There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.
Rita DoveRead
It makes me furious to hear haters of all skin colors - especially Christian, Jewish, and Muslim fundamentalists - deride other people because of their different beliefs and lifestyles.
Interpretation
The quote expresses anger towards those who condemn others for their beliefs and lifestyles, highlighting the importance of tolerance.
Rita Dove's quote emphasizes the frustration felt towards individuals who, regardless of their own background, criticize and belittle others for their differences in beliefs and lifestyle choices. It underscores the idea that intolerance and bigotry exist across various communities and religious groups, reminding us that understanding and acceptance should prevail over hate and division.
In practice
During a speech on unity, one could use this quote to highlight the need for acceptance among various cultures.
There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.
Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine.
As an African-American, as a woman, I think that I've been sensitized to the way in which history privileges the white male and the way in which certain aspects of history, the things that we are taught in school, the things that are handed down, never, never entered the picture though they might have been very important.
If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can’t imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America’s alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart — and then to discover that one is not alone in ones feelings.
All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.
Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.
And the same things look bent and straight when seen in water and out of it, and also both concave and convex, due to the sight's being mislead by the colors, and every sort of confusion of this kind is plainly in our soul. And, then, it is because they take advantage of this affection in our nature that shadow painting, and puppeteering, and many other tricks of the kind fall nothing short of wizardry.
If they would rather die, . . . they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.
Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another.
It may be you fear more to deliver judgment upon me than I fear judgment.
Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore- Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore- Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore.
It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke - that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.
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