Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.
Joseph AddisonRead
What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the tendency to focus on people's flaws rather than their strengths and positives.
Joseph Addison's quote challenges the common human inclination to dwell on the imperfections and shortcomings of individuals rather than recognizing and appreciating their valuable traits and contributions. It suggests that such an obsession with flaws is absurd and invites a more balanced perspective that celebrates the entirety of a person's character.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a motivational speech on self-acceptance.
Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.
Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.
Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.
Admiration is a very short lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it still be fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.
It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights.
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
Place principle above all else.
In anything that does cover the whole of your life - in your philosophy and your religion - you must have mirth. If you do not have mirth you will certainly have madness.
And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.
I was deeply interested in conveying what is a deeply felt conviction of my own. This is simply to suggest that human beings must involve themselves in the anguish of other human beings. This, I submit to you, is not a political thesis at all. It is simply an expression of what I would hope might be ultimately a simple humanity for humanity's sake.
The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority.
It seems that the right of freedom of speech that was enshrined in numerous constitutions is now under attack by religious institutions.
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