It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn. Sophie Scholl
About This Quote

The quote above is taken from the short story The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. In the story, the little mermaid is enraged at her father for shipping her away to become a servant. She is given a mirror and told that if she just looks in it and remembers her true form, she will be able to return to the sea and live with her mother. However, when she looks in the mirror, she sees herself with human eyes and looking like a disgusting fish.

She then tries to find another way to get back home by listening to what her father says about her. He tells her that she is over-the-top, wears too much makeup and needs to be more modest. This has made her look like something ugly and different than what people expect of a mermaid.

He also tells her that if she goes out into society, people will want to buy things from her because they think she is beautiful. Her father tells his daughter that he sold her because he thought it was for the best for both of them, but in reality it was all an illusion because mermaids are supposed to be beautiful creatures who are meant to be worshipped by men because they are sexy and beautiful creatures. The little mermaid then realizes that everything that has happened was an illusion paired with harsh words paired with harsh actions.

The mermaid then takes control of her own life by refusing to let go of the image of what other people have made up about her.

Some Similar Quotes
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  2. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can. - Nicholas Sparks
  3. The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person. - Chuck Palahniuk
  4. Where there is love there is life. - Mahatma Gandhi
  5. It hurts to let go. Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted.... - Henry Rollins
More Quotes By Sophie Scholl
  1. I know that life is a doorway to eternity, and yet my heart so often gets lost in petty anxieties. It forgets the great way home that lies before it.
  2. How can we expect fate to let a righteous cause prevail when there is hardly anyone who will give himself up undividedly to a righteous cause?
  3. An end in terror is preferable to terror without end.
  4. Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did.
  5. I am, now as before, of the opinion that I did the best that I could do for my nation. I therefore do not regret my conduct and will bear the consequences that result from my conduct.
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