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.
We must endure our thoughts all night, until the bright obvious stands motionless in the cold.
He felt with the force of a revelation that to throw up the clods of earth manfully is as beneficent as to revolutionize the world. It was not the matter of the work, but the mind that went into it, that counted - and the man who was not content to do small things well would leave great things undone.
Your fellow man is your mirror. If your own face is clean, the image you perceive will also be flawless. But should you look upon your fellow man and see a blemish, it is your own imperfection that you are encountering - you are being shown what it is that you must correct within yourself.
Some things come with their own punishments. Like bedrooms with built-in cupboards. They would all learn more about punishments soon. That they came in different sizes. That some were so big they were like cupboards with built-in bedrooms. You could spend your whole life in them, wandering through dark shelving.
One half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it.
Any complex activity, if it is to be carried on with any degree of virtuosity, calls for appropriate gifts of intellect and temperament. If they are outstanding and reveal themselves in exceptional achievements, their possessor is called a 'genius'.
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