When you step further into the story you came to live, not only does the mythic territory open, but the deep self moves and the world of imagination and meaning comes towards you.
Michael MeadeRead
There's an African proverb: 'When death finds you, may it find you alive.' Alive means living your own damned life, not the life that your parents wanted, or the life some cultural group or political party wanted, but the life that your own soul wants to live.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Live authentically and true to yourself, ignoring external pressures.
This quote encourages individuals to embrace their own unique path in life rather than conforming to the expectations and desires imposed by others. It highlights the importance of living a life that resonates with one's true self, emphasizing personal authenticity as essential for fulfillment, even in the face of mortality.
Themes
AuthenticityLifeSelfLivingFreedom
In practice
Example use cases
A motivational speech about embracing personal choices and authenticity.
More from Michael Meade
All quotes →Until, modern times when it became mostly a civic task, education was considered a sacred work. It was sacred because it involved the indwelling spirit in the student and because it required an awakened spirit in the teachers. Spirit to spirit, genius to genius, soul to soul go the true lessons that help young people become themselves. Ultimately, each person holds the key to the story trying to be lived from within, but first someone else must help unlock the mystery of one’s life.
Michael MeadeRead
In many tribal cultures, it was said that if the boys were not initiated into manhood, if they were not shaped by the skills and love of elders, then they would destroy the culture. If the fires that innately burn inside youths are not intentionally and lovingly added to the hearth of community, they will burn down the structures of culture, just to feel the warmth.
Michael MeadeRead
Similar quotes
Thinking about time is to acknowledge two contradictory certainties: that our outward lives are governed by the seasons and the clock; that our inward lives are governed by something much less regular-an imaginative impulse cutting through the dictates of daily time, and leaving us free to ignore the boundaries of here and now and pass like lightning along the coil of pure time, that is, the circle of the universe and whatever it does or does not contain.
Jeanette WintersonRead
From the very first, it has been the educated and intelligent of the Negro people that have led and elevated the mass, and the sole obstacles that nullified and retarded their efforts were slavery and race prejudice; for what is slavery but the legalized survival of the unfit and the nullification of the work of natural internal leadership?
W. E. B. Du BoisRead
It is more important to be free than to be happy.
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The rule of law bakes no bread, it is unable to distribute loaves or fishes (it has none), and it cannot protect itself against external assault, but it remains the most civilized and least burdensome conception of a state yet to be devised.
Michael Joseph OakeshottRead
Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.
Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieRead
Here is a humanist proposition for the age of Google: The processing of information is not the highest aim to which the human spirit can aspire, and neither is competitiveness in a global economy. The character of our society cannot be determined by engineers.
Leon WieseltierRead