Logic is one thing, the human animal another. You can quite easily propose a logical solution to something and at the same time hope in your heart of hearts it won't work out.
Luigi PirandelloRead
Anyone can be heroic from time to time, but a gentleman is something you have to be all the time.
Interpretation
Being heroic is occasional, but true gentlemanly behavior is a constant quality.
This quote conveys the distinction between episodic acts of heroism and the consistent character required to be a gentleman. It suggests that while anyone might display bravery or nobility in specific situations, being a true gentleman demands a daily commitment to integrity, respect, and honorable conduct.
In practice
In a speech about moral integrity, one might quote Pirandello to emphasize the importance of consistent ethical behavior.
Logic is one thing, the human animal another. You can quite easily propose a logical solution to something and at the same time hope in your heart of hearts it won't work out.
We're like so many puppets hung on the wall, waiting for someone to come and move us or make us talk.
Woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!
THE FATHER: But don't you see that the whole trouble lies here? In words, words. Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never really do.
Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die!
A fact is like a sack - it won't stand up if it's empty. To make it stand up, first you have to put in it all the reasons and feelings that caused it in the first place.
Praise and blame, good and bad, even heat and cold, must be equally acceptable to us.
We are still conditioning people in this country and, indeed, all over the globe to the myth of white superiority. We are constantly being told that we don't have racism in this country anymore, but most of the people who are saying that are white. White people think it isn't happening because it isn't happening to them.
The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.
Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out.
Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Whatever government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be called what it may.
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