We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling.
Interpretation
Our identities and existence are shaped by the stories we share, preserving the essence of those who came before us.
This quote emphasizes the profound connection between storytelling and human existence. It suggests that stories define who we are and serve a dual purpose: they help us maintain our identity while also honoring and keeping alive the memories of those who have passed. Through the act of storytelling, we not only remember our own experiences but also ensure that the legacies of others endure as long as their stories are retold.
In practice
In a graduation speech to highlight the importance of personal narratives.
I don't know whether God exists or not. ... Some forms of atheism are arrogant and ignorant and should be rejected, but agnosticism—to admit that we don't know and to search—is all right. ... When I look at what I call the gift of life, I feel a gratitude which is in tune with some religious ideas of God. However, the moment I even speak of it, I am embarrassed that I may do something wrong to God in talking about God.
People to whom their daily life appears too empty and monotonous easily grow religious; this is comprehensible and excusable, only they have no right to demand religious sentiments from those whose daily life is not empty and monotonous.
The engineers of the future will be poets.
The past is always - one moment it's what happened three minutes ago, and one minute it's what happened 30 years ago. And they flow into each other in ways that we can't predict and that we keep discovering in dreams, which keep bringing up feelings and moments, some of which we never actually saw.
There are situations in which hope and fear run together, in which they mutually destroy one another and lose themselves in dull indifference.
All restraints upon man's natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree.
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