empowerment

1:Ekajaṭī or Ekajaṭā, (Sanskrit: "One Plait Woman"; Wylie: ral gcig ma: one who has one knot of hair),[1] also known as Māhacīnatārā,[2] is one of the 21 Taras. Ekajati is, along with Palden Lhamo deity, one of the most powerful and fierce goddesses of Vajrayana Buddhist mythology.[1][3] According to Tibetan legends, her right eye was pierced by the tantric master Padmasambhava so that she could much more effectively help him subjugate Tibetan demons.

Ekajati is also known as "Blue Tara", Vajra Tara or "Ugra Tara".[1][3] She is generally considered one of the three principal protectors of the Nyingma school along with Rāhula and Vajrasādhu (Wylie: rdo rje legs pa).

Often Ekajati appears as liberator in the mandala of the Green Tara. Along with that, her ascribed powers are removing the fear of enemies, spreading joy, and removing personal hindrances on the path to enlightenment.

Ekajati is the protector of secret mantras and "as the mother of the mothers of all the Buddhas" represents the ultimate unity. As such, her own mantra is also secret. She is the most important protector of the Vajrayana teachings, especially the Inner Tantras and termas. As the protector of mantra, she supports the practitioner in deciphering symbolic dakini codes and properly determines appropriate times and circumstances for revealing tantric teachings. Because she completely realizes the texts and mantras under her care, she reminds the practitioner of their preciousness and secrecy.[4] Düsum Khyenpa, 1st Karmapa Lama meditated upon her in early childhood.

According to Namkhai Norbu, Ekajati is the principal guardian of the Dzogchen teachings and is "a personification of the essentially non-dual nature of primordial energy."[5]

Dzogchen is the most closely guarded teaching in Tibetan Buddhism, of which Ekajati is a main guardian as mentioned above. It is said that Sri Singha (Sanskrit: Śrī Siṃha) himself entrusted the "Heart Essence" (Wylie: snying thig) teachings to her care. To the great master Longchenpa, who initiated the dissemination of certain Dzogchen teachings, Ekajati offered uncharacteristically personal guidance. In his thirty-second year, Ekajati appeared to Longchenpa, supervising every ritual detail of the Heart Essence of the Dakinis empowerment, insisting on the use of a peacock feather and removing unnecessary basin. When Longchenpa performed the ritual, she nodded her head in approval but corrected his pronunciation. When he recited the mantra, Ekajati admonished him, saying, "Imitate me," and sang it in a strange, harmonious melody in the dakini's language. Later she appeared at the gathering and joyously danced, proclaiming the approval of Padmasambhava and the dakinis.[6] ~ Wikipedia,

* WISDOM TROVE *

1:When the personality comes to serve the energy of the soul that is authentic empowerment. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove

2:Empowerment is the ability to refine, improve, and enhance your life without co-dependency. ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove

3:When the personality comes to fully serve the energy of its soul, that is authentic empowerment. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove

4:You are afraid of your own empowerment as much as those around you are of you becoming empowered. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove

5:They can't stop you if, in your heart, you seek enlightenment, empowerment, balance and knowledge. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove

6:You are afraid of your own empowerment as much as those around you are of you becoming empowered. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove

7:Authentic empowerment is the knowing that you are on purpose, doing God’s work, peacefully and harmoniously. ~ wayne-dyer, @wisdomtrove

8:The choice to be used as an instrument of love, right here, right now, is a choice for personal empowerment. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove

9:iPerceptive is centred around the wisdom of history and the empowerment of consciousness through direct experience and mysticism. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove

10:Intuition is natural by-product of flowering of a mature self-esteem and a sense of empowerment – not power over, but power to be ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove

11:Intuition is natural by-product of flowering of a mature self-esteem and a sense of empowerment – not power over, but power to be ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove

12:The different techniques will place you in touch with different fields of auric empowerment, creating a balanced development of your practice. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove

13:The art of letting go is simply about personal empowerment. Realizing what you're in charge of, realizing what you control, and more importantly, what you don't control. ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove

14:Examples of Quadrant 2 tasks (important and non urgent tasks) : Preparation, planning activities, prevention, relationships, new opportunities, creativity, true recreation, personal development, empowerment ~ stephen-r-covey, @wisdomtrove

15:Changing the world doesn't require much money. Again, think in terms of empowerment and not charity. How much were Gandhi's teachers paid? How much did it cost to give Dr. Martin Luther King the books that catalyzed his mind and actions? ~ tim-ferris, @wisdomtrove

16:When our actions create discord in another person, we, ourselves, in this lifetime or another, will feel that discord. Likewise, if our actions create harmony and empowerment in another, we also come to feel that harmony and empowerment. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove

17:The empowerment journey that is critical to your healing - and to your life - comes from progressing through the deep waters of your dark passions and continuing onward to discover not what has been taken from you, but what you have yet to give and who you have yet to become. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove

18:Every decision that you make either moves you toward your personality, or toward your soul. Each decision you make is an answer to the question, &

19:The empowerment journey that is critical to your healing - and to your life - comes from progressing through the deep waters of your dark passions and continuing onward to discover not what has been taken from you, but what you have yet to give and who you have yet to become. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove

20:Reverence is a perception of the soul. Reverence is a natural aspect of authentic empowerment because the soul reveres all of Life. When the personality is aligned with the soul, it cannot perceive life except with reverence. Approaching life with reverence is a step toward moving the personality into alignment with the soul because it brings an aspect of the soul directly into the physical environment. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove

21:Want to talk third-wave feminism, you could cite Ariel Levy and the idea that women have internalized male oppression. Going to spring break at Fort Lauderdale, getting drunk, and flashing your breasts isn't an act of personal empowerment. It's you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of patriarchal society that you no longer know what's best for yourself. A damsel too dumb to even know she's in distress. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove

22:Manipulating or controlling others through the use of one's illness or suffering,for example,was-and remains-extremely effective for people who find they cannot be direct in their interactions,Who argues with someone who is in pain? And if pain is the only power a person has,health is not an attractive replacement. It was apparent to me that becoming healthy represented more than just getting over an illness. Health represented a complex progression into a state of personal empowerment in which one had to move from a condition of vulnerability to one of invincibility,from victim to victor,from silent bystander to aggressive defender of personal boundaries.Completing this race to the finish was a yeoman's task if ever there was one.Indeed,in opening the psyche and soul to the healing process,we had expanded the journey of wellness into one of personal transformation." ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove

23:Manipulating or controlling others through the use of one's illness or suffering, for example, was-and remains-extremely effective for people who find they cannot be direct in their interactions, Who argues with someone who is in pain? And if pain is the only power a person has, health is not an attractive replacement. It was apparent to me that becoming healthy represented more than just getting over an illness. Health represented a complex progression into a state of personal empowerment in which one had to move from a condition of vulnerability to one of invincibility, from victim to victor, from silent bystander to aggressive defender of personal boundaries. Completing this race to the finish was a yeoman's task if ever there was one. Indeed, in opening the psyche and soul to the healing process, we had expanded the journey of wellness into one of personal transformation." ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove

* NEWFULLDB 2.4M *

1:empowerment. ~ Terry Tempest Williams,

2:suffering often leads to empowerment. ~ Dannika Dark,

3:You are afraid of your own empowerment ~ Caroline Myss,

4:Equality begins with economic empowerment. ~ George H W Bush,

5:I think books can give rise to empowerment. ~ Ilyasah Shabazz,

6:Taking initiative is a form of self-empowerment. ~ Stephen Covey,

7:Your empowerment remains Soulfully supported from within. ~ Eleesha,

8:Stress is an unstranformed opportunity for empowerment. ~ Doc Childre,

9:Leadership is a choice. To choose power or empowerment. ~ Lolly Daskal,

10:The key to the culture change was individual empowerment. ~ Satya Nadella,

11:A lot of Iran's empowerment is a result of the war in Iraq. ~ Richard Engel,

12:Empowerment is the algebraic outcome of curiosity and humility. ~ Anonymous,

13:What Ailes was selling, at its heart, was not news, but empowerment. ~ Anonymous,

14:Empowerment is all about letting go so that others can get going. ~ Ken Blanchard,

15:Mindfulness improves your capacity for self-discovery and empowerment. ~ Amit Ray,

16:True healing and empowerment is about opening your heart to love. ~ Aletheia Luna,

17:Education remains the key to both economic and political empowerment. ~ Barbara Jordan,

18:The greatest gift you can give anyone is a gift of empowerment and love. ~ Jack Canfield,

19:Spirituality is not a disability - it is a phenomenal empowerment of life. ~ Jaggi Vasudev,

20:Empowerment does not work without the attributes of competence and clarity. ~ L David Marquet,

21:Empowerment is never about blame; it is about taking personal responsibility. ~ Bryant McGill,

22:We believe in the empowerment of women and we will not compromise in that goal. ~ Chris Bowen,

23:...there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women. ~ Kofi Annan,

24:there is no greater indicator of an innovative culture than the empowerment of women. ~ Alec J Ross,

25:Our Matru Shakti is our pride. Women empowerment is very crucial to our development. ~ Narendra Modi,

26:Any realistic vision of change must be based on the notion of empowerment of people. ~ Michael Manley,

27:Power can be taken but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself. ~ Gloria Steinem,

28:When the personality comes to serve the energy of the soul that is authentic empowerment. ~ Gary Zukav,

29:Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself. ~ Gloria Steinem,

30:THE RIGHT INFORMATION BRINGS KNOWLEDGE. AND KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. SHARING IT IS EMPOWERMENT. ~ Seth Godin,

31:Empowerment is what managers do to people. Engagement is what managers do with people. ~ Henry Mintzberg,

32:Grace is God’s free empowerment that gives us the ability to go beyond our natural ability. W ~ John Bevere,

33:Empowerment is the ability to refine, improve, and enhance your life without co-dependency. ~ Steve Maraboli,

34:when the personality comes fully to serve the energy of its soul, that is authentic empowerment ~ Gary Zukav,

35:May my children follow their own intuition to discover true empowerment - in the answers they seek. ~ Eleesha,

36:When the personality comes fully to serve the energy of its soul, that is authentic empowerment. ~ Gary Zukav,

37:The empowerment of black women constitutes the empowerment of our entire community. ~ Kimberle Williams Crenshaw,

38:Once fear enters your life - it will take you in one of two directions: empowerment or panic. ~ Georges St Pierre,

39:A real, healthy relationship is about empowerment and love and that should be standard - but it isn't. ~ Debby Ryan,

40:They can't stop you if, in your heart, you seek enlightenment, empowerment, balance and knowledge. ~ Frederick Lenz,

41:True empowerment of students, I came to realize, necessarily means a certain disempowerment of teachers. ~ Eula Biss,

42:Empowerment comes from self-realization and recognition of our internal gifts, which we already have. ~ Bryant McGill,

43:I prefer the word "engagement." Instead of empowerment, it's enabling women to engage in business. ~ Sallie Krawcheck,

44:Empowerment programs appeared to be a reaction to the fact that we had actively disempowered people. ~ L David Marquet,

45:Empowerment is the inner joy of knowing that external force isn't necessary to be at harmony with oneself. ~ Wayne Dyer,

46:Authentic empowerment is the knowing that you are on purpose, doing God's work, peacefully and harmoniously. ~ Wayne Dyer,

47:Growth and empowerment requires reflection and facing the frightening, ugly, hard and unbearable reality. ~ Bryant McGill,

48:Authentic empowerment is the knowing that you are on purpose, doing God's work, peacefully and harmoniously. ~ Wayne W Dyer,

49:Enlightenment is coming out from the fear mode, victim mode and guilt mode of living to the mode of empowerment. ~ Amit Ray,

50:I'm a bit of a feminist and very "female empowerment," and women should be able to do what they please. ~ Laura Vandervoort,

51:Today's thought for empowerment: If we would only love more all limitations in our lives would be gone! ~ John Randolph Price,

52:What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled? ~ Desmond Tutu,

53:Empowerment includes growth mindset, positive thinking, acceptance of new challenge, learning and positive self-image. ~ Amit Ray,

54:modern information and communication technologies are the greatest tools for self-empowerment we’ve ever seen. ~ Peter H Diamandis,

55:The choice to be used as an instrument of love, right here, right now, is a choice for personal empowerment. ~ Marianne Williamson,

56:An informed parent or caregiver becomes empowered, and empowerment can lead to the best care for our children. ~ Charisse Montgomery,

57:Writing is a legitimate way, an important way, to participate in the empowerment of the community that names me. ~ Toni Cade Bambara,

58:The empowerment of girls and women is an essential tool to preventing the HIV/AIDS emergency from exploding any further ~ Ashley Judd,

59:Even when something is not your fault, toxic blame has no place in your life. Focus on your own empowerment and healing. ~ Bryant McGill,

60:From a really young age, I was into female empowerment and supporting the underdog. Right now, I'm into female vengeance. ~ Rose McGowan,

61:Happiness Habits for Empowerment 1. Focus on the Solution 2. Look for the Lesson and the Gift 3. Make Peace with Yourself ~ Marci Shimoff,

62:My top priority for 2012 will be to make a renewed push for women's economic empowerment and political participation. ~ Michelle Bachelet,

63:I'm all for empowerment and education, but the empirical evidence is that it doesn't work. That's why I say make it easy. ~ Richard Thaler,

64:When the history of African development is written, it will be clear that a turning point involved the empowerment of women. ~ Sheryl WuDunn,

65:TED-The Empowerment Dynamic-counteracts the poison of DDT, the Dreaded Dram Triangle. TED is the antidote for DDT. ~ David Emerald Womeldorff,

66:If you want to be successful, don't seek success - seek competence, empowerment; do nothing short of the best that you can do. ~ Jaggi Vasudev,

67:I'm passionate about the empowerment and healing of girls and women. Where I do the most work in that regard is in my songwriting. ~ India Arie,

68:Intuition is natural by-product of flowering of a mature self-esteem and a sense of empowerment – not power over, but power to be ~ Caroline Myss,

69:The gift of singleness is more a vocation than an empowerment, although to be sure God is faithful in supporting those He calls. ~ John R W Stott,

70:When you realise that you possess within your self everything you need to promote your own success, the feeling is one of empowerment. ~ Jim Fixx,

71:Cooking with kids is not just about ingredients, recipes, and cooking. It's about harnessing imagination, empowerment, and creativity. ~ Guy Fieri,

72:Why write a book on uncovering past lives? Because the benefits for personal empowerment, healing, and enlightenment are tremendous. ~ Ted Andrews,

73:Not only have consumers prioritized flash and laziness over empowerment, but we have also acquiesced to being spied on all the time. ~ Jaron Lanier,

74:Selecting a challenge and meeting it creates a sense of self-empowerment that becomes the ground for further successful challenges. ~ Julia Cameron,

75:Knowing a deep thing well, which is what science asks of its practitioners, is an empowerment that is very profound. It's a liberation. ~ Ann Druyan,

76:There is no doubt that a woman's economic empowerment is very much interconnected to her health and the well being of her children. ~ Helene D Gayle,

77:One key to successful leadership is continuous personal change. Personal change is a reflection of our inner growth and empowerment. ~ Robert E Quinn,

78:You are living in a time when opportunities for self-empowerment, expanded awareness and spiritual growth appear to be unlimited. ~ Barbara Marciniak,

79:People like it when they understand something that they previously thought they couldn't understand. It's a sense of empowerment. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson,

80:Today, it is more important than ever to raise human consciousness, so that technology becomes a means of empowerment, not destruction. ~ Jaggi Vasudev,

81:Empowerment requires a major shift in attitude. The most crucial place that this shift must occur is in the heart of every leader. ~ Kenneth H Blanchard,

82:When Nike says, just do it, that's a message of empowerment. Why aren't the rest of us speaking to young people in a voice of inspiration? ~ Naomi Klein,

83:...whenever there is inspiration...and enthusiasm...there is a creative empowerment that goes far beyond what a mere person is capable of. ~ Eckhart Tolle,

84:1. Optimize potential.
2. Facilitate empowerment.
3. Implement visioning.
4. Strategize priorities.
5. Augment core structures. ~ Connie Willis,

85:The parastatals are an important driver of the process of Black Economic Empowerment and they have been doing it, and will continue to do it. ~ Thabo Mbeki,

86:Why are we not valuing the word 'feminism' when there is so much work to be done in terms of empowerment and emancipation of women everywhere? ~ Annie Lennox,

87:I want to reach young women and to get them involved in the mission of the YWCA, economic empowerment of women and girls, and ending racism. ~ Patricia Ireland,

88:The different techniques will place you in touch with different fields of auric empowerment, creating a balanced development of your practice. ~ Frederick Lenz,

89:This is a book about authentic empowerment—the alignment of the personality with the soul—what that involves, how it happens, and what it creates. ~ Gary Zukav,

90:I think KISS has always been about celebrating self-empowerment. Celebrating the idea that anything is possible with determination and hard work. ~ Paul Stanley,

91:The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi,

92:It's about time that people forget that image of strip clubs as seedy places...Rather, today's clubs are capital-intensive female-empowerment zones. ~ Demi Moore,

93:Technology is one of the key drivers of female economic empowerment, but the fields that women choose to participate in are still decidedly gendered. ~ Weili Dai,

94:Empowerment is being aware that there is no one to blame for my choices and actions; that I have a personal choice and responsibility for my life. ~ Steve Maraboli,

95:The process of empowerment cannot be simplistically defined in accordance with our own particular class interests. We must learn to lift as we climb. ~ Angela Davis,

96:Education is the first step to empowerment. ~ John Leguizamo, "Broadway's John Leguizamo shares four favorite Latino heroes", Arturo Conde, NBC News, (Nov. 16, 2018).,

97:There are three groups of people with respect to empowerment: Those who get it. Those who really want to get it. Those who probably will never get it. ~ Robert Spector,

98:You know, there's a lot of activism that doesn't deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle. ~ Talib Kweli,

99:empowerment: moving decisions to the lowest possible level in an organization while developing the capacity of those people to make decisions wisely. ~ Mary Poppendieck,

100:My mentoring program is pretty specific, it's about self-empowerment, about being able to find solutions through teamwork. That's one of my first goals. ~ Meredith Brooks,

101:Walmart's Global Women's Economic Empowerment Initiative is working to create opportunity and empower women and girls in markets around the world. ~ Sylvia Mathews Burwell,

102:Our fear of technology is really a fear of empowerment. We now have the ability to design the reality we live in, and we have to step up to the occasion. ~ Douglas Rushkoff,

103:I think the most clear, direct way to empowerment is to really know yourself and to really use your voice and to not be afraid of other people's reactions. ~ Gwyneth Paltrow,

104:I am a feminist, but I'm not an extremist. I know what feminism is, but I'm not all women empowerment, marching in the streets. I'm not a die-hard girl's girl. ~ Scheana Marie,

105:self-empowerment and how it’s all right to be who you are, stand up for what you believe in, and do what makes you happy without being defined by other people. ~ Tabatha Coffey,

106:Empowerment of individuals and communities is absolutely central. Getting the community involved in organising their own destiny has got to be a key part of it. ~ Michael Marmot,

107:An esoteric or enlightened teacher of Buddhism is someone who has the ability to transfer power to another individual. A real empowerment is not just a ceremony. ~ Frederick Lenz,

108:I’ve written this book for one reason: to offer a sense of hope, possibility, and empowerment in a world that often makes us feel small, ineffective, and helpless. ~ Gregg Braden,

109:Leadership is not about the power and status of one
but the empowerment and service of all. That is what it should be and that is how it should be measured. ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru,

110:The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful... to get a surge of inner life or inner supply or unexpected sense of empowerment, to be afloat, to be out of yourself. ~ Seamus Heaney,

111:Compromise built upon compromise equals failure. Instead, resisting temptation allowed promise upon promise to be built up in my heart, and that creates empowerment. ~ Lysa TerKeurst,

112:Meditation is interacting with truth inside and scientific research is interacting with truth outside. Both are required for human evolution, emancipation and empowerment. ~ Amit Ray,

113:With the empowerment of an advanced Teacher, and your own best efforts, you will be able to explore the mysteries of knowledge that lead to completion and perfection. ~ Frederick Lenz,

114:Empowerment of individuals is a key part of what makes open source work, since in the end, innovations tend to come from small groups, not from large, structured efforts. ~ Tim O Reilly,

115:Gender equality and women's empowerment have been a top priority for me from day one as Secretary-General. And I am committed to making sure that the U.N. leads by example. ~ Ban Ki moon,

116:The art of letting go is simply about personal empowerment. Realizing what you’re in charge of, realizing what you control, and more importantly, what you don’t control. ~ Steve Maraboli,

117:‏@BretEastonEllis 31 Mar
After watching the delirious Room 237 I realized that the worst thing happening to movies was the empowerment of the viewer via technology. ~ Bret Easton Ellis,

118:In order to do an empowerment, a person obviously has to be highly empowered, have the power, and also have the structural knowledge of how to transfer it to someone else. ~ Frederick Lenz,

119:Female empowerment really is important to me. I'm a big nerd of the books from the 15th Century and 16th Century, when the men had all the power and the women had none of it. ~ Ariel Winter,

120:The summit, which is set up to educate people about managing their money and protecting their income, leads to empowerment of self, for which this summit needs to be applauded. ~ Bill Cosby,

121:She traversed the spectrum of human emotion, and found herself to be flawed, but trusted God to accept all of her. Her vulnerability and openness led to her empowerment. ~ Helen LaKelly Hunt,

122:How can you set your tone so that people meet you on the frequency you most value? I am committed to success, and I invite success-minded people to join me for mutual empowerment. ~ Anonymous,

123:The religions of the world must be assessed, not on the basis of their convoluted theologies, but in terms of the extent to which they serve as forces of liberation and empowerment. ~ Agnivesh,

124:Societies that treat women badly are dangerous societies. The empowerment of women is not only morally right it is also practical in the positive impact it has on so many social ills. ~ Condoleezza Rice,

125:With what sovereignty we have retained, we choose to decide for ourselves our needs in accordance with our values, exerting our rights of empowerment under those articles of the treaties. ~ Leonard Peltier,

126:Poverty, in the end, is a state of dispossession and deprivation in which people are not only deprived of their income, but also of opportunity, empowerment and, most important, dignity. ~ James Gustave Speth,

127:Rights and empowerment are interconnected: unless a substantial number of women in a community come to believe that they have rights and demand to exercise them, right remains an abstraction. ~ Mahnaz Afkhami,

128:The National Empowerment Fund we established some time back. And one of the challenges was to build a strong enough asset base for it to operate in a credible manner. And we believe that it can. ~ Thabo Mbeki,

129:Education is not a tool for development - individual, community and the nation. It is the foundation for our future. It is empowerment to make choices and emboldens the youth to chase their dreams. ~ Nita Ambani,

130:Only the foolish would think that wisdom is something to keep locked in a drawer. Only the fearful would feel empowerment is something best kept to oneself, or the few, and not shared with all. ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru,

131:Reverence is a level of protection and honor about the process of life so that while a person is maturing toward the journey and through the journey of authentic empowerment, he or she harms nothing. ~ Gary Zukav,

132:self-compassion is one of the most fundamental determinants of resilience and success. Where excessive self-criticism can leave us weak and distraught, self-compassion is at the heart of empowerment. ~ Emma Sepp l,

133:The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which highlights customer satisfaction, workforce empowerment, and increased productivity, has come to symbolize America's commitment to excellence. ~ William J Clinton,

134:It is impossible to realize our goals while discriminating against half the human race. As study after study has taught us, there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women. ~ Kofi Annan,

135:Women's empowerment helps raise economic productivity and reduce infant mortality. It contributes to improved health and nutrition. It increases the chances of education for the next generation. ~ Nicholas D Kristof,

136:The later stages of the enlightenment process are trickier, and it is really essential to have a teacher then. You need correction, direction, and most of all you need a master's auric empowerment. ~ Frederick Lenz,

137:Jesus knew that if he gave people the help they asked for, rather than merely the help he wanted to give, that he was empowering them at the level at which they were ready to receive empowerment. ~ Neale Donald Walsch,

138:Creativity and imagination are not frosting on a cake: They are integral to our sustainability. They are survival mechanisms. They are of the essence of who we are. They constitute our deepest empowerment. ~ Matthew Fox,

139:We can't treat the matter of black economic empowerment as just the redistribution of existing wealth. It really has to focus on new investment, on growth, on development of employment and so on and so on. ~ Thabo Mbeki,

140:Islamic tradition is full of examples of supporting the autonomy of women and the empowerment of women. Very few people know that in Islamic history there have been well over two thousand women jurists. ~ Khaled Abou El Fadl,

141:Much of the violence that plagues humanity is a direct or indirect result of unresolved trauma that is acted out in repeated unsuccessful attempts to re-establish a sense of empowerment.." ~ Peter A. Levine, Waking the Tiger,

142:If you want to experience dramatic growth within your organization, you must truly understand the relationship between profit, growth, longevity, customer relationships, employee empowerment, and customer service. ~ Anonymous,

143:The first principle of recovery is the empowerment of the survivor. She must be the author and arbiter of her own recovery. Others may offer advice, support, assistance, affection, and care, but not cure. ~ Judith Lewis Herman,

144:We need people to be alert and thinking for themselves and connected to each other and connected to that sense of hope and empowerment and radical chutzpah that the founding generation had and intended us to have. ~ Naomi Wolf,

145:the critical factor in motivation is not measurement,8 but empowerment: moving decisions to the lowest possible level in an organization while developing the capacity of those people to make decisions wisely. ~ Mary Poppendieck,

146:One of the things that we must do as teachers is twirl around and around, and find out what works with the situation that we're in. Our models might not work. And that twirling, changing, is part of the empowerment. ~ Bell Hooks,

147:The things we sing about are timeless. Political affairs and social situations come and go. But if you're singing about empowerment and not playing by the rules, you can sing about them until you can't sing anymore. ~ Paul Stanley,

148:If the disciples needed to be so endued and to preach the gospel with the Holy Spirit and with the manifestation of the Almighty, are we better than them able to carry on God's work without the empowerment they had? ~ Reinhard Bonnke,

149:Sometimes guns really matter. Protecting those who need protection - children, women, minorities in rough parts of town, old folks living in places where cops aren't nearby. Guns are true empowerment for the powerless. ~ Maya Angelou,

150:My answer to those who oppose my appointment as CEO is that this is really a decision of the YWCA. They want to strengthen their grassroots to advocate on behalf of women's and children's empowerment and ending racism. ~ Patricia Ireland,

151:What I'm trying to do is get this message out about self-empowerment, entrepreneurial spirit and true Americanism - the way we were when we changed the world, when Edison was alone, failing his 2,000th time on the lightbulb. ~ Glenn Beck,

152:Climate change, demographics, water, food, energy, global health, women's empowerment - these issues are all intertwined. We cannot look at one strand in isolation. Instead, we must examine how these strands are woven together. ~ Ban Ki moon,

153:To an outsider, building a school before there was a medical clinic, or someone to deal with the problems of hunger and homelessness, was illogical, but Farmer and Lafontant understood that the school meant hope and empowerment. ~ Tracy Kidder,

154:Economic freedom is very important for women empowerment. They must be partners in economic development also. I have seen that women are very good at adapting to latest technology. We should link women and technology up-gradation. ~ Narendra Modi,

155:I love stories of female empowerment. I love stories of, "Hey, I'm an ordinary person." "No, you're not!" I love stories about not knowing you have it in you, but when called to task, you rise and you find out who you are. ~ Joseph McGinty Nichol,

156:President Obama has called for economic and political empowerment of women globally. The Equal Futures Partnership promotes removal of policy, legal, and regulatory barriers that hold women back at local, state and national levels. ~ Lael Brainard,

157:Right now the topic of female empowerment is at the forefront of conversation and it's important we take advantage of the trend while there is added pressure to adjust long-standing beliefs, prejudices, and cultural discrimination. ~ Gillian Anderson,

158:When our actions create discord in another person, we, ourselves, in this lifetime or another, will feel that discord. Likewise, if our actions create harmony and empowerment in another, we also come to feel that harmony and empowerment. ~ Gary Zukav,

159:Changing the world doesn't require much money. Again, think in terms of empowerment and not charity. How much were Gandhi's teachers paid? How much did it cost to give Dr. Martin Luther King the books that catalyzed his mind and actions? ~ Tim Ferriss,

160:And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations - none of which I know how to work - information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. ~ Barack Obama,

161:Are you limiting your leadership to empowerment? What programs have you instituted to supplement control with competence and clarity? Have you divested yourself of the attitude that you, as a corporate leader, will empower your staff? ~ L David Marquet,

162:Be of service. Whether you make yourself available to a friend or co-worker, or you make time every month to do volunteer work, there is nothing that harvests more of a feeling of empowerment than being of service to someone in need. ~ Gillian Anderson,

163:client empowerment has come, and it’s here to stay. Courtesy of sharing and instantaneousness, the consumers’ behaviour is changing much faster than the marketers’ reflexes. Hence the pressing need for brands to stay attuned with consumers. ~ Anonymous,

164:Spiritual empowerment is evidenced in our lives by our willingness to tell ourselves the truth, to listen to the truth when it's told to us, and to dispense truth as lovingly as possible, when we feel compelled to talk from the heart. ~ Christina Baldwin,

165:The purpose of empowerment is to urge you towards freedom, to help each of you to break free of all limitations. It is that freedom that will give you eternal happiness and finally connect you with the unconditional realization of TRUTH. ~ Steve Maraboli,

166:I continue to dream and pray about a revival of holiness in our day that moves forth in mission and creates authentic community in which each person can be unleashed through the empowerment of the Spirit to fulfill God's creational intentions. ~ John Wesley,

167:the wisdom literature of thousands of years of history repeatedly validates the reality that the greatest fulfillment in improving ourselves comes in our empowerment to more effectively reach out and help others. Quality of life is inside-out. ~ Stephen R Covey,

168:I try to make movies that I would want to go see rather than ones I would just want to do as an actor. I want people to have movies full of romance and hope and empowerment, something they can escape into and feel good about. I love happy endings. ~ Drew Barrymore,

169:Department. The Rev. Jamal H. Bryant, pastor of the Empowerment Temple and a local activist, said city residents have "almost been anesthetized" to the killings. "In any other community, these numbers would be jaw-dropping." A month before Gray's death, ~ Anonymous,

170:We seem to have lost contact with the earlier, more profound functions of art, which have always had to do with personal and collective empowerment, personal growth, communion with this world, and the search for what lies beneath and above this world. ~ Peter London,

171:I feel like people think of me as someone who really believes in a "sex as empowerment" philosophy, like Sasha Grey or something, when actually I feel like I'm much more what a lot of liberal feminists would call "sex negative" than most women I know. ~ Marie Calloway,

172:I think the economic empowerment of women that has been growing over the past decade is at the 'inflection point' with this global recession. Women are, we believe, the solution for their families in their ability to go out and increase household income. ~ Andrea Jung,

173:The women's movement resurgence of standing up for so many things that were kind of sleepy there for a decade or so, there's been a reawakening and I think the consciousness movement in general is dovetailing with a lot of recovery and self-empowerment. ~ Bonnie Raitt,

174:E governance can bring minimum government and maximum governance. It is easy, effective and economic governance. It brings empowerment, equity and efficiency of the economy. It is a very useful field that can be the greatest problem solver of the people. ~ Narendra Modi,

175:Every time you give a parent a sense of success or of empowerment, you're offering it to the baby indirectly. Because every time a parent looks at that baby and says 'Oh, you're so wonderful,' that baby just bursts with feeling good about themselves. ~ T Berry Brazelton,

176:True healing and empowerment is about opening your heart to love. This love that I speak of isn’t the warm, fuzzy or sentimental notion of love that most people believe in and propagate. Instead, this love is fierce, strong, and unconditionally accepting. ~ Aletheia Luna,

177:You might indeed be able to provide this money that people need to start a business, but can they run a business? This new consolidated agency [National Empowerment Fund] focuses on that matter of preparing people so that they can run business successfully. ~ Thabo Mbeki,

178:Being a mother gives you an incredible feeling of empowerment, you think if I can go through such pain and that level of sleep and still operate and not be grumpy you can do anything. It can be quite scary, you can't function your brain, forget your vocabulary. ~ Anna Friel,

179:Empowerment wasn't defined as a static concept or standalone occurrence, but as an evolving way to rethink entire power structures and value systems, draw on shared skills and knowledge, and endow marginalized communities with tools for economic sustainability. ~ Andi Zeisler,

180:Confidence and empowerment are cousins in my opinion. Empowerment comes from within and typically it's stemmed and fostered by self-assurance. To feel empowered is to feel free and that's when people do their best work. You can't fake confidence or empowerment. ~ Amy Jo Martin,

181:Economic equity is an enormous empowerment of women. Having jobs that provide income means that women can be a more effective force, a more equal force, in the political process. Women with income take themselves more seriously and they are taken more seriously. ~ Betty Friedan,

182:We all fight over what the label 'feminism' means but for me it's about empowerment. It's not about being more powerful than men - it's about having equal rights with protection, support, justice. It's about very basic things. It's not a badge like a fashion item. ~ Annie Lennox,

183:To the Muslim woman, the hijab provides a sense of empowerment. It is a personal decision to dress modestly according to the command of a genderless Creator; to assert pride in self, and embrace one's faith openly, with independence and courageous conviction. ~ Randa Abdel Fattah,

184:Claim your place in the sun and go forward into the light. The tools are there; the path is known; you simply have to turn your back on a culture that has gone sterile and dead, and get with the programme of a living world and a re-empowerment of the imagination. ~ Terence McKenna,

185:Empowerment naturally ensues for individuals as they move from complaining and victim modalities into outcomes and actions defined for direction. When that becomes the standard in a group, it creates significant improvement in the atmosphere as well as in the output. ~ David Allen,

186:Perhaps because the challenges we face in our country are so daunting, we are also tempted by shortcuts. We tell ourselves that if we invent a new acronym, or write a new empowerment charter, we can avoid some of the back-breaking work that sustained progress requires ~ Helen Zille,

187:Scientific evidence supports what Laura figured out intuitively: self-compassion is one of the most fundamental determinants of resilience and success. Where excessive self-criticism can leave us weak and distraught, self-compassion is at the heart of empowerment. What ~ Emma Sepp l,

188:The very resource of Holy Spirit empowerment granted to Jesus for his life of obedience and faithfulness to the Father is now granted to Jesus’s disciples as they carry forward the message of Christ, living lives of obedience to Christ, all in the power of the Spirit. ~ Bruce A Ware,

189:What we are saying is that we need to consolidate the capacity to lend support. Because, one of the problems that's mentioned with regard to the Black Empowerment process in the case of small and medium business, is shortage of credit or difficulties of accessing credit. ~ Thabo Mbeki,

190:Carolyn Maloney led the fight to make sure that DNA evidence kits are processed and passed the Debbie Smith Bill. She, when no one almost would listen to us on the whole issue of the Taliban and its treatment of women, she helped pass the Afghan Women's Empowerment Act. ~ Eleanor Smeal,

191:Every decision that you make either moves you toward your personality, or toward your soul. Each decision you make is an answer to the question, 'How do you choose to learn love?', 'How do you choose to learn authentic empowerment-through doubt and fear, or through wisdom?' ~ Gary Zukav,

192:Religions fulfill deep-seated psychological needs for people, and if you don't get it from a specific religious doctrine, you'll get it from the kind of films I like to make. A film like The Terminator is consciously meant to give a sense of empowerment to the individual. ~ James Cameron,

193:One of the factors a country's economy depends on is human capital. If you don't provide women with adequate access to healthcare, education and employment, you lose at least half of your potential. So, gender equality and women's empowerment bring huge economic benefits. ~ Michelle Bachelet,

194:The empowerment journey that is critical to your healing - and to your life - comes from progressing through the deep waters of your dark passions and continuing onward to discover not what has been taken from you, but what you have yet to give and who you have yet to become. ~ Caroline Myss,

195:I just think that knowing about your body at any age, whether it's educating yourself on fertility, getting mammograms, going through puberty - whatever it may be, is really important. I just really encourage women empowerment and being comfortable talking about these issues. ~ Khloe Kardashian,

196:I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals. ~ Bill Joy,

197:There is a significant difference between power and empowerment. The pursuit of power comes from denying and masking our insecurities because they make us look weak. The attainment of empowerment comes from embracing and understanding our insecurities and how they make us whole. ~ Emily Maroutian,

198:We value the clock for its speed and efficiency. The clock has its place, efficiency has its place, after effectiveness. The symbol of effectiveness is the compass a sense of direction, purpose, vision, perspective, and balance. But the empowerment process itself is not efficient. ~ Stephen Covey,

199:Almost everything about American society is affected by World War II: our feelings about race; our feelings about gender and the empowerment of women, moving women into the workplace; our feelings about our role in the world. All of that comes in a very direct way out of World War II. ~ Rick Atkinson,

200:The upper-caste, upper-class Hindus have to let go of their bigotry and prejudice. The oppressed have to let go of their justified but expensive urge for revenge and retribution. All over the world, the oppressed have only risen through self-empowerment—look at the Jews and the Parsis. ~ Chetan Bhagat,

201:Feminists too often believe that no one has never experienced the kind of society that empowered women and made that empowerment the basis of rules and civilization. The price the feminist community must pay because it is not aware is necessary confusion, division and much lost time. ~ Paula Gunn Allen,

202:When divorces meant marriage no longer provided security for a lifetime, women adjusted by focusing on careers as empowerment. But when the sacrifice of a career met the sacrifices in a career, the fantasy of a career became the reality of trade-offs. Women developed career ambivalence. ~ Warren Farrell,

203:In my early life my mother tried to create a nurturing environment in which my mind could play. Her big rule was "Never lose in your imagination." She told me that thoughts were things and that I would become the thing I thought of most. This kind of empowerment is crucial to creative thinking. ~ Joey Reiman,

204:I don't have time to write a mom blog, but I'm not against it. I think it's great when women talk about things. I'm all about female empowerment. There's a lot of lonely, lost moms out there. Moms need to be encouraged to tell the truth. There's a lot of glamour mommy stuff. It's OK to get real. ~ Kelly Cutrone,

205:Practice: Please list the names of 5 people you could empower this month and how you could empower them with support, love, information, assistance, resources, knowledge, material objects or skills. Then, mark down in a Calendar or Time-Schedule by which day you will provide that Empowerment. ~ Frederick Dodson,

206:It took me a while to warm to the '20s costumes on 'Downton.' I love it when women accentuate their curves, and that era was all about hiding them. The shapes they wore then were in tune with female empowerment. Cutting off their hair and hiding their busts was a way of saying, 'We're equal to men!' ~ Lily James,

207:What empowerment is all about [is] finding something which infuses you with a sense of mission, with a passion for your life's work. I don't believe there is one path for women or one nature to fulfill. Real fulfillment, real empowerment is often different than we imagine and better than we plan. ~ Elizabeth Dole,

208:Many countries that formerly saw Israel as an enemy now see Israel as a potential partner in addressing their primary security challenges. And so first and foremost, Iran. The rise of Iran, the empowerment of Iran has created a big change in the dynamics in the region. The second was the rise of ISIS. ~ Ron Dermer,

209:Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth... these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security and women's empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all. ~ Ban Ki moon,

210:When I think about the cause I'm most passionate about, it's all in my music all the time, because I'm always singing about the empowerment of women. Always, even when it's a little love song - it's still about the empowerment of women and this high spiritual nature of love. It's the biggest healer ever. ~ India Arie,

211:When your purpose and your occupation is giving confidence to people, teaching self defense, giving empowerment, teaching a positive lifestyle to other people, you tend to emit that yourself because you want to live what you preach and you want to preach what you live, and I'm just trying to do my best. ~ Rener Gracie,

212:Overall, I have formed three major organizations: the National Association of Business Women, the Young Women's Leaders Network, and the Joyce Banda Foundation. Under the foundation, we have a huge program that targets women to teach them about HIV and other diseases and to give them economic empowerment. ~ Joyce Banda,

213:When I look at founders and CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and Brian Chesky at Airbnb and Sebastian Thrun at Udacity, these are companies that are creating extraordinary social good and extraordinary economic and educational empowerment, all within with context of a for-profit model. ~ Laura Arrillaga Andreessen,

214:If you receive empowerment, it's about bodhicitta. If you receive teachings, it's about bodhicitta. If you practice teachings, it's about bodhicitta. Everything comes down to bodhicitta. The essence of practice is about bodhicitta. When you sit down to do your practice, what you practice is bodhicitta. ~ Garchen Rinpoche,

215:MT [Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. ~ Christopher Hitchens,

216:Theres a clear and strong connection between fertility reduction and womens literacy and empowerment, including womens gainful employment. If you look at the more than 300 districts of India, the strongest influences in explaining fertility variations are womens literacy and gainful economic employment. ~ Amartya Sen,

217:Malcolm X envisions a broad-based pluralistic united front, which is spearheaded by the Nation of Islam, but mobilizing integrationist organizations, non-political organizations, civic groups, all under the banner of building black empowerment, human dignity, economic development, political mobilization. ~ Manning Marable,

218:I think that Malcolm X was envisioning, even while he was in the Nation of Islam, a black nationalist progressive strategy toward uniting black people across ideological, class lines, denominational religious lines, Christians, as well as Muslims, to build a strong movement for justice and for empowerment. ~ Manning Marable,

219:Being a hope is being in motion, on the move with body on the line, mind set on freedom, soul full of courage, and heart shot through with love. Being a hope is forging moral and spiritual fortitude, putting on intellectual armor, and being willing to live and die for the empowerment of the wretched of the earth. ~ Cornel West,

220:I've been a staunch advocate of women's empowerment, and I've worked hard throughout my career to advance the cause. It is heartening to see that gender equality is really becoming more of a reality. There is still much more to be done, and I'm confident that, by working together, we can empower women worldwide. ~ Madhuri Dixit,

221:Projection is part of the false self. We diminish our God-given empowerment when we spend energy projecting rather than feeding our interior life. Living from our false self drains us of our desire for self-awareness and growth. Our self-respect is undermined and our tendencies toward internalized self-hatred are fed. ~ Laura Swan,

222:When we prioritize and focus... and that becomes the anchor... the relationship becomes the anchor... and it trumphs everything else... than it's at once freeing and anxiety relieving... because the connection itself feeds empowerment and self-worth and self-esteem so it takes away the anxiety of raising a child. ~ Shefali Tsabary,

223:In any S/M exchange there is a sharing of power – the bottom lends his power to the top for the duration, the top adds power, and together they make a lot of voltage. The top gets to wield all this power, a form of extreme empowerment that is exciting, thrilling, hot, erotic, and, as we said before, very, very sexy. ~ Dossie Easton,

224:In a sense technology is a tool of sort of individual choice, individual creativity, individual empowerment, individual access. My kids will never understand that it used to be kind of hard to access and find things, and know what the world knows and see what the world sees. Yet it becomes easier and easier every day. ~ Steve Ballmer,

225:Divide your Dream Book into separate sections for goals relating to the different areas of your life. For example you might have sections for your physical fitness goals, your financial goals, your personal empowerment goals, your relationship and social goals and, perhaps most importantly, your spiritual goals.” “Hey, ~ Robin S Sharma,

226:I get very frustrated when I hear women saying, "Oh, feminism is passé," because I think feminism means empowerment. Men can be feminists, too! Many men are feminists. We need feminism. It's not against men; it's about the empowerment of women. It's the respect of women - giving women equal rights, the same opportunities. ~ Annie Lennox,

227:Proficiency in art is a contract with your self and the empowerment of your self. Not all of us demand or even desire proficiency, but for those who do it's necessary to temper the influence of groups. And while some artists think history is bunk, the historical evidence is overwhelming: "In my isolation I grow stronger." ~ Paul Gauguin,

228:four appalling realities of daily life: maternal mortality, human trafficking, sexual violence, and the routine daily discrimination that causes girls to die at far higher rates than boys. The tools to address these challenges include girls’ education, family planning, micro-finance, and “empowerment” in every sense. ~ Nicholas D Kristof,

229:Women, you have all this power, I'm telling you. In business, you have something called an inferred fiduciary duty to yourself. Look at the other hugely successful women in industry, commerce, science and everywhere else and you'll see women who are feminine, beautiful but also do not rely on men for their self-empowerment. ~ Gene Simmons,

230:Health is more than absence of disease; it is about economics, education, environment, empowerment, and community. The health and well being of the people is critically dependent upon the health system that serves them. It must provide the best possible health with the least disparities and respond equally well to everyone. ~ Joycelyn Elders,

231:God didn't introduce grace as free gift, salvation, or forgiveness of sins. Let me be clear, I am forever grateful for these amazing benefits. But they are all brought out later in the New Testament. God introduced grace as the impartation of the fullness of Christ. This speaks of possessing the nature and empowerment (John 1:16) ~ John Bevere,

232:Her skin flushed darkly and she licked her lips over and over. Imagining me being used turned her on. She’s overeducated and has taken too many women’s studies classes. She uses words like empowerment sincerely. When my accounting was complete, she moved so close our knees were touching and placed her hand in the small of my back. ~ Roxane Gay,

233:Gender equality and empowerment of women is key to the success of the Millennium Development Goals. Not only as a specific target, but for the goals in general. Women bear a heavier burden of the world's poverty than men, because of the discrimination they face in education, health care, employment and control of assets. ~ Johanna Sigurðardottir,

234:Indeed, this delayed disclosure of the crucial personal detail dents Mr. Modi’s credibility as a prime ministerial candidate. With the socially conservative RSS driving the BJP’s campaign, there is the apprehension of a resurgence of a patriarchal mindset reflecting restrictive approaches to the issue of further empowerment of women. ~ Anonymous,

235:One thing the humanitarian world doesn't do well is marketing. As a journalist, I get pitched every day by companies that have new products. Meanwhile, you have issues like clean water, literacy for girls, female empowerment. People flinch at the idea of marketing these because marketing sounds like something only companies do. ~ Nicholas D Kristof,

236:In the law, rights are islands of empowerment. . . . Rights contain images of power, and manipulating those images, either visually or linguistically, is central in the making and maintenance of rights. In principle, therefore, the more dizzyingly diverse the images that are propagated, the more empowered we will be as a society. ~ Patricia J Williams,

237:I sat down in 1989 and I made up my mind at that point that I was going to spend the rest of my life assisting women and youth to gain social and political empowerment through business and education. I convinced myself economic empowerment of women was going to be key, especially in a country like this where most women didn't go to school. ~ Joyce Banda,

238:In regard to empowerment, grace gives us the ability to go beyond our natural ability. We didn’t have the ability to deliver ourselves from hell; grace did. We shouldn’t live in freedom, but grace enables us. We couldn’t change our nature; grace did. We don’t have the ability to live holy, but grace enables us. No wonder we call it amazing! ~ John Bevere,

239:My mother was a feminist, and she gave me some tools of self-possession and self-empowerment, but now that I have lived here for forty-three years, it's, like, whoa, there is just so much more to do, other than become myself. I'm still talking about it. I still drop the P-word, "patriarchy," on unsuspecting people in everyday conversations. ~ Ani DiFranco,

240:Hopefully folks will look at the good things that I've done over the years, you know, my 10 years in Congress, my 12 years in state legislature, my many years of community organizing for the environment, for police accountability, for criminal justice reform, economic empowerment, trying to fight for small-business people, all these things. ~ Keith Ellison,

241:New Age values are conscious evolution, a non-sectarian society, a non-military culture, global sharing, healing the environment, sustainable economies, self-determinat ion, social justice, economic empowerment of the poor, love, compassion in action, going beyond religious fundamentalism, going beyond nationalism/ extreme nationalism culture. ~ Deepak Chopra,

242:When programs, methods, and money produce impressive results, there is an inclination to confuse human success with divine blessing. Christians can actually behave like practical humanists, living as if God were not necessary. When that happens, passionate longing for God and yearning for His help will be missing—along with His empowerment. ~ John F MacArthur Jr,

243:One of the great strengths of American culture is this empowerment of individual, is the individual being able to be entrepreneurial, create new things. But you create a whole group of people to make great companies. It's employees and investors and customers and partners. The fabric of society, of a network of relations, is key to being successful. ~ Reid Hoffman,

244:There is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls and the empowerment of women... When women are fully involved, the benefits can be seen immediately: families are healthier; they are better fed; their income, savings, and reinvestment go up. And what is true of families is true of communities and, eventually, whole countries. ~ Kofi Annan,

245:I want those in what I call the regressive left who are reading this exchange to understand that the first stage in the empowerment of any minority community is the liberation of reformist voices within that community so that its members can take responsibility for themselves and overcome the first hurdle to genuine empowerment: the victimhood mentality. ~ Sam Harris,

246:U.N. Women was created due to the acknowledgement that gender equality and women's empowerment was still, despite progress, far from what it should be. Transforming political will and decisions, such as the Member States creating U.N. Women, into concrete steps towards gender equality and women's empowerment, I think is one of the main challenges. ~ Michelle Bachelet,

247:WHAT CAN BE DONE to kick-start or perhaps just facilitate the process of empowerment and thus the development of inclusive political institutions? The honest answer of course is that there is no recipe for building such institutions. Naturally there are some obvious factors that would make the process of empowerment more likely to get off the ground. ~ Daron Acemo lu,

248:My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus. ~ Michael Haneke,

249:I think empowerment of women is exactly what's happening now, with women being portrayed as human beings, and not just black and white. Men can be the anti-hero all the time, and it's cool, but when women are, they're twisted or messed up or something is wrong with them. I think it's just about portraying women in the world as equals to men, and vice versa. ~ Riley Keough,

250:Young women now, this generation - girls my age too, but even younger than I am - they're the ones that are going to change the world. They've grown up in such a new way of thinking about women and female empowerment. I grew up with a little bit of that, but teenagers now, those are the girls that are going to make the world a different place for everyone else. ~ Lucy Hale,

251:the religious models that had existed up until then did not adequately prepare us. Only through a process of radical self-empowerment—which Ikeda, expanding upon a term used by Toda, called Human Revolution—could human beings address issues that big. They couldn’t be dealt with effectively by any one people, nation, or religion, but only by humanity as a whole. ~ Clark Strand,

252:Liberté has been bureaucratised in the sense that it doesn’t any more represent the freedom of people to break out, to do the thing that they really want to do. Rather it’s conceived as a form of empowerment – the state gives you this in the form of vouchers or privileges, privileges, for example, that you might have as a gay, or a woman, or an ethnic minority. ~ Roger Scruton,

253:Great potential for personal empowerment can be found in attending to our awareness of global problems and to our understanding of how they connect with each other and with our personal lives. The process of naming the danger, saying aloud that the threats to life on earth are real, moves us from the numbness of denial to the aliveness that makes action possible. ~ Sarah Connor,

254:It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics. Why? Because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth. We know that investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase growth. They increase good jobs, and they create new wealth for all of us. ~ William J Clinton,

255:All talks about legacies of white supremacy must be tied to empowering the lives of poor and working people as a whole. The black agenda - from Frederick Douglas to A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King Jr, Fannie Lou Hammer to Ella Baker - has always been tied to race talk inseparable from expanding possibilities of democracy, expanding empowerment of everyday people. ~ Cornel West,

256:While it is tempting to believe that you are the victim of certain people or forces beyond your control, A Course in Miracles teaches you to recognize that you are not a victim. Through the grace of God, you are lifted above and beyond any forces-internal or external-that threaten to limit you. Knowing you're not a victim is a major form of personal empowerment. ~ Marianne Williamson,

257:The menu of this kitchen will have more than soup; it will serve as an opportunity to explore the vast untapped power of food as a force for participatory democracy, as a means of empowerment for those who have little and as a lens through which we embrace, and in fact relish, our differences but see and live through our commonalities. If you eat, then you are a part of this. ~ Sam Kass,

258:Having expressed the rage against the laws and conditions that oppressed them - maybe even excess anger in the beginning was directed at men they came in contact with, because it had been pent up too long - women now come from a new position of easier, more comfortable self-affirmation and empowerment. Women are given to tolerance and are more able to love. I hope it happens also to men. ~ Betty Friedan,

259:My parents have worked their asses off their whole entire lives, they still do, and I never felt like anything would be handed to me. I never felt sorry for myself. I felt like, "Wow, this is incredible. I'm able to do this for myself." I think once you have that sense of empowerment at a young age and you allow your children to have that empowerment, it will fuel them for a lifetime. ~ Michelle Monaghan,

260:The exploitation agenda advocated by liberals is modeled after the dependency-inducing design of the drug dealer's business model: "We'll supply the first hit for free, and after that, you'll need us forever in order to survive." In order for the liberal scheme to succeed, all attempts at self-empowerment or individual initiative are to be met with fierce resistance and social sanction. ~ Angela McGlowan,

261:I think it's a broader target list than just Wall Street, and I believe that we have to be very focused on how we try to take back the power and increase the empowerment of the American people. And, I think I have that kind of experience, maybe because they've beat me up for so many years, and I know exactly how to handle them because I've been in the arena with them time and time again. ~ Hillary Clinton,

262:Love is what makes you do everything. It really does conquer all. With my first album, I was writing about empowerment hoping that would make it true. And now it is. I'm in charge. I make the rules. I've been writing since I was nine years old and I'm very much involved in the creative process. And now that I'm in a happier place in my personal life, I'm spitting songs out left and right. ~ Jessie James Decker,

263:David Marquet’s message in Turn the Ship Around! inspires the empowerment of engaged people and leadership at all levels. He encourages leaders to release energy, intellect and passion in everyone around them. Turn the Ship Around! challenges the paradigm of the hierarchical organization by revealing the process to tear down pyramids, create a flat organization and develop leaders, not followers ~ L David Marquet,

264:Reverence is a perception of the soul. Reverence is a natural aspect of authentic empowerment because the soul reveres all of Life. When the personality is aligned with the soul, it cannot perceive life except with reverence. Approaching life with reverence is a step toward moving the personality into alignment with the soul because it brings an aspect of the soul directly into the physical environment. ~ Gary Zukav,

265:After all God doesn’t want you to be an imitation of someone else. You should be the original you were created to be. There is an anointing on your life, an empowerment. Not to be somebody else, but to be you. If you let people squeeze you into their molds and you bow down to their pressure to try to please your critics, it not only takes away your uniqueness, but it also lessens the favor on your life. ~ Joel Osteen,

266:You can’t buy that kind of empowerment. To just know that as far as you are aware, you have not got a price; that there is not an amount of money large enough to make you compromise even a tiny bit of principle that, as it turned out, would make no practical difference anyway. I’d advise everyone to do it, otherwise you’re going to end up mastered by money and that’s not a thing you want ruling your life. ~ Alan Moore,

267:What I like about the trees is how
They do not talk about the failure of their parents
And what I like about the grasses is that
They are not grasses in recovery
And what I like about the flowers is
That they are not flowers in need of empowerment or validation. They sway
Upon their thorny stems
As if whatever was about to happen next tonight
was sure to be completely interesting ~ Tony Hoagland,

268:sober reality is that the diffusion of power to nonstate actors will not automatically translate into more justice, transparency, accountability, democracy, and human rights. While there is much hope for a better world, it is also possible that individual empowerment will lead to fragmented governance, which in turn will mean poorer governance, which in turn will create worse outcomes rather than better ones ~ Anonymous,

269:MT [Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. ~ Christopher Hitchens,

270:The way I view feminism — and I know there are a lot of different things going on — but, at its purest form, to me, it's a very positive, supportive, nurturing, empowerment thing. I mean, God, who isn't a feminist? If you don't think women are as good as men, you're not a good person. I like to think that most of the population of people worth being friends with are feminists, if that's what feminism means. ~ Kat Dennings,

271:Look, I’m all for female empowerment and standing up for myself…you taught me how to do that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t get lonely. That I wouldn’t want a man to be around to screw in a light bulb. Yes, I can do it for myself. Yes, I will do it for myself if I have to. That isn’t the point. Knowing someone else is there and they care if your light bulb is screwed in or not is the definition of happiness. ~ Amelia LeFay,

272:But, in fact, the self-help movement still divides, roughly, into two camps. There is Empowerment—broadly speaking, the idea that you are fully responsible for all you do, good and bad. And, in contrast, there is Victimization, which sells the idea that you are not responsible for what you do (at least not the bad things). Victimization and Empowerment represent the yin and the yang of the self-help movement. ~ Steve Salerno,

273:He has a way of drawing His loves back to Himself. A psyche separated from the peace (and the freedom) of Christ is liable to entangle itself in all sorts of folly and vanity, or confused witchcraft. On the one side it will preach, 'Empowerment!' But on the other it will scream, 'Oppression!' Yes, you now have the power to be oppressed: because as long as you look to be a victim, you will find yourself to be a victim. ~ Criss Jami,

274:Want to talk third-wave feminism, you could cite Ariel Levy and the idea that women have internalized male oppression. Going to spring break at Fort Lauderdale, getting drunk, and flashing your breasts isn't an act of personal empowerment. It's you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of patriarchal society that you no longer know what's best for yourself. A damsel too dumb to even know she's in distress. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

275:Want to talk third-wave feminism, you could cite Ariel Levy and the idea that women have internalized male oppression. Going to spring break at Fort Lauderdale, getting drunk, and flashing your breasts isn’t an act of personal empowerment. It’s you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of patriarchal society that you no longer know what’s best for yourself. A damsel too dumb to even know she’s in distress. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

276:If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can’t imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America’s alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart — and then to discover that one is not alone in ones feelings. ~ Rita Dove,

277:Want to talk third wave feminism, you could cite Ariel Levy and the idea that women have internalized male oppression. Going to spring break at Fort Lauderdale, getting drunk, and flashing your breasts isn't an act of personal empowerment. It's you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of patriarchal society that you no longer know what's best for yourself.
A damsel too dumb to even know she's in distress. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

278:There’s a saying in Africa, if you give a woman empowerment, you empower a community, you empower men, you empower man. When women become empowered and live in their strength it’s beneficiary to others, and I think as young women today we sometimes forget that we are standing on the struggle of other women. Those women had to stand up to make a change, and they were not popular, and now we’re making them unpopular again. ~ Danai Gurira,

279:The kind of influence you want is a much deeper influence. It's like empowerment. Things are like this, but what if they were like that? What happens if you turn everything inside out? It's something that not just artists do. I think scientists do that, too. There's a theory: What if we pour water on it? That's also what a child does. If a child came in now, the child would ignore us, go under the table, and make a house. ~ Vito Acconci,

280:I think I've always been extremely conscious of the kind of empowerment that comes from realizing that you're in a position to express yourself. And the fact is that - and this is the thing about punk rock - that everyone is in a position to create culture, and that point has never been lost on me. To me, that's an important political aspect of doing this, and trying to live in a way that's about dialogue as opposed to like... spectacle. ~ J Robbins,

281:Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights - the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle. ~ P J O Rourke,

282:Erotic intimacy is the revelation of our memories, wishes, fears, expectations, and struggles within a sexual relationship. When our innermost desires are revealed, and are met by our loved one with acceptance and validation, the shame dissolves. It is an experience of profound empowerment and self-affirmation for the heart, body, and soul. When we can be present for both love and sex, we transcend the battleground of Puritanism and hedonism. ~ Esther Perel,

283:Empowerment is a thing that you earn over time - as you overcome obstacles, learn, and accomplish things, you become empowered. Empowerment is not a thing that you are born with and that the parent's job is to get out of the way of. Empowerment is a thing that you earn. And some of that is that you become empowered by knowing that you were disempowered or by knowing that there were tremendous limits on what you were able to do, as a young person. ~ John Roderick,

284:My feminism has evolved way beyond self-empowerment and I see feminism as a path to peace on earth. The fundamental imbalance that is behind all of the other social diseases is patriarchy. I do believe. As men and women, together, I really long to feel my society evolve its understanding since we're one of the leaders in the f-word. I want us to grow our idea of feminism collectively and get both men and women involved in undoing patriarchy. It's huge. It's a huge job. ~ Ani DiFranco,

285:I see a generation comprised of all ages, inclusive of men and women, awakening to the extraordinary qualities hidden within. The power to accomplish remarkable feats and live an exceptional life is not defined by an individual's family, education, or occupation; it's a disposition of the heart. Unless it's suppressed, there is an innate desire to rise above the norm. I encourage you to step into the unknown, embrace the divine empowerment, and live your extraordinary life. ~ John Bevere,

286:It is the modern feminists who are the real male chauvinists, lusting for reproductive freedom (sexual irresponsibility) like playboys and demanding empowerment, that is, envying and imitating not only males, but male fools, judging inner worth by outer performance, sacrificing being for doing, finding their identity in their worldly careers, not in their inner essence, in their physical and spiritual wombs and motherhoods. This is what Karl Stern called "the flight from woman." ~ Peter Kreeft,

287:In addition to self-awareness, imagination and conscience, it is the fourth human endowment - independent will - that really makes effective self-management possible. It is the ability to make decisions and choices and to act in accordance with them. It is the ability to act rather than to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have developed through the other three endowments. Empowerment comes from learning how to use this great endowment in the decisions we make every day. ~ Stephen Covey,

288:I think we need a little more rallying around the dumpee. If you were a woman and I’d told you that the third guy in eighteen months had broken up with me, right now we’d be drinking lemon drop martinis and giving each other female empowerment pep talks about how we don’t need a man in our lives to feel complete. And then we’d watch The Notebook and drool over Ryan Gosling.”
“Sorry, babe. But when they handed out best friends you drew the straw with a penis attached. That means no Ryan Gosling. ~ Julie James,

289:Despite long-standing claims by elites that Blacks, women, Latinos, and other similarly derogated groups in the United States remain incapable of producing the type of interpretive, analytical thought that is labeled theory in the West, powerful knowledges of resistance that toppled former social structures of social inequality repudiate this view. Members of these groups do in fact theorize, and our critical social theory has been central to our political empowerment and search for justice. ~ Patricia Hill Collins,

290:Black pride. Gay pride. White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant pride. All of these things, you know, they're polarized, aren't they? The red and blue states. Christians, that's the most insidious aspect of it, giving into this great Christian image of America. That's the most frightening thing of all. Whereas in the past they're trying to find things that unite us, to minimize the differences. Whereas today there's this belief in empowerment and entitlement by maximizing differences. I'm not so sure that that's healthy. ~ Robert Towne,

291:QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER Why do we need empowerment? Do you need someone else to empower you? How reliant is your organization on the decision making of one person, or a small group of people? What kind of leadership model does your business or organization use? When you think of movie images that depict leadership, who/what comes to mind? What assumptions are embedded in those images? How do these images influence how you think about yourself as a leader? To what extent do these images limit your growth as a leader? ~ L David Marquet,

292:Spiritual Needs We settle for the illusion society sells us that meaning is in self-focus—self-esteem, self-development, self-improvement—it’s “what I want,” “let me do my own thing,” “I did it my way.” But the wisdom literature of thousands of years of history repeatedly validates the reality that the greatest fulfillment in improving ourselves comes in our empowerment to more effectively reach out and help others. Quality of life is inside-out. Meaning is in contribution, in living for something higher than self. ~ Stephen R Covey,

293:So let us be clear about this up front: We hope to recruit you to join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women's power as economic catalysts. That is the process under way - not a drama of victimization but of empowerment, the kind that transforms bubbly teenage girls from brothel slaves into successful businesswomen. This is a story of transformation. It is change that is already taking place, and change that can accelerate if you'll just open your heart and join in. ~ Nicholas D Kristof,

294:(...) Bitch is a stereotype in transition. A developing culture of unrepentant Bitches can be found everywhere! There's Bitch magazine; there's a growing industry of Bitch-empowerment books. If the world is going to call you a Bitch for being ambitious, outspoken, and in control of your on sexuality, why not accept it and be proud? If we use it to describe ourselves, it can't be used against us. We say, "Bitches of the world unite". Be tough, get what you want, be a real Bitch. But don't let anyone else call you one! ~ Guerrilla Girls,

295:Girls, here's the truth about the Ban Bossy campaign: It's being spearheaded by a privileged group of elite feminists who have a very vested interest in stoking victim politics and exacerbating the gender divide. They actually encourage dependency and groupthink while paying lip service to empowerment and self-determination. They traffic in bogus wage disparity statistics, whitewashing the fact that what's actually left of that dwindling pay gap is due to the deliberate, voluntary choices women in the workforce make. ~ Michelle Malkin,

296:So let us be clear about this up front: We hope to recruit you to join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women's power as economic catalysts. That is the process under way - not a drama of victimization but of empowerment, the kind that transforms bubbly teenage girls from brothel slaves into successful businesswomen.

This is a story of transformation. It is change that is already taking place, and change that can accelerate if you'll just open your heart and join in. ~ Nicholas D Kristof,

297:Conservatives say human beings are people who are primarily concerned with self-interest, and that's what they should be concerned with - self-interest and individual responsibility. They shouldn't be paying for anybody else's health care or anything else like that. As a result, government is something that should be absolutely minimal. It's not there for your overall protection and empowerment - it's not there to offer protection against disease or natural disasters or bad products or companies who sell you fallacious mortgages and so on. ~ George Lakoff,

298:People have so many expectations when they go out on stage, so many wishes about what their night is going to be: if they're going to meet that person, have a fun time with their friends, have a good high, hear good music. People get drunk and turn into themselves in a way, and they go to experience some kind of emotion. But it's not always about fun. There's a destructive side to it. But I'm more into the empowerment of going out, because it's always been the place where I could be myself and get inspired. Even if I'm sad, dancing is a way to let stuff out. ~ Robyn,

299:She lives in the feminist "wishful-thinking world," as the Village Voice called it, dreamed up by creator Amy Sherman Palladino, where single moms raise brilliant daughters and men are nothing more than trifling distractions. I live in a post-feminist world that kicked in after the advent of Gilmore Girls, a place where Maureen Dowd asks Are Men Necessary? and we answer, "Not really." Modern girls may not talk as fast as the Gilmore girls or engage in witty repartee with colorful townsfolk, but as far as female empowerment goes, we're catching up fast. ~ Jennifer Crusie,

300:I think the critical point, really, is that we need to focus black economic empowerment more on the creation of new wealth rather than on these big deals that have been characteristic of this process in the past, of people going to banks, borrowing a lot of money, buying this and when the shares don't perform very well, the shares go back to the banks, because there's other people who own this anyway. I think we need to re-focus it so that it really does impact on growth, new investment, new employment and a general, better spread of wealth in South Africa. ~ Thabo Mbeki,

301:When it comes to loving D/ s relationships, the three little words mostly likely to have a significant , positive, and lasting impact on your partner’s well-being is probably “I love you.” Once we venture beyond that simple three-word endearment, however, the competition gets much stiffer. If I had to predict a winner in the four little words category, I’d choose “I believe in you.” When a Dominant believes in his submissive, she eventually grows to believe in herself. That sort of empowerment is priceless beyond measure, and almost always bears sweet fruit. ~ Michael Makai,

302:I think most generations tend to learn the lesson of war the hard way. There is a deep attraction to the empowerment. Freud is right: societies either become locked in a collective embrace of Eros, as individuals do, or a collective embrace of Thanatos, the death instinct. They swing between the two. The notion that societies are naturally prone toward self-preservation is wrong. Self-annihilation can be deeply addictive, intoxicating, enticing. So I take a darker view of human nature, that war is probably always going to be with us. I think history bears me out. ~ Chris Hedges,

303:Research on control has been conducted under many different banners – self-efficacy, autonomy, helplessness, empowerment, and, of course, small wins. The jargon varies, but study after study shows that when people experience some control over their lives, they enjoy better physical and mental health. Even when people can’t control their ultimate fates, their well-being improves when they can influence some aspects of their lives. For bosses, this means your dirty work will do less harm if you can give people some control over when and how bad things happen to them. ~ Robert I Sutton,

304:I wanted to start a website for teenaged girls that was not kind of this one-dimensional strong character empowerment thing, because one thing that can be very alienating about a misconception of feminism is that girls then think that to be feminists, they have to live up to being perfectly consistent in their beliefs, never being insecure, never having doubts, having all the answers...and this is not true and actually, recognizing all the contradictions I was feeling became easier once I realized that feminism was not a rule book but a discussion, a conversation, a process. ~ Tavi Gevinson,

305:Ultimately, this liberation of the psyche provided the essential birth canal for the self, or individualization, the greater expression of the personal ego. Personal empowerment and self-esteem—the emergence of the self—are the core accomplishments of the past fifty years. Concepts such as speaking one’s truth, getting in touch with one’s inner child, and developing personal boundaries are all products of the age of the psyche and individualization. They represent the evolution of conscious choice. That management of one’s personal power of choice defines a conscious human being. ~ Caroline Myss,

306:I believe the message in the hymn "Rise Up, O Men of God" (Hymns, no. 324) is a plea, a call, a divine invitation for us to rise above the telestial tinsel of our time; to deny ourselves of ungodliness and clothe ourselves in the mantle of holiness; to reach and stretch and grasp for that spiritual direction and sacred empowerment promised to the Lord's agents, to those charged to act in the name of our Principal, Jesus Christ; and to point the way to salvation and deliverance and peace in a world that finds itself enshrouded in darkness, a world that yearns for spiritual leadership. ~ Robert L Millet,

307:Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. ~ P J O Rourke,

308:But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18 NLT). What was previously impossible to do in our own ability, we can now do: walk in His ways. We can now imitate God. We can now follow Jesus. To sum it up, it’s impossible to follow Jesus without denying our self (forsaking our own ways and embracing His supreme authority) and taking up the cross (incorporating its empowerment to walk away from sin and the world’s system). The life we now live is by faith in His ability working in and through us. We draw from Him. What a glorious package of salvation God has provided for us! ~ John Bevere,

309:Knowing that every woman and man is a star is one thing, walking the path while giving the individuals empowerment to act, within this matrix of choices, is something totally different. If we are not ready for the Cosmos manifesting in all its forms within our little ones, including rebellion, we will subdue his or her life-force. A conscious parent has a complete trust in the goodness of the kids,yet they will protect the young ones from alcohol, or drugs, or disturbed sleeping pattern or cigarettes, or dirt, fully aware that the addictive substances will distort our efforts to reach the highest potential or kill us. ~ Nata a Nuit Pantovi,

310:I have very little sense of obligation to be "right" in my thinking. It's not my job to be "right." I'm in the courage business. I'm in the empowerment business. It's my job to give people the courage to take action. It's my job to provoke and to get people to think about things differently. I'm fighting tired, horrible, ridiculous conventions. It's my job to shatter conventions — to get people to think differently...to give them the courage to try something different. It's not like I'm comfortable being wrong...it's not about being right or wrong. It's really about having a point of view — and provoking my audience to think about things differently. ~ Blair Enns,

311:We hold up iPhones and, if we’re relatively conscious of history, we point out that this is an amazing device that contains a live map of the world and the biggest libraries imaginable and that it’s an absolute paradigm shift in personal communication and empowerment. And then some knob says that it looks like something from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and then someone else says that it doesn’t even look as cool as Captain Kirk’s communicator in the original and then someone else says no but you can buy a case for it to make it look like one and you’re off to the manufactured normalcy races, where nobody wins because everyone goes to fucking sleep. ~ Warren Ellis,

312:I’m a bottom-up manager who subscribes to the concept of “servant leadership,” as articulated by the late Robert Greenleaf. He believed that organizations are at their most effective when leaders encourage collaboration, trust, foresight, listening, and empowerment. In any hierarchy, it’s clear that the ultimate boss (in my case, me) holds the most power. But a wonderful thing happens when you flip the traditional organizational chart upside down so that it looks like a V with the boss on the bottom. My job is to serve and support the next layer “above” me so that the people on that layer can then serve and support the next layer “above” them, and so on. ~ Danny Meyer,

313:I want to change my life...except I sort of like it. I mean, I couldn't be more delighted every Monday night after Fletch goes to bed when I come downstairs, pull up the Bachelor on TiVo, drink Riesling, and eat cheddar/port wine Kaukauna cheese without freakign out over fat grams. I'm perpetually in a good mood because I do everything I want. I love having the freedom to skip the gym to watch a Don Knots movie on the Disney Channel without a twinge of guilt. I've figured out how to not be beholden to what other people believe I should be doing, and when the world tells me I ought to be a size eight, I can thumb my nose at them in complete empowerment. ~ Jen Lancaster,

314:The mindset assessment asks questions that measure characteristics such as awareness, helpfulness, accountability, alignment, collaboration, self-correction, coordination, inclusivity, generosity, transparency, results focus, openness, appreciation, recognition, empowerment, initiative, engagement, and safety. Looking at these various elements and averaging results across industries, we have found that people rate their colleagues in their organizations at an average of 4.8 on the continuum and themselves at 6.8, which is to say that individuals rate themselves as 40 percent better than the rest of the people in their organizations across these characteristics. ~ The Arbinger Institute,

315:The greater your integrity, the more the many gates of knowledge and the real truths of existence will be revealed. There are no training camps or courses to sign up for; this is all about you and your conscience. In every moment of your existence you have the opportunity to take the low road, the middle road, or the high road. Honesty produces a frequency that says, I have integrity and honor, and I am dependable, trustworthy, and reliable. It is all up to you. The more responsibility you are willing to claim for being the creator of your life, the greater the truths you will be able to accept and deal with. Responsibility opens the doors to complete self-empowerment. You ~ Barbara Marciniak,

316:When Muslim radicals and fundamentalists look at the West, they see only the openness that makes us, in their eyes, decadent and promiscuous. They see only the openness that has produced Britney Spears and Janet Jackson. They do not see, and do not want to see, the openness - the freedom of thought and inquiry - that has made us powerful, the openness that has produced Bill Gates and Sally Ride. They deliberately define it all as decadence. Because if openness, women's empowerment, and freedom of thought and inquiry are the real sources of the West's economic strength, then the Arab-Muslim world would have to change. And the fundamentalists and extremists do not want to change. ~ Thomas L Friedman,

317:Violence against Men As Women’s Liberation Thelma and Louise was widely touted as a film of women’s liberation. (It was, for example, the only film celebrated by the National Organization for Women at its twenty-fifth convention.) Never in American history have two men been celebrated as heroes of men’s liberation after they deserted their wives, met one female jerk after another, and then killed one woman and left another woman stuffed in a trunk in 120-degree desert heat. Male serial killers are condemned—not celebrated—at men’s liberation conventions. The moment a men’s movement calls it a sign of empowerment or brotherhood when men kill women is the moment I will protest it as fascism. ~ Warren Farrell,

318:Enthusiasm brings an enormous empowerment into what you do, so that all those who have not accessed that power would look upon “your” achievements in awe and may equate them with who you are. You, however, know the truth that Jesus pointed to when he said, “I can of my own self do nothing.”3 Unlike egoic wanting, which creates opposition in direct proportion to the intensity of its wanting, enthusiasm never opposes. It is non-confrontational. Its activity does not create winners and losers. It is based on inclusion, not exclusion, of others. It does not need to use and manipulate people, because it is the power of creation itself and so does not need to take energy from some secondary source. ~ Eckhart Tolle,

319:I’m convinced that calling addiction a disease is not only inaccurate, it’s often harmful. Harmful, first of all, to addicts themselves. While shame and guilt may be softened by the disease definition, many addicts simply don’t see themselves as ill, and being coerced into an admission that they have a disease can undermine other—sometimes highly valuable—elements of their self-image and self-esteem. Many recovering addicts find it better not to see themselves as helpless victims of a disease, and objective accounts of recovery and relapse suggest they might be right. Treatment experts and addiction counsellors often identify empowerment or self-efficacy as a necessary resource for lasting recovery. ~ Marc Lewis,

320:Where radical politics once stood for full citizen empowerment, it now stood for the empowerment of professional politicians in state and national government; where it once endorsed democratic assemblies, it now recommended “the numbing quietude of the polling booth, the deadening platitudes of petition campaigns”; instead of complex social theory, its new métier was bumper-sticker slogans; and instead of stirring demands for revolution, it meekly begged for paltry reforms. People no longer wanted to dedicate themselves to a revolutionary project that might “require the labors and dedication of a lifetime.” Instead, they craved instant gratification and were willing to surrender their long-term ideals to get it. Indeed, ~ Janet Biehl,

321:I want those in what I call the regressive left who are reading this exchange to understand that the first stage in the empowerment of any minority community is the liberation of reformist voices within that community so that its members can take responsibility for themselves and overcome the first hurdle to genuine empowerment: the victimhood mentality. This is what the American civil rights movement achieved, by shifting the debate. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders took responsibility for their own communities and acted in a positive and empowering way, instead of constantly playing the victim card or rioting in the streets. Perpetuating this groupthink mind-set is both extremely dangerous and in fact disempowering. ~ Sam Harris,

322:Joss’s stories are often centered on moments just like this. He shares a conversation that he had with Stephen Sondheim, in which they were discussing the stories each of them tells. Joss said he was always going to write about adolescent girls with superpowers. Sondheim replied, “And I will always write about yearning.” “Goddammit, his answer was so much cooler than mine!” Joss says— but Sondheim’s answer pushed him to break down his own tales and figure out what his driving impetus was, what he was really writing about. “Helplessness was what I realized was sort of the basic thing,” Joss explains. “All of these empowerment stories come from my fear and hatred of the idea of somebody who is really helpless, who is a non-being. ~ Amy Pascale,

323:In the power of my newfound strength, I saw clearly—even though I’d been empowered to have my old college finally address my “horrific trauma,” make me finally feel heard, this event would never have happened had I not first given myself my own voice, the permission to call my rape rape and not shame. In telling, I forced the school that silenced me, that minimized my trauma, that blamed me for the rape, to finally respect my voice and give me the platform they should have given me in the first place. I did not need the school to call it by its name; I did it myself, and they listened. I was the powerful party that brought the closure and empowerment I’d hoped, in first finding their invitation, that Colorado College would bring. ~ Aspen Matis,

324:Wonder Woman represented modern America as leader of
the free world, and champion of the downtrodden. She forsook her kingdom and immortality to make the whole world a better place and, most of all, to fight for the rights of females. Just as America emerged as a global peacekeeper, Wonder Woman's adventures took her wherever women were in peril and their freedom was threatened, like the planet Venus with its butterfly-winged women, or the subterranean paradise Eveland.'Ihe "loving ways of the Amazons" that she was sent to teach the world were presumably the wisdom of the matrilineal society that predated the Greeks. "I can make bad men good and weak woman strong!" she says, as she spreads her message of empowerment across "man's world. ~ Mike Madrid,

325:irony here is kind of cringe-inducing, too. If I try to put the effect of that earliest workshop into less bromidic words, the best I can do is this: it was like having my world turned upside-down, and then realizing that, in fact, the world had always been upside-down, and I had just come right-side up. There was a sense of relief in knowing that all those things that had looked so wrong—the injustice of violence against women, the limits placed on us because of our gender, the fear of losing our mothers, our sisters, ourselves—were, in fact, wrong. That I was right to be angry about them. Empowerment-based self-defense training left me with a completely new way of looking at self-defense—a perspective diametrically opposed to mainstream approaches to safety. ~ Susan Schorn,

326:The Mahatma’s singular insight was that self-government would never be achieved by the resolutions passed by a self-regarding and unelected elite pursuing the politics of the drawing room. To him, self-government had to involve the empowerment of the masses, the toiling multitudes of India in whose name the upper classes were clamouring for Home Rule. This position did not go over well with India’s political class, which consisted in those days largely of aristocrats and lawyers, men of means who discoursed in English and demanded the rights of Englishmen. Nor did Gandhi’s insistence that the masses be mobilized not by the methods of ‘princes and potentates’ (his phrase) but by moral values derived from ancient tradition and embodied in swadeshi and satyagraha. ~ Shashi Tharoor,

327:The third leg of critical pedagogy's three-legged stool involves something called "affective learning." How students feel in class shapes so much of how they receive content as well as their ability to develop critical thinking. Emotions matter for students and teachers alike. Social inequalities become important here via all the classroom practices that create privilege and penalty in the classroom, with all the feelings of empowerment and hurt that go with them. When we set up our classes such that some people dominate classroom discussions and others never say anything, we are actually teaching inequality and the emotions that it engenders. Social hierarchy is quite crucial to how students feel about learning, regardless of content and critical thinking. ~ Patricia Hill Collins,

328:Women's liberation and empowerment are terms feminists started using to talk about casting off the limitations imposed upon women and demanding equality. We have perverted these words. The freedom to be sexually provocative or promiscuous is not enough freedom; it is not the only 'women's issue' worth paying attention to. And we are not even free in the sexual arena. We have simply adopted a new norm, a new role to play: lusty, busty exhibitionist. There are other choices. If we are really going to be sexually liberated, we need to make room for a range of options as wide as the variety of human desire. We need to allow ourselves the freedom to figure out what we internally want from sex instead of mimicking whatever popular culture holds up to us as sexy. That would be liberation. ~ Ariel Levy,

329:The local cultures around the world that are carried by today’s immigrant poor have been eroded by centuries of colonialism and are in danger of being extinguished by the onslaught of global capitalism’s drive for commodified homogeneity. The church must reassert the Genesis wisdom of a “scattered” human family by nurturing diversity, and must reaffirm the Pentecostal vocation of native-language empowerment. For in the great narrative of the Bible, God’s intervention is always subversive of the centralizing project of empire and always on the side of the excluded and outcast, the refugee and immigrant. The Spirit has busted out and busted up business as usual many times since Babel and Jerusalem, and she is waiting to do the same in our own time—if our tongues would but dare to loosen. ~ Ched Myers,

330:As we have seen, democracy is no guarantee that there will be pluralism. The contrast of the development of pluralistic institutions in Brazil to the Venezuelan experience is telling in this context. Venezuela also transitioned to democracy after 1958, but this happened without empowerment at the grassroots level and did not create a pluralistic distribution of political power. Instead, corrupt politics, patronage networks, and conflict persisted in Venezuela, and in part as a result, when voters went to the polls, they were even willing to support potential despots such as Hugo Chávez, most likely because they thought he alone could stand up to the established elites of Venezuela. In consequence, Venezuela still languishes under extractive institutions, while Brazil broke the mold. ~ Daron Acemo lu,

331:A deep sorrow came over Mary for all the child sacrifices she presided over at the base of this monstrosity. The deaths of the innocent gave Gaia life and sustenance, and enslaved women to the illusion of empowerment. The goddess feasted on the flesh and blood of the offering of their wombs. They believed that somehow they were helping their community and saving Mother Earth in giving up their offspring. And every human offered up was absorbed into the tree. When she was up close to it, Mary could see in the grain of the wood the twisted agonized forms of the sacrificial victims melded into the bark so as to become one with it. She had formerly believed that this tree of death was the Tree of Life. But this was not the only false narrative that had held her in its grip of deceit for so many years. ~ Brian Godawa,

332:Tell me, as a pagan, who do you worship?'

'Worship?'

'That's right. I imagine you must have a pretty wide open field. So to whom do you set up your household altar? To whom do you bow down? To whom do you pray to at dawn and at dusk?'

'The female principle. It's an empowerment thing. You know.'

'Indeed. And this female principle of yours. Does she have a name?'

'She's the goddess within us all. She doesn't need a name.'

'Ah,' said Wednesday, with a wide monkey grin, 'so do you hold mighty bacchanals in her honour? Do you drink blood wine under the full moon, while scarlet candles burn in silver candle holders? Do you step naked into the seafoam, chanting ecstactically to your nameless goddess while the waves lick at your legs, lapping your thighs like the tongues of a thousand leopards? ~ Neil Gaiman,

333:So one of my core themes in The Myth of Male Power—that history’s controlling force was not patriarchy, but survival—is still ignored. Instead, the leading universities’ women’s studies and “gender studies” courses still emanate from the Marxist and Civil Rights model of oppressor vs. oppressed. We’ll see in this book exactly why the dichotomy of oppressor/oppressed is both inaccurate and, more important, undermines love and women’s empowerment. In virtually every leading university this leads to a demonizing of men and masculinity that distorts the very essence of traditional masculinity—being socialized to be a hero by being willing to sacrifice oneself in war or in work. The possibility that being socialized to be disposable is not genuine power is, to this day, either considered radical, heretical, or, most frequently, not considered. ~ Warren Farrell,

334:Manipulating or controlling others through the use of one's illness or suffering,for example,was-and remains-extremely effective for people who find they cannot be direct in their interactions,Who argues with someone who is in pain? And if pain is the only power a person has,health is not an attractive replacement. It was apparent to me that becoming healthy represented more than just getting over an illness. Health represented a complex progression into a state of personal empowerment in which one had to move from a condition of vulnerability to one of invincibility,from victim to victor,from silent bystander to aggressive defender of personal boundaries.Completing this race to the finish was a yeoman's task if ever there was one.Indeed,in opening the psyche and soul to the healing process,we had expanded the journey of wellness into one of personal transformation."
- ~ Caroline Myss,

335:The idea was women on boats. Lifeline Cruises pitched itself to women seeking adventure, whether a daylong adventure in the waters of the San Francisco Bay or a twelve-day adventure from San Francisco to Alaska and back. Passengers did not have to be survivors of breast cancer or domestic abuse, nor was any of the profit of Lifeline Cruises given to such causes, but the language of its radio ads, slippery and clear, managed to convey that this might be so. 'Empowerment' was one of the words. It's daylong cruise boat was named The Wild Lady, from a poem by Emily Dickinson that Lifeline Cruises had made up. Tote bags sold on board broadcast the words of the ad—

The wild lady may seem—
adrift to those who cannot dream—
but within her uncharted wand'ring eyes—
a heart beats healthy, strong and wise!

—and below this were the words 'Emily Dickinson. ~ Daniel Handler,

336:Last, and perhaps most importantly, Bold is a playbook. Our deepest hope is that it inspires you to get off the couch and change the world. Said differently, because of the amazing opportunities created by exponentially growing communications technology, many of today’s best and brightest have been lured in by an app-tilted playing field, which has both entrepreneurs and venture capitalists believing that three years to profitability and exit should be the norm. Of course, if your true passion is building apps, then build away. But let’s be clear: when Steve Jobs said that the goal of every entrepreneur should be to “put a dent in the universe”—he wasn’t talking about inventing the next Angry Birds. This book is for those who want to make the Giant Dent. It’s about the fact that, because of exponential empowerment, anyone can make that Giant Dent. Seriously, what are you waiting for? ~ Peter H Diamandis,

337:Recovery can take place only within then context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation. In her renewed connection with other people, the survivor re-creates the psychological facilities that were damaged or deformed by the traumatic experience. These faculties include the basic operations of trust, autonomy, initiative, competence, identity, and intimacy.

Just as these capabilities are formed in relationships with other people, they must be reformed in such relationships.

The first principle of recovery is empowerment of the survivor. She must be the author and arbiter of her own recovery. Others may offer advice, support, assistance, affection, and care, but not cure.

Many benevolent and well-intentioned attempts to assist the survivor founder because this basic principle of empowerment is not observed. No intervention that takes power away from the survivor can possibly foster her recovery, no matter how much it appears to be in her immediate best interest. ~ Judith Lewis Herman,

338:I did what I could to help the people I met: I treated the sick, I fed the hungry, and I even tried to stop the violence throughout the land. Unfortunately, nothing I did prevented the disease and destitution from spreading. However, it wasn’t interaction your world needed; it was inspiration. In a world dominated by ruthless kings and warlords, the ideas of self-worth and self-empowerment were unheard of. So I started telling stories about my world to entertain and raise spirits, especially the poor children’s. Little did I know it would become the greatest contribution of my lifetime. I told stories about cowards who became heroes, peasants who became powerful, and the lonely who became beloved. The stories taught many lessons, but most important, they taught the world how to dream. The ability to dream was a much-needed introduction to hope, and it spread like a powerful epidemic. Families passed the stories from generation to generation, and over the years I watched their compassion and courage ~ Chris Colfer,

339:But “empowerment” is a tricky word. It’s also a decidedly neoliberal word that places the responsibility for combating systems on individuals. Neoliberalism is endlessly concerned with “personal responsibility” and individual self-regulation. It tells us that in a free market, devoid of any regulation or accountability at the top, what happens to those on the bottom is entirely our fault. Did we have enough drive? Enough vision? Enough hustle to change our condition? The politics of personal empowerment suggests to us that if we simply “free our minds, then our asses will follow.” I’m not convinced that this is true. Why? Have you ever noticed that people who have real “power”—wealth, job security, influence—don’t attend “empowerment” seminars? Power is not attained from books and seminars. Not alone, anyway. Power is conferred by social systems. Empowerment and power are not the same thing. We must quit mistaking the two. Better yet, we must quit settling for one when what we really need is the other. ~ Brittney Cooper,

340:Being a good girl, a perfect girl, can kill you fast, or it can kill you slow, flattening everything precious inside you, the best dreams of your one life, into drab homogeneity. At seventeen I decided to make a stab at a different kind of life, and it was scary, and too much, and it still is, but so is staying at home with a painted-on smile. I see women making that choice every day, in their teens and twenties and sixties and seventies, and in this brave new world where empowerment means expensive shoes and the choice to bend over for your boss, it’s the only choice that really matters. Those who make it get called selfish bitches, freaks and sluts and cunts and whores, and sometimes we get called rebels and degenerates and troublemakers, and sometimes we are known to the police. We’re the ones who laugh too loud and talk too much and reach too high and work for ourselves and see a new world just out of reach, at the edge of language, struggling to be spoken. And sometimes, in the narrow hours of the night, we call ourselves feminists. ~ Laurie Penny,

341:Resilient strength is the opposite of helplessness. The tree is made strong and resilient by its grounded root system. These roots take nourishment from the ground and grow strong. Grounding also allows the tree to be resilient so that it can yield to the winds of change and not be uprooted. Springiness is the facility to ground and ‘unground’ in a rhythmical way. This buoyancy is a dynamic form of grounding. Aggressiveness is the biological ability to be vigorous and energetic, especially when using instinct and force. In the immobility (traumatized) state, these assertive energies are inaccessible. The restoration of healthy aggression is an essential part in the recovery from trauma. Empowerment is the acceptance of personal authority. It derives from the capacity to choose the direction and execution of one’s own energies. Mastery is the possession of skillful techniques in dealing successfully with threat. Orientation is the process of ascertaining one’s position relative to both circumstance and environment. In these ways the residue of trauma is renegotiated. ~ Peter A Levine,

342:Real empowerment comes from having both the principles and the practices understood and applied at all levels of the organization. Practices are the what to do’s, specific applications that fit specific circumstances. Principles are the why to do’s, the elements upon which applications or practices are built. Without understanding the principles of a given task, people become incapacitated when the situation changes and different practices are required to be successful. When training people, we often teach skills and practices, the specific how to of a given task. But when we teach practices without principles, we tend to make people dependent on us or others for further instruction and direction. Principle-centered leaders are men and women of character who work with competence “on farms” with “seed and soil” on the basis of natural principles and build those principles into the center of their lives, into the center of their relationships with others, into the center of their agreements and contracts, into their management processes, and into their mission statements. The challenge is to be a light, not a judge; to be a model, not a critic. ~ Stephen R Covey,

343:Real empowerment comes from having both the principles and the practices understood and applied at all levels of the organization. Practices are the what to do’s, specific applications that fit specific circumstances. Principles are the why to do’s, the elements upon which applications or practices are built. Without understanding the principles of a given task, people become incapacitated when the situation changes and different practices are required to be successful. When training people, we often teach skills and practices, the specific how to of a given task. But when we teach practices without principles, we tend to make people dependent on us or others for further instruction and direction. Principle-centered leaders are men and women of character who work with competence “on farms” with “seed and soil” on the basis of natural principles and build those principles into the center of their lives, into the center of their relationships with others, into the center of their agreements and contracts, into their management processes, and into their mission statements. The challenge is to be a light, not a judge; to be a model, not a critic. Section 1 PERSONAL and INTERPERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS ~ Stephen R Covey,

344:Critical pessimists, such as media critics Mark Crispin Miller, Noam Chomsky, and Robert McChesney, focus primarily on the obstacles to achieving a more democratic society. In the process, they often exaggerate the power of big media in order to frighten readers into taking action. I don't disagree with their concern about media concentration, but the way they frame the debate is self-defeating insofar as it disempowers consumers even as it seeks to mobilize them. Far too much media reform rhetoric rests on melodramatic discourse about victimization and vulnerability, seduction and manipulation, "propaganda machines" and "weapons of mass deception". Again and again, this version of the media reform movement has ignored the complexity of the public's relationship to popular culture and sided with those opposed to a more diverse and participatory culture. The politics of critical utopianism is founded on a notion of empowerment; the politics of critical pessimism on a politics of victimization. One focuses on what we are doing with media, and the other on what media is doing to us. As with previous revolutions, the media reform movement is gaining momentum at a time when people are starting to feel more empowered, not when they are at their weakest. ~ Henry Jenkins,

345:Conditions in the wider political economy simultaneously shape Black women's subordination and foster activism. On some level, people who are oppressed usually know it. For African-American women, the knowledge gained at intersecting oppressions of race, class, and gender provides the stimulus for crafting and passing on the subjugated knowledge of Black women's critical social theory.

As a historically oppressed group, U.S. Black women have produced social thought designed to oppose oppression. Not only does the form assumed by this thought diverge from standard academic theory - it can take the form of poetry, music, essays, and the like - but the purpose of Black women's collective thought is distinctly different. Social theories emerging from and/or on behalf of U.S. Black women and other historically oppressed groups aim to find ways to escape from, survive in, and/or oppose prevailing social and economic injustice. In the United States, for example, African-American social and political thought analyzes institutionalized racism, not to help it work more efficiently, but to resist it. Feminism advocates women's emancipation and empowerment, Marxist social thought aims for a more equitable society, while queer theory opposes heterosexism. ~ Patricia Hill Collins,

346:What we are doing at this moment is incredibly unnecessary and archaic. And we do it because it’s how we’ve always done it: gather together and talk. But, you know, Tim Leary had a wonderful saying back in the sixties; he said, “Find the others.” Find the others. Well, if you go onto the net, no matter what your concern is—you know, the restoration of south German harpsichords, or whatever it is—there are hundreds of people waiting to share their secrets with you, to passionately communicate with you, to draw you into a community. The net is a tremendous permission for eccentricity. You know, if you’re a 245-pound white male and you want to present yourself as a seven-year-old black girl who’s made a great victory over polio—hey, nobody can stop you from doing that on the net. On the net you are who you say you are. And all interest groups, no matter how peculiar and formerly insulated, can contact each other instantly. So the idea, the very notion, of orthodoxy is melting away. Freakery is the wave of the future. The bohemians knew it, the ’pataphysicians knew it, the dadaists knew it, the surrealists knew it, the hippies, even the zippies. Eccentricity and the empowerment of individuality is a paradoxical part of living in an electronic collectivity. ~ Terence McKenna, Spirituality and Technology,

347:Dear my strong girls, you will all go through that phase of life making a mistake of helping a toxic girl whose friendship with you turns into her self-interest. This kind of girls is a real burden towards the empowerment of other females as they can never get past their own insecurity and grow out of high-school-like drama. Despite how advanced we are in educating modern women, this type will still go through life living in identity crisis, endlessly looking for providers of any kind at the end of the day. They can never stand up for others or things that matter because they can't stand up for themselves. They care what everyone thinks only doing things to impress men, friends, strangers, everyone in society except themselves, while at the same time can't stand seeing other women with purpose get what those women want in life. But let me tell you, this is nothing new, let them compete and compare with you as much as they wish, be it your career, love or spirit. You know who you are and you will know who your true girls are by weeding out girls that break our girlie code of honor, but do me a favor by losing this type of people for good. Remind yourself to never waste time with a person who likes to betray others' trust, never. Disloyalty is a trait that can't be cured. Bless yourself that you see a person's true colors sooner than later. With love, your mama. XOXO ~ Shannon L Alder,

348:Why Not You?

Today, many will awaken with a fresh sense of inspiration. Why not you?

Today, many will open their eyes to the beauty that surrounds them. Why not you?

Today, many will choose to leave the ghost of yesterday behind and seize the immeasurable power of today. Why not you?

Today, many will break through the barriers of the past by looking at the blessings of the present. Why not you?

Today, for many the burden of self doubt and insecurity will be lifted by the security and confidence of empowerment. Why not you?

Today, many will rise above their believed limitations and make contact with their powerful innate strength. Why not you?

Today, many will choose to live in such a manner that they will be a positive role model for their children. Why not you?

Today, many will choose to free themselves from the personal imprisonment of their bad habits. Why not you?

Today, many will choose to live free of conditions and rules governing their own happiness. Why not you?

Today, many will find abundance in simplicity. Why not you?

Today, many will be confronted by difficult moral choices and they will choose to do what is right instead of what is beneficial. Why not you?

Today, many will decide to no longer sit back with a victim mentality, but to take charge of their lives and make positive changes. Why not you?

Today, many will take the action necessary to make a difference. Why not you?

Today, many will make the commitment to be a better mother, father, son, daughter, student, teacher, worker, boss, brother, sister, & so much more. Why not you?

Today is a new day!

Many will seize this day.

Many will live it to the fullest.

Why not you? ~ Steve Maraboli,

349:Ekajaṭī or Ekajaṭā, (Sanskrit: "One Plait Woman"; Wylie: ral gcig ma: one who has one knot of hair),[1] also known as Māhacīnatārā,[2] is one of the 21 Taras. Ekajati is, along with Palden Lhamo deity, one of the most powerful and fierce goddesses of Vajrayana Buddhist mythology.[1][3] According to Tibetan legends, her right eye was pierced by the tantric master Padmasambhava so that she could much more effectively help him subjugate Tibetan demons.

Ekajati is also known as "Blue Tara", Vajra Tara or "Ugra Tara".[1][3] She is generally considered one of the three principal protectors of the Nyingma school along with Rāhula and Vajrasādhu (Wylie: rdo rje legs pa).

Often Ekajati appears as liberator in the mandala of the Green Tara. Along with that, her ascribed powers are removing the fear of enemies, spreading joy, and removing personal hindrances on the path to enlightenment.

Ekajati is the protector of secret mantras and "as the mother of the mothers of all the Buddhas" represents the ultimate unity. As such, her own mantra is also secret. She is the most important protector of the Vajrayana teachings, especially the Inner Tantras and termas. As the protector of mantra, she supports the practitioner in deciphering symbolic dakini codes and properly determines appropriate times and circumstances for revealing tantric teachings. Because she completely realizes the texts and mantras under her care, she reminds the practitioner of their preciousness and secrecy.[4] Düsum Khyenpa, 1st Karmapa Lama meditated upon her in early childhood.

According to Namkhai Norbu, Ekajati is the principal guardian of the Dzogchen teachings and is "a personification of the essentially non-dual nature of primordial energy."[5]

Dzogchen is the most closely guarded teaching in Tibetan Buddhism, of which Ekajati is a main guardian as mentioned above. It is said that Sri Singha (Sanskrit: Śrī Siṃha) himself entrusted the "Heart Essence" (Wylie: snying thig) teachings to her care. To the great master Longchenpa, who initiated the dissemination of certain Dzogchen teachings, Ekajati offered uncharacteristically personal guidance. In his thirty-second year, Ekajati appeared to Longchenpa, supervising every ritual detail of the Heart Essence of the Dakinis empowerment, insisting on the use of a peacock feather and removing unnecessary basin. When Longchenpa performed the ritual, she nodded her head in approval but corrected his pronunciation. When he recited the mantra, Ekajati admonished him, saying, "Imitate me," and sang it in a strange, harmonious melody in the dakini's language. Later she appeared at the gathering and joyously danced, proclaiming the approval of Padmasambhava and the dakinis.[6] ~ Wikipedia,

350:Marcelina loved that miniscule, precise moment when the needle entered her face. It was silver; it was pure. It was the violence that healed, the violation that brought perfection. There was no pain, never any pain, only a sense of the most delicate of penetrations, like a mosquito exquisitely sipping blood, a precision piece of human technology slipping between the gross tissues and cells of her flesh. She could see the needle out of the corner of her eye; in the foreshortened reality of the ultra-close-up it was like the stem of a steel flower. The latex-gloved hand that held the syringe was as vast as the creating hand of God: Marcelina had watched it swim across her field of vision, seeking its spot, so close, so thrillingly, dangerously close to her naked eyeball. And then the gentle stab. Always she closed her eyes as the fingers applied pressure to the plunger. She wanted to feel the poison entering her flesh, imagine it whipping the bloated, slack, lazy cells into panic, the washes of immune response chemicals as they realized they were under toxic attack; the blessed inflammation, the swelling of the wrinkled, lined skin into smoothness, tightness, beauty, youth.

Marcelina Hoffman was well on her way to becoming a Botox junkie.

Such a simple treat; the beauty salon was on the same block as Canal Quatro. Marcelina had pioneered the lunch-hour face lift to such an extent that Lisandra had appropriated it as the premise for an entire series. Whore. But the joy began in the lobby with Luesa the receptionist in her high-collared white dress saying “Good afternoon, Senhora Hoffman,” and the smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and brightness of the frosted glass panels and the bare wood floor and the cream-on-white cotton wall hangings, the New Age music that she scorned anywhere else (Tropicalismo hippy-shit) but here told her, “you’re wonderful, you’re special, you’re robed in light, the universe loves you, all you have to do is reach out your hand and take anything you desire.”

Eyes closed, lying flat on the reclining chair, she felt her work-weary crow’s-feet smoothed away, the young, energizing tautness of her skin. Two years before she had been to New York on the Real Sex in the City production and had been struck by how the ianqui women styled themselves out of personal empowerment and not, as a carioca would have done, because it was her duty before a scrutinizing, judgmental city. An alien creed: thousand-dollar shoes but no pedicure. But she had brought back one mantra among her shopping bags, an enlightenment she had stolen from a Jennifer Aniston cosmetics ad. She whispered it to herself now, in the warm, jasmine-and vetiver-scented sanctuary as the botulin toxins diffused through her skin.

Because I’m worth it. ~ Ian McDonald,

351:Our political system today does not engage the best minds in our country to help us get the answers and deploy the resources we need to move into the future. Bringing these people in—with their networks of influence, their knowledge, and their resources—is the key to creating the capacity for shared intelligence that we need to solve the problems we face, before it’s too late. Our goal must be to find a new way of unleashing our collective intelligence in the same way that markets have unleashed our collective productivity. “We the people” must reclaim and revitalize the ability we once had to play an integral role in saving our Constitution. The traditional progressive solution to problems that involve a lack of participation by citizens in civic and democratic processes is to redouble their emphasis on education. And education is, in fact, an extremely valuable strategy for solving many of society’s ills. In an age where information has more economic value than ever before, it is obvious that education should have a higher national priority. It is also clear that democracies are more likely to succeed when there is widespread access to high-quality education. Education alone, however, is necessary but insufficient. A well-educated citizenry is more likely to be a well-informed citizenry, but the two concepts are entirely different, one from the other. It is possible to be extremely well educated and, at the same time, ill informed or misinformed. In the 1930s and 1940s, many members of the Nazi Party in Germany were extremely well educated—but their knowledge of literature, music, mathematics, and philosophy simply empowered them to be more effective Nazis. No matter how educated they were, no matter how well they had cultivated their intellect, they were still trapped in a web of totalitarian propaganda that mobilized them for evil purposes. The Enlightenment, for all of its liberating qualities—especially its empowerment of individuals with the ability to use reason as a source of influence and power—has also had a dark side that thoughtful people worried about from its beginning. Abstract thought, when organized into clever, self-contained, logical formulations, can sometimes have its own quasi-hypnotic effect and so completely capture the human mind as to shut out the leavening influences of everyday experience. Time and again, passionate believers in tightly organized philosophies and ideologies have closed their minds to the cries of human suffering that they inflict on others who have not yet pledged their allegiance and surrendered their minds to the same ideology. The freedoms embodied in our First Amendment represented the hard-won wisdom of the eighteenth century: that individuals must be able to fully participate in challenging, questioning, and thereby breathing human values constantly into the prevailing ideologies of their time and sharing with others the wisdom of their own experience. ~ Al Gore,

352:We have gone sick by following a path of untrammelled rationalism, male dominance, attention to the visible surface of things, practicality, bottom-line-ism. We have gone very, very sick. And the body politic, like any body, when it feels itself to be sick, it begins to produce antibodies, or strategies for overcoming the condition of dis-ease. And the 20th century is an enormous effort at self-healing. Phenomena as diverse as surrealism, body piercing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, jazz, experimental dance, rave culture, tattooing, the list is endless. What do all these things have in common? They represent various styles of rejection of linear values. The society is trying to cure itself by an archaic revival, by a reversion to archaic values. So when I see people manifesting sexual ambiguity, or scarifying themselves, or showing a lot of flesh, or dancing to syncopated music, or getting loaded, or violating ordinary canons of sexual behaviour, I applaud all of this; because it's an impulse to return to what is felt by the body -- what is authentic, what is archaic -- and when you tease apart these archaic impulses, at the very centre of all these impulses is the desire to return to a world of magical empowerment of feeling.

And at the centre of that impulse is the shaman: stoned, intoxicated on plants, speaking with the spirit helpers, dancing in the moonlight, and vivifying and invoking a world of conscious, living mystery. That's what the world is. The world is not an unsolved problem for scientists or sociologists. The world is a living mystery: our birth, our death, our being in the moment -- these are mysteries. They are doorways opening on to unimaginable vistas of self-exploration, empowerment and hope for the human enterprise. And our culture has killed that, taken it away from us, made us consumers of shoddy products and shoddier ideals. We have to get away from that; and the way to get away from it is by a return to the authentic experience of the body -- and that means sexually empowering ourselves, and it means getting loaded, exploring the mind as a tool for personal and social transformation.

The hour is late; the clock is ticking; we will be judged very harshly if we fumble the ball. We are the inheritors of millions and millions of years of successfully lived lives and successful adaptations to changing conditions in the natural world. Now the challenge passes to us, the living, that the yet-to-be-born may have a place to put their feet and a sky to walk under; and that's what the psychedelic experience is about, is caring for, empowering, and building a future that honours the past, honours the planet and honours the power of the human imagination. There is nothing as powerful, as capable of transforming itself and the planet, as the human imagination. Let's not sell it straight. Let's not whore ourselves to nitwit ideologies. Let's not give our control over to the least among us. Rather, you know, claim your place in the sun and go forward into the light. The tools are there; the path is known; you simply have to turn your back on a culture that has gone sterile and dead, and get with the programme of a living world and a re-empowerment of the imagination. Thank you very, very much. ~ Terence McKenna,

353:Depression goes through stages, but if left unchecked and not treated, this elevator ride will eventually go all the way to the bottom floor. And finally you find yourself bereft of choices, unable to figure out a way up or out, and pretty soon one overarching impulse begins winning the battle for your mind: “Kill yourself.” And once you get over the shock of those words in your head, the horror of it, it begins to start sounding appealing, even possessing a strange resolve, logic. In fact, it’s the only thing you have left that is logical. It becomes the only road to relief. As if just the planning of it provides the first solace you’ve felt that you can remember. And you become comfortable with it. You begin to plan it and contemplate the details of how best to do it, as if you were planning travel arrangements for a vacation. You just have to get out. O-U-T. You see the white space behind the letter O? You just want to crawl through that O and be out of this inescapable hurt that is this thing they call clinical depression. “How am I going to do this?” becomes the only tape playing. And if you are really, really, really depressed and you’re really there, you’re gonna find a way. I found a way. I had a way. And I did it. I made sure Opal was out of the house and on a business trip. My planning took a few weeks. I knew exactly how I was going to do it: I didn’t want to make too much of a mess. There was gonna be no blood, no drama. There was just going to be, “Now you see me, now you don’t.” That’s what it was going to be. So I did it. And it was over. Or so I thought. About twenty-four hours later I woke up. I was groggy; zoned out to the point at which I couldn’t put a sentence together for the next couple of days. But I was semifunctional, and as these drugs and shit that I took began to wear off slowly but surely, I realized, “Okay, I fucked up. I didn’t make it.” I thought I did all the right stuff, left no room for error, but something happened. And this perfect, flawless plan was thwarted. As if some force rebuked me and said, “Not yet. You’re not going anywhere.” The only reason I could have made it, after the amount of pills and alcohol and shit I took, was that somebody or something decided it wasn’t my time. It certainly wasn’t me making that call. It was something external. And when you’re infused with the presence of this positive external force, which is so much greater than all of your efforts to the contrary, that’s about as empowering a moment as you can have in your life. These days we have a plethora of drugs one can take to ameliorate the intensity of this lack of hope, lack of direction, lack of choice. So fuck it and don’t be embarrassed or feel like you can handle it yourself, because lemme tell ya something: you can’t. Get fuckin’ help. The negative demon is strong, and you may not be as fortunate as I was. My brother wasn’t. For me, despair eventually gave way to resolve, and resolve gave way to hope, and hope gave way to “Holy shit. I feel better than I’ve ever felt right now.” Having actually gone right up to the white light, looked right at it, and some force in the universe turned me around, I found, with apologies to Mr. Dylan, my direction home. I felt more alive than I’ve ever felt. I’m not exaggerating when I say for the next six months I felt like Superman. Like I’m gonna fucking go through walls. That’s how strong I felt. I had this positive force in me. I was saved. I was protected. I was like the only guy who survived and walked away from a major plane crash. I was here to do something big. What started as the darkest moment in my life became this surge of focus, direction, energy, and empowerment. ~ Ron Perlman,

354:There were other important reasons for the growth of American individualism at the expense of community in the second half of the twentieth century besides the nature of capitalism. The first arose as an unintended consequence of a number of liberal reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. Slum clearance uprooted and destroyed many of the social networks that existed in poor neighborhoods, replacing them with an anonymous and increasingly dangerous existence in high-rise public housing units. “Good government” drives eliminated the political machines that at one time governed most large American cities. The old, ethnically based machines were often highly corrupt, but they served as a source of local empowerment and community for their clients. In subsequent years, the most important political action would take place not in the local community but at higher and higher levels of state and federal government. A second factor had to do with the expansion of the welfare state from the New Deal on, which tended to make federal, state, and local governments responsible for many social welfare functions that had previously been under the purview of civil society. The original argument for the expansion of state responsibilities to include social security, welfare, unemployment insurance, training, and the like was that the organic communities of preindustrial society that had previously provided these services were no longer capable of doing so as a result of industrialization, urbanization, decline of extended families, and related phenomena. But it proved to be the case that the growth of the welfare state accelerated the decline of those very communal institutions that it was designed to supplement. Welfare dependency in the United States is only the most prominent example: Aid to Familles with Dependent Children, the depression-era legislation that was designed to help widows and single mothers over the transition as they reestablished their lives and families, became the mechanism that permitted entire inner-city populations to raise children without the benefit of fathers. The rise of the welfare state cannot be more than a partial explanation for the decline of community, however. Many European societies have much more extensive welfare states than the United States; while nuclear families have broken down there as well, there is a much lower level of extreme social pathology. A more serious threat to community has come, it would seem, from the vast expansion in the number and scope of rights to which Americans believe they are entitled, and the “rights culture” this produces. Rights-based individualism is deeply embedded in American political theory and constitutional law. One might argue, in fact, that the fundamental tendency of American institutions is to promote an ever-increasing degree of individualism. We have seen repeatedly that communities tend to be intolerant of outsiders in proportion to their internal cohesiveness, because the very strength of the principles that bind members together exclude those that do not share them. Many of the strong communal structures in the United States at midcentury discriminated in a variety of ways: country clubs that served as networking sites for business executives did not allow Jews, blacks, or women to join; church-run schools that taught strong moral values did not permit children of other denominations to enroll; charitable organizations provided services for only certain groups of people and tried to impose intrusive rules of behavior on their clients. The exclusiveness of these communities conflicted with the principle of equal rights, and the state increasingly took the side of those excluded against these communal organizations. ~ Francis Fukuyama,

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