Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Doris Lessing (British Novelist, Poet)

Doris May Lessing (1919–2013) was a prolific British author of novels and more than 50 short stories whose themes ranged from social justice to feminism and science fiction. She won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Lessing was born in Kermanshah, now in Iran, to a British father who was a clerk with the Imperial Bank of Persia and an overbearing mother. In 1925, her family moved to Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, to run a maize farm; the undertaking was not a financial success. Doris dropped out of school at the age of 13 but read many books that her family ordered from England. She left home at age 15 and worked as a nurse’s assistant, where her employer gave her writings on politics and sociology to read.

When Lessing moved back from Africa to London, she published her first novel, The Grass is Singing (1949.) This story of a white farmer’s wife, her affair with an African servant, and the violent conclusion to their relationship became an immediate best-seller. They set an example in its portrayal of an interracial relationship.

Lessing’s masterpiece novel, and perhaps her most controversial work, was The Golden Notebook (1962.) This multi-layered story about the different facets of a woman’s personality and her passions was the most complex and longest work Lessing ever produced. The book became a landmark and made Lessing an icon of the fast-growing feminist movement.

By the late ’70s, Lessing abandoned social themes for science fiction with her Canopus in Argus (1979–83) series, which featured a bleak vision of the future with tyranny and natural catastrophes. Some of Lessing’s supporters welcomed her audacious achievement, but others were disappointed that she had abandoned her role as a realistic observer of the self and society.

Lessing also wrote the semi-autobiographical Children of Violence (1952–69) series, and Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971,) a frightening and surreal exploration of mental illness. Her later novels include The Good Terrorist (1985,) a satire on romantic politics, and The Fifth Child (1988,) about the devastation inflicted upon a family by an aggressive and anti-social child.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Doris Lessing

It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.
—Doris Lessing

Literature is analysis after the event.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Literature, Books, Events

Forget the long ago. We are here and we are now, and that is all. We are making a new start.
—Doris Lessing

What is a hero without love for mankind.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Heroism, Heroes/Heroism, Heroes

Some people obtain fame, others deserve it.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Fame

Man who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Humankind, Humanity

Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Self-reliance, Confidence, Thinking, Judgment

That’s what learning is: You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life. but in a new way.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Education, Learning, Understanding

Laughter is by definition healthy.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Laughter

The worst superstition is to consider our own tolerable.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Superstition

I don’t know much about creative writing programs. But they’re not telling the truth if they don’t teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Writing

What’s terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don’t need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you’re capable of better.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Love, Excellence, Honesty

Better Counsel comes overnight.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Advice

This world is run by people who know how to do things. They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, there’s a layer of people who run everything. But we—we’re just peasants. We don’t understand what’s going on, and we can’t do anything.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Experts, Professionalism

In university they don’t tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Universities, Education, Colleges, Tolerance

Pearls mean tears.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Tears, Crying

Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Genius

Growing up is, after all, only the understanding that one’s unique and incredible experience is what every one shares.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Experience

Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Science Fiction

The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven’t changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Aging, Secrets, Age

Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don’t seem to see this.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Politics

It is terrible to destroy a person’s picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Identity

It is individuals who change societies, give birth to ideas; who standing out against tides of opinion, change them.
—Doris Lessing

Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Faults, Mistakes

All one’s life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to being noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Women

If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.
—Doris Lessing
Topics: Cats

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