I don't think homosexuality is a choice. Society forces you to think it's a choice, but in fact, it's in one's nature. The choice is whether one expresses one's nature truthfully or spends the rest of one's life lying about it.
My father (Danny Thomas) used to tell me there are two kinds of people, the takers and the givers. 'The takers sometimes eat better,' he would say, 'but the givers always sleep better.'
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the difference between people who take from others and those who give selflessly, suggesting that givers find more peace in life.
Marlo Thomas reflects on a lesson taught by her father, highlighting the distinction between givers and takers. While takers may enjoy immediate benefits and material pleasures, it is the givers who experience a deeper sense of fulfillment and peace of mind. This perspective sheds light on the moral richness of generosity and the long-term satisfaction it can provide, suggesting that true contentment comes from selfless acts rather than self-serving behaviors.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about community service, one might quote this to encourage volunteers to focus on the joy of giving.
More from Marlo Thomas
All quotes →My father said there were two kinds of people in the world: givers and takers. The takers may eat better, but the givers sleep better.
I wish someone would have told me that, just because I'm a girl, I don't have to get married.
Similar quotes
Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble, believing, become totally bankrupt by the age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, cards, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure, beautiful youth? Why is it that, once fallen, we do not try to rise, and, having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?
Though we may never be able to comprehend human life, we know certainly that it is a movement, of whatever nature it be. The existence of movement unavoidably implies a body which is being moved and a force which is moving it. Hence, wherever there is life, there is a mass moved by a force. All mass possesses inertia; all force tends to persist
The people must fight for their laws as for their walls.
I believe there is complete equality between men and women. And I believe those passages in the New Testament, not by Jesus, but by Paul, that say women should not adorn themselves, they should always wear hats or color their hair in church - things like that - I think they are signs of the times and should not apply to modern-day life.
The guts carry the feet, not the feet the guts.
Two of the hardest words in the language to rhyme are life and love. Of all words!