We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful. Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth.
Interpretation
Personal growth is a gradual and often painful process that unfolds over time.
This quote by Mary Antin emphasizes that growth, both physical and spiritual, is a gradual process occurring in stages rather than instantaneously. It reflects the idea that while we experience the immediate pains of physical birth, the more profound and enduring pains of spiritual and personal development take much longer and require deep self-reflection and attention to one's inner life.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal development, one could quote this to emphasize persistence through struggles.
It was behaviour that I thought not far from racism, sexism or any other kind of prejudice or snobbery. 'Because you are not cute, I do not want to know you' was, to me, hardly different from suggesting 'because you are gay, I dislike you
Your pretty empire took so long to build, now, with a snap of history's fingers, down it goes.
What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or the existence of, God?
Be confident small immortals. You are not the only voice that all things utter, nor is there eternal silence in the places where you cannot come.
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
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