I've never been resigned to ready-made ideas as I was to ready-made clothes, perhaps because although I couldn't sew, I could think.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of independent thinking over conforming to pre-existing ideas.
In this quote, Jane Rule expresses her disdain for accepting ideas that are not personally constructed or thought through, much like how one might reject ready-made clothes that don't fit. She highlights the difference between simply going along with societal norms and the value of engaging in original thought and critical analysis, suggesting that thinking is an essential skill that should be cultivated.
In practice
In a philosophy class discussing the importance of originality, one might use this quote to encourage students to develop their own ideas.
It's not the length but the quality of life that matters to me. It has always been important to me to write one sentence at a time, to live every day as if it were my last and judge it in those terms, often badly, not because it lacked grand gesture or grand passion but because it failed in the daily virtues of self-discipline, kindness, and laughter. It is love, very ordinary, human love, and not fear, which is the good teacher and the wisest judge.
I didn't want to be a boy, ever, but I was outraged that his height and intelligence were graces for him and gaucheries for me.
Coming out, all the way out, is offered more and more as the political solution to our oppression.
This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.
The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation.
My words itch at your ears till you understand them
When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.
All that I did," she said, "everything I tried to do. All for nothing." Nothing is done entirely for nothing, said the fox of dreams. Nothing is wasted. You are older, and you have made decisions, and you are not the fox you were yesterday. Take what you have learned, and move on.
If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.
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