“It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes makes its way to the surface.”

Variant: Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.

Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

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Virginia Woolf 382
English writer 1882–1941

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“Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

King's often repeated expression that "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice" was his own succinct summation of sentiments echoing those of Theodore Parker, who, in "Of Justice and the Conscience" (1853) asserted: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."
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Context: I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will be still rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. … When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

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“We must dream our way.”

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“I wish to dissipate, if I can, the idle dreams of those who are always telling you that the strength of England depends, sometimes they say upon its prestige, sometimes they say upon its extending its Empire, or upon what it possesses beyond the seas. Rely upon it the strength of Great Britain and Ireland is within the United Kingdom.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

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“We should train our desires to show the way to our dreams.”

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“We are asleep. Our Life is a dream. But we wake up sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Attributed from posthumous publications

“dreams are shadows cast by truth shining on our darkest secrets”

Elizabeth Chandler (1954) writer

Source: Legacy of Lies & Don't Tell

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