"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death"
About this Quote
Fulghum’s credo reads like a gentle manifesto against the tyranny of the measurable. It’s a ladder of escalating claims, each one built on a deliberate reversal: imagination over knowledge, myth over history, dreams over facts. The intent isn’t to dunk on reason; it’s to relocate authority. He’s arguing that what actually moves people - what gets them through the day, what binds a community, what keeps a private life from collapsing - isn’t information but meaning. Knowledge can catalogue the world; imagination supplies a reason to stay in it.
The subtext is quietly corrective, aimed at a culture that confuses data with wisdom and confuses cynicism with maturity. “Hope always triumphs over experience” is the line that gives away the target: the grown-up voice that says you’ve seen too much to believe anymore. Fulghum treats that posture as a dead end, a kind of emotional bookkeeping that never adds up to a life. Myth isn’t “false” here; it’s the story-shaped container that makes pain, love, and loss livable. History tells you what happened. Myth tells you why it matters.
Structurally, the repetition of “That…” works like a litany, borrowing the cadence of prayer without overt religiosity. It invites assent, not debate. The emotional pivot is “laughter is the only cure for grief,” a line that refuses melodrama and insists on survival as a communal act: grief isolates; laughter re-links. Ending with “love is stronger than death” isn’t originality, it’s strategy - the oldest human defiance, offered not as proof but as a practice. In Fulghum’s world, the point isn’t winning an argument with reality. It’s outlasting it.
The subtext is quietly corrective, aimed at a culture that confuses data with wisdom and confuses cynicism with maturity. “Hope always triumphs over experience” is the line that gives away the target: the grown-up voice that says you’ve seen too much to believe anymore. Fulghum treats that posture as a dead end, a kind of emotional bookkeeping that never adds up to a life. Myth isn’t “false” here; it’s the story-shaped container that makes pain, love, and loss livable. History tells you what happened. Myth tells you why it matters.
Structurally, the repetition of “That…” works like a litany, borrowing the cadence of prayer without overt religiosity. It invites assent, not debate. The emotional pivot is “laughter is the only cure for grief,” a line that refuses melodrama and insists on survival as a communal act: grief isolates; laughter re-links. Ending with “love is stronger than death” isn’t originality, it’s strategy - the oldest human defiance, offered not as proof but as a practice. In Fulghum’s world, the point isn’t winning an argument with reality. It’s outlasting it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Love |
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