The function of freedom is to free someone else.
Interpretation
Freedom is meant to be shared and used to uplift others.
This quote by Toni Morrison highlights the idea that true freedom extends beyond individual liberty; it emphasizes the responsibility to help others achieve their freedom. It suggests that one's own liberation is only meaningful when it contributes to the liberation of others, fostering a sense of community and collective well-being.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one might say, 'As Toni Morrison said, the function of freedom is to free someone else, inspiring us to act for the benefit of the oppressed.'
There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely the absence of war. It is larger than that. The peace I am thinking of is not at the mercy of history's rule, nor is it a passive surrender to the status quo. The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one -- an activity that occurs most naturally, most often in the reading/writing world we live in. Accessible as it is, this particular kind of peace warrants vigilance.
You looking good." "Devil's confusion. He lets me look good long as I feel bad.
What do you say? There really are no words for that. There really aren't. Somebody tries to say, 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.' People say that to me. There's no language for it. Sorry doesn't do it. I think you should just hug people and mop their floor or something.
An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and therefore untrustworthy. No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines.
Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself
One of my kids was born in 1968. There were going to be political difficulties, but they were never going to have that level of hatred and contempt that my brothers and my sister and myself were exposed to.
It is only in the shadows, when some fresh wave, truly original, truly creative, breaks upon the shore, that there will be a rediscovery of the West.
It is the unseen and the spiritual in people that determines the outward and the actual.
...the statement, "The purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign," is not a rigorously accurate statement. It ought to be stated that the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is injustice, instead of justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent.
Because something or someone looks or acts differently from us does not necessarily mean that it is ugly or bad.
Whenever I'm in trouble, I pray. And because I'm in trouble all of the time, I pray almost constantly.
'Memory.' 'Race.' 'Murder.' That's what they say about me. I am an elegiac poet. I have some historical questions, and I'm grappling with ways to make sense of history; why it still haunts us in our most intimate relationships with each other, but also in our political decisions.
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