTQI+ en la escuela” (June 21, 2023);
(E) “Supporting Intersex Students: A Resource for Students, Families, and Educators” (October 2021);
(F) “Supporting Transgender Youth in School” (June 2021);
(G) “Letter to Educators on Title IX’s 49th Anniversary” (June 23, 2021);
(H) “Confronting Anti-LGBTQI+ Harassment in Schools: A Resource for Students and Families” (June 2021);
(I) “Enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 With Respect to Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Light of Bostock v. Clayton County” (June 22, 2021);
(J) “Education in a Pandemic: The Disparate Impacts of COVID-19 on America’s Students” (June 9, 2021); and
(K) “Back-to-School Message for Transgender Students from the U.S. Depts of Justice, Education, and HHS” (Aug. 17, 2021);
(iii) the Attorney General’s Memorandum of March 26, 2021 entitled “Application of Bostock v. Clayton County to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972″; and
(iv) the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace” (April 29, 2024).”
- Donald Trump, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Government,” Executive Order, Jan. 20, 2025
Source: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/how-state-policy-affects-the-well-being-and-relocation-of-lgbtq-young-people/
“Something that gives me some slender comfort… is that so far, full fascism has historically never taken hold in a place as diverse as the present-day U.S. There is simply so much difference, so many groups with various and shifting alliances, and in the present day a lack of a clear united majority along an identitarian line, that it produces a comparatively ungovernable mass. This is one reason among many to maintain relationships and coalitions across difference.”
- Sarah Thankam Mathews, “How it is,” Feb. 14, 2025
“Agape is not a weak, passive love. It is love in action… Agape is a willingness to go to any length to restore community… It is a willingness to forgive, not seven times, but seventy times seven to restore community…. If I respond to hate with a reciprocal hate I do nothing but intensify the cleavage in broken community. I can only close the gap in broken community by meeting hate with love.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr., “An Experiment in Love,” 1958
“In loving, we sense that we come to know the purpose and goal of our existence in this world. Everything comes together in a state of coherence and harmony. It follows that, in contemplating the meaning of our lives, perhaps the most decisive question we can ask is, ‘Do I have a heart?’”
- Pope Francis, Dilexit nos, Oct. 24, 2024
“'I liked the feeling of love. … I wish we still had that,” he whispered. “Of course,” he added quickly, “I do understand that it wouldn’t work very well. And that it’s much better to be organized the way we are now. I can see that it was a dangerous way to live. … Still,” he said slowly, almost to himself, “I did like the light they made. And the warmth.”
- Lois Lowry, The Giver, 1993
WOW!! This is amazing - thank you so much for sharing it with me! The power of the conversation between the quotes is electric in an essay like this, whew.
I loved this!!