Most of us came here in chains and most of you came here to escape your chains. Your freedom was our slavery, and therein lies the bitter difference in the way we look at life.
John Oliver KillensRead
What a tiresome place America would be if freedom meant we all had to think alike or be the same color or wear the same gray flannel suit! That road leads to the conformity of the graveyard!
Interpretation
What this quote means
Freedom allows for diversity in thoughts and appearances, and conformity detracts from the essence of life.
This quote by John Oliver Killens emphasizes the importance of individuality and diversity in society. It suggests that true freedom is not about everyone conforming to a single standard or ideology; rather, it celebrates the variety of thoughts, appearances, and expressions that make life vibrant. The metaphor of the 'graveyard' signifies that conformity leads to a lifeless existence, devoid of the richness that comes from diverse perspectives.
Themes
FreedomDiversityIndividualityConformitySociety
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of diversity in the workplace.
More from John Oliver Killens
All quotes →Similar quotes
Oh child, your language is so utterly simple and limited that it has the affect of extreme complication. -Aunt Beast
Madeleine L'EngleRead
Is this the curse of modernity, to live in a world without judgment, without perspective, no context for understanding or distinguishing what is real and what is imagined, what is manipulated and what is by chance beautiful, what is shadow and what is flesh?
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
Surely no mere mortal who has at all gone down into himself will ever pretend that his slightest thought or act solely originates in his own defined identity.
Herman MelvilleRead
Never limit your view of life by any past experience.
Ernest HolmesRead
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business...There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
Paddy ChayefskyRead
This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.
Jonathan SwiftRead