The home is the centre and circumference, the start and the finish, of most of our lives.
Charlotte Perkins GilmanRead
We all need one another; much and often. Just as every human creature needs a place to be alone in, a sacred, private "home" of his own, so all human creatures need a place to be together in, from the two who can show each other their souls uninterruptedly, to the largest throng that can throb and stir in unison.
Interpretation
Human beings require both solitude and companionship for their well-being.
This quote by Charlotte Perkins Gilman emphasizes the dual necessity of solitude and community in human life. It suggests that while individuals need personal spaces for introspection and rejuvenation, they equally require shared spaces for connection and emotional exchange, highlighting the balance between individuality and togetherness in fostering a fulfilling life.
In practice
In a speech about mental health, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of social connections.
The home is the centre and circumference, the start and the finish, of most of our lives.
To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind.
Woman" in the abstract is young, and, we assume, charming. As they get older they pass off the stage, somehow, into private ownership mostly, or out of it altogether.
Death is the essential condition of life, not an evil.
When the mother of the race is free, we shall have a better world, by the easy right of birth and by the calm, slow, friendly forces of evolution.
The children in this country are the one center and focus of all our thoughts. Every step of our advance is always considered in its effect on them-on the race. You see, we are MOTHERS, she repeated, as if in that she had said it all.
In so many ways, my soccer career taught me about seeing the value of all people, whether or not society sees it first. Relationships with people who are perceived to be 'different' have taught me the same lesson.
Toughening up, performing masculinity, pretending to enjoy things I didn't enjoy all enabled me to dodge the gender policing of the adults around me. But the way I really was - the swished hips, the Double-Dutching, the hair flips - seemed to always prevail and attract Dad's disdain.
We're all strangers connected by what we reveal, what we share, what we take away--our stories. I guess that's what I love about books--they are thin strands of humanity that tether us to one another for a small bit of time, that make us feel less alone or even more comfortable with our aloneness, if need be.
But, especially in love, only counterfeit emotions exist nowadays. We have all been taught to mistrust everybody emotionally, from parents downwards, or upwards. Don’t trust anybody with your real emotions: if you’ve got any: that is the slogan of today. Trust them with your money, even, but never with your feelings. They are bound to trample on them.
A lord may love the men that he commands, but he cannot be a friend to them. One day he may need to sit in judgement on them, or send them forth to die.
You have to know how to co-operate with other people if you want to stay alive and raise children. And to do that, you need to know something about them. You need to know who loves whom, who hates whom, who is sleeping with whom. Who is honest, who is a cheat.
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