There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.
Rita DoveRead
Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Equality and self-determination must always coexist without being compromised by extreme beliefs.
Rita Dove's quote highlights the importance of maintaining both equality and self-determination as fundamental rights that should not be separated due to religious or ideological zeal. It suggests that extreme beliefs should not undermine the equal rights of individuals to determine their own paths, reinforcing the vision of a society where diverse identities and beliefs can coexist harmoniously.
Themes
EqualitySelf-DeterminationReligionIdeologyFreedom
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech advocating for civil rights.
More from Rita Dove
All quotes →Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine.
Rita DoveRead
As an African-American, as a woman, I think that I've been sensitized to the way in which history privileges the white male and the way in which certain aspects of history, the things that we are taught in school, the things that are handed down, never, never entered the picture though they might have been very important.
Rita DoveRead
If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can’t imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America’s alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart — and then to discover that one is not alone in ones feelings.
Rita DoveRead
All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.
Rita DoveRead
Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.
Rita DoveRead
Similar quotes
To come to know that nothing is good, nothing is bad, is a turning point; it is a conversion. You start looking in; the outside reality loses meaning. The social reality is a fiction, a beautiful drama; you can participate in it, but then you don’t take it seriously. It is just a role to be played; play it as beautifully, as efficiently, as possible. But don’t take it seriously, it has nothing of the ultimate in it.
RajneeshRead
The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.
Albert EinsteinRead
It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.
Arthur C. ClarkeRead
I wanted all things to seem to make some sense, So we could all be happy, yes, instead of tense. And I made up lies, so they all fit nice, and I made this sad world a paradise
Kurt VonnegutRead
I don't think pandemics make us afraid of death, I think they make us afraid of oblivion. They force us to grapple with the futility of effort. Also they make us barf which isn't fun either... Wash your hands, cover your coughs, and find a way to hold in balance the futility of effort with the necessity to struggle.
John GreenRead