Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored
My parents taught me service - not by saying, but by doing. That was my culture, the culture of my family.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of learning values through actions rather than mere words, particularly within family dynamics.
Alice Walker's quote reflects the deep-rooted influence of her family culture in shaping her understanding of service. It highlights how actions within a family can impart crucial life lessons and values, emphasizing that these lessons can be more powerful than verbal instruction. Service, in this context, is portrayed as an intrinsic quality that is cultivated through lived experiences and practices observed in the family unit.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about community service, one might say, 'Like Alice Walker observed, my parents taught me service by their own actions, not just their words.'
More from Alice Walker
All quotes βJune 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.
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.
I think 'The Color Purple' is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe.
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?
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.
Similar quotes
You will never have this day with your children again. Tomorrow they will be a little bigger then they are today. This day is a gift. Breathe and notice. Smell and touch them; study their faces and little feet and pay attention. Relish the charms of the present. Enjoy today mama. It will be over before you know it.
I urge you to pursue preserving your personal history to allow your children and grandchildren to know who you were as a child and what your hopes and dreams were.
The biggest lesson I learned from my dad is to support children even if they're doing something that is unorthodox.
I wish all the mothers, fathers and children out there realize how much I need them and how much I value their support.
One of the greatest, smartest things I ever did was give my kids Angie as their mom. She is such a great mom. Oh, man, I'm so happy to have her.
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.