Germaine Greer Quotes

The psychic task which a person can and must set for himself is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.

There is nothing to which men, while they have food and drink, cannot reconcile themselves.

I am much more happy doing what I know I can do than what I am not sure I could do.

People fear leaving their safe harbor of the known and venturing off into the unknown. Human beings crave certainty - even when it limits them.

I've always been strong-minded, but I wonder.

We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it.

The first few years in L.A. were really tough and scary, but I had to figure things out for myself.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, an employee, a student, a homemaker, a writer, it's time to start forgetting about all the ways the world has promised you safety and comfort.

I can adapt to change easily, but I'm not a fan of it.

I can take hardship. I can sleep on the cold floor anytime. I can also sleep on a feather bed.

Sureness is something like a neck brace, which we clamp around our lives, hoping to somehow protect ourselves from the frightening, constant whiplash of change. Sadly, the brace doesn't always hold.

For me, the safest place is out on a limb.

It is a distortion, with something profoundly disloyal about it, to picture the human being as a teetering, fallible contraption, always needing watching and patching, always on the verge of flapping to pieces.

Don't try to run your life through a single straw. Someone, some event, will cut it off.

The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.

I used to have all these plans and think 'Ah, I have my whole life figured out', but then I realized no matter how much I plan: life happens! So I find myself living day to day trying to do my best, embracing every moment as a learning opportunity and chance to get to know myself a little more.

I have always argued that change becomes stressful and overwhelming only when you've lost any sense of the constancy of your life. You need firm ground to stand on. From there, you can deal with that change.

Risk will always be a part of life. It's how we recognize this and deal with it that matters.

I'm learning to deal with my loneliness because then nobody can muck me around any more.

There are days when I still want to be able to do what I want when I want, but there's also something wonderful about being secure.

I think that all of us are 5-year-olds and we don't want to be embarrassed in the schoolyard. I've gone through things in my life. People say it must be so hard to do it in the public eye, but the truth is, when you go through hard things, it's just hard.

I think it just helps to be very aware that fundamentally, there are no adults. Everyone is making it up as they go along. You have to find your own path, picking, choosing, taking and discarding as you see fit.

People change when they have to – not when we tell them to.

The way to feel safe is never to feel secure.

They all overvalued the importance of stability.