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Beware: Ignorance Protects itself. Ignorance Promotes suspicion. Suspicion Engenders fear. Fear quails, Irrational and blind, Or fear looms, Defiant and closed. Blind, closed, Suspicious, afraid, Ignorance Protects itself, And protected, Ignorance grows.
Octavia Butler
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Ignorance breeds fear and suspicion, which can lead to a cycle of closed-mindedness and growth of ignorance.

In this quote, Octavia Butler highlights the dangerous cycle that ignorance can create. When individuals remain uninformed, they become suspicious of the unknown, which in turn fosters fear. This fear can either manifest as withdrawal from understanding or as hostility towards those who appear different or threatening. Ultimately, this cycle perpetuates ignorance, leading to a society that is increasingly resistant to knowledge and understanding.

Themes

IgnoranceFearSuspicionBlindnessKnowledge

In practice

Example use cases

During a community meeting, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of education and understanding to overcome prejudice.

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What I'm working on now - I'm back to fantasy, although considering that it's me, I'm turning it into a kind of science fantasy. It's a vampire story - but my vampires are biological vampires. They didn't become vampires because someone bit them; they were born that way.
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Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
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Here I was into astronomy, and here into anthropology, and there I go into geology. It was much more fun to be able to research and write about whatever I wanted to.
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Better to stay alive," I said. "At least while there's a chance to get free." I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and wondered just how great a hypocrite I was. It was so easy to advise other people to live with their pain.
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