Evolution Of A Girl Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Evolution Of A Girl. Here they are! All 174 of them:

Boys are stupid and girls are trouble.” Truer words were never spoken.
Michelle Hodkin (The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #2))
The morgue was the name the human workers gave to this room in the facility. They were careful not to utter it in front of the androids, for fear of offending them.
A.R. Merrydew (The Girl with the Porcelain Lips (Godfrey Davis, #2))
I see you made it Jack,’ he started to say, noticing a silver sphere roll across the loading bay floor. It stopped just short of his shoes before it exploded.
A.R. Merrydew (The Girl with the Porcelain Lips (Godfrey Davis, #2))
What in the name of Llar was that all about?’ Colin asked, his face still drained of colour. ‘I have no bloody idea,’ William said his voice quivering.
A.R. Merrydew (The Girl with the Porcelain Lips (Godfrey Davis, #2))
First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons — but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which had lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world — a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring — this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth. Now, the beloved can also be of any description. The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great-grandfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greasy-headed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else — but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself. It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.
Carson McCullers (The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories)
The concept and subsequent development of these JEN2 successors to the old machines, was a story in its own right. It was also one marred with frustration, hidden agendas and ultimately punctuated with a sad human tragedy.
A.R. Merrydew (The Girl with the Porcelain Lips (Godfrey Davis, #2))
She stood panting as adrenalin fired up her muscles. Flipping open the safety catches on both of her laser pistols, she set them for maximum delivery. Anything or anyone on the receiving end of these weapons would never survive, even as atoms.
A.R. Merrydew (The Girl with the Porcelain Lips (Godfrey Davis, #2))
Two seconds later, the sound of an alarm filled my ears. ''What did you do?'' I said over the noise as he backed up towards the bathroom door. ''The girl who gave you the note?'' ''Yes...'' ''I caught her staring at my lighter.'' I blinked. ''You gave a child, in a psych ward , a lighter?'' His eyes crinkled at the corners. ''She seemed trustworthy.'' ''You're sick,'' I said, but smiled. ''Hey, nobody's perfect. '' Noah smiled back.
Michelle Hodkin (The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #2))
The pretty ones are usually unhappy. They expect everyone to be enamored of their beauty. How can a person be content when their happiness lies in someone else's hands, ready to be crushed at any moment? Ordinary-looking people are far superior, because they are forced to actually work hard to achieve their goals, instead of expecting people to fall all over themselves to help them.
J. Cornell Michel (Jordan's Brains: A Zombie Evolution)
I mean to say, I know perfectly well that I've got, roughly speaking, half the amount of brain a normal bloke ought to possess. And when a girl comes along who has about twice the regular allowance, she too often makes a bee line for me with the love light in her eyes. I don't know how to account for it, but it is so." "It may be Nature's provision for maintaining the balance of the species, sir.
P.G. Wodehouse
When I was just a cute little caterpillar, you loved me. So I became a butterfly so you would never leave.
Crystal Woods (Write like no one is reading 3)
I rested my head on my arms and sighed dramatically.  "What's up?" she asked "Why are boys so annoying?" she chuckled. "You know what my mother used to say?" I shook my head still in position  "Boys are stupid and girls are trouble" truer words were never spoken.
Michelle Hodkin (The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #2))
When you are with the people you like, you tend to be happier.
Tomoko Hayakawa
I wish I was Bill Murray. I hope everything I’ve read about evolution is wrong, and I eventually evolve into him. It’s one of only three plans I have.
Caitlin Moran (How to Build a Girl)
See how a body will change, to give you the best chance it can.
Rory Power (Wilder Girls)
Boys are stupid and girls are trouble.
Michelle Hodkin (The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #2))
I could see his lips forming the word, Hey, baby. Want to party? Yeesh. After a hundred thousand years of verbal evolution, could a guy not produce a better pick up line than that?
Cecily White (Prophecy Girl (Angel Academy, #1))
We walk for about an hour before Raffe whispers, “Does moping actually help humans feel better?” “I’m not moping,” I whisper back. “Of course you’re not. A girl like you, spending time with a warrior demigod like me. What’s to mope about? Leaving a wheelchair behind couldn’t possibly show up on the radar compared to that.” I nearly stumble over a fallen branch. “You have got to be kidding me.” “I never kid about my warrior demigod status.” “Oh. My. God.” I lower my voice, having forgotten to whisper. “You are nothing but a bird with an attitude. Okay, so you have a few muscles, I’ll grant you that. But you know, a bird is nothing but a barely evolved lizard. That’s what you are.” He chuckles. “Evolution.” He leans over as if telling me a secret. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been this perfect since the beginning of time.” He is so close that his breath caresses my ear. “Oh, please. Your giant head is getting too big for this forest. Pretty soon, you’re going to get stuck trying to walk between two trees. And then, I’ll have to rescue you.” I give him a weary look. “Again.” I pick up my pace, trying to discourage the smart comeback that I’m sure will come. But it doesn’t. Could he be letting me have the last say? When I look back, Raffe has a smug grin on his face. That’s when I realize I’ve been manipulated into feeling better. I stubbornly try to resist but it’s already too late.
Susan Ee (Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1))
   ‘I see you made it Jack,’ he started to say, noticing a silver sphere roll across the loading bay floor. It stopped just short of his shoes before it exploded.
A.R. Merrydew (The Girl with the Porcelain Lips (Godfrey Davis, #2))
(About changing faith) At our best, Christians embrace it, leaving enough space within orthodoxy for God to surprise us every now and then.
Rachel Held Evans (Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions)
     The morgue was the name the human workers gave to this room in the facility. They were careful not to utter it in front of the androids, for fear of offending them.
A.R. Merrydew (The Girl with the Porcelain Lips (Godfrey Davis, #2))
We find these joys to be self evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving “village.” And to pursue a life of purpose. We affirm our duty to nourish and nurture the young, to honour their caring ideals as the heart of being human. To recognize the early years as the foundation of life, and to cherish the contribution of young children to human evolution. We commit ourselves to peaceful ways and vow to keep from harm or neglect these, our most vulnerable citizens. As guardians of their prosperity we honour the bountiful Earth whose diversity sustains us. Thus we pledge our love for generations to come.
Raffi Cavoukian
Every girl and every woman, has the potential to make this world a better place, and that potential lies in the act of thinking higher thoughts and feeling deeper things. When women and girls, everywhere, begin to see themselves as more than inanimate objects; but as beautiful beings capable of deep feelings and high thoughts, this has the capacity to create change all around. The kind of change that is for the better. Remember: High in the head and deep in the heart. Antlers on your mind and anchors in your heart.
C. JoyBell C.
I had never classified myself with other girls. I was not of their species; I was different. I had never thought my future would be like theirs.
Jacqueline Kelly (The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Calpurnia Tate, #1))
Maybe love was a myth anyhow, a brew of hormones and fantasy, evolution's way of getting men and women together long enough for them to procreate,back in the day when girls got pregnant at twelve, were pregnant or nursing for the next twenty years, and were dead of the plague by forty.
Jennifer Weiner (Fly Away Home)
Each Goddess story tells a very real lesson: that women are magic. That women have the power to remove the illusion that we are all separate from each other.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
what if they make me stay? To keep me safe?”“I wouldn’t, if I were them.” “What do you mean?”“Any minute now . . .”Two seconds later, the sound of an alarm filled my ears. “What did you do?” I said over the noise as he backed up toward the bathroom door. “The girl who gave you the note?” “Yes . . .” “I caught her staring at my lighter.” I blinked. “You gave a child, in a psych ward, a lighter.
Michelle Hodkin (The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #2))
I'm the creepy girl. In a mental hospital." He grinned. "Nobody's perfect.
Michelle Hodkin (The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #2))
Be bold, bright, and beautiful without being a bitch about it.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
The key to your power is simple: love. Love is strength. Your compassion is commanding. Your ability to heal is hailing. Let this be your Goddess ethos.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
There are four key pillars holding you up that you can re-ground yourself to. Your responsibility. Your power. Your Compassion. And your sense of unity. This, is your foundation.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
What could I say? (...) That I wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all? (...) Encouraging me the way he had, knowing that there was no new century for me, no new life for this girl.
Jacqueline Kelly (The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Calpurnia Tate, #1))
The differences between the sexes are found in babies, and across cultures, too -so this is not some weird WEIRD phenomenom. Given a choice, neonate girls spend more time looking at faces, while neonate boys spend more time looking at things.
Heather E. Heying (A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life)
Lula," I said, "do you ever think about getting married?" I guess I do. Doesn't everybody?" You have to let your husband kiss you once you're married. And you have to kiss him back." No," she said. Yes." I nodded, as if I knew everything there was to know about husbands and wives kissing. "That's what they do together." Do you have to?" Oh, absolutely. It's the law." I never heard of that law," she said dubiously. It's true, it's Texas law," I said.
Jacqueline Kelly (The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Calpurnia Tate, #1))
... People who are the spices of this world are the natural souls with instincts and impulses that have not been pruned by evolution and civilization.
Janvier Chouteu-Chando (The Girl on the Trail)
Powerful women don’t need another pair of yoga pants, we need a mic.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
The moon energy is ancient, and with it comes our elders’ insights. The silver lining to every lesson, a clarity of consciousness that can be the gift to even the darkest of passages.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
An evolved Goddess is someone who has a conscious comprehension and awareness to life, a beauty in their mindful nature, and is a role model who seeks to drive forward conscious change.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
It seems that a whole lot of people, both Christians and non-Christians, are under the impression that you can’t be a Christian and vote for a Democrat, you can’t be a Christian and believe in evolution, you can’t be a Christian and be gay, you can’t be a Christian and have questions about the Bible, you can’t be a Christian and be tolerant of other religions, you can’t be a Christian and be a feminist, you can’t be a Christian and drink or smoke, you can’t be a Christian and read the New York Times, you can’t be a Christian and support gay rights, you can’t be a Christian and get depressed, you can’t be a Christian and doubt. In fact, I am convinced that what drives most people away from Christianity is not the cost of discipleship but rather the cost of false fundamentals. False fundamentals make it impossible for faith to adapt to change. The longer the list of requirements and contingencies and prerequisites, the more vulnerable faith becomes to shifting environments and the more likely it is to fade slowly into extinction. When the gospel gets all entangled with extras, dangerous ultimatums threaten to take it down with them. The yoke gets too heavy and we stumble beneath it.
Rachel Held Evans (Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions)
What is more of a symbol of eternal growth and change than the Goddess? The eternal spiral of creation. Coiled like a serpent, our Shakti energy sits, waiting to be awakened within all of us.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
This boy - his name was Eric - said he thought it disgusting the way all the girls at my college stood around on the porches under the porch lights and in the bushes in plain view, necking madly before the one o'clock curfew, so everybody passing by could see them. A million years of evolution, Eric said bitterly, and what are we? Animals.
Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
All three girls are in their twenties now, and for all their evolution and ostensible liberation, they have no interest in a story that is not about a handsome, famous man. Still, I am their mother, and they understand that they will have to endure me in order to get to him. I take back my place on the sofa and begin again,
Ann Patchett (Tom Lake)
Know this, you can start over, every morning. Know that every day you have an opportunity to respond. Be educated, rather than angered. Be wise in your walk, rather than wounded, or wicked. Your intellect is the sharpest tool in your Goddess kit. Use it. Wisely. Know your value. Know your worth. Know your contribution. Know this.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
I am no feminist. Even though the term "feminism" is founded upon the basic principle of gender equality, it possesses its own fundamental gender bias, which makes it inclined towards the wellbeing of women, over the wellbeing of the whole society. And if history has shown anything, it is that such fundamental biases in time corrupt even the most glorious ideas and give birth to prejudice, bigotry and differentiation.
Abhijit Naskar (The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality (Humanism Series))
I had met a girl by chance that I might just as well not have met. A girl with red hair supposedly inherited from her grandfather, a plump girl with fair skin, broad lips, one eye light green and the other blue-violet, a girl who sometimes went wall-eyed and weighed around fifty-eight kilograms. Fifty-eight kilograms of water and lime, phosphorus, iron, as well as traces of other chemicals. Fifty-eight kilograms of water and a few pinches of the elements from her fellow countryman Mendeleev's table. Ten buckets of water brought to life by the great force of evolution or by our provincial God.
Tadeusz Konwicki (A Minor Apocalypse)
That night, when SanJuanna had cleared the main course and brought dessert in, my mother called for quiet and said, "Boys, I have an announcement to make. Your sister made the apple pies tonight. I'm sure we will all enjoy them very much." "Can I learn how, ma'am?" said Jim Bowie. "No, J.B. Boys don't bake pies," Mother said. "Why not?" he said. "They have wives who make pies for them." "But I don't have a wife." "Darling, I'm sure you will have a very nice one someday when you're older, and she'll make you many pies. Calpurnia, would you care to serve?" Was there any way I could have a wife, too? I wondered as I cut through the browned C and promptly shattered the entire crust.
Jacqueline Kelly (The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Calpurnia Tate, #1))
Fact is, empower a woman, and you empower the world.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
Understanding that true spiritual evolution comes from walking forward while turning inwards.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
The saying ‘the future is female’ is wrong. The truth is, ‘the future is feminine.’ There is a difference.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
The Decision ...I wiped my hands on my pinafore now sullied and stained not crisp or pressed as it had been before...
Muse (Enigmatic Evolution)
Girls in virtual networks are subjected to hundreds of times more social comparison than girls had experienced for all of human evolution. They are exposed to more cruelty and bullying because social media platforms incentivize and facilitate relational aggression. Their openness and willingness to share emotions with other girls espouses them to depression and other disorders. The twisted incentive structures of social media reward the most extreme presentations of symptoms.
Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness)
Neither a light nor a dark lesson is more justified than the other, neither is more powerful, both equal in their opportunity to gift you new insight, new levels of compassion, and a new meaning to love.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
You will experience the triple Goddess—Maiden, Mother, and Crone. These phases are symbolic to, not just your own life, but life as a whole. Birth, life, and death. As women, it is important to understand you are the cycle.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
Accordingly, he had the two leaders beheaded, and straightway installed the pair next in order as leaders in their place. When this had been done, the drum was sounded for the drill once more; and the girls went through all the evolutions, turning to the right or to the left, marching ahead or wheeling back, kneeling or standing, with perfect accuracy and precision, not venturing to utter a sound. Then Sun Tzu sent a messenger to the King saying: “Your soldiers, Sire, are now properly drilled and disciplined, and ready for your majesty's inspection. They can be put to any use that their sovereign may desire; bid them go through fire and water, and they will not disobey.
Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
She’s the latest freshest fruit of our great American evolution. She’s the self-made girl! (…) Well, to begin with, the self-made girl’s a new feature. That, however, you know. In the second place she isn’t self-made at all. We all help to make her, we take such an interest in her.
Henry James (Pandora)
I believe in God and evolution. / I believe in the Bible and the Qur’an. / I believe in Christmas and he New World. / I believe that there is good in each of us / no matter who we are or what we believe in. / I believe in the words of my grandfather. / I believe in the city and the South the past and the present. / I believe in Black people and White people coming together. / I believe in nonviolence and “Power to the People.” / I believe in my little brother’s pale skin and my own dark brown. / I believe in my sister’s brilliance and the too-easy books I love to read. / I believe in my mother on a bus and Black people refusing to ride. / I believe in good friends and good food. I believe in johnny pumps and jump ropes, / Malcolm and Martin, Buckeyes and Birmingham, / Writing and listening, bad words and good words – / I believe in Brooklyn! I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now.
Jacqueline Woodson (Brown Girl Dreaming)
They don't like me at all," Bunny said, " I went through puberty a little earlier than expected, that’s all," A dark-brown eyed girl with a bowl-shaped haircut named Evelyn Vega pressed her index finger to her forehead. “Why don't we express a different kind of love, like the shopaholics we are?" She said.
Tiffany Fulton (Soldier Evolution Revolutionary Girl)
While Alpha Males are often gifted with superior physical attributes—size, strength, speed, good looks—selected by evolution over the eons by the strongest surviving and, essentially, getting all the girls, the Beta Male gene has survived not by meeting and overcoming adversity, but by anticipating and avoiding it.
Christopher Moore (A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper, #1))
Baby, you keep doing that and we are going to need Giana to get her ass in here to take care of baby girl." He palmed my ass. "Giana is already here." She knocked on the counter behind us. "Thank you, Jesus!" Though, Chris pronounced it Hey-Seuss. Bending, he lifted me onto his shoulder and took long strides to the staircase.
Sadie Grubor (Stellar Evolution (Falling Stars, #1.5))
What is more transformative than the female form? What is more of a symbol of eternal growth and change than the Goddess? The eternal spiral of cre- ation. Coiled like a serpent, our shakti energy sits, waiting to be awakened within all of us. What our bodies and beings were built for. What we were created to do. Change. Create. Create the change.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
Know your worth, dream big, and never give up! The world needs you.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
do not teach me my sexuality is the greatest power i have and then shame me when i use it
L.E. Bowman (The Evolution of a Girl)
The Goddess ethos is: living for love, light, and legacy.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
Bedtime tales, myths, legends, fairy tales, lie the lessons and examples of what a Goddess would do.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
You can't change the world, without changing perspectives. My books, my work - its about doing just that.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
I would say that when what started as an outsider’s argument becomes the conventional wisdom of a Girl Scout troop, it is a sign of an evolution in conciousness.
Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women—a Feminist Critique on Society's Obsession with Flawless Women)
Even in nonindustrialized societies, girls do not start having children the moment they reach menarche; the average age worldwide for a first baby is nineteen, according to a 2008 article in Science.
Marlene Zuk (Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live)
My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humour, and some style. If you don’t like something, change it. Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
While Alpha Males are often gifted with superior physical attributes—size, strength, speed, good looks—selected by evolution over the eons by the strongest surviving and, essentially, getting all the girls, the Beta Male gene has survived not by meeting and overcoming adversity, but by anticipating and avoiding it. That is, when the Alpha Males were out charging after mastodons, the Beta Males could imagine in advance that attacking what was essentially an angry, woolly bulldozer with a pointy stick might be a losing proposition, so they hung back at camp to console the grieving widows. When Alpha Males set out to conquer neighboring tribes, to count coups and take heads, Beta Males could see in advance that in the event of a victory, the influx of female slaves was going to leave a surplus of mateless women cast out for younger trophy models, with nothing to do but salt down the heads and file the uncounted coups, and some would find solace in the arms of any Beta Male smart enough to survive. In the case of defeat, well, there was that widows thing again. The Beta Male is seldom the strongest or the fastest, but because he can anticipate danger, he far outnumbers his Alpha Male competition. The world is led by Alpha Males, but the machinery of the world turns on the bearings of the Beta Male.
Christopher Moore (A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper, #1))
It seems likely that male choice shaped breasts not to distinguish girls from women, but to distinguish young women from older women. Here, the informative thing about breasts is the way they droop with the effects of age and gravity.
Geoffrey Miller (The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature)
The universe, the landscape, it is all changing. It has not changed enough-that is a given- but it is changing, and evolution is something to embrace. Racism is alive and well and we still encounter microaggressions on a regular basis, bat at least now we can go home and close the door and enjoy some entertainment, see ourselves on-screen, imagine ourselves as superheroes and goddesses. Before, you got hassled, you went home, and you had nothing. That's the difference
Lynn Nottage (Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves)
Evolution means letting go of our false fundamentals so that God can get into those shadowy places we’re not sure we want him to be. It means being okay with being wrong, okay with not having all the answers, okay with never being finished.
Rachel Held Evans (Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions)
I should have learned how to tell another girl she’d hurt my feelings or understand I’d hurt hers. I should have been able to figure out how to say that I didn’t know how to turn down a boy’s attention, or that I’d rather not come along, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still your friend.
Kayleen Schaefer (Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship)
A nice girl doesn’t get turned on by a spanking,” he scolded, his fingers dipping into the pool of desire beneath my burning bottom. He dragged one knuckle down over my clit and I jerked in my bonds at the roar of pleasure it released. With one hand still on my center, he spanked me again, pushing
Giana Darling (The Affair (The Evolution of Sin Trilogy, #1))
There are no winners and losers. We seek a win-win. Seeing opportunity in cri- sis. Believe in yourself, and those around. Celebrate each other’s strengths; we do not celebrate when someone fails. It is a shift. With our insights and consciousness comes our vowed responsibility, our vowed compassion, and our vowed unity— with that comes power. The choice to do right. The choice to include. The choice to forgive. The choice to love anyway. This is your power. No matter what has been taken from you, what society has or hasn’t allowed you, what labels or beliefs limit you, your choice, your response, your action is your power.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
The brutal campaign of mass sterilisation, forced abortion and infanticide was exacerbated by the voluntary murder of baby girls on a genocidal scale as parents tried to ensure that their one legal child was a boy. Fertility fell, but not much faster than it would have done if a policy of economic development, public health and education had been adopted instead. What
Matt Ridley (The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge)
Girls,” she whispered under her breath, wondering why it was that adolescent girls simply had to be mean to their mothers. Clearly it was normal behavior; she’d spent enough time with her friends and peers to know that. So normal it was probably part of evolution. Maybe the species needed girls who thought they were grown up at thirteen for some bizarre, hidden reason.
Kristin Hannah (The Kristin Hannah Collection: Volume 1: Firefly Lane, True Colors, Fly Away)
For Villanelle, language is fluid. Most of the time she thinks in French, but every so often she awakes and knows that she’s been dreaming in Russian. At times, close to sleep, the blood roars in her ears, an unstoppable tide shot through with polyglot screams. On such occasions, alone in the Paris apartment, she anaesthetises herself with hours of web-surfing, usually in English. And now, she notes, she is mentally playing out scenarios in Sicilian-inflected Italian. She hasn’t sought out the language, but her head echoes with it. Is there any part of her that is still Oxana Vorontsova? Does she still exist, that little girl who lay night after night in urine-sodden sheets at the orphanage, planning her revenge? Or was there only ever Villanelle, evolution’s chosen instrument?
Luke Jennings (Codename Villanelle (Killing Eve, #1))
I can assure you—we have a lot of experience in being amateur!” I say when she mentions the “amateur experience.” She doesn’t laugh. No one ever laughs when I make these kinds of jokes. When Bill Murray says shit like this, people completely lose it. I wish I was Bill Murray. I hope everything I’ve read about evolution is wrong, and I eventually evolve into him. It’s one of only three plans I have.
Caitlin Moran (How to Build a Girl)
And that’s the message. That’s it. That’s all. Nothing more than what happens when things come together, when hydrogen, say, meets oxygen, or a story from then meets a story from now, or stone meets water meets girl meets boy meets bird meets hand meets wing meets bone meets light meets dark meets eye meets word meets world meets grain of sand meets thirst meets hunger meets need meets dream meets real meets same meets different meets death meets life meets end meets beginning all over again, the story of nature itself, ever-inventive, making one thing out of another, and one thing into another, and nothing lasts, and nothing’s lost, and nothing ever perishes, and things can always change, because things will always change, and things will always be different, because things can always be different.
Ali Smith (Girl Meets Boy)
Destiny Wallace was just fourteen years old but she looked at least nineteen or twenty - and that was in her school uniform. Annie couldn't help but wonder if evolution was to blame, because most of the girls in this particular group all looked like clones of each other. Well, or of Kim Kardashian or another famous person, famous for no other reason that that were famous for basically doing fuck-all constructive.
Martina Cole (Damaged (DI Kate Burrows, #4))
All three girls are in their twenties now, and for all their evolution and ostensible liberation, they have no interest in a story that is not about a handsome, famous man. Still, I am their mother, and they understand that they will have to endure me in order to get to him. I take back my place on the sofa and begin again, knowing full well that the parts they’re waiting to hear are the parts I’m never going to tell them.
Ann Patchett (Tom Lake)
Those men In Scene 34 who decided not to rape the young girl did not live to produce more children who would inherit their compassion, whereas one of the men who raped her did produce a child to inherit his lack of compassion. It is by this process of weeding the genes that do not enhance reproductive success that evolution has saddled the majority of men with the propensity to behave as rapists in the appropriate situation.
Robin Baker (Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict, and Other Bedroom Battles)
Truth is, there comes a time when turning a new page in your life is the most liberating and empowering feeling you can experience. It is that sweet moment of fruition, when you realize there’s so much more to the book of life. That the power of birthing the life you wish for lays in your hands to turn over, and cast out what doesn’t feed your soul, add to your life, help you grow, or consciously challenge you. Keep turning pages Goddess. You are allowed and encouraged to change.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
You are the new religion. You are the new craze. You are the next stage in evolution. You are so palpably my superior, in every way, that I tremble like a child in your presence. You make my head spin. You make my heart burst. You make my soul explode, every fucking minute I am with you. What I am inescapably heading towards is , in this monologue, which might be the last thing I ever say, is: Dutch, I'm in love with you." His face was as open and wondering as a child, looking at snow. "I love you, Jo.
Caitlin Moran (How to be Famous (How to Build a Girl, #2))
Readers acquainted with the recent literature on human sexuality will be familiar with what we call the standard narrative of human sexual evolution, hereafter shortened to the standard narrative. It goes something like this: 1. Boy Meets girl, 2. Boy and girl assess one and others mate value, from perspectives based upon their differing reproductive agendas/capacities. He looks for signs of youth, fertility, health, absence of previous sexual experience and likelihood of future sexual fidelity. In other words, his assessment is skewed toward finding a fertile, healthy young mate with many childbearing years ahead and no current children to drain his resources. She looks for signs of wealth (or at least prospects of future wealth), social status, physical health and likelihood that he will stick around to protect and provide for their children. Her guy must be willing and able to provide materially for her (especially during pregnancy and breastfeeding) and their children, known as "male parental investment". 3. Boy gets girl. Assuming they meet one and others criteria, they mate, forming a long term pair bond, "the fundamental condition of the human species" as famed author Desmond Morris put it. Once the pair bond is formed, she will be sensitive to indications that he is considering leaving, vigilant towards signs of infidelity involving intimacy with other women that would threaten her access to his resources and protection while keeping an eye out (around ovulation especially) for a quick fling with a man genetically superior to her husband. He will be sensitive to signs of her sexual infidelities which would reduce his all important paternity certainty while taking advantage of short term sexual opportunities with other women as his sperm are easily produced and plentiful. Researchers claim to have confirmed these basic patterns in studies conducted around the world over several decades. Their results seem to support the standard narrative of human sexual evolution, which appears to make a lot of sense, but they don't, and it doesn't.
Cacilda Jethá (Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality)
It’s time to stop hiding. It’s time to know your power, claim your voice, and tip the balance back toward a feminine future. To restore balance. It’s not about man vs. woman. Rulers vs. religion. Command and conquer. This is about harmony. Unity. Removing what has defined and divided us. It’s time to become activated Goddesses. Understand. These shifts are going to make your earth move. So if you know one thing, know this, that if you hold your Goddess energy, your truthful emotion, in your soul, nothing can shake you.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
Scientists have found that its presence begins to structure the male as different from the female right from the start, from the very beginning of the fetus’s evolution in the uterus (biologically, the original form is the female). Male and female differences in identity are already largely shaped at birth, and behavioral differences between the sexes are recorded very early, before social conditioning can play an effective role. Crudely put, baby girls are more interested in people, whereas baby boys are more interested in things.
Azar Gat (War in Human Civilization)
We don’t need an invitation to be real. The truth is: we don’t need permission to own the power of what makes us unique, what makes us female. Your emotions, your tears or temper, your love and passion. Our emotions can be wild, untamed, and raging, as it can be loving, nurturing, and consoling. All are powerful feminine energies—that when harnessed and directed towards conscious action can be an unstoppable force. So this is your official authorization to awaken into your full-bodied, emotionally activated self. Passion and power included.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
She was always saying, ‘I know I am dying from radium poisoning,’” remembered one of her physicians. “I convinced her she wasn’t; that she was going to get better. It is tact of a physician not to reveal a fatal prognosis.”17 Martland wasted no time enlightening the world about the evolution of radium’s MO. He had seen enough cases now to know that these latent sarcomas—which could leave a victim healthy for years after her exposure to radium, before coming horribly to life and taking over her body—were the new phase of this terrifying poisoning. He added: “When I first described this disease, there was a strong tendency among some of those interested in the production and therapeutic use of radium to place the entire blame on mesothorium… In the cases autopsied recently, the mesothorium has disappeared while the radium persists.”18 He could reach only one conclusion: “I am now of the opinion that the normal radioactivity of the human body should not be increased; [to do so] is dangerous.”19 It had to be, for each week another dial-painter presented another sarcoma, each in a new location—her spine, her leg, her knee, her hip, her eye… Irene’s family couldn’t believe how fast she was fading from them. But she still had grit in her. On May 4, 1931, as she lay dying in hospital, she filed a claim for damages
Kate Moore (The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women)
So confident are we in ritual's power that we dare brandish it against the might of Nature herself. Nature will have its way with us, but we have always used ritual to rob it of the last word. It is nature that determines when a baby is born. But it has always been ritual that decides when a child's body has taken adult form. But it has always been ritual that decides when the boy is recognized as a man or the girl has become a woman. Nature directs our lusts and desires, but it has always been ritual that decides who our legitimate partner is. And in the end, nature snuffs the life from the body. But it has always been ritual that determines when our beloved is dismissed from our care. Humans are the only species that take offense at Nature's indifference to our plight. Ritual is a defiant gesture expressing that offence. If we abandon ritual do we give up something of our humanity? No. It is much simpler than that. If we abandon ritual, we give up being human.
Matt J. Rossano (Ritual in Human Evolution and Religion: Psychological and Ritual Resources)
Paley’s book Boys and Girls is about the year she spent trying to get her pupils to behave in a more unisex way. And it is a chronicle of spectacular and amusing failure. None of Paley’s tricks or bribes or clever manipulations worked. For instance, she tried forcing the boys to play in the doll corner and the girls to play in the block corner. The boys proceeded to turn the doll corner into the cockpit of a starship, and the girls built a house out of blocks and resumed their domestic fantasies. Paley’s experiment culminated in her declaration of surrender to the deep structures of gender. She decided to let the girls be girls. She admits, with real self-reproach, that this wasn’t that hard for her: Paley always approved more of the girls’ relatively calm and prosocial play. It was harder to let the boys be boys, but she did. “Let the boys be robbers,” Paley concluded, “or tough guys in space. It is the natural, universal, and essential play of little boys.” I’ve been arguing that children’s pretend play is relentlessly focused on trouble. And it is. But as Melvin Konner demonstrates in his monumental book The Evolution of Childhood, there are reliable sex differences in how boys and girls play that have been found around the world. Dozens of studies across five decades and a multitude of cultures have found essentially what Paley found in her midwestern classroom: boys and girls spontaneously segregate themselves by sex; boys engage in much more rough-and-tumble play; fantasy play is more frequent in girls, more sophisticated, and more focused on pretend parenting; boys are generally more aggressive and less nurturing than girls, with the differences being present and measurable by the seventeenth month of life. The psychologists Dorothy and Jerome Singer sum up this research: “Most of the time we see clear-cut differences in the way children play. Generally, boys are more vigorous in their activities, choosing games of adventure, daring, and conflict, while girls tend to choose games that foster nurturance and affiliation.
Jonathan Gottschall (The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human)
Before you start spouting off information you’ve been brainwashed with about evolution and the food chain, read on. Yes, humans have a high level of intelligence. Yes, we created weapons for hunting and fire for cooking. Yes, we found a way to mass-produce animals for consumption. However, if you study animals in the wild, you will note that they do not rely on anything other than their natural hunting ability, speed, strength, claws, teeth, and jaws. They have no tools or weapons. Now look at yourself. Look at your flimsy fingernails in comparison to an eagle’s talons. Look at your flat, blunt teeth compared to a lion’s fangs. Compare your speed and agility to that of a tiger. Compare the strength of your jaw to a wolf’s. Imagine yourself trying to run after an animal, catch it, and kill it using your bare hands, fingernails, teeth, and jaws. Not only would you look ridiculous, but you’d probably get your ass kicked, too. And even if you were successful, envision yourself eating the kill without the aid of an oven and silverware.
Rory Freedman (Skinny Bitch: A No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide for Savvy Girls Who Want to Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous!)
That? It's nothing. A stupid mutation. A standard outcome. We used to see them in our labs. Junk." "Then why haven't we ever seen it before?" Gibbons makes a face of impatience. "You don't culture death the way we do. You don't tinker with the building blocks of nature." Interest and passion flicker briefly in the old man's eyes. Mischief and predatory interests. "You have no idea what things we succeeded in creating in our labs. This stuff is hardly worth my time. I hoped you were bringing me a challenge. Something from Drs. Ping and Raymond. Or perhaps Mahmoud Sonthalia. Those are challenges." For a moment, his eyes lose their cynicism. He becomes entranced. "Ah. Now those are worthy opponents." We are in the hands of a gamesman. In a flash of insight, Kanya understands the doctor entirely. A fierce intellect. A man who reached the pinnacle of his field. A jealous and competitive man. A man who found his competition too lacking, and so switched sides and joined the Thai Kingdom for the stimulation it might provide. An intellectual exercise for him. As if Jaidee had decided to fight a muay thai match with his hands tied behind his back to see if he could win with kicks alone. We rest in the hands of a fickle god. He plays on our behalf only for entertainment, and he will close his eyes and sleep if we fail to engage his intellect. A horrifying thought. The man exists only for competition, the chess match of evolution, fought on a global scale. An exercise in ego, a single giant fending off the attacks of dozens of others, a giant swatting them from the sky and laughing. But all giants must fall, and then what must the Kingdom look forward to?
Paolo Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl)
Magic,” Yennefer continued after a while, “is, in some people’s opinion, art. Great, elitist art, capable of creating beautiful and extraordinary things. Magic is a talent granted to only a chosen few. Others, deprived of talent, can only look at the results of the artists’ works with admiration and envy, can admire the finished work while feeling that without these creations and without this talent the world would be a poorer place. The fact that, following the Conjunction of the Spheres, some chosen few discovered talent and magic within themselves, the fact that they found Art within themselves, is the blessing of beauty. And that’s how it is. Those who believe that magic is art are also right.” On the long bare hill which protruded from the heath like the back of some lurking predator lay an enormous boulder supported by a few smaller stones. The magician guided her horse in its direction without pausing her lecture. “There are also those according to whom magic is a science. In order to master it, talent and innate ability alone are not enough. Years of keen study and arduous work are essential; endurance and self-discipline are necessary. Magic acquired like this is knowledge, learning, the limits of which are constantly stretched by enlightened and vigorous minds, by experience, experiments and practice. Magic acquired in such a way is progress. It is the plough, the loom, the watermill, the smelting furnace, the winch and the pulley. It is progress, evolution, change. It is constant movement. Upwards. Towards improvement. Towards the stars. The fact that following the Conjunction of the Spheres we discovered magic will, one day, allow us to reach the stars. Dismount, Ciri.” Yennefer approached the monolith, placed her palm on the coarse surface of the stone and carefully brushed away the dust and dry leaves. “Those who consider magic to be a science,” she continued, “are also right. Remember that, Ciri. And now come here, to me.” The girl swallowed and came closer. The enchantress put her arm around her. “Remember,” she repeated, “magic is Chaos, Art and Science. It is a curse, a blessing and progress. It all depends on who uses magic, how they use it, and to what purpose. And magic is everywhere. All around us. Easily accessible. It is enough to stretch out one’s hand. See? I’m stretching out my hand.
Andrzej Sapkowski (Blood of Elves (The Witcher, #1))
Now, using her limited artistic skills, she drew a picture of the earth and colored the ocean blue and the land green. “Who can tell me where we come from?” The assignment had come to Amisha after she and Ravi had a discussion with the boys about karma and the universe’s determination of their place. Jay had asked, in his innocence, what crime Ravi had committed in his previous life to be born an untouchable in this one. Amisha started to scold, but Ravi had assured her it was fine, and yet neither had the answer as to why one was born into his station in life. “God?” one student answered. “Evolution. We came from apes,” another answered. “And how do we live our life?” Amisha saw their confusion and tried to explain. “Once we are born, are we still controlled by the person or event that made us? Are we puppets?” The students shook their heads no. “Then how do we make our decisions?” “Our hearts.” Neema’s answer was tentative, sounding more like a question. Amisha nodded her approval, offering encouragement. “Our gut,” a boy in the front added. “What feels right.” “Our soul?” Amisha asked the boy. At his nod, she said, “Excellent—all of you.” Amisha made sure the class was focused before continuing. “The heart and soul work on emotions. They don’t always stop to think about what is right or wrong, only what they want and need. So where do they get their direction?” “From the brain.” The answer came from the back of the room. “Correct. Our minds guide us toward what is acceptable for us to create, protect, or destroy. And where does the brain get its intellect?” Amisha searched the room for an answer. At first the class was quiet, the children glancing at one another to see if anyone had the answer. Finally, a student near the front answered, “From what we learn or have been taught. By knowledge?” “Excellent. But even with our brains, heart, and soul guiding us, can we do anything we want? Do we have the freedom to make our own choices?” When the class murmured no, she asked, “Why not?” “Our parents,” a student threw out, making everyone laugh. “The Raj,” a girl in the front whispered. “Rules,” Neema said. Thrilled that the students were interested, Amisha said, “I want all of you to write about creating something you want, destroying something you don’t need, and protecting what is vital. But you must explain how your heart, your soul, and your mind feel about each event.
Sejal Badani (The Storyteller's Secret)
You are an evolving Goddess. A Goddess unites people. She nourishes people’s energy, feeds them wisdom, and helps them feel safe and secure in her unified family. She is love. She is education. She is an embodiment of good vibrations. A Goddess doesn’t seek out balance; she is balance. When imbalance surrounds her, she seeks to right the wrongs. A Goddess doesn’t fight or wait for equality; she is equality.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
We can get so tangled in shape-shifting ourselves to fit everyone else’s demands that we can never truly transform into our full authentic selves.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
Women turn up at the beginning of every important wave in technology. We're not ancillary; we're central, often hiding in plain sight. Some of the most wondrous contributions . . . .bloomed in the grubby medians of the information superhighway. Before a new field developed its authorities, and long before there was money to be made, women experimented with new technologies and pushed them beyond their design. Again and again, women did the jobs nobody thought were important, until they were. Even computer programming was initially passed off onto the girls hired to patch cables and nothing more - until the cables became patterns, and the patterns became language, and suddenly programming was something worth mastering.
Claire L Evans
Typical gross double standard. I can feel the resignation in the girls next to me—we’ve all seen it before. Like when a guy hits on you and he won’t stop until you tell him you have a boyfriend. Only then, when you’ve established that you’re some other guy’s property, will he actually respect your space. When you belong to yourself, he won’t. The thing guys like Wyatt don’t understand is that we always belong to ourselves, in a relationship and out of it. And the right person knows that.
Tess Sharpe (The Evolution of Claire)
self-pity is the poison we feed ourselves when we are daunted by the work it takes to grow
L.E. Bowman (The Evolution of a Girl)
Key word being minor.” Dr. Wu waves this away like it’s an insult. “I’ll take the girl who talked about the changing environment and O2 levels. And the redhead has some foresight, at least, so I’ll take her, too. I suppose these interns might be better than the train-wreck first batch.
Tess Sharpe (The Evolution of Claire)
Driven is what people call girls like me to our faces. Bossy is what people call girls like me behind our backs. Like it’s a bad thing. Someday, they won’t be able to say it’s like a bad thing. Because someday, I’ll be the boss.
Tess Sharpe (The Evolution of Claire)
Did you just insult Tanya and try to pit me against her by basically implying I’m better because I don’t dye my hair?” I demand. I look to the other girls, whose eyes are dancing. I feel strong with Ronnie and Tanya by my side. “Did this guy just ‘you’re not like other girls’ me?” “I think he did,” Tanya says, practically shaking with suppressed laughter. Wyatt shifts in his seat. “I just gave my opinion. Some helpful advice.” “News flash, Wyatt,” Ronnie says. “Your opinion sucks. And no one needs your advice.” “You do realize we don’t do our hair for you or any guy?” Tanya asks, an edge to her voice. “We don’t wear clothes or makeup for you. I do my hair because it makes me feel awesome and like a magical freaking mermaid. One who lures sailors into the sea and eats them.” She smiles, wicked, challenging, and so, so cool, still. “I couldn’t care less what you think.
Tess Sharpe (The Evolution of Claire)
Usually, when a woman is labeled “crazy,” there is some form of omission on the actual root cause of her “craziness.” No one I have listened to who labels a woman “crazy” ever mentions how they contributed to a woman’s madness.
Elelwani Anita Ravhuhali (From Seeking To Radiating Love: Evolution is unavoidable in the process of overpowering doubt)
As women, we aren’t taught to ask questions that matter the most to us in our upbringing. A girl child learns to be selfless and serve everyone’s needs except hers from an early age.
Elelwani Anita Ravhuhali (From Seeking To Radiating Love: Evolution is unavoidable in the process of overpowering doubt)
Being permitted to just be a child is often a luxury as a girl child. Your ears are already loaded with theories about how you have to establish yourself in life, so men can deem you worthy of marriage
Elelwani Anita Ravhuhali (From Seeking To Radiating Love: Evolution is unavoidable in the process of overpowering doubt)
Sometimes, what they teach you is absurd, and if you don’t challenge it, you negligently make flawed decisions in life. And this is particularly towards girl children. When your mama taught you to pray when your partner is abusing and mistreating you, her decision was informed from her own flawed self-esteem.
Elelwani Anita Ravhuhali (From Seeking To Radiating Love: Evolution is unavoidable in the process of overpowering doubt)
According to one of those peculiar theories, forensic evidence accumulated over the centuries proved that, after millennia of supposed evolution, humans had managed to eliminate a bit of body hair, perfect their loincloths, and refine their tools, but little else. From this premise, a second part of the theorem was inexplicably arrived at, and it went something like this: what the said threadbare evolution had not achieved even remotely was to understand that the more one tries to hide something from a child, the more he is set on finding it, be it a sweet or a postcard with outrageous chorus girls flaunting their charms to the wind. 'And thank goodness that's the way things are, because the day we lose the spark that makes us want to know things, and young people are content with the nonsense dressed in tinsel sold to them by the current popes of bullshittery—be it a mechanical electrical appliance or a battery-run chamber pot—and become incapable of understanding anything that lies beyond their backsides, we'll return to the age of the slug.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón (El laberinto de los espíritus (El cementerio de los libros olvidados, #4))
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “You are playing with fire.” “Sometimes a girl wants to get burned.
Skye Warren (The Evolution of Man (The Trust Fund Duet, #2))
two men made me fall for them. Hard. They both walked away at the same time. And look, I could handle the hit to my pride. I can pull up my big girl panties to deal with the humiliation of that. It’s the blows they dealt to my heart that left me broken. Shattered. I’m like a cartoon statue that’s been hammered. There’s a crack at the impact. The crack spreads into a thousand fractures, until I’m made of a million pieces. There’s a moment in the show when I’m frozen in air that way, and that’s how I’ve been living these past six months—the pieces suspended, waiting to fall. There’s no way to avoid it; the killing blow already happened.
Skye Warren (The Evolution of Man (The Trust Fund Duet, #2))
Why does society boast about hearts made of stone? Like something unfeeling and frozen is superior to something warm and beating. -- I will keep my bleeding heart
L.E. Bowman (The Evolution of a Girl)
the ocean in me has quieted but i still reek of salt
L.E. Bowman (The Evolution of a Girl)
Some girls grew up wanting to be the princess saved from the dragon by the handsome prince. I wanted to be the dragon slayer. Now . . . I want to be the dragon rider. I guess I can thank romance books for that evolution.
Bella Matthews (The Sweet Spot (Playing to Win, #4))
Though not all developmental snafus are true atavism,[*32] you can still trace how this evolutionary history might have played out by looking at the wombs of women today. Roughly 1 in every 350 human girls are born with two uteri and cervixes at the end of their normal, single vagina—a glitch in the developmental programming that clearly harks back to our evolutionary past. Even more commonly, 1 in 200 women are born with a “heart-shaped” uterus, wherein the upper half of the uterus is split in two. Roughly 1 in 45 girls are born with a “septate” uterus, wherein a fibrous wall separates the upper part of the uterine cavity from the lower, and 1 out of every 10 girls are born with a uterus that has a slight “dent” in the top—a wobble, if you like, in the modern outline of the human womb.
Cat Bohannon (Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution)
They are no criminals, but mere victims of a momentary absent-mindedness of Mother Nature, perhaps at their birth, perhaps at their conception. What is the explanation of the enormous increase of sexual inversion? Does nature revenge herself on the masculinized girl of to-day by rearing an effeminate son from her straightened hips and flattened breasts? Or are we the bewildered spectators of a new phase of evolution with a gradual amalgamation of two distinct animals into a new, hitherto unknown specimen, last survival of a doomed race on a worn-out planet, missing link between the Homo sapiens of today and the mysterious Super-Homo of tomorrow?
Axel Munthe (The Story of San Michele)
I never thought it through until I was thirty-six, and my husband was so busy with his practice that he couldn’t entertain me every night. The three boys were in school all day. I kept on trying to have babies despite an Rh discrepancy. After two miscarriages, they said I must stop. I thought that my own growth and evolution were over. I always knew as a child that I was going to grow up and go to college, and then get married, and that’s as far as a girl has to think. After that, your husband determines and fills your life.
Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique)
I read a book once by a lunatic who claimed that the world wasn’t made by some god; it started off empty and stuff just gradually grew,like lichen on a rock. To begin with there was just moss,and then the moss turned into plants,the plants turned into fish and birds,the fish and birds turned into lizards,the lizards turned into monkeys and the monkeys turned into people. All this happened,the nutcase said,because in each generation there’d be smarter moss,more ruthless plants,more self-centered and arrogant fish,birds,lizards and monkeys who outperformed their wretched fellows and aspired to change. They were the ones who got the girls, so their progeny survived while the losers perished. Arrogance,selfishness and a total disregard for others is,therefore, what turned moss into men.
K.J.Parker
The other day, a friend of a friend said that everyone started out as girls, but boys evolved… But don’t worry girls, I hit him.
Ben Mitchell
So do not throw your pearls before swine, Instead in the sand go and draw your line. For this love you have is rare dear girl, A guide and blessing in the name of Estelle. I sat and woke to see it all clear, A stage I was seeking, no longer to fear. For I've spent too long wasting precious time, Never again will I throw pearls before swine.
Nicole Bonomi
Why do women spend so much time in talking to their female peers? The answer can again be found in the process of biological evolution of the human mind. Just like the evolutionary expression of aggression in men, gossiping is an evolutionary feature of the female psychology. Women trade various secrets from their personal experiences through gossiping in order to create connection and intimacy with their female peers.
Abhijit Naskar (Love, God & Neurons: Memoir of a scientist who found himself by getting lost)
Within this new mix of genes are unprecedented possibilities, old weaknesses eliminated, and new weaknesses that might even turn out to be strengths. This is the mechanism by which the wheels of evolution turn. All
Hope Jahren (Lab Girl)
Our fascination with the gothic peaks in times of anxiety, panic, and upheaval. The Victorian gothic revival of the 1890s was stoked by scientific, technological, and social change. Industrialization and urbanization sparked feelings of alienation. Darwin's theories of evolution and the changing roles of women fanned racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and colonialist fears of 'primitivism,' moral decay, and sexual depravity. In the nineteenth century, terror-inducing imagery had shifted away from crumbling castles to crime-infested cities, and fear of villains and ghosts was supplanted by a fear of madness and degeneration. In the twentieth century, we celebrated/mourned the death of authorship, of the grand narrative, of the self, 'going-one-better in eschatological eloquence,' as Jacques Derrida put it, 'the end of history...the end of subject, the end of man, the end of the West, the end of Oedipus, the end of the earth, Apocalypse Now.' A few years into the new millennium, we were zombie hordes, stalking social media for brains. The gothic is the fucked-either-way-and-freaking-the-fuck-out school of artistic interpretation, the hysterical framework of doom. And this tension between horror as morality tale and horror as decadent spectacle is, I believe, what fueled the pandemic of tabloid stories about wayward starlets that raged throughout 2006 and 2007. Celebrity train wreck stories begin, conservatively, as cautionary tales. A young woman, unprotected or legally emancipated, has moved alone from the relatively sheltered and secluded condition of parent-managed child stardom (because who, nowadays, is more cut off from the world than a child star?) into a corrupt and dangerous world, where her beauty, fame, youth, fortune, and sexual allure are regarded with a charged, ambivalent awe. She is instantly besieged with dangers, and preyed upon by unscrupulous adults. Until they can be contained again, by marriage or paternal protection, she exists in a constant state of uncertainty and peril. The peril is created, of course, by the 'author' - the media outlets that shape the train wreck's life, again and again, into thrilling, chilling tales of suspense.
Carina Chocano (You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages)
People used to build great libraries to symbolize man’s quest for knowledge, now we have the Internet which is both more powerful and wonderful. The men who used to get their information from the library were considered scholars but the men who get their information from the Internet are considered idiots, or worse, thieves.
Mike Wehner (The Girl Who Can Cook)
I wish I was Bill Murray. I hope everything I’ve read about evolution is wrong, and I eventually evolve into him. It’s one of only three plans I have. I
Caitlin Moran (How to Build a Girl)
Boys are stupid and girls are trouble.” Truer words were never spoken.
Michelle Hodkin (The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #2))
All of the sex on planet Earth is biologically designed to serve one evolutionary purpose: to mix the genes of two separate individuals and then produce a new individual sporting genes identical to neither parent. Within this new mix of genes are unprecedented possibilities, old weaknesses eliminated, and new weaknesses that might even turn out to be strengths. This is the mechanism by which the wheels of evolution turn.
Hope Jahren (Lab Girl)
But I was starving! You know I always forget my lunch—and who expects me to concentrate on Advanced Manga Drawing Level 2 when visions of pork buns and powdered doughnuts dance in my head? Teacher Suzuki acted like it was the end of the world just because I got hungry,” --Bunny Lilka
Tiffany Fulton (Starlight Gifts (A Soldier Evolution Revolutionary Girl Short Story))
It's Survival of Them Who's Best at Nicking Things, girl!
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
ideas that make cooperation in your tribe possible are just like any other parasite, only they invade the brain instead of the liver, say. The brain parasites survive and spread because of what they do to and for their hosts—us. So ideas that make us band together, especially against strangers, are going to be encouraged by the same forces of evolution that made it possible for us to kill off the woolly mammoth, right?
Alex Rosenberg (The Girl from Krakow)
The New Dog I. “I’m intensely afraid of almost everything. Grocery bags, potted poinsettias, bunches of uprooted weeds wilting on a hot sidewalk, clothes hangers, deflated rubber balls, being looked in the eye, crutches, an overcoat tossed across the back of a chair (everybody knows empty overcoats house ghosts), children, doorways, music, human hands and the newspaper rustling as my owner, in striped pajamas, drinks coffee and turns its pages. He wants to find out where there’ll be war in the mid-east this week. Afraid even of eating, if someone burps or clinks a glass with a fork, or if my owner turns the kitchen faucet on to wash his hands during my meal I go rigid with fear, my legs buckle, then I slink from the room. I pee copiously if my food bowl is placed on the floor before the other dogs’. I have to be served last or the natural order of things - in which every moment I am about to be sacrificed - (have my heart ripped from my chest by the priest wielding his stone knife or get run out of the pack by snarling, snapping alphas) - the most sacred hierarchy, that fated arrangement, the glue of the universe, will unstick. The evolution will never itself, and life as we know it will subside entirely, until only the simplest animal form remain - jellyfish headless globs of cells, with only microscopic whips for legs and tails. Great swirling arms of gas will arm wrestle for eons to win cosmic dominance. Starless, undifferentiated chaos will reign. II. I alone of little escaped a hell of beating, neglect, and snuffling dumpsters for sustenance before this gullible man adopted me. Now my new owner would like me to walk nicely by his side on a leash (without cowering or pulling) and to lie down on a towel when he asks, regardless of whether he has a piece of bologna in his pocket or not. I’m growing fond of that optimistic young man in spite of myself. If only he would heed my warnings I’d pour out my thoughts to him: When panic strikes you like a squall wind and disaster falls on you like a gale, when you are hunted and scorned, wisdom shouts aloud in the streets: What is consciousness? What is sensation? What is mind? What is pain? What about the sorrows of unwatered houseplants? What indoor cloudburst will slake their thirst? What of my littler brothers and sisters, dead at the hands of dirty two legged brutes? Who’s the ghost in the universe behind its existence, necessary to everything that happens? Is it the pajama-clad man offering a strip of bacon in his frightening hand (who’ll take me to the park to play ball if he ever gets dressed)? Is it his quiet, wet-eyed, egg-frying wife? Dear Lord, Is it me?
Amy Gerstler (Ghost Girl)
A little girl came home from school after an early lesson in the evolution of humans. She asked her mother, “Do we come from apes?” The mother paused and said, “Well, in a sense. We arose from monkeys and apes.” The little girl asked, “Well, where do monkeys come from?” The mother thought for a moment and replied, “The Kansas State Board of Education.
J. Anderson Thomson (Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith)
I believe the bicycle is on the edge of a golden age. Today there are about a billion bikes in the world – most of them in China – yet the advent of the mass-produced chain-driven cycle occurred little more than a century ago. It was an event that affected human evolution. Being cheaper to buy and cheaper to keep than a horse, the bicycle enabled more and more young men living in villages to court girls in distant villages thus giving a wider choice of mate and resulting in a more widespread and therefore richer human gene pool.
James Clarke (Blazing Bicycle Saddles)
Evolution means getting closer to God, and that's why, among other things, we meditate every day.
Caro Briones (The Extraterrestrial Girl)
It’s like an evolution of anger. It doesn’t have to be loud all the time. Now it’s just quiet and it’s all of me.
Courtney Summers (Some Girls Are)
There has been a definite leading of masculine energy throughout the past few thousand years, and today we see what many in the New Age realm are calling the “rise of feminine,” which I think is important to see as more of a rise to balance, than an overthrow of masculinity.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
The girls, their feet in the cold water, utter cries like a seagull's. Moreover, they are immediately transformed into seagulls, and these in turn into the obscure object of desire, swaying and waddling like the ostrich at the end of Buñuel's film. The summer has arrived. I was very anxious she might be disappointed and I could never have forgiven her for that. I shall never forgive anyone who passes a condescending or contemptuous judgement on America. They are at the centre of the world and they don't know it. What they prefer is to be at the centre of books and the earth. Only sequoias have the heroic, fabulous, antediluvian stature of the first days of the world, being contemporary with the great prehistoric animals. And indeed their scaley bark resembles a carapace. They are the only trees on a par with the geological and mineral scenario of the deserts. After them it is the little species that have triumphed.
Jean Baudrillard (Cool Memories)
The next day, Clare had an afternoon playdate. Samantha was in her class at school, collected Littlest Pet Shops, and could rattle off the names and evolutions of three hundred Pokémon, ergo they were best friends forever. In this way, little girls are like grown men: They only need one or two things in common to become official buddies. Fishing. Golf. An interest in breasts. Unfortunately, Samantha’s mother and I couldn’t even find two things in common, so I just dropped and ran.
Abbi Waxman (The Garden of Small Beginnings)
What kind of Earth do we think we belong to? If the world is a dance of atoms, regulated by physical laws and no more, then one answer to the question of an ethic of belonging must be ethical nihilism. Our two trees, living in such different climates, suggest a similar path. If we’re a species made merely of atoms like all other species, no more and no less, evolution brought us here. Yet I seek something less fractured, an ethic that is fully biological yet does not walk us into a starry, cold universe, empty except for self constructed miasma. A hint at such an ethic might be found with the little girl who heard the “huge” sound in the ponderosa, she and her family were attending to Florissant with delight and unaffected east. The girl heard the tree. The boy examined fallen ponderosa cones, peering between their open scales, then poking at immature cones on the tree. The parents noticed and pointed out the wavelike motions of wind on meadow grasses. They stood and admired the giant stone, remarking on its variegated colors. They remained at the stump far longer than the minute or two allotted in the walks of most visitors. This family was present, a start of a sensory, intellectual, and bodily opening to the place. The people formerly indigenous here- the Ute Indians and their ancestors- were forcibly removed in the 19th century, an act of violence that broke humanity’s millennia long relationship within this part of life’s community. The girl and her family were taking the first small steps in relearning part of what has been forgotten. The family’s attention to the particularities of Florissant seems at first to have little to do with understanding the ethical import of mud slides in the Eocene and in the present day. The family’s behavior gives no direct answers to the questions about the ethics of climate change. Instead they may show how to move toward answers by engaging the community of life. From this engagement, or reengagement after cultural fracture and amnesia, comes a more mature ability to understand what is deeply beautiful in the world.
David George Haskell (The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature's Great Connectors)
..., there are no mistakes, just opportunities for evolution. Choose to see every "mistake" or "failure" as an opportunity for growth.
Melissa Ambrosini (Mastering Your Mean Girl: The No-BS Guide to Silencing Your Inner Critic and Becoming Wildly Wealthy, Fabulously Healthy, and Bursting with Love)
Life is created in such a way by God in religion, Evolution in science, or the Universe in spirituality that for achieving anything worthwhile, there is a fear associated with it. And beyond fear, there is a reward, i.e., getting what you want. You can consider it a universal rule. You apply this rule in any scenario, and it applies to all of them. Whether getting your dream girl or fulfilling your audacious goals in business, fear is a must thing. And the truth is that the bigger the reward, the bigger the fear.
S. Mukesh Rao (Rejection Happens for a Reason)
Starting from middle childhood, however, boys and girls begin to take part in different social worlds with specific sets of challenges; moreover, sex differences in muscle mass and strength, bone density, and adiposity become more pronounced, giving boys a definite advantage in dealing with physical danger.
Marco del Giudice (Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach)
It has been found that so called tomboy behavior in girls correlated closely with higher levels of testosterone. On the other side, low testosterone levels in males result in unassertive and ‘feminine’ behavior, whereas the highest levels of testosterone to which men are exposed during adolescence result in extra aggressiveness.
Azar Gat (War in Human Civilization)
Definition of transgender in evolution, I have no idea where and how it got into, But I know one whenever I mention this crazy GIRL, I feel to be a normal human, whenever I mention other I feel like monster or zombie or something. Just funny quote , But it is true, I know it was good friendship so what others think about doesn't matter to me. If you do not have dirt in your mind then you need not explain at all
Ganapathy K
Girls raised in dangerous, stressed or abusive environments are more likely to have a range of mental health issues, are typically more avoidant or reactive and are less able subsequently to parent as successfully as might otherwise have been the case.
Riadh Abed (Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health)
People are drawn to you. You have a way with them. You are a social butterfly in some sense, connecting to all walks of life. But you find true reward in service, creating space, products, and services that improve the lives of others. In this, you are incredibly self-sacrificing of your time and energy. You give beyond what many believe possible. You are a true Goddess, helping others transform themselves alongside you.
Emma Mildon (Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers)
At some point in your life you will understand that girls and women are genetically predisposed to keep testing you. They are programmed by evolution to test and find out the right characteristics in a man. Don't take these tests seriously or get affected by them. Reassure the women that they are important and focus back on your goals.
Avijeet Das
Evolution is inevitable. But the process isn’t going from lower to higher. It’s just going from different to different—today’s fittest are likely to be tomorrow’s unfit. It’s environments that decide fitness, and environments change.
Alex Rosenberg (The Girl from Krakow)
listen. it wouldn't have hurt so much if she wasn't the girl i always wanted to be. in high school i carved the word ugly into my skin so that even if i once reached that pivotal point of high self esteem i would always be reminded of who i was underneath it all and i wanted so badly to be the athletic girl who put makeup on effortlessly who knew a thing or two about fashion whose laughter sounded like flowers blooming who knew what it meant to be sad, and anxious, but in the beautiful way in the mysterious way in the way that could be cured by true love's kiss whose skin was always soft and hair always brushed - sometimes styled - long, and long, and dark, and wavy a fine contrast against her light eyes and pale skin that never led anyone to question just where she was from whose body hair was fine, or at least taken care of so frequently and expertly, that no one ever questioned just where she fell in human evolution whose body curved in all the right places whose skin was taut with muscle and soft with and inviting where it should be who ate right who never smoked and never tried to end her life; once, twice, seventeen times who liked art but didn't really understand it who studied hard even though she hated it who cared about injustice but not to the point that too much thought would led her to unending, selfish tears whose eyes could stop an army and whose lips never fell into a thin line whose kisses you remember and whose body you miss when you're lying in a bed without her whose warmth you reach out for not just from habit or desire but need - desperate need who didn't make loving her hard who you missed, even when you were with another the girl who everyone knew was beautiful - they just knew, ok. they just knew her name and they would say: 'yes, her. she's very beautiful.' (...) it wouldn't hurt so much if you weren't everything i was looking for, everything i wanted, and so was she
Kara Petrovic (beyond rock bottom: a collection of poetry)
Either way, I’m not a happy girl. I’m a depressed, broccoli-murdering girl who’s gonna have some terrible ass gas if I don’t stop.
Lauren Campbell (The Evolution of Ivy: Antidote (The Evolution of Ivy, #2))
My personal note about love - There is no true love as far as my knowledge only attachments and vibrations that keep two souls and bodies for sometime and then they sperate. Somehow if they are trapped what is so called as social bondage i e Marriage, then they have responsibilities, children to make and nurture them. But world needs human resources so marriage is needed but here the concept of marriage in south and north. concept of marriage in south india is different than concept of marriage in north india where manu smiriti is written and rajputs (My previous life clans) dominates. Bhramin concept of marriage is totally unique. so when you love someone within your culture it becomes strong family bondage that is hard to break but that affects organization you work, if you inter marry concept of trust may break anytime, that is why north rajputs follow the concept of vibrations in love but that is not suitable in south india. And because of sexual activities it affects the society and ecology. So finally for my personal choice which is true true true love is almost impossible anywhere even within same culture or inter culture because both have their own pros and cons and trust issues, that is why i choose to be single but if I marry then I will keep my marrital relationship out of context or out of my organization or institution where i am going to. Sex is primary desire for men and women and also for theird genders. In western concept sex has gone into multiple varieties even incest nature. It is now difficult to classify which one is right and which one is wrong becaus they context specific and completely personal but problem is where legality is touching. So my personal choice is if getting married whatever community the girl is from I will keep it out of my research institutional context but most probably i will not marry as I am not sure about immorality and where immorality comes into touch and it may get against the meaning of what is ganapathy. Ganapathy should never be immoral nor his wife. so i will most probably be single and friendly to anyone, any sex, any nationality but i will keep recording each every aspect of science and where immorality comes to. And when i choose to die, I will write all about science and immorality and spirtulism and souls desire. Prostituion or porn industry can never be avoided completely nor should be avoided as it researches about human emotions. they are track records of human evolution. But I see these prostitutes and porn industry as a tool for finding where immorality comes forward. And inside research institutions whereever I am going to I will keep observing everything that goes in science. Traditional and modern science both i will keep on observing for sure. So finally if i marry somehow whomever it is, the girl should be out of my research working context or completely same mind set. And My marriage should not ruin the name of Ganapathy so they girl i choose will be very specific that can not ruin my names reputation at any cost. the girl i touch should be fire that fires other guys if they desire for her and she fires other girls that try to reach me
Ganapathy K
Time is the thing that affects women's Individuality and soul, Nalanda should grow and it should open up all female individuality and soul without the limitation of time then only India will become strong and become real Bharat whether it is Mahabharat or Ramayana Bharat or Kali Bharat, Sun Philosophy and social lessoning by limiting time of Individuality and soul is against Nalanda Principle of Individuality, I said Nirvanashakta is dangerous and lead to manu smiriti, But Now I think let Manu smiriti takes go through women because men are always idiots and they do not understand natural path of soul finally get trapped in somewhere, they always think about money and fantasies , Individual souls can be awaken by only women and Nalanda Principle that strengthen India without limitations in Time, Girls should rule and come into power, Those who have trust issues better be Bharamachari, no issues, but if you want women then be ready to show your individual soul and do not hide it behind your family or friends or society, Nalanda should be awakened, and For international society, it is high time to understand the nature of evolution of individuality and soul of every single men and women, International countries should support Nalanda
Ganapathy K
The thing that happens when women awaken is that we honor ourselves. This self-honor allows us to create new standards for our lives, some that are often nonnegotiable. This creation of standards may be a daunting step, but it’s vital on our path to evolution. We see life as it is and not as we fantasized as a little girl. We wake up our little girl. We shake her into her power. If disrespect is on the menu, we leave the table—no exceptions. If inauthenticity is in the air, we leave the party. Whenever our former martyr-self shows up, we gently but firmly show her the door. Big feelings are no longer to be feared, but celebrated. Life absent our thousand inner critical voices suddenly becomes clear and simple. If we wish to speak, we do. If we wish to cry, we do. There is no one to ask permission from and no one to blame. We become our own mothers, lovers, and best friends. We become our own giving tree.
Shefali Tsabary (A Radical Awakening: Turn Pain into Power, Embrace Your Truth, Live Free – A Clinical Psychologist's Guide to Authenticity and Conscious Fulfillment for Women)
All boys? A few girls. They don't often pass the test to get in. Too many centuries of evolution are working against them.
Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1))
Granddaddy had told me about the wasp that could opt to be male or female while in a larval stage. An interesting thought. I wondered why human children weren't given that option in their grub stage, say up through age five. With everything I had seen about the lives of boys and girls, I would definitely choose to be a boy grub.
Jacqueline Kelly (The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Calpurnia Tate, #1))
immorality, materialism, and godlessness.
Edward Humes (Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul – A Dramatic True Story of the Dover Intelligent Design Trial)
In other words, science and religion occupied two separate spheres; in the pope’s view, Darwin might have explained where the human body came from, but that had nothing to do with the spiritual and divine aspects of human existence.
Edward Humes (Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul – A Dramatic True Story of the Dover Intelligent Design Trial)
WE CAN ALLOW SATELLITES, PLANETS, SUNS, UNIVERSE, NAY WHOLE SYSTEMS OF UNIVERSES, TO BE GOVERNED BY LAWS, BUT THE SMALLEST INSECT, WE WISH TO BE CREATED AT ONCE BY SPECIAL ACT. —Charles Darwin
Edward Humes (Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul – A Dramatic True Story of the Dover Intelligent Design Trial)
But science is not a democracy. Science is a brutal arena where ideas are picked apart, attacked, and tested to see if they hold up. Those that do hold up live to fight another day. Those that don’t are dragged off and discarded. To survive, a theory must be supported by vibrant, meaningful, replicable research.
Edward Humes (Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul – A Dramatic True Story of the Dover Intelligent Design Trial)
They failed to realize that in science, gaps are different from those in murder cases. Every important and well-accepted theory has its share of gaps in the supporting data—and this is particularly true of historical scientific theories that rely on evidence such as ancient fossils (in the case of evolution) or other indirect observations, as contrasted with watching chemicals react in a test tube in real time. The theory of gravity, the big bang theory, the theory of relativity, quantum theory, atomic theory, plate tectonics theory—their histories all consist not simply of eureka moments in the lab, but also of a gradual filling in of gaps, a process that continues to this day. That is the nature of science, which continually tests its theories with new information. With large, explanatory theories such as evolution, the fact that there are gaps in the data is expected—problems arises only when gaps are filled and new information doesn’t fit the theory. Then scientists say that a theory has been “falsified.” This is why ancient Greek mathematicians and naturalists stopped believing the Earth was flat long before cameras were launched into space to photograph the globe—they knew the Earth couldn’t be flat, because the available data did not fit the theory anymore. Ships sailed off in one direction but did not find or fall off an edge. On the other hand, the theory that the Earth is a globe was accepted centuries before it was actually “proved.” That didn’t mean there weren’t gaps—such as why objects on the “bottom” of the globe didn’t fall off into space, as the principles of gravity were not well understood until much later (and gaps in that understanding remain to this day). So gaps in theories are not only real but expected in science—and they do not in themselves disprove or discredit a theory. The board members didn’t grasp that distinction, however, and so they enthusiastically endorsed mentioning “gaps” in the belief that this statement represented a valid criticism of
Edward Humes (Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul – A Dramatic True Story of the Dover Intelligent Design Trial)
Darwin found that if you looked closely enough, nature conveyed a very different message. How could, for instance, the Galápagos Islands serve as home to thirteen separate species of finches, each similar to the other, yet each peculiarly adapted with different-shaped beaks for their particular island habitats? Clearly these finches had migrated over time from the mainland and from one island to another, and then, once separated, had begun to diverge and to become distinct from one another. But how? And why? Why did the giant sloths, whose bones Darwin recovered on his voyage, go extinct, while other creatures thrived in the same environment at the same time? And how was it that some animals seemed poorly designed for their environments, in defiance of Paley’s perfect watchmaker—woodpeckers that lived on treeless terrain, land birds with webbed feet—yet they managed to adapt and survive through makeshift means that no divine designer would ever have intended? Why did pythons have vestigial legs, and why did the bones inside the wings of a bat parallel the bones in the human hand and arm? This was evidence not of a master design, Darwin realized, but of a slow and gradual change in existing forms, spread across the ages, inherited from remote—and shared—ancestors. The evidence he painstakingly assembled on his voyage, then presented, bit by bit, in his classic book, pointed to very slow, very gradual changes in living things over millions of years, to creatures suddenly dying out and disappearing when their forms no longer allowed them to survive in a changing climate or environment, and to new forms of life that emerged and thrived in their place.
Edward Humes (Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul – A Dramatic True Story of the Dover Intelligent Design Trial)
a principle that more recently has become known as exaptation. Darwin explained that some features could develop to serve a different purpose initially, then be adapted for a new purpose later. A small, feathery flap, for instance, too small for flight, could be used to keep a creature warm in cold weather. A bird frequently tucks its head under a wing when sleeping or when cold; what if this was the original purpose of the structure that eventually became a wing? Natural selection could favor these natural capes and select for larger and more thermally efficient variations. If the creature happened to live in trees, eventually this newly shaped limb could prove useful for jumping and gliding, at which point natural selection would begin to emphasize variations that aided flight. Bird evolution would then be well on its way.
Edward Humes (Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul – A Dramatic True Story of the Dover Intelligent Design Trial)
Natural selection may be unconscious but, as Darwin and his successors made clear, it is the opposite of a random force. It can drive changes in an organism in a very linear, per sis tent fashion—as had been observed in the laboratory, in nature, and in simulations such as the one that modeled eye evolution. Denton was wrong about evolution’s being one big lottery. The correct analogy would be a game of darts in which the players cannot see the target. Some darts will find their mark while the majority will miss—a random process. But the rules of the game eliminate all but the best-thrown darts. Because nature tosses an im mense number of darts—the mutation rate in any single gene in an organism will run in the millions—natural selection has plenty of well-targeted darts to choose from, and the march toward new and complex forms is not so difficult to understand, after all. But presenting an accurate meta phor would not have supported an attack on evolution.
Edward Humes (Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul – A Dramatic True Story of the Dover Intelligent Design Trial)
Science, at least as it has been practiced for the last century or two, begins by assembling facts—the data—and then seeks an overarching theory to unify and explain those facts. Whether it’s the big bang theory or plate tectonics or germ theory, from the cosmic to the microscopic, the approach is the same. Ignoring or denying inconvenient facts is not permitted. Trying to uncover facts that disprove a treasured theory is encouraged. This is part of the modern scientific method, which holds that theories should be subjected to rigorous attempts to prove them false before they become widely accepted (or discarded as incorrect). In the law, however, the process works in exactly the opposite direction.
Edward Humes (Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul – A Dramatic True Story of the Dover Intelligent Design Trial)
if a proposition cannot be falsified, it is not scientific.
Edward Humes (Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul – A Dramatic True Story of the Dover Intelligent Design Trial)
Especially post-9/11, double consciousness manifested itself in the evolution of Muslim American engagement. Under microscopic scrutiny for terrorism and the collective expectation for us to constantly denounce, apologize, and take responsibility for the individual actions of extremists, we have severely internalized the public perception—empowered by media misrepresentation—of our communities as being made up of violent and crazy outsiders. As a result, we inadvertently prioritized shifting our image in the eyes of others rather than turning inward and cultivating our survival in this new trek we were forced to embark upon. I don’t blame our community for this.
Amani Al-Khatahtbeh (Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age)
Once the first plant did somehow make its way onto land however, it took only a few million years for all of the continents to turn green, first with wetlands, and then with forests. Three billion years of evolution have produced only one life form that can reverse this process and make our planet significantly less green. Urbanization is decolonizing the surfaces that plants painstakingly colonized 400 million years ago, turning them back into hard and barren lands.
Hope Jahren (Lab Girl)
Centuries before anyone had ever heard of biological evolution, Saint Augustine warned of creating false fundamentals in regard to our interpretation of the book of Genesis. “In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision,” he wrote, “we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.
Rachel Held Evans (Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions)
No one ever laughs when I make these kinds of jokes. When Bill Murray says shit like this, people completely lose it. I wish I was Bill Murray. I hope everything I’ve read about evolution is wrong, and I eventually evolve into him.
Caitlin Moran (How to Build a Girl)
The result is that any girl who starts early and has a lifetime of menstrual regularity with few pregnancies (lean, athletic girls and women often do not menstruate regularly) has approximately twice as many periods and so twice as many bouts of hormone cycling as hunter-gatherer girls.
John J. Ratey (Go Wild: Free Your Body and Mind from the Afflictions of Civilization)
I haven’t yet mentioned the 1 in 4,500 girls born every year without a uterus. Since the male-to-female birth ratio is about 1.7 to 1 and roughly 133 million babies are born annually, that means more than 14,000 baby girls are born without a womb every year.
Cat Bohannon (Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution)
First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons - but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which has lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feeds in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange lonliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best as he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world - a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring - this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth. Now, the beloved can also be of any description. The most outlandish people can be stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great-grandfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon, two decades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greay-headed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else - but that does not effect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poisonlilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both voilent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself. It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved hates and fears the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.
Carson McCullers (The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (And Other Stories))
Kasturba Gandhi stands as one of the most quietly powerful figures in India’s freedom struggle. Often remembered as the wife of Mahatma Gandhi, her identity extends far beyond that association. She was a freedom fighter, social reformer, and a symbol of resilience whose life mirrored the hardships and sacrifices of colonial resistance. Kasturba Gandhi played a crucial role in shaping Gandhian philosophy through her lived experience, moral strength, and unwavering commitment to social justice. Early Life and Background Kasturba Gandhi was born as Kasturba Makhanji Kapadia on April 11, 1869, in Porbandar, a coastal town in present-day Gujarat. She was born into a traditional merchant family and received limited formal education, which was common for girls in nineteenth-century India. Despite this, Kasturba developed practical wisdom, emotional intelligence, and moral courage that would later define her public life. From an early age, she was exposed to the social customs and restrictions imposed on women. Child marriage, limited access to education, and rigid household roles were deeply embedded in society. Kasturba Gandhi’s life would later become an example of how women could transcend these boundaries without rejecting cultural roots entirely. Marriage to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Kasturba Gandhi was married to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 1883 when both were only thirteen years old. Their marriage began as a conventional arrangement, but it evolved significantly over time. As Mahatma Gandhi’s worldview transformed through education and political awakening, Kasturba too underwent a parallel evolution. In the early years, their relationship faced challenges. Gandhi later admitted to being possessive and authoritative during their youth. Kasturba Gandhi, however, showed remarkable strength in asserting her dignity. Their relationship matured into one based on mutual respect, shared ideals, and collective sacrifice. When Gandhi left for London and later South Africa, Kasturba remained in India, managing household responsibilities and raising their children. These years prepared her for the demanding life that awaited her in public service.
studylab24
girls simply had to be mean to their mothers. Clearly it was normal behavior; she’d spent enough time with her friends and peers to know that. So normal it was probably part of evolution. Maybe the species needed girls who thought they were grown up at thirteen for some bizarre
Kristin Hannah (Firefly Lane (Firefly Lane, #1))