"Our society is dependent on some precarious mechanisms, and they are very dicey. They can easily collapse."

Life

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Insight & Reflection

This reflection on life by Doris Lessing resonates across generations. It highlights a fundamental truth about human nature: our continuous search for meaning in life is what ultimately defines our character and our path forward.

About Doris Lessing

Doris May Lessing was a British novelist – sometimes identified as Rhodesian early in her career – and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007. Lessing was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until she was 6 in 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia, where she remained until moving to London, England, in 1949. Her novels include The Grass Is Singing (1950), the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence (1952–1969), The Golden Notebook (1962), The Good Terrorist (1985), and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979–1983).

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Editorial Note: This quote is curated and fact-checked by the Quotes Archive Editorial Team. Verified Literature Specialist.

More by Doris Lessing

"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."

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"What the feminists want of me is something they haven't examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness."

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"September 11 was terrible but, if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible."

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More about Life

"It is a humble truth that the present moment is the only sanctuary where peace truly resides — an essential principle for the reflective life."

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