To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.
Charles Horton CooleyRead
The chief misery of the decline of the faculties, and a main cause of the irritability that often goes with it, is evidently the isolation, the lack of customary appreciation and influence, which only the rarest tact and thoughtfulness on the part of others can alleviate.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Isolation and lack of appreciation can lead to misery and irritability in life.
This quote by Charles Horton Cooley emphasizes the emotional struggles that come with declining faculties, particularly the profound sense of isolation and the absence of appreciation from others. It suggests that such conditions not only lead to personal misery but also contribute to irritability, and that addressing these feelings requires exceptional sensitivity and thoughtfulness from those around the affected individual.
Themes
IsolationAppreciationMiseryThoughtfulnessIrritability
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of community support for elderly or declining individuals.
More from Charles Horton Cooley
All quotes →If we divine a discrepancy between a man's words and his character, the whole impression of him becomes broken and painful; he revolts the imagination by his lack of unity, and even the good in him is hardly accepted.
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We have no higher life that is really apart from other people. It is by imagining them that our personality is built up; to be without the power of imagining them is to be a low-grade idiot.
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The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society.
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Each man must have his I; it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble.
Charles Horton CooleyRead
The thing that moves us to pride or shame is not the mere mechanical reflection of ourselves but the imagined effect of this reflection upon another's mind.
Charles Horton CooleyRead
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