QuoteProject
Beneatha: You didn't tell us what Alaiyo means... for all I know, you might be calling me Little Idiot or something... ... Asagai: It means... it means One for Whom Bread--Food--Is Not Enough.
Lorraine Hansberry
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The name Alaiyo symbolizes a deeper existence beyond mere survival and the pursuit of basic needs.

In this quote from Lorraine Hansberry's play, the character Asagai explains the significance of the name Alaiyo, which conveys the idea that true fulfillment in life involves more than just having food or basic necessities. It reflects a longing for a richer, more meaningful existence that transcends material needs and highlights the importance of purpose and aspirations in one's life.

Themes

BreadFulfillmentMeaningExistencePurpose

In practice

Example use cases

Using this quote during a discussion about the importance of finding one's purpose in life.

More from Lorraine Hansberry

I have long since passed that period when I felt personal discomfort at the sight of an ill-dressed or illiterate Negro. Social awareness has taught me where to lay the blame.
Lorraine HansberryRead
I feel that women - without wishing to foster any strict separatist notions, homo or hetero - indeed have a need for their own publications and organizations. Our problems, our experiences as women are profoundly unique as compared to the other half of the human race.
Lorraine HansberryRead
It is difficult for the American mind to adjust to the realization that the Rhetts and the Scarletts were as much monsters as the keepers of Buchenwald-they just dressed more attractively.
Lorraine HansberryRead
I am a writer. I suppose I think that the highest gift that man has is art, and I am audacious enough to think of myself as an artist - that there is both joy and beauty and illumination and communion between people to be achieved through the dissection of personality.
Lorraine HansberryRead
I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful and that which is love. Therefore, since I have known all of these things, I have found them to be reason enough and - I wish to live. Moreover, because this is so, I wish others to live for generations and generations and generations.
Lorraine HansberryRead
Daddy felt that this country was hopeless in its treatment of Negroes. So he became a refugee from America. He bought a house in Polanco, a suburb of Mexico City, and we were planning to move there when he died. I was fourteen at the time.
Lorraine HansberryRead

Similar quotes

The challenge of modern freedom, or the combination of isolation and freedom which confronts you, is to make yourself up. The danger is that you may emerge from the process as a not-entirely-human creature. (Referenced in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young)
Saul BellowRead
Even if you play perfectly, a fault of your opponent's can destroy the entire beauty of the game.
Vladimir KramnikRead
Emotion only lasts in our bodies for about 90 seconds. After that, the physical reaction dissipates, UNLESS our cognitive brain kicks in and starts connecting our anger with past events.
Jill Bolte TaylorRead
Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.
VoltaireRead
Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems.
Desmond TutuRead
First of all, do any of you here think it's a crime to help a suffering human end his agony? Any of you think it is? Say so right now. Well, then, what are we doing here?
Jack KevorkianRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.