The function of a book or a poem or a story is to delight, to enchant, to beguile.
Philip PullmanRead
Seems to me-" Lee said, feeling for the words, "seems to me the place you fight cruelty is where you find it, and the place you give help is where you see it needed.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of confronting cruelty and providing assistance wherever it is observed.
Philip Pullman's quote expresses a profound truth about the nature of human compassion and the moral obligation to act against cruelty. It suggests that awareness of suffering and injustice compels us to respond with active support and intervention, highlighting the interconnectedness of our ethical responsibilities and the necessity of standing up for what is right in the face of adversity.
Themes
CrueltyHelpCompassionActionResponsibility
In practice
Example use cases
During a humanitarian speech at a conference on human rights.
More from Philip Pullman
All quotes →Education and health were always matters of charity. You educated children and you helped the sick because they were good things to do, not because you were going to make money out of them. If you let the money-making principle, the profit-seeking motive, anywhere near education and health, things go bad.
Philip PullmanRead
To get the best out of life here ...Good grief. There's plenty of it about, so indulge. Give yourself some thing to remember. Fall in love. Fall out of love. Gamble. Get drunk. See how long you can stay awake. Go for long walks at night. Discover what you're afraid of doing, and then do it.
Philip PullmanRead
People should decide on the books' meanings for themselves. They'll find a story that attacks such things as cruelty, oppression, intolerance, unkindness, narrow-mindedness, and celebrates love, kindness, open-mindedness, tolerance, curiosity, human intelligence.
Philip PullmanRead
I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he'd see the truth. But I lied too well. I was lying with every nerve and fiber and everything I'd ever done...I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn't. There is none.
Philip PullmanRead
Lyra learns to her great cost that fantasy isn’t enough. She has been lying all her life, telling stories to people, making up fantasies, and suddenly she comes to a point where that’s not enough. All she can do is tell the truth. She tells the truth about her childhood, about the experiences she had in Oxford, and that is what saves her. True experience, not fantasy - reality, not lies - is what saves us in the end.
Philip PullmanRead
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I didn't want people to know me as a victim.
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In Macbeth a lady is restrained from the murder of a king by his resemblance of her father as he slept. Should not all men be restrained from acts of violence and even of unkindness against their fellow men by observing in them something which resembles the Savior of the World? If nothing else certainly, a human figure?
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The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.
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When we look squarely at injustice and get involved, we actually feel less pain, not more, because we overcome the gnawing guilt and despair that festers under our numbness. We clean the wound - our own and others' - and it can finally heal.
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