There are people whose souls have just withered, people who are willing to go along with anything evil - anything so as not to be suspected of disagreeing with whoever is in power.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the danger of conformity and the moral decay that can result from loyalty to corrupt power.
Vasily Grossman's quote reflects on the moral compromise individuals may face when they choose to align themselves with corrupt or evil powers rather than stand for their beliefs. It suggests that a person's soul can wither in the process of surrendering to the pressures of conformity, failing to disagree even in the face of wrongdoing, which ultimately erodes their integrity and humanity.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of standing up for one's beliefs, this quote could serve as a powerful reminder.
And in this silence of the dumb and these speeches of the blind, in this medly of people bound together by the same grief, terror and hope, in this hatred and lack of understanding between men who spoke the same tongue, you could see much of the tragedy of the twentieth century.
Why do people have memories? It would be easier to die - anything to stop remembering.
Good men and bad men alike are capable of weakness. The difference is simply that a bad man will be proud all his life of one good deed - while an honest man is hardly aware of his good acts, but remembers a single sin for years on end.
Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.
The civil rights movement was based on faith. Many of us who were participants in this movement saw our involvement as an extension of our faith. We saw ourselves doing the work of the Almighty. Segregation and racial discrimination were not in keeping with our faith, so we had to do something.
Loyalty and obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer to defy arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used--not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of others more helpless.
LGBT people are some of the bravest and most potent change agents and leaders I have encountered, and the most forceful defenders of the vulnerable and voiceless, because they know what it's like to be there.
It is a struggle; for though the black man fights passively, he nevertheless fights; and his passive resistance is more effective at present than active resistance could possibly be. He bears the fury of the storm as does the willow tree.
To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat.
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