The truth is how you say it, and to be 'one's self' is the most shocking custom of all.
Interpretation
Being true to oneself can be surprising and challenging in society.
Djuna Barnes highlights the complexities of truth and self-expression. The quote suggests that the way we convey our truth is just as important as the truth itself, and that allowing oneself to be authentic often defies societal norms, leading to both shock and liberation in personal identity.
In practice
In a speech about personal development, to emphasize the importance of authenticity.
Matthew,' she said, 'have you ever loved someone and it became yourself?' For a moment he did not answer. Taking up the decanter he held it to the light. 'Robin can go anywhere, do anything,' Nora continued, 'because she forgets, and I nowhere because I remember.' She came toward him. 'Matthew,' she said, 'you think I have always been like this. Once I was remorseless, but this is another love β it goes everywhere; there is no place for it to stop β it rots me away.
Our bones ache only while the flesh is on them. Stretch it as thin as the temple flesh of an ailing woman and still it serves to ache the bone and to move the bone about; and in like manner the night is a skin pulled over the head of day that the day may be in a torment. We will find no comfort until the night melts away; until the fury of the night rots out its fire.
βGod,β she cried, βwhat is love? Man seeking his own head? The human head, so rented by misery that even the teeth weigh! She couldn't tell me the truth because she had never planned it; her life was a continual accident, and how can you be prepared for that? Everything we can't bear in this world, some day we find in one person, and love it all at once.β
There is an awful warmth about my heart like a load of immortality.
The equal rights of man and the happiness of every individual are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.
Nobody would know me from my own description of myself; which is why, when called upon (rarely, I grant) to provide an account, I tailor it, I adapt, I try to provide an outline that can, in some way, correlate to the outline that people understand me to have -- that, I suppose, I actually have, at this point. But who I am in my head, very few people really get to see that. Almost none. It's the most precious gift I can give, to bring her out of hiding.
People always clap for the wrong reasons.
The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon [the 'Super', i.e. the hydrogen bomb] makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light. For these reasons, we believe it important for the President of the United States to tell the American public and the world what we think is wrong on fundamental ethical principles to initiate the development of such a weapon.
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
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