Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.
Martha GellhornRead
Citizenship is a tough occupation which obliges the citizen to make his own informed opinion and stand by it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Citizenship requires active engagement and responsibility in forming and sharing personal opinions.
This quote emphasizes the responsibility of individuals in a democracy to not only have their own informed opinions but also to stand firm in them. It suggests that being a citizen is not a passive role; rather, it involves critical thinking and commitment to one's beliefs, which are essential in influencing society and governance.
Themes
CitizenshipResponsibilityOpinionDemocracyEngagement
In practice
Example use cases
During a citizenship class, I quoted, 'Citizenship is a tough occupation...' to highlight the importance of informed opinions.
More from Martha Gellhorn
All quotes →It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.
Martha GellhornRead
the ends never justify the means because IT never ends.
Martha GellhornRead
I followed the war wherever I could reach it.
Martha GellhornRead
Thousand got away to other countries; thousands returned to Spain tempted by false promises of kindness. By the tens of thousands, these Spaniards died of neglect in the concentration camps.
Martha GellhornRead
By its existence, the Peace Movement denies that governments know best; it stands for a different order of priorities: the human race comes first.
Martha GellhornRead
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Those who learned to know death, rather than to fear and fight it, become our teachers about life.
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If it is true, for instance, that depression is constituted by low serotonin levels, what still needs to be explained is why particular individuals have low levels of serotonin. This requires a social and political explanation.
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Feminism without spirituality runs the risk of becoming what it rejects: an elitist ideology, arrogant, superficial and separatist, closed to everything but itself. Without a spiritual base that obligates it beyond itself, calls it out of itself for the sake of others, a pedagogical feminism turned in on itself can become just one more intellectual ghetto that the world doesn’t notice and doesn’t need.
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It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.
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Truthfulness is the foundation of all the virtues of mankind
Abdu'L-BahRead