It seems that fighting is a game where everybody is the loser.
Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the nature of dreams and reality, emphasizing how aspirations can elude people while exploring the contrasting ways men and women perceive and manage their desires.
Zora Neale Hurston's quote delves into the complexities of human aspirations and the differing perspectives of men and women regarding their dreams. It suggests that while men often face unfulfilled desires that drift away like ships on the horizon, women tend to selectively remember and forget experiences to cope with their own realities. The juxtaposition highlights the struggles of yearning for unattainable dreams, and how in the end, these desires shape actions and perceptions of truth in life.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about pursuing dreams, this quote can serve as a poignant reminder of the challenges and varying experiences in life.
More from Zora Neale Hurston
All quotes →Lack of power and opportunity passes off too often for virtue.
From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom…It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep.
Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me.
Don't you realize that the sea is the home of water? All water is off on a journey unless it's in the sea, and it's homesick, and bound to make its way home someday.
Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.
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There is an old poor man,. . . . Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger.
We think that it's the big moments that define our lives-the wedding, the baby, the new house, the dream job. But really, these big moments of happiness are just the punctuation marks of our personal sagas. The narrative is written every day in the small, the simple, and the common. In your tiny choices, in these tiny changes. In the unconsidered. The overlooked. The discarded. The reclaimed.
Even when you look for it, you're never prepared for it.
We'd get sick on too many cookies, but ever so much sicker on no cookies at all.
Some of your griefs you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you've endured From evils that never arrived.
Never did anybody look so sad. Bitter and black, halfway down, in the darkness, in the shaft which ran from the sunlight to the depths, perhaps a tear formed; a tear fell; the waves swayed this way and that, received it, and were at rest. Never did anybody look so sad.