Jane Elliott Quotes

If you have been a slave all your life, used to being ordered about and abused from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, it’s impossible to adjust to normal life overnight. I had never been free to make my own decisions before and had no idea how to do it. I was like a bird that has been bred in captivity suddenly being released into the wild: I fell apart.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young lady of rank and property will have packs of money- or land-hungry suitors yapping around her heels like hounds after a fox.

Work delivers us from three great evils: boredom, vice and want.

My affections truly were not engaged. It is only my pride that is hurt, not my heart.

The only best friends she has ever really had, has ever wanted, could ever truly count on, is Elliott.

It’s just that it seems to me that what is a terrible hardship to one person may seem trivially small to another, but that does not necessarily make the hardship any the less hard to bear for the one who suffers it.

Words are strange that way, aren’t they? Your own thoughts can sound unfamiliar and strange when they are out there, spoken in the world, as though they have taken on a life of their own.

Le travail éloigne de nous trois grands maux: l’ennui, le vice et le besoin.” Meaning, of course, Work delivers us from three great evils: boredom, vice and want.

I do love dancing. I even like going to balls. It’s just the thought of one being given in my honour … of so many eyes being on me throughout the evening … of having to talk to so many people I don’t know very well, and having the whole assembly of guests look on while I lead in the first dance that makes me feel ice-cold.

She has a way of fixing you with a look that seems to stab clear through to the bone, and always makes me feel as though the words were rocks lodged in my throat.

It’s just that that is what music has always done for me, ever since I was quite small: given me a place to put the feelings that hurt most.

They shared the monkfish-liver pâté and the finely chopped tuna and scallions with ginger sauce. "Remember the time we had puffer fish at that restaurant in New York?" Isaac asked as he tasted the monkfish. Elliott slowly shook his head as he answered. "How can I forget? I was scared to death. Every time I have liver, no matter where it comes from, the puffer-fish liver crosses my mind. I sat there praying that the chef knew what he was doing when he cut out the poison part." "You didn't seem scared," said Isaac. "That's because I didn't want you to think I was unadventurous. We had just met then. I was trying to impress you." "Well, you did," said Isaac. "I'd been in town for only a few months, and I thought you were such a sophisticated New Yorker. I was trying not to seem like a rube." "You know," said Elliot, "I read that Japanese fish farmers are mass-producing poison-free puffer fish." Isaac shrugged. "Kinda takes the mystique away, doesn't it? I mean, where's the thrill? Where's the risk? You might as well be eating tuna.

the void that had once been Brian Elliott.

This hardened response to those on the “other team” is not an invention of modern American politics. It seems to be hardwired into the circuitry of our brains. The Old Testament is filled with stories of sometimes deadly tribalism, and scientific data gives us insight into why that happens. In 1968, elementary school teacher Jane Elliott conducted a famous experiment with her students in the days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She divided the class by eye color. The brown-eyed children were told they were better. They were the “in-group.” The blue-eyed children were told they were less than the brown-eyed children—hence becoming the “out-group.” Suddenly, former classmates who had once played happily side by side were taunting and torturing one another on the playground. Lest we assign greater morality to the “out-group,” the blue-eyed children were just as quick to attack the brown-eyed children once the roles were reversed.6

In that well occupied female party there must have been many precious hours of silence during which the pen was busy at the little mahogany writing-desk, while Fanny Price, or Emma Woodhouse, or Anne Elliott was growing into beauty and interest. I have no doubt that I, and my sisters and cousins, in our visits to Chawton, frequently disturbed this mystic process, without having any idea of the mischief that we were doing; certainly we never should have guessed it by any signs of impatience or irritability in the writer.

Friday 22 April 1814 It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young lady of rank and property will have packs of money- or land-hungry suitors yapping around her heels like hounds after a fox.

Your own thoughts can sound unfamiliar and strange when they are out there, spoken in the world, as though they have taken on a life of their own.

I am very sure that she wished to believe it, at least—and it is frightening what lies people can make themselves certain of, just because they are determined to accept the lies as true.

This research confirms a classic experiment from the 1960s conducted by a third-grade schoolteacher named Jane Elliott on her class in the small, all-white rural town of Riceville, Iowa. Elliott began her experiment by dividing her class into two groups by eye color—blue and brown—then presented the kids with examples of blue-eyed good people and brown-eyed bad people. In addition, the blue-eyed kids in the class were told that they were superior and were given special privileges, while the brown-eyed kids were called inferior and treated as second-class citizens.

In 1968, elementary school teacher Jane Elliott conducted a famous experiment with her students in the days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She divided the class by eye color. The brown-eyed children were told they were better. They were the “in-group.” The blue-eyed children were told they were less than the brown-eyed children—hence becoming the “out-group.” Suddenly, former classmates who had once played happily side by side were taunting and torturing one another on the playground. Lest we assign greater morality to the “out-group,” the blue-eyed children were just as quick to attack the brown-eyed children once the roles were reversed.6 Since Elliott’s experiment, researchers have conducted thousands of studies to understand the in-group/out-group response. Now, with fMRI scans, these researchers can actually see which parts of our brains fire up when perceiving a member of an out-group. In a phenomenon called the out-group homogeneity effect, we are more likely to see members of our groups as unique and individually motivated—and more likely to see a member of the out-group as the same as everyone else in that group. When we encounter this out-group member, our amygdala—the part of our brain that processes anger and fear—is more likely to become active. The more we perceive this person outside our group as a threat, the more willing we are to treat them badly.