The demands of internal growth are incomparably more important to us...than the need for any external expansion of our power.
Interpretation
Internal growth is more significant than external power.
This quote emphasizes the importance of personal and internal development over the pursuit of external achievements and power. It suggests that true fulfillment and significance come from within, rather than from societal status or control.
In practice
In a motivational seminar about personal development, this quote can be used to inspire attendees to focus on self-improvement.
At what point, then, should one resist? When one's belt is taken away? When one is ordered to face into a corner? When one crosses the threshold of one's home? An arrest consists of a series of incidental irrelevancies, of a multitude of things that do not matter, and there seems no point in arguing about one of them individually...and yet all these incidental irrelevancies taken together implacably constitute the arrest.
To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good... Ideology - that is what gives devildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors.
Today when we say the West we are already referring to the West and to Russia. We could use the word 'modernity' if we exclude Africa, and the Islamic world, and partially China.
To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots.
Like a bicycle, like a wheel that, once rolling, is stable only so long as it keeps moving but falls when its momentum stops, so the game between a man and woman, once begun, can exist only so long as it progresses. If the forward movement today is no more than it was yesterday, the game is over.
It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.
It's gotten to a point where everybody is concerned about their rights and nobody is concerned about their duties.
Arms and laws do not flourish together.
Brutes by their natural instinct have produced many discoveries, whereas men by discussion and the conclusions of reason have given birth to few or none.
If good things lasted forever, would we appreciate how precious they are?
Little islands are all large prisons: one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.
One of the pitfalls of writing about illness is that it is very easy to imagine people with cancer as either these wise, beyond-their-years creatures or else these sad-eyed, tragic people. And the truth is people living with cancer are very much like people who are not living with cancer.
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