Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored
Alice WalkerRead
How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the interconnectedness of global actions and their impact on individuals, emphasizing a need for awareness and recognition of the consequences of one's actions.
Alice Walker's quote reflects on the idea that citizens often fail to see how their country's foreign policies and actions—such as military interventions—are not separate from their own lives and communities. The metaphor of a house being bombed while simultaneously representing a home underscores the notion that the repercussions of war and destruction can reverberate back to the country of the aggressors, leading to a need for greater consciousness and empathy regarding such actions.
Themes
AwarenessInterconnectednessConsequencesWarSociety
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on foreign policy, one could use this quote to illustrate the impact of war on both foreign and domestic fronts.
More from Alice Walker
All quotes →June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.
Alice WalkerRead
On a spiritual level, it's as though with my sighted eye I see what's before me, and with my unsighted eye I see what's hidden. It's illuminated life more than darkened it.
Alice WalkerRead
I think 'The Color Purple' is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe.
Alice WalkerRead
One white man on the platform in South Carolina asked us where we were going--we had got off the train to get some fresh air and to dust the grit and dust out of our clothes. When we said Africa he looked offended and tickled too. Niggers going to Africa, he said to his wife. Now I have seen everything.
Alice WalkerRead
I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.
Alice WalkerRead
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Narrative Collapse is what happens when we no longer have time in which to tell a story. Remote controls and DVRs give us the ability to break down narratives - particularly the more abusive ones. This is a great thing for escaping the 'ends-justify-the-means' traps of 20th-century wars and religions, but it can also make it hard to convey values.
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One side-effect of the so-called war on terror has been a crisis of liberalism. This is not only a question of alarmingly illiberal legislation, but a more general problem of how the liberal state deals with its anti-liberal enemies.
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The laws recognize no obligation on the part of the slave to labor for or serve his master. If he refuse to labor, the law will not interfere to compel him. The master must do his own flogging, as in the case of an ox or a horse.
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For a time Jack was angry; but when he had been without the jacket for a short while he began to realize that being half-clothed is infinitely more uncomfortable than being entirely naked. Soon he did not miss his clothing in the least, and from that he came to revel in the freedom of his unhampered state.
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The way of the superior man may be compared to what takes place in traveling, when to go to a distance we must first traverse the space that is near, and in ascending a height, when we must begin from the lower ground.
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He is intangible and invisible. But His work is more powerful than the most ferocious wind. The Spirit brings order out of chaos and beauty out of ugliness. He can transform a sin-blistered man into a paragon of virtue. The Spirit changes people. The Author of life is also the Transformer of life.
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