Fifty years after half a million gypsies were exterminated in the Second World War - thousands of them in Auschwitz - we're again preparing the mass killing of this minority.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the ongoing persecution of marginalized groups, comparing past atrocities to current events.
Antonio Tabucchi's quote serves as a chilling reminder of historical injustices faced by the Romani people during the Holocaust, urging society to reflect on its failures to prevent similar occurrences in the present. It calls attention to the cyclical nature of violence and discrimination against minorities, warning that the lessons of history must be learned and acted upon to avoid repeating them.
In practice
During a speech on human rights, one could use this quote to emphasize the need for vigilance against oppression.
Like a blazing comet, I've traversed infinite nights, interstellar spaces of the imagination, voluptuousness and fear. I've been a man, a woman, an old person, a little girl, I've been the crowds on the grand boulevards of the capital cities of the West, I've been the serene Buddha of the East, whose calm and wisdom we envy. I've known honor and dishonor, enthusiasm and exhaustion. ...I've been the sun and the moon, and everything because life is not enough.
Rather than regret for what I have written, I feel regret for what I shall never be able to read.
It's the job of intellectuals and writers to cast doubt on perfection.
Now imagine a world in which everyone, but especially people with power and influence, holds an expanded view of our place in the cosmos. With that perspective, our problems would shrink-or never arise at all-and we could celebrate our earthly differences while shunning the behavior of our predecessors who slaughtered each other because of them.
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
All roads lead to Trantor, says the old proverb, and that is where all stars end.
Distrust brings frustration and fear. So therefore, the lonely feeling automatically come. So, lonely feeling is not creation of environment, but creation of your own mental attitude.
It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down... Why do we laugh? Because it is a grave religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.
Every religion is good—every religion is true to him who in his good caution and conscience believes it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.