Domineering Quotes

“I have an idea for a new book. It's a novel about a beautiful yet sensitive author whose spirit is crushed by her domineering editor. Do you like it?”

“The author charted the importance of human examples on his spiritual journey, confessing that when harsh and domineering people based their bullying on Christ's authority, he rebelled. But when his wife represented the gracefulness of Christ's character, he was drawn back to know Christ more fully.”

“I believe I may assert that they were really in possession of deep and growing happiness. It ended. Well, we must be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering- and it ended when circumstances caused each to feel that the one's interest was not in the chief consideration in the other's thoughts.”

“Maybe you're starting to move on, my love. But to fully do it, you have to let the guilt go. Gabriel will always be an important part of your life. I don't even want to imagine how difficult it is to move on, but a new love always helps. I can bet you will find it in MacCraig's arms. He may be domineering and commanding, but everyone has flaws.”

“Maybe it's just not the right time for us to be married. I don't want to be a bounty hunter for the rest of my life, but I certainly don't want to be a housewife right now. And I really don't want to be married to someone who gives me ultimatums.And maybe Joe needs to examine what he wants from a wife. He was raised in a traditional Italian household with a stay-at-home mother and domineering father. If he wants a wife who will fit into that mold, I'm not for him. I might be a stay-at-home mother someday, but I'll always be trying to fly off the garage roof. That's just who I am.”

“With domineering hand she moves the turning wheel,Like currents in a treacherous bay swept to and fro:Her ruthless will has just deposed once fearful kingsWhile trustless still, from low she lifts a conquered head;No cries of misery she hears, no tears she heeds,But steely hearted laughs at groans her deeds have wrung.Such is a game she plays, and so she tests her strength;Of mighty power she makes parade when one short hourSees happiness from utter desolation grow.(A Consolation of Philosophy, Book II, translated by V.E. Watts)”

“Socrates tried to soothe us, true enough. He said there were only two possibilities. Either the soul is immortal or, after death, things would be again as blank as they were before we were born. This is not absolutely comforting either. Anyway it was natural that theology and philosophy should take the deepest interest in this. They owe it to us not to be boring themselves. On this obligation they don’t always make good. However, Kierkegaard was not a bore. I planned to examine his contribution in my master essay. In his view the primacy of the ethical over the esthetic mode was necessary to restore the balance. But enough of that. In myself I could observe the following sources of tedium: 1) The lack of a personal connection with the external world. Earlier I noted that when I was riding through France in a train last spring I looked out of the window and thought that the veil of Maya was wearing thin. And why was this? I wasn’t seeing what was there but only what everyone sees under a common directive. By this is implied that our worldview has used up nature. The rule of this view is that I, a subject, see the phenomena, the world of objects. They, however, are not necessarily in themselves objects as modern rationality defines objects. For in spirit, says Steiner, a man can step out of himself and let things speak to him about themselves, to speak about what has meaning not for him alone but also for them. Thus the sun the moon the stars will speak to nonastronomers in spite of their ignorance of science. In fact it’s high time that this happened. Ignorance of science should not keep one imprisoned in the lowest and weariest sector of being, prohibited from entering into independent relations with the creation as a whole. The educated speak of the disenchanted (a boring) world. But it is not the world, it is my own head that is disenchanted. The world cannot be disenchanted. 2) For me the self-conscious ego is the seat of boredom. This increasing, swelling, domineering, painful self-consciousness is the only rival of the political and social powers that run my life (business, technological-bureaucratic powers, the state). You have a great organized movement of life, and you have the single self, independently conscious, proud of its detachment and its absolute immunity, its stability and its power to remain unaffected by anything whatsoever — by the sufferings of others or by society or by politics or by external chaos. In a way it doesn’t give a damn. It is asked to give a damn, and we often urge it to give a damn but the curse of noncaring lies upon this painfully free consciousness. It is free from attachment to beliefs and to other souls. Cosmologies, ethical systems? It can run through them by the dozens. For to be fully conscious of oneself as an individual is also to be separated from all else. This is Hamlet’s kingdom of infinite space in a nutshell, of “words, words, words,” of “Denmark’s a prison.”

“We all know so goddamn well what's best for other people that it seems unnecessary we get to know them before imposing our will on them.”