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Thinker · 5 quotes

Virginia Woolf quotes for UPSC

5 sourced quotes by Virginia Woolf on integrity & honesty, equality & social justice, women & gender, education & knowledge, culture, art & literature, with a use case for each in GS4, Essay and interviews.

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5 quotesAll thinkers →
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
— Virginia Woolf"The Leaning Tower", lecture delivered to the Workers' Educational Association, Brighton (May 1940)
Use itGS4: on self-honesty; integrity with oneself precedes honest judgement of others.
Integrity & HonestyMind & Self-awarenessGS4Life
We may enjoy our room in the tower, with the painted walls and the commodious bookcases, but down in the garden there is a man digging who buried his father this morning, and it is he and his like who live the real life and speak the real language.
— Virginia Woolf"Montaigne"
Use itEssay/GS4: on elite detachment; real life is lived by ordinary working people.
Equality & Social JusticeCivil Services & Public ServiceEssayGS4
I mean, what is a woman? I assure you, I do not know. I do not believe that you know. I do not believe that anybody can know until she has expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to human skill.
— Virginia Woolf"Professions for Women"
Use itGS1/Essay on women's empowerment; women's potential known only when all professions open to them.
Women & GenderEquality & Social JusticeEssayGS1
One cannot grow fine flowers in a thin soil.
— Virginia WoolfWomen and Writing (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979), p. 54. Also in
Use itEssay/GS2: on foundational learning; excellence needs a rich base of nurture and investment.
Education & KnowledgeCulture, Art & LiteratureEssayGS2

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