I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.
Doris LessingRead
I'm always astounded at the way we automatically look at what divides and separates us. We never look at what people have in common.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the human tendency to focus on differences rather than commonalities.
Doris Lessing's quote reflects on a fundamental aspect of human interaction, where individuals often gravitate towards identifying divisions and separations rather than recognizing the shared experiences and values that unite them. It calls for a more conscious effort to acknowledge and celebrate what binds people together, promoting understanding and empathy in a world where divisive perspectives can dominate.
Themes
UnityCommonalityDiversityEmpathyCommunication
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech addressing social unity, this quote can remind the audience to focus on shared values.
More from Doris Lessing
All quotes βIn the writing process, the more the story cooks, the better. The brain works for you even when you are at rest. I find dreams particularly useful. I myself think a great deal before I go to sleep and the details sometimes unfold in the dream.
Doris LessingRead
Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: 'He/she was born, lived, died.' Probably that is the template of our stories - a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds.
Doris LessingRead
There is a great line of women stretching out behind you into the past, and you have to seek them out and find them in yourself and be conscious of them.
Doris LessingRead
The World War I, I'm a child of World War I. And I really know about the children of war. Because both my parents were both badly damaged by the war. My father, physically, and both mentally and emotionally. So, I know exactly what it's like to be brought up in an atmosphere of a continual harping on the war.
Doris LessingRead
You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.
Doris LessingRead
Similar quotes
There is an ultimate wildness in all this, for the universe, as existence itself, is a terrifying as well as a benign mode of being. If it grants us amazing powers over much of its functioning we must always remember that any arrogance on our part will ultimately be called to account. The beginning of wisdom in any human activity is a certain reverence before the primordial mystery of existence, for the world about us is a fearsome mode of being. We do not judge the universe.
Thomas BerryRead
We must recognize what in our accepted tradition is damaging to our fate and dignity-and shape our lives accordingly.
Albert EinsteinRead
Conscience is the most sacred of all property.
James MadisonRead
[I]n the American soul there is a lonely individual standing in a vast landscape. β¨He is either on a horse or driving a car, depending, and either way heβs carrying a gun. β¨This is one of the essential images in American mythology.
Don DelilloRead
A great safeguard is the entire faith, the true faith, in which neither anything whatever can be added by anyone nor anything taken away; for, unless faith be one, it is not the faith.
Pope Leo IRead
The will of God is always a bigger thing than we bargain for.
Jim ElliotRead