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You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing.
Helene Cixous
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that facing one's fears or challenges can reveal unexpected beauty and joy.

Helene Cixous uses the Medusa as a metaphor for how we often perceive certain things as frightening or dangerous. However, when we confront these fears directly, we may discover that what we initially perceived as scary is actually beautiful and joyful, encouraging us to change our perspective and embrace the unexpected.

Themes

MedusaBeautyFearChallengesPerspective

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used during a motivational speech about overcoming fears.

More from Helene Cixous

By writing her self, woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her, which has been turned into the uncanny stranger on display - the ailing or dead figure, which so often turns out to be the nasty companion, the cause and location of inhibitions. Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. _x000D_ Write your self. Your body must be heard. Only then will the immense resources of the unconscious spring forth.
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Writing is the delicate, difficult, and dangerous means of succeeding in avowing the unavowable.
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Only when you are lost can love find itself in you without losing its way.
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We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing.
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If my desire is possible, it means the system is already letting something else through.
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Women must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics, regulations and codes, they must submerge, cut through, get beyond the ultimate reverse-discourse, including the one that laughs at the very idea of pronouncing the word "silence"...In one another we will never be lacking.
Helene CixousRead

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