“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
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About this quote
Hold two things at once: fierce care and steady attention. Love and kindness matter, but so does watching clearly and refusing to look away when things are brutal or unequal. Do something concrete this week: notice one small joyful detail in a hard place and write it down, or speak up for someone whose strength is being dismissed as power. These habits keep you humane and honest rather than numb or consoling yourself with easy answers.
When to use it
- At the courthouse, defending a client who the system is ready to write off, I tell myself to respect strength, never power, and to look for the human details the record misses.
- On a night shift in palliative care, I say this line to steady me so I sit with a patient and really watch instead of checking my phone and moving on.
- At my daughter’s damp school recital, when the room feels tired and messy, I remember to seek the small joy in that moment and be fully present.
- While volunteering at the food pantry and seeing sharp inequality, I repeat this to avoid simplifying the problem and to choose one concrete action I can take.