A minority is only thought of as a minority when it constitutes some kind of threat to the majority, real or imaginary. And no threat is ever quite imaginary.
Christopher IsherwoodRead
The more I think about myself, the more I'm persuaded that, as a person, I really don't exist. That is one of the reasons why I can't believe in any orthodox religion: I cannot believe in my own soul. No, I am a chemical compound, conditioned by environment and education. My "character" is simply a repertoire of acquired tricks, my conversation a repertoire of adaptations and echoes, my "feelings" are dictated by purely physical, external stimuli.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the nature of self, suggesting that identity is shaped by external influences rather than an inherent essence.
In this quote, Christopher Isherwood contemplates the existential notion of self-identity and the belief in the soul, arguing that he does not believe in a core 'self' separate from his environment and experiences. He views character and personality as mere adaptations and reactions to external stimuli, emphasizing a deterministic perspective where individuality is shaped by chemical and environmental factors rather than any innate qualities.
Themes
SelfIdentityExistenceEnvironmentDeterminismSoulPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of self and identity.
More from Christopher Isherwood
All quotes →What’s so phony nowadays is all this familiarity. Pretending there isn’t any difference between people —well, like you were saying about minorities, this morning. If you and I are no different, what do we have to give each other? How can we ever be friends?
Christopher IsherwoodRead
I'm like a book you have to read. A book can't read itself to you. It doesn't even know what it's about. I don't know what I'm about.
Christopher IsherwoodRead
The paternalist is a sentimentalist at heart, and the sentimentalist is always potentially cruel.
Christopher IsherwoodRead
I am a camera, with its shutter open. Someday, all of this will be developed, printed, fixed.
Christopher IsherwoodRead
I certainly should have,' he agrees, smiling and thinking what an absurd and universally-accepted bit of nonsense it is, that your best friends must necessarily be the ones who best understand you. As if there weren't far too much understanding in the world already; above all, that understanding between lovers, celebrated in song and story, which is actually such torture that no two of them can bear it without frequent separations or fights.
Christopher IsherwoodRead
Similar quotes
To be contemplative we must remove the clutter from our lives, surround ourselves with beauty, and consciously, relentlessly, persistently, give clutter away until the tiny world for which we ourselves are responsible begins to reflect the raw beauty that is God.
Joan D. ChittisterRead
It doesn't really matter how much of the rules or the dogma we accepted and lived by if we're not really living by the fundamental creed of the Catholic Church, which is service to others and finding God in ourselves and then seeing God in everyone - including our enemies.
Martin SheenRead
Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely been abolished in America. Slavery became a haven for the death penalty.
Angela DavisRead
Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy?
Margaret AtwoodRead
She just happened to feel like it. Wasn’t that after all, the only reason there was? Had she ever had a less selfish, more complicated reason for doing anything in her life?
Richard YatesRead
In the Twentieth Century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, hatred will be dead, frontier boundaries will be dead, dogmas will be dead; man will live. He will possess something higher than all these-a great country, the whole earth, and a great hope, the whole heaven.
Victor HugoRead