Societal Expectations Quotes

“One must conform to the baseness of an age or become neurotic.”
― Robert Musil

“When it comes to meditation, one minute is better than zero. Something is an improvement from nothing.”
― Milan Kordestani, I'm Just Saying: The Art of Civil Discourse: A Guide to Maintaining Courteous Communication in an Increasingly Divided World

“Focusing on and prioritizing civil discourse ensures that you don’t miss great opportunities to learn and grow with others.”
― Milan Kordestani, I'm Just Saying: The Art of Civil Discourse: A Guide to Maintaining Courteous Communication in an Increasingly Divided World

“Though civil discourse may be especially challenging to facilitate during fractured times, the process itself has stood the test of time for centuries.”
― Milan Kordestani, I'm Just Saying: The Art of Civil Discourse: A Guide to Maintaining Courteous Communication in an Increasingly Divided World

“It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych

“No one has the right to demand that your body be something other than what it is.”
― Agnostic Zetetic

“I'm a good girl. I am pretty. I am always happy-go-lucky.”
― Louise O'Neill, Only Ever Yours

“I am more than what others want of me. I am more than what society expects of me. I will not let my life be defined by a box meant to hold me down.”
― The Thoughtful Beast

“Once upon a time there was a boy who knew what he was going to be from the very moment he was born. As soon as he was able to talk, he told everyone, I am a builder of dreams. No one in his family had any idea what that meant, except maybe his Aunt Dorothy, who knew about dreams & how they form you into the thing you’re going to be, even when you think you have other plans.

The rest of his family did things like work with numbers & fix old cars & bake bread in a bakery. When he first told them what he was going to be, they thought it was cute & then, when it didn’t stop, it was something not to be mentioned at family gatherings & finally, it was something that would lead to personal suffering if he didn’t start getting his head on straight, by god. So, he stopped saying it out loud, but he never forgot & when he got older, he moved away & his family told the neighbors he was working as a manager & every one nodded & was pleased that he’d finally come around to viewing life as it was & not how you wish it would be.

But he didn’t really care because he was building things of air & sunlight & the laughter of children & the sharp smell of lighter fluid at a summer barbecue & the flash of color on the throat of a hummingbird & all of them were things that had no real name, but people felt them all the same. They felt them all the same...”
― Brian Andreas, Still Mostly True: Collected Stories & Drawings

“Anxious behaviour is rewarded in our culture. Being high strung, wound up, frenetic and soooo busy has cachet. I ask someone, “How are you?” and even if they’re kicking back in a caravan park in the outback with a beer watching the sunset, their default response is, “Gosh, so busy, out of control, crazy times.” And they wear it as a badge of honour.
This means that many of us deny we have a problem and keep going and going. Indeed, the more anxious we are, the more we have to convince ourselves we don’t have a problem. This is ironic, or paradoxical. And it seems awfully cruel.”
― Sarah Wilson, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety

“As long as I can remember it’s been, ‘Be a good team player, get along, follow the rules.’ Well who made those rules?”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, A Pause in the Perpetual Rotation

“How do you judge the professionals you patronize? Too many people judge them by display factors. Extra points are given to those who wear expensive clothes, drive luxury automobiles, and live in exclusive neighborhoods. They assume a professional is likely to be mediocre, even incompetent, if he lives in a modest home and drives a three-year-old Ford Crown Victoria. Very, very few people judge the quality of the professionals they use by net worth criteria. Many professionals have told us they must look successful to convince their customers/clients that they are.”
― Thomas J. Stanley, The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“That poor girl's been brainwashed into thinking her beauty is all she's worth, because from the time she was a little child she's been getting compliments about her beauty. And it becomes something you think you owe other people.”
― Rose McGowan, Brave

“My sin was to pursue a career as a poet and to desire an identity beyond that of wife and mother. As a result, I am not worthy of being a significant part of my son's life anymore. I was written off for daring to believe I could exist as an individual rather than simply an extension of my family.”
― Maryam Diener, Beyond Black There Is No Colour: The Story of Forough Farrokhzad

“...And maybe folks in Muskox Hollow thought their arrangement was strange, or their parties too rambunctious, or that a lady should have a family and children instead of two gentlemen and thirteen tiny dogs, but no...I don't think Peder Johansen was terribly scandalous.'
'Scandalous or not, my love for the legend of Sullen Johansen was now exponential.”
― Carly Heath, The Reckless Kind

“People lose their jobs over this sort of thing. They lose their friends. Their families. They lose everything.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Trans-Sister Radio

“I have a lot of friends who are positive life isn't worth living without True Love Forever. They're always on the prowl and sulk against the gods when they go to a party and don't fall in love. Women, especially, engage themselves in ghastly self-inflicted tortures for which they've been primed since childhood. After all, historically it's always been dreadful for women, and the logic given them was "It's going to be dreadful so you may as well learn to enjoy it.”
― Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, & L.A.

“the girl with a moustache" they called me every now and then
"It's about time you wax your arms" those who "cared" said
I faced the fears of the dreaded thread on my face
To succumb every other week to the world's ways”
― Sanhita Baruah

“There was a second dinner scheduled for the following night, and I was dreading the disapproving glances by these women who had never worked a day in their lives. I was still a woman, and I still cared what I looked like; no matter what I accomplished with my career, nothing eliminates those stinging insecurities you develop as a child or teen.”
― Lynsey Addario, It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War

“That was another thing about boys: No one assumed the blew a gasket for any reason other than they were just really upset. They were allowed to just be, and nobody blamed where the moon was in its cycle, or whether or not they had the ill fortune of leaking from their privates. It was plain unfair.”
― Jaida Jones, Steelhands

“She had only been around humans for a few days, and she had already embroiled herself in one of the most intricate social dilemmas: to stand out or to fit in?”
― Wiss Auguste, The Illusions of Hope

“I was thirty-one at this point. I was deep in the grips of Hollywood conditioning. The thing is, I was always playing roles that were younger, at least five years younger, which amplified my twisted perception of aging. You have done something wrong! You have lived! You start feeling crazier with each birthday that passes.”
― Rose McGowan, Brave

“I am both infantilised and sexualised, and I'm not sure what to do with that.”
― Laura Sebastian, Lady Smoke

“Transparency in government would be nice!”
― Steven Magee

“Forcing things merely because of attachments or external pressures can lead to a delicate balance between persistence and futility. The moment you find yourself forcing a situation solely because of attachments or the involvement of others, it may be time to reevaluate your path. Sometimes, we push situations beyond their natural rhythm, motivated by attachments or external expectations, inadvertently straying from our authentic path.”
― CARSON ANEKEYA