It seems that fighting is a game where everybody is the loser.
Zora Neale HurstonRead
I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a rejection of victimhood and sorrow, emphasizing a resilient and content attitude towards life.
In this quote, Zora Neale Hurston articulates her refusal to be defined by tragedy or sorrow. She asserts that her identity is not centered around pain or suffering, but rather embraces a sense of self that is free from such burdens. This reflects a powerful message about self-acceptance and resilience, advocating for a life lived without the constraints of societal perceptions of tragedy.
In practice
In a speech about overcoming adversity, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of self-perception.
It seems that fighting is a game where everybody is the loser.
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 bloomβ¦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.
Sooner or later, all the peoples of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.
My characters aren't losers. They're rebels. They win by their refusal to play by everyone else's rules.
The vast numbers of people who suffer some kind of mental illness under capitalism can either think, 'there is some failing with me, if only I could fit into this system better, if only I were working harder, if only I could enjoy these empty pleasures more, then things would be OK' or 'the problem is with the system that is making me ill.'
Here is the difference between Dante, Milton, and me. They wrote about hell and never saw the place. I wrote about Chicago after looking the town over for years and years.
Worse that drugs is drug trafficking. Much worse. Drugs are a disease, and I don't think that there are good drugs or that marijuana is good. Nor cigarettes. No addiction is good. I include alcohol. The only good addiction is love. Forget everything else.
Places have charisma, in short, as much as people do.
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