Do you think it makes people nasty to be loved? You know it doesn’t! Then why should it make them nice to be loathed? While you’re being persecuted, you hate what’s happening to you, you hate the people who are making it happen; you’re in a world of hate. Why, you wouldn’t recognize love if you met it! You’d suspect love! You’d think there was something behind it—some motive—some trick.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes how persecution can distort one’s perception of love and kindness.
Christopher Isherwood's quote explores the detrimental effects of negative experiences on human emotions and relationships. It suggests that when individuals are subjected to hate or persecution, they develop a deep mistrust towards love, viewing it as potentially insincere or manipulative. This perspective raises questions about the nature of love and hate, indicating that the absence of kindness can lead to a vicious cycle where people fail to recognize genuine affection amidst their suffering.
In practice
During a workshop on emotional resilience, this quote can illustrate how negative experiences affect our relationships.
The more I think about myself, the more I'm persuaded that, as a person, I really don't exist. That is one of the reasons why I can't believe in any orthodox religion: I cannot believe in my own soul. No, I am a chemical compound, conditioned by environment and education. My "character" is simply a repertoire of acquired tricks, my conversation a repertoire of adaptations and echoes, my "feelings" are dictated by purely physical, external stimuli.
A minority is only thought of as a minority when it constitutes some kind of threat to the majority, real or imaginary. And no threat is ever quite imaginary.
What’s so phony nowadays is all this familiarity. Pretending there isn’t any difference between people —well, like you were saying about minorities, this morning. If you and I are no different, what do we have to give each other? How can we ever be friends?
I'm like a book you have to read. A book can't read itself to you. It doesn't even know what it's about. I don't know what I'm about.
The paternalist is a sentimentalist at heart, and the sentimentalist is always potentially cruel.
I am a camera, with its shutter open. Someday, all of this will be developed, printed, fixed.
The reason that I'm here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That's my truth.
The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.
I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.
Because trans people are marked as artificial, unnatural, and illegitimate, our bodies and identities are often open to public dissection. Plainly, cisgender folks often take it as their duty to investigate our lives to see if we're real.
More and more Republicans are recognizing and respecting the essential dignity of individuals who are gay and deserve the full rights of citizenship, just like their straight brothers and sisters.
My countrymen have the right to shake my hand and talk to me if they so wish. Don't forget that their support and their reading of my works is what brought me the Nobel prize.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.