If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price.
John UpdikeRead
How can you respect the world when you see it's being run by a bunch of kids turned old?
Interpretation
The quote reflects skepticism towards the authority of those in power, suggesting they are immature or unqualified.
John Updikeβs quote prompts a reflection on the nature of leadership and authority, implying that the world is governed by individuals who may lack the necessary wisdom and maturity to lead effectively. It critiques the paradox of how society is run by people who, despite advancing in age, may not possess the emotional or intellectual maturity one would expect from their positions.
In practice
Use this quote in a discussion about the effectiveness of political leaders during a debate.
If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price.
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of. _x000D_ _x000D_ Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.
Museums and bookstores should feel, I think, like vacant lots - places where the demands on us are our own demands, where the spirit can find exercise in unsupervised play.
But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.
The reader knows the writer better than he knows himself; but the writer's physical presence is light from a star that has moved on.
To guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws ensures - if not happiness - its hopeful pursuit.
Then, in the next place, we must know that every being which is endowed with reason, and transgresses its statutes and limitations, is undoubtedly involved in sin by swerving from rectitude and justice.
We must learn to die, and to die in the fullest sense of the word. The fear of the end is the source of all lovelessness
Leave greatness to others. Become so small that no one can see you. This conviction results from growing devotion to the supreme reality.
Thou shalt not submit thy god to market forces.
It is a very good world to live in, To lend or to spend, or to live in; but to beg or to borrow, or to get a man's own, It is the very worst world that ever was known.
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
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