It's easier for the former masters to put aside the masks that hid their humanity than for the former slaves to recognise the faces underneath. Or to trust that this is not a new mask these are wearing.
Nadine GordimerRead
A truly living human being cannot remain neutral.
Interpretation
One must take a stance in life rather than remain indifferent.
Nadine Gordimer's quote suggests that to truly live and engage with the world, one cannot simply adopt a neutral position. Instead, individuals are compelled to take sides in their beliefs and actions, as remaining neutral can be a state of complacency that undermines the essence of being human. This speaks to the moral obligation of individuals to stand up for what they believe in and the importance of active participation in societal issues.
In practice
This quote could be used in a motivational speech to encourage activism against social injustices.
It's easier for the former masters to put aside the masks that hid their humanity than for the former slaves to recognise the faces underneath. Or to trust that this is not a new mask these are wearing.
The gap between the committed and the indifferent is a Sahara whose faint trails, followed by the mind's eye only, fade out in sand.
Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.
Art defies defeat by its very existence, representing the celebration of life, in spite of all attempts to degrade and destroy it.
If people would forget about utopia! When rationalism destroyed heaven and decided to set it up here on earth, that most terrible of all goals entered human ambition. It was clear there'd be no end to what people would be made to suffer for it.
The caged eagle become a metaphor for all forms of isolation, the ultimate in imprisonment. A zoo is prison.
We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.
None are sent empty away from Christ but those who come to him full of themselves.
He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.
Like the winds that we come we know not whence and blow whither soever they list, the forces of society are derived from an obscure and distant origin. They arise before the date of philosophy, from the instincts, not the speculations of men.
To be is to be perceived (Esse est percipi)." Or, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.
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