Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.
Ralph EllisonRead
And the mind that has conceived a plan of living must never lose sight of the chaos against which that pattern was conceived. That goes for societies as well as for individuals.
Interpretation
A plan for life must acknowledge the inherent chaos around us.
Ralph Ellison’s quote expresses the idea that any structured approach to living, whether for individuals or societies, must consider the unpredictability and disorder of the world. It suggests that the plans we make are developed in response to, and in contrast with, the chaos of life, which is an essential aspect that must not be ignored for effective living and understanding.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of embracing chaos.
Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.
I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
I denounce because though implicated and partially responsible, I have been hurt to the point of abysmal pain, hurt to the point of invisibility. And I defend because in spite of it all, I find that I love.
The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstance whether created by others or by one's own human failings. They are the only consistent art in the United States which constantly remind us of our limitations while encouraging us to see how far we can actually go. When understood in their more profound implication, they are a corrective, an attempt to draw a line upon man's own limitless assertion.
If you can show me how I can cling to that which is real to me, while teaching me a way into the larger society, then and only then will I drop my defenses and hostility, and I will sing your praises and help you to make the desert bear fruit.
All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority. The universal in the novel-and isn't that what we're all clamoring for these days?-is reached only through the depiction of the specific man in a specific circumstance.
We are not accusing you of being illegal, we are accusing you of being immoral.
Humankind can't stand too much reality.
Oh people, know that you have committed great sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you!
We never change. Neither our socks nor our masters nor our opinions, or we're so slow about it that it's no use. We were born loyal and that's what killed us! Soldiers free of charge, heroes for everyone else, talking monkeys, tortured words, we are the minions of King Misery...It's not a life.
Unity consciousness is a state of enlightenment where we pierce the mask of illusion which creates separation and fragmentation. Behind the appearance of separation is one unified field of wholeness. Here the seer and the scenery are one.
A king who dies on the cross must be the king of a rather strange kingdom.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.