If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear. People who can open to the web of life that called us into being
Joanna MacyRead
Out of this darkness a new world can arise, not to be constructed by our minds so much as to emerge from our dreams. Even though we cannot see clearly how it's going to turn out, we are still called to let the future into our imagination. We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of imagination and dreams in creating a better future.
Joanna Macy's quote speaks to the transformative power of dreams amidst uncertainty. It highlights the idea that although the future may seem unclear, it is essential to embrace our visions and aspirations. By cherishing and nurturing these dreams within our hearts, we lay the groundwork for a new world to emerge, suggesting that our inner desires and values significantly influence external realities.
Themes
DreamsFutureImaginationChangePossibility
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about pursuing aspirations, this quote can remind the audience to envision a positive future despite uncertainties.
More from Joanna Macy
All quotes →To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe -- to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it -- is a wonder beyond words.
Joanna MacyRead
It is good to realize that falling apart is not such a bad thing. Indeed, it is as essential to evolutionary and psychological transformation as the cracking of outgrown shells.
Joanna MacyRead
Confirming an intuitive sense I've always felt for the interconnectedness of all things, this doctrine has provided me ways to understand the intricate web of co-arising that links one being with all other beings, and to apprehend the reciprocities between thought and action, self and universe.
Joanna MacyRead
It’s walking the razor’s edge of the sacred moment where you don’t know, you can’t count on, and comfort yourself with any sure hope. All you can know is your allegiance to life and your intention to serve it in this moment that we are given. In that sense, this radical uncertainty liberates your creativity and courage.
Joanna MacyRead
We are our world knowing itself. We can relinquish our separateness. We can come home again - and participate in our world in a richer, more responsible and poignantly beautiful way than before, in our infancy.
Joanna MacyRead
Similar quotes
Perhaps one day, all these conflicts will end, and it won't be because of great statesmen or churches or organisations like this one. It'll be because people have changed. They'll be like you, Puffin. More a mixture. So why not become a mongrel? It's healthy.
Kazuo IshiguroRead
Retiring was scary and it was tough to give up gymnastics, but so many great opportunities have come from it that I never expected.
Shawn JohnsonRead
All of us are driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won't do - that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be.
Michelle ObamaRead
The ideal is a world in which every woman and girl can create the kind of life she wishes to lead, unconstrained by harmful norms and stereotypes.
Paul PolmanRead
We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations
Barack ObamaRead
Do not fear. Look beyond what's dying to what's being born.
Marianne WilliamsonRead