A strong hatred is the best lamp to bear in our hands as we go over the dark places of life, cutting away the dead things men tell us to revere.
Rebecca WestRead
I wonder if we are all wrong about each other, if we are just composing unwritten novels about the people we meet?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that our perceptions of others may be flawed, as we often create narratives about them in our minds that may not reflect reality.
Rebecca West's quote provokes reflection on how we perceive and interpret the people we encounter in our lives. It highlights the idea that our assumptions and judgments about others can be misguided, as they are often based on our own unwritten stories and biases rather than the true nature of the individuals. This quote encourages us to question our understanding of each other and consider that we may be projecting our own narratives onto others instead of seeing them as they truly are.
Themes
PerceptionUnderstandingRelationshipsNarrativeJudgment
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion about forming new friendships, one might say this quote to highlight the importance of understanding others.
More from Rebecca West
All quotes βworks of art feel towards human beings exactly as we do towards ghosts. The transparency of spectres, the diffuseness in space which lets them drift through doors and walls, and their smell of death, disgust us not more than we disgust works of art by our meaninglessness, our diffuseness in time which lets us drift through three score years and ten without a quarter as much significance as a picture establishes instantaneously.
Rebecca WestRead
All good biography, as all good fiction, comes down to the study of original sin, of our inherent disposition to choose death when we ought to choose life.
Rebecca WestRead
It's my profession to bring people from various outlying districts of the mind to the normal. There seems to be a general feeling it's the place where they ought to be. Sometimes I don't see the urgency myself.
Rebecca WestRead
God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.
Rebecca WestRead
She did not suddenly start being disagreeable this afternoon, she was so good at it, she had evidently practised whatever are the scales and arpeggios of rudeness every day of her life.
Rebecca WestRead
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