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Great Artists Are Products Of Their Own Time: They Do Not Spring Forth Fully Equipped From The Head Of Jove, But Are Formed By The Circumstances Acting Upon Them Since Birth. These Circumstances Include The Ambiance Created By The Other, Lesser Artists Of Their Own Time, Who Have All Done Their Part In Creating The Pressure That Forces Up An Exceptional Talent. Unjustly, But Unavoidably, The Very Closeness Of A Great Artist To His Colleagues And Contemporaries Leads To Their Eclipse.

-Germaine Greer

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Great Artists Are Products

Germaine Greer

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Great Artists Are Products Of Their Own Time: They Do Not Spring Forth Fully Equipped From The Head Of Jove, But Are Formed By The Circumstances Acting Upon Them Since Birth. These Circumstances Include The Ambiance Created By The Other, Lesser Artists Of Their Own Time, Who Have All Done Their Part In Creating The Pressure That Forces Up An Exceptional Talent. Unjustly, But Unavoidably, The Very Closeness Of A Great Artist To His Colleagues And Contemporaries Leads To Their Eclipse.

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The Struggle Which Is Not Joyous Is The Wrong Struggle. The Joy Of The Struggle Is Not Hedonism And Hilarity, But The Sense Of Purpose, Achievement And Dignity.

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Inalienable Rights

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The Treatment For Jaded Sensibilities Is Not To Shatter Them, After All.

If Women Understand By Emancipation The Adoption Of The Masculine Role Then We Are Lost Indeed.

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As Angelo Discovered In Measure For Measure, Nothing Corrupts Like Virtue.

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There Have Been Women In The Past Far More Daring Than We Would Need To Be Now, Who Ventured All And Gained A Little, But Survived After All.

A Garden Is The Best Alternative Therapy.

Men Ought To Become More Conscious Of Their Bodies As Objects Of Delight.

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The Castration Of Women Has Been Carried Out In Terms Of A Masculine-feminine Polarity, In Which Men Have Commandeered All The Energy And Streamlined It Into An Aggressive Conquistadorial Power, Reducing All Heterosexual Contact To A Sadomasochistic Pattern.

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War Is The Admission Of Defeat In The Face Of Conflicting Interests: By War The Issue Is Left To Chance, And The Tacit Assumption That The Best Man Will Win Is Not At All Justified. It Might Equally Be Argued That The Worst, The Most Unscrupulous Man Will Win, Although History Will Continue The Absurd Game By Finding Him After All The Best Man.

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Military Mythology Has To Pretend That Real Men Are In The Majority; Cowards Can Never Be Allowed To Feel That They Might Be The Normal Ones And The Heroes Are Insane.

Lifelong Monogamy Is A Maniacal Idea.

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It Is Often Falsely Assumed, Even By Feminists, That Sexuality Is The Enemy Of The Female Who Really Wants To Develop These Aspects Of Her Personality, And This Is Perhaps The Most Misleading Aspect Of Movements Like The National Organization Of Women. It Was Not The Insistence Upon Her Sex That Weakened The American Woman Student's Desire To Make Something Of Her Education, But The Insistence Upon A Passive Sexual Role

The Blind Conviction That We Have To Do Something About Other People's Reproductive Behavior, And That We May Have To Do It Whether They Like It Or Not, Derives From The Assumption That The World Belongs To Us, Who Have So Expertly Depleted Its Resources, Rather Than To Them, Who Have Not.

People Who Are Really Happy Do Not Concern Themselves With Convincing Others Of The Fact.

Women Are Reputed Never To Be Disgusted. The Sad Fact Is That They Often Are, But Not With Men; Following The Lead Of Men, They Are Most Often Disgusted With Themselves

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If Female Liberation Is To Happen, If The Reservoir Of Real Female Love Is To Be Tapped, This Sterile Self-deception Must Be Counteracted. The Only Literary Form Which Could Outsell Romantic Trash On The Female Market Is Hard-core Pornography.

It Is Agreed That Little Girls Should Have A Different Physical Education Than Little Boys, But It Is Not Admitted How Much Of The Difference Is Counseled By The Conviction That Little Girls Should Not Look Like Little Boys.

The Most Highly Prized Curve Of All Is That Of The Bosom.

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English Culture Is Basically Homosexual In The Sense That The Men Only Really Care About Other Men.

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Sadness Is The Matrix From Which Wit And Irony Spring; Sadness Is Uncomfortable And Creative, Which Is Why Consumer Society Cannot Tolerate It.

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Bringing Up Children Is Not A Real Occupation, Because Children Come Up Just The Same, Brought Or Not.

My Knees Have Always Been Ugly.

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Men Have Still Not Realized That Letting Women Do So Much Of The Work For So Little Reward Makes A Man In The House An Expensive Luxury Rather Than A Necessity.

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Common Morality Now Treats Childbearing As An Aberration. There Are Practically No Good Reasons Left For Exercising One's Fertility.

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Brotherhood Of Man

English Children Have Lost Their Innocence, For Their First Lessons Have Been In The Exploitation Of Their Adult Slave.

The Older Woman's Love Is Not Love Of Herself, Nor Of Herself Mirrored In A Lover's Eyes, Nor Is It Corrupted By Need. It Is A Feeling Of Tenderness So Still And Deep And Warm That It Gilds Every Grass Blade And Blesses Every Fly. It Includes The Ones Who Have A Claim On It, And A Great Deal Else Besides. I Wouldn't Have Missed It For The World.

What We Ought To See In The Agonies Of Puberty Is The Result Of The Conditioning That Maims The Female Personality In Creating The Feminine.

The Goal Was 'every Child A Wanted Child'; It Should Also Have Been 'every Abortion A Wanted Abortion', But The Two Sides Of The Phony Debate Were Never To Meet.

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I Believe In Permanent Revolution.

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Despite A Lifetime Of Service To The Cause Of Sexual Liberation, I Have Never Caught Venereal Disease, Which Makes Me Feel Rather Like An Arctic Explorer Who Has Never Had Frostbite.

If You Think You Are Emancipated, You Might Consider The Idea Of Tasting Your Own Menstrual Blood - If It Makes You Sick, You've Got A Long Way To Go, Baby.

I Think That Testosterone Is A Rare Poison.

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The Most Unpardonable Privilege That Men Enjoy Is Their Magnanimity.

Two-up Is Australia's Very Own Way Of Parting A Fool And His Money.

After Centuries Of Conditioning Of The Female Into The Condition Of Perpetual Girlishness Called Femininity, We Cannot Remember What Femaleness Is.

A Woman Is Never So Happy As When She Is Being Wooed. Then She Is Mistress Of All She Surveys, The Cynosure Of All Eyes, Until That Day Of Days When She Sails Down The Aisle, A Vision In White, Lovely As The Stefanotis She Carries, Borne Translucent On Her Father's Manly Arm To Be Handed Over To Her New Father-surrogate. If She Is Clever, And If Her Husband Has The Time And The Resources, She Will Insist On Being Wooed All Her Life; More Likely She Will Discover That Marriage Is Not Romantic, That Husbands Forget Birthdays And Aniversaries And Seldom Pay Compliments, Are Often Perfunctory.

Perhaps Women Have Always Been In Closer Contact With Reality Than Men: It Would Seem To Be The Just Recompense For Being Deprived Of Idealism.

Marriage Cannot Be A Job As It Has Become.

The Hippie Is The Scion Of Surplus Value. The Dropout Can Only Claim Sanctity In A Society Which Offers Something To Be Dropped Out Of--career, Ambition, Conspicuous Consumption. The Effects Of Hippie Sanctimony Can Only Be Felt In The Context Of Others Who Plunder His Lifestyle For What They Find Good Or Profitable, A Process Known As Rip-off By The Hippie, Who Will Not See How Savagely He Has Pillaged Intricate And Demanding Civilizations For His Own Parodic Lifestyle.

A Full Bosom Is Actually A Millstone Around A Woman's Neck.

Older Women Can Afford To Agree That Femininity Is A Charade, A Matter Of Colored Hair, Ecru Lace And Whalebones, The Kind Of Slap And Tat That Transvestites Are In Love With, And No More.

I Have Always Been Principally Interested In Men For Sex. I've Always Thought Any Sane Woman Would Be A Lover Of Women Because Loving Men Is Such A Mess. I Have Always Wished I'd Fall In Love With A Woman. Damn.

Falling In Love

Most People Die In Improvised Circumstances Of Harassment And Confusion, Whether In Hospital Or Out Of It.

You're Only Young Once, But You Can Be Immature Forever.

Consensus Politics Means That You Cannot Afford To Give The Many-headed Beast, The Public, Anything To Vote Against, For Voting Against Is What Gargantuan Pseudodemocracy Has To Come Down To.

The High-heeled Shoe Is A Marvellously Contradictory Item; It Brings A Woman To A Man's Height But Makes Sure She Cannot Keep Up With Him.

Next Time Round Hitler Will Be A Machine.

Love, Love, Love - All The Wretched Cant Of It, Masking Egotism, Lust, Masochism, Fantasy Under A Mythology Of Sentimental Postures.

The Compelled Mother Loves Her Child As The Caged Bird Sings. The Song Does Not Justify The Cage Nor The Love The Enforcement.

The Most Popular Image Of The Female Despite The Exigencies Of The Clothing Trade Is All Boobs And Buttocks, A Hallucinating Sequence Of Parabolae And Bulges.

Yet If A Woman Never Lets Herself Go, How Will She Ever Know How Far She Might Have Got? If She Never Takes Off Her High-heeled Shoes, How Will She Ever Know How Far She Could Walk Or How Fast She Could Run?

Bollocks Have Never Frightened Me. I'll Eat A Bollock Any Time.

Bras Are A Ludicrous Invention; But If You Make Bralessness A Rule, You're Just Subjecting Yourself To Yet Another Repression.

In Modern Consumer Society, The Attack On Mother-child Eroticism Took Its Total Form; Breastfeeding Was Proscribed And The Breasts Reserved For The Husband's Fetishistic Delectation. At The Same Time, Babies Were Segregated, Put Into Cold Beds Alone And Not Picked Up If They Cried.

Once A Paper Admits Any Principle Of Censorship For Survival, The We-don't-want-to-do-it-but-we-don't-want-to-lose-the-printer Kind Of Censorship, It Jeopardizes The Integrity Of Its Editorial Principle. It's Better To Print And Be Damned, Because You'll Be Damned Anyway.

Psychoanalysis Is The Confession Without Absolution.

Gender Reassignment Is An Exorcism Of The Mother

The Sight Of Women Talking Together Has Always Made Men Uneasy; Nowadays It Means Rank Subversion.

Every Time A Man Unburdens His Heart To A Stranger He Reaffirms The Love That Unites Humanity.

The Management Of Fertility Is One Of The Most Important Functions Of Adulthood.

Is It Too Much To Ask That Women Be Spared The Daily Struggle For Superhuman Beauty In Order To Offer It To The Caresses Of A Subhumanly Ugly Mate?

The Only Causes Of Regret Are Laziness, Outbursts Of Temper, Hurting Others, Prejudice, Jealousy, And Envy.

Many A Housewife Staring At The Back Of Her Husband's Newspaper, Or Listening To His Breathing In Bed Is Lonelier Than Any Spinster In A Rented Room.

Freedom Is Fragile And Must Be Protected. To Sacrifice It, Even As A Temporary Measure, Is To Betray It.

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Gillard Is As Likeable As Rudd Is Charmless. She Is Self-deprecating; He Is Ludicrously Vainglorious. She Is A Mistress Of Understatement; He Is A Ranter.

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No Sex Is Better Than Bad Sex.

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Every Woman Knows That, Regardless Of All Her Other Achievements, She Is A Failure If She Is Not Beautiful.

How You Answer The Question, Whether Individuals Should Be Persuaded To Live Their Whole Lives In A State Of Chemical Dependency, First Upon Contraceptive Steroids And Then On Replacement Therapy, Depends Upon Your Regard For The Autonomy Of The Individual. If Men Would Not Live Their Lives This Way, Why Should Women?

Love, Love, Love – All The Wretched Cant Of It, Masking Egotism, Lust, Masochism, Fantasy Under A Mythology Of Sentimental Postures, A Welter Of Self-induced Miseries And Joys, Blinding And Masking The Essential Personalities In The Frozen Gestures Of Courtship, In The Kissing And The Dating And The Desire, The Compliments And The Quarrels Which Vivify Its Barrenness.

Continuing Sexual Interest And Perfect Sexual Adjustment Between Partners Who Have Been Together For Thirty Years Is So Difficult And Rare That No One Should Feel Guilty Or Inadequate For Not Having Managed It.

Freud Is The Father Of Psychoanalysis. It Had No Mother.

When I Was A Young Hippy, I Thought Marching Naked Would Be A Strong Protest, But I Don't Think It Would Be As Effective Now.

Status Ought Not To Be Measured By A Woman's Ability To Attract And Snare A Man.

Mother Is The Dead Heart Of The Family Spending Father's Earnings On Consumer Goods To Enhance The Environment In Which He Eats, Sleeps, And Watches The Television.

Because Love Has Been So Perverted, It Has In Many Cases Come To Involve A Measure Of Hatred.

Every Time A Woman Makes Herself Laugh At Her Husband's Often-told Jokes She Betrays Him. The Man Who Looks At His Woman And Says 'what Would I Do Without You?' Is Already Destroyed.

The Consequences Of Militancy Do Not Disappear When The Need For Militancy Is Over.

It Takes A Great Deal Of Courage And Independence To Decide To Design Your Own Image Instead Of The One That Society Rewards, But It Gets Easier As You Go Along.

The Pain Of Sexual Frustration, Of Repressed Tenderness, Of Denied Curiosity, Of Isolation In The Ego, Of Greed, Suppressed Rebellion, Of Hatred Poisoning All Love And Generosity, Permeates Our Sexuality. What We Love We Destroy.

It Strikes Me As Very Strange That Whereas Tennyson Could Support Most Of Mr. Buckley's Propositions About Free Trade, And The Private Sector, And Private Enterprise, Tennyson Found No Difficulty Also In Lending Intellectual Support To The Idea Of Women's Liberation.

As Soon As We Find Ourselves Working At Being Indispensable, Rigging Up A Pattern Of Vulnerability In Our Loved Ones, We Know That Our Love Has Taken The Socially Sanctioned Form Of Egotism.

In Any Library In The World, I Am At Home, Unselfconscious, Still And Absorbed.

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Frederick Douglass

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