Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.
Interpretation
The quote asserts that independent thought is essential; otherwise, one will be molded by others.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote emphasizes the importance of independent thinking in one's life. It suggests that if individuals do not engage in critical thought, they risk relinquishing their ability to shape their own preferences and opinions. Instead, they may become subject to external influences that can distort their authentic selves and constrain their natural inclinations. This serves as a cautionary reminder of the power dynamics involved in thought and expression.
In practice
During a motivational speech about personal growth and self-awareness.
Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.' He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
It was about then [1920] that I wrote a line which certain people will not let me forget: "She was a faded but still lovely woman of twenty-seven."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
But you can love more than just one person, can't you?
A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
In my state of spiritual abstraction, I no longer belong to myself and to my eyesight. I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits.
A civilization, a culture, cannot survive without passion, cannot be saved without passion.
Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.
We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.
The eye of the heart, though closed in fallen man, is able to take in a glimmering of light and this is faith. But anyway of living causes a covering like rust to accumulate over the heart so that it cannot sense the Divine origin of Allah's message.
Every reign must submit to a greater reign.
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