You wouldnβt be normal if you were never afraid. Even the bravest men experience fear. One of the biggest jobs we all face in combat is to overcome fear.
Joseph HellerRead
The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the tension between individual rights and the greater good of society, suggesting that exercising personal freedoms can sometimes lead to jeopardizing them.
Joseph Heller's quote reflects the complexity of exercising individual freedoms within a society facing peril, implying that the act of asserting oneβs rights can inherently put those rights at risk. In times of crisis, the balance between personal liberties and societal needs becomes precarious, as individuals must navigate the challenges of standing up for their freedoms while being aware of the consequences such actions might have in a fragile context.
Themes
FreedomIndependenceSocietyPersonal RightsPeril
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about civil liberties during a pandemic.
More from Joseph Heller
All quotes βHistory did not demand Yossarian's premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; WHICH men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents.
Joseph HellerRead
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
Joseph HellerRead
He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.
Joseph HellerRead
Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in alphabetical order so that he could put his finger without delay on any one he wanted to worry about.
Joseph HellerRead
Sure, that's what I mean,' Doc Daneeka said. 'A little grease is what makes this world go round. One hand washes the other. Know what I mean? You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.' Yossarian knew what he meant. That's not what I meant,' Doc Daneeka said, as Yossarian began scratching his back.
Joseph HellerRead
Similar quotes
We are as ignorant of the meaning of the dragon as we are of the meaning of the universe.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
You are done for - a living dead man - not when you stop loving but stop hating. Hatred preserves: in it, in its chemistry, resides the mystery of life.
Emile M. CioranRead
World has things which full fill man needs, but not greeds.
Mahatma GandhiRead
The individual does actually carry on a double existence: one designed to serve his own purposes and another as a link in a chain, in which he serves against, or at any rate without, any volition of his own.
Sigmund FreudRead
The very good people didn't convince me; I felt they'd never been tempted. But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands β and yet you hated the things it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference.
Edith WhartonRead
For all parts of the body that we see fit to expose to the wind and air are found fit to endure it: face, feet, hands, legs, shoulders, head, according as custom invites us. For if there is a part of us that is tender and that seems as though it should fear the cold, it should be the stomach, where digestion takes place; our fathers left it uncovered, and our ladies, soft and delicate as they are, sometimes go half bare down to the navel.
Michel De MontaigneRead