The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
Muriel RukeyserRead
Always our wars have been our confessions of weakness
Interpretation
Wars reveal our vulnerabilities rather than our strengths.
This quote suggests that the conflicts we engage in are not just battles for power or ideology, but are deep reflections of our inner fears and insecurities. When we resort to war, it indicates a failure to address our weaknesses and a lack of understanding about how to achieve peace and resolution through dialogue and compassion.
In practice
In a speech about the impact of war on society.
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
A work of art is one through which the consciousness of the artist is able to give its emotions to anyone who is prepared to receive them.
In our period, they say there is free speech. They say there is no penalty for poets, There is no penalty for writing poems. They say this. This is the penalty.
Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest. The blessing is in the seed.
The town of Gauley Bridge stands as a pattern for all those places where people are linked even in the middle of their suffering, where people fight against an evil condition so that other people need not go through the same fight.
A work of art is one through which the consciousness of the artist is able to give its emotions to anyone who is prepared to receive them. There is no such thing as bad art.
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
Leaving out the gamblers, the burglars, and the plumbers, perhaps we do put our trust in God after a fashion. But, after all, it is an overstatement. If the cholera or black plague should come to these shores, perhaps the bulk of the nation would pray to be delivered from it, but the rest would put their trust in The Health Board.
I try to find the core values that are so fundamental that they transcend ethnic identity. That doesn't mean I run from it. I embrace African-American culture and I love it and embrace it, but it is a part of a human identity. So I'm always trying to make a larger human statement.
If I was freer than I had ever been in my life, I was not yet entirely free, for I still hung on to an idea that had been set deep in me by all my schooling so far: I was a bright boy and I ought to make something out of myself... something else that would be a cut or two above my humble origins.
People on a spiritual path - personal growth, spiritual practice, recovery, yoga and so forth - are the last people who should be sitting out the social and political issues of our day.
America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem.
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