Your first duty as a writer is to write to please yourself. And you have no duty towards anyone else.
Iris ChangRead
When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. When you do not, you live not just by the day β but by the minute.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that having hope for the future influences our long-term thinking, while a lack of it leads to a focus on the present moment.
Iris Chang's quote highlights the profound effect that our beliefs about the future have on our mindset and behavior. When we believe that we have a future, we tend to plan and consider the implications of our actions over generations and years, fostering a sense of purpose and direction. In contrast, if we feel hopeless or uncertain about the future, our perspective shrinks to the immediacy of minutes and days, resulting in a more reactive and less intentional way of living. This emphasizes the importance of hope and vision in shaping our lives.
Themes
FutureBeliefHopePerspectiveLivingPlanning
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about the importance of vision and planning for the future.
More from Iris Chang
All quotes βThe spoken word vanished with the wind. Likewise, the unrecorded life disappears as if it never existed.
Iris ChangRead
For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.
Iris ChangRead
Racism is always there underneath, but usually it is exploited in these times of economic crisis, and it's hard to find out when one slides into another.
Iris ChangRead
Almost all people have this potential for evil, which would be unleashed only under certain dangerous social circumstances.
Iris ChangRead
Similar quotes
I was raised to believe that other people's suffering was my responsibility.
George C. WolfeRead
Independence-is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes.
Mark TwainRead
God has given us many faiths but only one world in which to co-exist. May your work help all of us to cherish our commonalities and feel enlarged by our differences.
Jonathan SacksRead
If we are concerned about the exploitation of human workers in countries with low standards of worker protection, we should also be concerned about the treatment of even more defenceless non-human animals.
Peter SingerRead
It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.
Harry FrankfurtRead
We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark.
Elie WieselRead