When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree by the river of truth, and tell the whole world - No, you move.
Interpretation
Stand firm in your convictions, even when pressured to conform.
This quote encourages individuals to maintain their beliefs and principles in the face of external pressure from society, media, or any collective force. It emphasizes the importance of resilience and personal integrity, advocating for standing one's ground and speaking one's truth rather than succumbing to pressure to change.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a motivational speech on personal integrity.
There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender.
Avoid the tyranny of the reasonable voice...it will guarantee a complacency of never trying anything adventurous.
You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
The point of mythology or myth is to point to the horizon and to point back to ourselves: This is who we are; this is where we came from; and this is where we're going. And a lot of Western society over the last hundred years - the last 50 years really - has lost that. We have become rather aimless and wandering.
The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible in-between. But there is still time to seize that one last fragile moment.
When it comes down to it, the reason that science fiction endures is that it is, at its core, an optimistic genre. What it says at the end of the day is that there is a tomorrow, we do go on, we don't extinguish ourselves and leave the planet to the cockroaches.
I've been through everything. I always said I was like those round-bottomed circus dolls — you know, those dolls you could push down and they'd come back up? I've always been like that. I've always said, No matter what happens, if I get pushed down, I'm going to come right back up.
I never had that feeling that I had to carry the weight of somebody's ignorance around with me. And that was true for racists who wanted to use the 'n' word when talking about me or about my people, or the stupidity of people who really wanted to belittle other folks because they weren't pretty or they weren't rich or they weren't clever.
Black men and women were not allowed to register to vote. My own mother, my own father, my grandfather and my uncles and aunts could not register to vote because each time they attempted to register to vote, they were told they could not pass the literacy test.
Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance.
Anyone who ever witnessed Ueli Steck flying up the Eigerwand would know that he was always in control of his actions. He was always moving with immense precision and a sense of safety.
I'm not the sort to back away from a fight. I don't believe in shrinking from anything. It's not my speed; I'm a guy who meets adversities head on.
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