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24 Marvelous Barbara Ehrenreich Quotes

Barbara Ehrenreich is an American socialist, feminist, and author. Writing more than twenty books in her lifetime, this fourth generation atheist popularly discusses controversial topics she is inadvertently passionate about. As a social critic, Ehrenreich takes on sensitive topics voicing her opinions and facts from investigative journalism. For those that may not be properly acquainted, here are some marvelous Barbara Ehrenreich quotes that will leave a lasting impression on you.

“A lot of what we experience as strength comes from knowing what to do with weakness.”

“America is addicted to wars of distraction.”

“Employers have gone away from the idea that an employee is a long-term asset to the company, someone to be nurtured and developed, to a new notion that they are disposable.”

“Exercise is the yuppie version of bulimia.”

“I believe nothing. Belief is intellectual surrender; “faith” a state of willed self-delusion.”

“I grew up hearing over and over, to the point of tedium, that “hard work” was the secret of success: “Work hard and you’ll get ahead” or “It’s hard work that got us where we are.” No one ever said that you could work hard – harder even than you ever thought possible – and still find yourself sinking ever deeper into poverty and debt.”

“Marriage is socialism among two people.”

“Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous.”

“No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.”

“Of all the nasty outcomes predicted for women’s liberation…none was more alarming than the suggestion that women would eventually become just like men.”

“Our atheism family tradition is traced to a – I don’t know if it was great-great or a great-great-great grandmother who was a poor Irish-American woman in the 1880’s in western Montana.”

“Personally, I can’t see why it would be any less romantic to find a husband in a nice four-color catalog than in the average downtown bar at happy hour.”

“Personally, I have nothing against work, particularly when performed, quietly and unobtrusively, by someone else. I just don’t happen to think it’s an appropriate subject for an ethic.”

“Poverty is not a character failing or a lack of motivation. Poverty is a shortage of money.”

“The “discovery” of poverty at the beginning of the 1960s was something like the “discovery” of America almost five hundred years earlier. In the case of each of these exotic terrains, plenty of people were on the site before the discoverers ever arrived.”

“The Civil Rights Movement, it wasn’t just a couple of, you know, superstars like Martin Luther King. It was thousands and thousands – millions, I should say – of people taking risks, becoming leaders in their community.”

“The failure to think positively can weigh on a cancer patient like a second disease.”

“The ‘working poor,’ as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.”

“There is a vast difference between positive thinking and existential courage.”

“There is the fear, common to all English-only speakers, that the chief purpose of foreign languages is to make fun of us. Otherwise, you know, why not just come out and say it?”

“Transcendent Oneness does not require self-examination, self-help, or self-work. It requires self-loss.”

“We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather.”

“What you don’t necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour is that what you’re really selling is your life.”

“When you watch television, you never see people watching television. We love television because it brings us a world in which television does not exist.”

Barbara Ehrenriech is interviewed in the below video on her latest book, ‘Living with a Wild God: An Unbeliever’s Search for the Truth About Everything.’ Ehrenriech is considered to be one of the most important thinkers of our time. She goes on to recount her childhood quest to find evidence and truth in the universe around her. What resulted in her current rational and brought her to becoming an atheist is nothing less than shattering in her latest memoir. Capture her interview at the Miami Book Fair International 2014 below.

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