The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
Muriel RukeyserRead
I should like to use another word: 'audience' or 'reader' or 'listener' seems inadequate. I suggest the old word 'witness,' which includes the act of seeing and knowing by personal experience, as well as the act of giving evidence.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The term 'witness' encapsulates deeper understanding and personal experience, surpassing the limitations of 'audience' or 'reader.'
In this quote, Muriel Rukeyser emphasizes the importance of personal experience and active participation in understanding and conveying truth. By suggesting the term 'witness,' she highlights that true engagement involves not just passive observation but also the sharing and recognition of experiences that shape our knowledge and evidence about the world.
Themes
WitnessExperienceUnderstandingKnowledgeEvidence
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about personal growth, one could invoke this quote to emphasize the value of lived experiences.
More from Muriel Rukeyser
All quotes →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.
Muriel RukeyserRead
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.
Muriel RukeyserRead
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.
Muriel RukeyserRead
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.
Muriel RukeyserRead
Always our wars have been our confessions of weakness
Muriel RukeyserRead
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I've heard people say that God is the gift of desperation, and there's a lot to be said for having really reached a bottom where you've run out of any more good ideas or plans for everybody else's behavior; or how to save and fix and rescue; or just get out of a huge mess, possibly of your own creation.
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Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.
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Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know.... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors.
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Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a polluted mind, suffering will follow you, as the wheels of the oxcart follow the footsteps of the ox. Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a pure mind, happiness will follow you, as a shadow clings to a form.
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Thought is a key to all treasures; the miser's gains are ours without his cares. Thus I have soared above this world, where my enjoyment have been intellectual joys.
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There is no affliction, trial, or labor difficult to endure, when we consider the torments and sufferings which Our Lord Jesus Christ endured for us.
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