I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.
Doris LessingRead
When a white man in Africa by accident looks into the eyes of a native and sees the human being (which it is the chief preoccupation to avoid), his sense of guilt, which he denies, fumes up in resentment and he brings down the whip.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote explores the guilt and denial experienced by colonizers when confronted with their humanity of those they oppress.
Doris Lessing's quote highlights the psychological conflict faced by colonizers when they momentarily recognize the humanity of those they subjugate. The white man's guilt is an inconvenience that he attempts to suppress, leading to resentment and violence as a means to re-establish a sense of superiority and control over the native population.
Themes
ColonialismGuiltHumanityOppressionResentment
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about post-colonial literature, this quote can be used to illustrate the psychological effects of colonial guilt.
More from Doris Lessing
All quotes →In the writing process, the more the story cooks, the better. The brain works for you even when you are at rest. I find dreams particularly useful. I myself think a great deal before I go to sleep and the details sometimes unfold in the dream.
Doris LessingRead
Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: 'He/she was born, lived, died.' Probably that is the template of our stories - a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds.
Doris LessingRead
There is a great line of women stretching out behind you into the past, and you have to seek them out and find them in yourself and be conscious of them.
Doris LessingRead
The World War I, I'm a child of World War I. And I really know about the children of war. Because both my parents were both badly damaged by the war. My father, physically, and both mentally and emotionally. So, I know exactly what it's like to be brought up in an atmosphere of a continual harping on the war.
Doris LessingRead
You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.
Doris LessingRead
Similar quotes
We know all their gods; they ignore ours. What they call our sins are our gods, and what they call their gods, we name otherwise.
Natalie Clifford BarneyRead
All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.
Eugene H. PetersonRead
My belief is that the various religious traditions have great potential to increase compassion, the sense of caring for one another, and the spirit of reconciliation. However, I believe that a human being, without religious faith, can be a very good person - sincere, a good heart, having a sense of concern for others - without belief in a particular religious faith.
Dalai LamaRead
In our patriarchal world, we are all taught - whether we like to think we are or not - that God, being male, values maleness much more than he values femaleness... that in order to propitiate God, women must propitiate men.
Sonia JohnsonRead
Consciousness is evolving throughout the universe in billions of forms. So even if we didn't make it, this wouldn't matter on cosmic scale. No gain in consciousness is ever lost, so it would simply express itself through some other form. But the very fact that I am speaking here and you are listening or reading this is a clear sign that the new consciousness is gaining a foothold on the planet.
Eckhart TolleRead
For one gains by losing And loses by gaining.
LaoziRead