“… we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing.”

—  Margaret Atwood , book The Year of the Flood

Source: The Year of the Flood

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "… we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing." by Margaret Atwood?
Margaret Atwood photo
Margaret Atwood 348
Canadian writer 1939

Related quotes

Edith Stein photo

“We can do nothing ourselves; God must do it. To speak to Him thus is easier by nature for woman than for man because a natural desire lives in her to give herself completely to someone.”

Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher

Essays on Woman (1996), Fundamental Principles of Women's Education (1931)

“You cannot rely upon what you have been taught. All you have learned from history is old ways of making mistakes. There is nothing that history can tell you about what we must do tomorrow. Only what we must not do.”

Edwin H. Land (1909–1991) American scientist and inventor

Address to Polaroid employees at Symphony Hall in Boston, Massachusetts (5 February 1960), as quoted in Insisting on the Impossible : The Life of Edwin Land (1998) by Victor K. McElheny, p. 198
Context: The world is a scene changing so rapidly that it takes every bit of intuitive ability you have, every brain cell each one of you has, to make the sensible decision about what to do next. You cannot rely upon what you have been taught. All you have learned from history is old ways of making mistakes. There is nothing that history can tell you about what we must do tomorrow. Only what we must not do.

Norman Mailer photo

“One thing I've learned in all these years is not to make love when you really don't feel it; there's probably nothing worse you can do to yourself than that.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate
Charles Bukowski photo

“there are worse things
than being alone
but it often takes
decades to realize this
and most often when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than too late”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer
Sydney Smith photo

“It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Lecture XIX : On the Conduct of the Understanding, Part II
Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849)

Ernest Hemingway photo

“It could be worse,' Passini said respectfully. "There is nothing worse than war."
Defeat is worse."
I do not believe it," Passini said still respectfully. "What is defeat? You go home.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Noam Chomsky photo

“If you can think of nothing that wouldn't do harm, then do nothing.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Panel with Edward Said at Columbia University, New York, April 1999 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/042214
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999
Context: Let me just put the whole thing in a kind of mundane level. Like, suppose you walk out in the street, this evening, and you see a crime being committed, you know, somebody is robbing someone else. Well, you have three choices. One choice is to try to stop it, maybe you call 911 or something. Another choice is to do nothing. A third choice is to pick up an assault rifle and kill 'em both, and kill a bystander at the same time. Well, suppose you do that, and somebody says, "Well, you know, why did you do that?" And you say, "Look, I couldn't stand by and do nothing." I mean, is that a response? If you can think of nothing that wouldn't do harm, then do nothing. And the same is true, magnified, in international affairs. Apart from the fact that there were things that could have been done.

Related topics