I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.
Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the rarity of individuals who truly value freedom and courage, which are essential for a functioning democracy.
Doris Lessing emphasizes that a true democratic society relies on individuals who possess the courage and determination to uphold freedom and truth. She suggests that without such individuals, a democracy cannot thrive, and society will struggle to achieve or maintain its liberty. This reflection on human nature and civic responsibility calls attention to the pressing need for individuals who are willing to stand up for their beliefs and fight for the principles that sustain democratic ideals.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech advocating for civil rights, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of standing up for liberty.
More from Doris Lessing
All quotes →In the writing process, the more the story cooks, the better. The brain works for you even when you are at rest. I find dreams particularly useful. I myself think a great deal before I go to sleep and the details sometimes unfold in the dream.
Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: 'He/she was born, lived, died.' Probably that is the template of our stories - a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds.
There is a great line of women stretching out behind you into the past, and you have to seek them out and find them in yourself and be conscious of them.
The World War I, I'm a child of World War I. And I really know about the children of war. Because both my parents were both badly damaged by the war. My father, physically, and both mentally and emotionally. So, I know exactly what it's like to be brought up in an atmosphere of a continual harping on the war.
You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.
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We have no evidence whatsoever that the soul perishes with the body.
The vast distances that separate the stars are providential. Beings and worlds are quarantined from one another. The quarantine is lifted only for those with sufficient self-knowledge and judgment to have safely traveled from star to star.
I'm appalled that the word 'feminism' has been denigrated to a place of almost ridicule and I very passionately believe the word needs to be revalued and reintroduced with power and understanding that this is a global picture. It isn't about us and them.
Sometimes the shadow stays next to the Light. Sometimes it disappears into the Light
Suicides have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build.
Most go to prison not on account of their irreducible uniqueness as people but because they are part of a marginalized sector of the population who never had a chance, who were slated for it early on.