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Sometimes you got to hurt something to help something. Sometimes you have to plow under one thing in order for something else to grow.
Ernest Gaines
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Sometimes sacrifice or difficult choices are necessary for growth and improvement.

In this quote, Ernest Gaines emphasizes the idea that making tough decisions or enduring temporary pain is often necessary to facilitate positive change or growth in life. Just as agriculture requires the soil to be plowed and sometimes even sacrificed to yield a fruitful harvest, so too do our lives require us to let go of certain things in order to nurture new opportunities and developments.

Themes

ChangeGrowthSacrificePlantingProgress

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a personal development workshop to highlight the importance of letting go of the past.

More from Ernest Gaines

We wait till now? Now, when we're old men, we get to be brave?
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I was raised by a lady that was crippled all her life but she did everything for me and she raised me. She washed our clothes, cooked our food, she did everything for us. I don't think I ever heard her complain a day in her life. She taught me responsibility towards my brother and sisters and the community.
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...my heart may have been in it but my soul was not.
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Everything's been said, but it needs saying again.
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Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.
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The Six Golden Rules of Writing: Read, read, read, and write, write, write.
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A little wisdom, now and then

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