Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored
Alice WalkerRead
Most damage that others do us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People often harm others because they themselves are hurting or afraid.
In this quote, Alice Walker emphasizes that the negative actions we experience from others stem from their own inner struggles such as fear, humiliation, or pain. She highlights the universality of these feelings, suggesting that they are not confined to any particular group or belief system, but are human experiences shared by all.
Themes
FearHumiliationPainUnderstandingEmpathy
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on mental health awareness, one could reference this quote to illustrate the importance of compassion.
More from Alice Walker
All quotes →June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.
Alice WalkerRead
On a spiritual level, it's as though with my sighted eye I see what's before me, and with my unsighted eye I see what's hidden. It's illuminated life more than darkened it.
Alice WalkerRead
I think 'The Color Purple' is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe.
Alice WalkerRead
How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed?
Alice WalkerRead
One white man on the platform in South Carolina asked us where we were going--we had got off the train to get some fresh air and to dust the grit and dust out of our clothes. When we said Africa he looked offended and tickled too. Niggers going to Africa, he said to his wife. Now I have seen everything.
Alice WalkerRead
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