Brazen Quotes

“There will be so many voices that tell you you’re less than, that you are incapable of accomplishing your dreams, that you need to wait your turn and ask permission. Your voice needs to be louder than theirs.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“It is one thing I battle with to this day: believing in myself enough to listen to the voice in my head and not letting others talk me out of what it tells me. I get better and better each day. It’s practice, like anything else, and success breeds success. I can count on one hand how many times my inner voice has been wrong. Every time I have squelched the voice in my head, I have lived to regret it.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“One drink followed another, and the next thing I remembered, I was somehow in a gold cage on a stage in a club, dancing my heart out.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“deemed”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“Good people are good people, no matter what their profession or how successful they are. Remember that.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“That’s why the concepts are so beautiful . . . because it is the concepts themselves that are eternal. Mankind’s original interpretation of those concepts, from several thousands of years ago, in a world so radically different from our own, no longer make sense.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“that our minds are incapable of imagining something too far removed from, not adjacent to, our current possible. No one in the eleventh century could invent a television, because first so many other things had to be discovered or invented: electricity, photography, etc. When a concept or an idea is too far removed from the world we live in and understand, it is impossible for us to grasp and comprehend it. That’s why inventions often occur in clusters, because once something is adjacent to our current possible, many people can imagine the evolution of it, and therefore can be working on the same thing at the same time without ever having met or communicated with one another.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“I used to want everyone to like me. I used to want to please everyone. And yes, it’s still something I battle with to this day, with one major difference. Nowadays, I’m as proud of my enemies as I am of my friends. When your enemies are liars and thieves, abusers and sexual predators, then you’ve done something right. I have become comfortable with being uncomfortable. I no longer shirk from a fight. I look forward to it. Every time I win, it makes me stronger and more able to handle the next attack that comes my way.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“I didn’t respond, because there was nothing I could say. I had long ago learned that trying to reason with an unreasonable person got you nowhere fast.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“My mind is elastic, not mired in the old ways, in tired paths that have long since lost their efficacy. I am a disrupter, because I take nothing as a given and never assume that the old way is the best way. I think that’s so important in life. It’s not about your age; it’s about how open you are to new ideas and new ways of thinking or doing things. “Forward” means untried and untested. It means embracing the unknown. The minute your mind stops growing, evolving, accepting new concepts, you are already dead. Forget about zombies—that, to me, is the true definition of “the walking dead.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“Fake it till you make it is my modus operandi, and it is actually found in the Torah: “Meetoch shelo leshmah bah leshmah97,” which means “What’s not for its own sake will come to be for its own sake.” Do something over and over, even for the wrong reason, and eventually it will be real and true.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“I always tell people that they should talk to themselves, out loud. There will be so many voices that tell you you’re less than, that you are incapable of accomplishing your dreams, that you need to wait your turn and ask permission. Your voice needs to be louder than theirs. Your voice needs to drown out the hate, the self-doubt. Say what you want to yourself out loud every single day, and you can will it into existence.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“Because what if a man walked by the field that you were playing on, and you were running or kicking the ball, and he got to see your knees or your legs,” he answered, “and that man would start thinking about how beautiful you are, or have other inappropriate thoughts about you. That would be your fault. So that’s why it’s better if girls don’t play sports, so they don’t accidentally lead some poor man to sin.” “That makes no sense,” she would say, face tight with confusion. “Why is it my fault if he thinks bad thoughts? If I think bad thoughts, is it Shlomo’s fault, or your fault? Shouldn’t everyone be responsible for themselves and their thoughts? I can’t do anything or play any sports because some random person might think something? That makes no sense,” she would opine.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“That is the brilliance of religion: it makes you believe that the freedoms you have given up were sacrificed for a good cause, the best cause.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“It used to bother me so much and I struggled to understand why. I think the only rationale I can come up with is that forcing other young women along the same path they were forced to follow themselves is the only thing that makes life tolerable. It makes sense of your misery, that all your suffering was for a just cause and that your path is the correct one.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“Her husband was that type of man I dislike most: amiable and jocular to everyone else, and a miserable shit to his family.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“That is one of the most appealing things to many people about religion or any other dogmatic system. People want someone else to tell them what’s right and wrong, what to do and what not to do. To decide these questions for yourself is frightening and dangerous and makes you feel vulnerable and alone. Most people want to feel that their leader is smarter and more knowledgeable and knows what’s best for them.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“People want to be popular, and they want people to like them. As a leader, however—and this applies to any leadership position, be it as a teacher or a parent or a boss—popularity is irrelevant.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“I will not respect a religion that doesn’t respect me back and that thinks it can control what I put on my body. I will wear what I want, when I want, and let someone dare try and stop me. Tradition and religion are excuses for some of the worst behavior imaginable.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“I get to choose what I do with my body and what I cover and don’t cover. I also reject the idea that I am responsible for a man’s thoughts, sins, desires. It’s not my problem, guys. It’s no woman’s problem.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“Do something or say something with enough confidence, and no one will question you. The most important lesson I learned was to be brazen enough to win, and it’s a philosophy I maintain until this very day.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“It’s not about the religion at all. Or about what you wear and where you pray. Because if that were the case, it would be impossible for miracles to happen within every religion or without religion at all. It’s just that selflessness and kindness and a life filled with putting others’ needs before your own brings with it some kind of connection to a greater power. Anyway, that’s how I see it.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“It’s very telling, and totally true. This search for humility, for righteousness, engenders its own kind of pride: the pride of being better, more righteous, than anyone else.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“Some women are just not meant to be mothers, through their own choice, or due to the fact that they are physically, mentally, or emotionally unable to have children. Determining people’s roles based solely on their biology is absurd. It has been proven throughout the secular, modern world that many women excel at being the CEO and many men excel at being the primary caregiver.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“The heavily indoctrinated rarely recognize their own indoctrination, and they defend their indoctrinators with all the power at their disposal.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“I am heartily sick, whether for religious reasons, or traditional ones, or for any reason, frankly, of being told to be “appropriate.” Let’s exhort and force men to be appropriate for a while and see how they like it.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“Stop taking pride in what you already know. Find your inner child and become proud, once again, of how quickly you can learn and grasp new concepts.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“Fundamentalists are all the same, using God as an excuse to keep women enslaved.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“fundamentalism sucks in any form”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie

“1. How much did you know about the culture Julia Haart grew up in before you read the book? What were some things that surprised you? 2. Religions come with many rules. What do you think religious rules provide for followers? 3. Talk about the role of women in the cloistered community. What are their responsibilities? Are the ideal standards to which they are held consistent with their realities? What other faiths tout similar views? 4. Julia has a very complicated view of her mother. How do you think that this informs her own role as a mother to four children? What example do you think her journey sets for them? 5. What traits from her upbringing, if any, do you think Julia has brought with her to her new life? 6. Have you ever experienced a situation in which you had to set boundaries or leave behind a group in order to be true to yourself? What feelings did you have surrounding that? What was the result? 7. Julia references many of the difficulties that some people who leave her former community face. How do you think her assertion that the community “forced them to be unprepared for modernity” ultimately serves to ensure its continuity? 8. Ultra-Orthodox Jews cite modesty and simplicity as the foundation of their values, yet Julia describes the high costs associated with following the community’s strict traditions and customs. How does this materialism conflict with the community’s values? How is it similar to materialism in the secular world? 9. Discuss your reaction to the fact that Julia was not born into ultra-Orthodox Judaism. How do you think her life might have been different if her mother and father had not converted? 10. Toward the end of the book, Julia states, “Every time I win, it makes me stronger and more able to handle the next attack that comes my way…. Now I listen to my own voice.” In what other ways has Julia demonstrated that same resolve throughout her life? 11. Seven years after leaving behind her community, Julia says she feels closer to a higher power than she ever did when she was religious. What does her memoir say about religion versus spirituality? 12. The memoir takes place in the period before My Unorthodox Life aired on Netflix in 2021. Did you watch the show before you read Brazen? What surprised you about Julia’s story that wasn’t addressed in the show? Did learning more of her backstory from the book change your understanding of Julia’s life on screen in any way? ABOUT THE AUTHOR Julia Haart is the CEO, co-owner, and chief creative officer of Elite World Group.”
― Julia Haart, Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie