a sureness QUOTES

1 " It is important to refuse to be intimidated. That refusal must not be based simply on a calculation of the odds of succeeding. At times, in my case, multiple lawsuits and an ethics charge seemed overwhelming, and the fact that I knew my work to be accurate and responsible was only partial solace. l was well aware that court, like the National Football League, is an arena in which, on any given Sunday, anybody can win.
The refusal to be intimidated must come, in the end, not from a sureness of succeeding but from a knowledge of the cost of scurrying for shelter through fake retractions and disowned truths. It is a question, in the end of self-respect.
Who among us could, in good faith, ever face a survivor of childhood abuse again were we to run for cover when pressed ourselves? Children are not permitted that choice, and the adults who choose to work with them and with the survivors they become cannot afford to make it. It would be a choice to become. Through betrayal and deceit, that to which we object.
Our alternative, then, is not to hide. Not to refuse to treat adult survivors, not to refuse to go to court in their defense, not to apologize and retract statements we know are true, but to cultivate endurance and tenacity as carefully as we read the research.

Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 "

― Anna C. Salter

2 " Whereas life separates meaning from emotion, art unites them. Story is an instrument by which you create such epiphanies at will, the phenomenon known as aesthetic emotion...Life on its own, without art to shape it, leaves you in confusion and chaos, but aesthetic emotion harmonizes what you know with what you feel to give you a heightened awareness and a sureness of your place in reality. "

― Robert McKee , Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

3 " Ego is not an enemy to be broken or demolished, as is often portrayed in spiritual literature. We don't want to get rid of the ego, we want to soften it, make it porous and receptive, so information, thoughts, and compassion flow in and out. A healthy ego allows us to have the strength of our convictions yet be open to others. Psychological literature often refers to ego strength - a sureness about ourselves that rests calmly inside, the will to actualize our dreams, or stand fast to our beliefs without worrying about the consequences.

By contrast, the rigid or inflated ego is concrete and dualistic - right-wrong, good-bad, friend-foe...It believes the stories we've made up are reality and doesn't realize that they are only the cover over our essence...To deflect fear, the inflated ego dons a mask and becomes artificial in relationships...This leaves us a stranger to ourself and the person we are meeting. In fact, there has been no authentic connection; it's only our personas that have met. "

― Charlotte Kasl

4 " On Earth one of the things that a large proportion of the locals is most proud of is this wonderful economic system which, with a sureness and certainty so comprehensive one could almost imagine the process bears some relation to their limited and limiting notions of either thermodynamics or God, all food, comfort, energy, shelter, space, fuel and sustenance gravitates naturally and easily away from those who need it most and towards those who need it least. Indeed, those on the receiving end of such largesse are often harmed unto death by its arrival, though the effects may take years and generations to manifest themselves. "

― Iain M. Banks , The State of the Art (Culture, #4)