Silence is an ornament for women.
SophoclesRead
Not even Ares battles against necessity.
Interpretation
Even the mightiest cannot fight against the forces of fate or necessity.
This quote suggests that no matter how powerful or skilled an individual may be, there are certain inevitable forces or circumstances, referred to as necessity, that cannot be overcome. Sophocles highlights the idea that accepting the limitations imposed by fate is a significant aspect of human existence, reminding us that sometimes resistance is futile.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming struggles, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of accepting what cannot be changed.
Silence is an ornament for women.
None love the messenger who brings bad news.
All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.
You clearly hate to yield, but you will regret it when your anger has passed. Such natures are justly the hardest for themselves to bear.
There is nothing more hateful than bad advice.
It is no weakness for the wisest man to learn when he is wrong.
We don't attach to people or to things; we attach to uninvestigated concepts that we believe to be true in the moment.
By ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make so much extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation too.
So many indigenous people have said to me that the fundamental difference between Western and indigenous ways of being is that even the most open-minded westerners generally view listening to the natural world as a metaphor, as opposed to the way the world really is. Trees and rocks and rivers really do have things to say to us.
Either we must speak as we dress, or dress as we speak. Why do we profess one thing and display another? The tongue talks of chastity, but the whole body reveals impurity.
There is my father whispering in my ear, Be still still still. And yet you change everything. What was the marsh like, waiting for the storm before you came and kneeled in the water? It was nothing. Watch after you leave the water, now cold and regretful, miles from home, certain of the belt on your backside, the cold shoulder, the extra chores; watch. Watch the water heal itself of your presence--not to repair injury but to offer itself again should you care to risk another strapping [...].
Let there be nothing within thee that is not very beautiful and very gentle, and there will be nothing without thee that is not beautiful and softened by the spell of thy presence.
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