Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.
Interpretation
The value of a free mind is paramount, and one should resist any forces that seek to limit individual thought.
In this quote, John Steinbeck emphasizes the immense importance of individual thought and the freedom to explore one's own ideas and beliefs. He advocates for the protection of this freedom against any oppressive entity—be it ideology, religion, or government—that seeks to constrain personal expression and intellectual exploration, highlighting his commitment to the individual's right to direct their own mind without restriction.
In practice
In a graduation speech, to encourage students to think independently.
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
The teaching of the church, theoretically astute, is a lie in practice and a compound of vulgar superstitions and sorcery.
From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; in the poor brother Christ is knocking at the door.
Injustice in the end produces independence.
The devil is always discovering something novel against the truth.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
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