It seems that fighting is a game where everybody is the loser.
Zora Neale HurstonRead
I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a rejection of victimhood and sorrow, emphasizing a resilient and content attitude towards life.
In this quote, Zora Neale Hurston articulates her refusal to be defined by tragedy or sorrow. She asserts that her identity is not centered around pain or suffering, but rather embraces a sense of self that is free from such burdens. This reflects a powerful message about self-acceptance and resilience, advocating for a life lived without the constraints of societal perceptions of tragedy.
In practice
In a speech about overcoming adversity, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of self-perception.
It seems that fighting is a game where everybody is the loser.
Lack of power and opportunity passes off too often for virtue.
From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom…It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep.
Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me.
Don't you realize that the sea is the home of water? All water is off on a journey unless it's in the sea, and it's homesick, and bound to make its way home someday.
Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.
I don't believe in the concept of hell, but if I did I would think of it as filled with people who were cruel to animals.
We're setting up mechanisms where we can kill human beings with drones and missiles where you're sitting at a console and pressing the button. We never have to hear their whimpering, or hear them begging for their mother, or dying in horrible realities around us. I don't know if that's necessarily such a good thing.
What we call generosity is for the most part only the vanity of giving; and we exercise it because we are more fond of that vanity than of the thing we give.
Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.
What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good.
Every time I hear a political speech or I read those of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing which sounded human. It is always the same words telling the same lies. And the fact that men accept this, that the people’s anger has not destroyed these hollow clowns, strikes me as proof that men attribute no importance to the way they are governed; that they gamble – yes, gamble – with a whole part of their life and their so called 'vital interests.
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