For discipline is imposed not just on oneself but on those in one's orbit.
Interpretation
Discipline affects not only oneself but also influences the people around them.
Philip Roth conveys the idea that personal discipline is a responsibility that extends beyond the individual, impacting the behavior and attitudes of those in their immediate environment. This interconnectedness suggests that practicing self-discipline can foster a culture of discipline among peers, family, or colleagues, ultimately shaping the community positively.
In practice
During a workshop on leadership, one might use this quote to illustrate the broader impact of personal habits on team dynamics.
American society [...] not only sanctions gross and unfair relations among men, but it encourages them. Now, can that be denied? No. Rivalry, competition, envy, jealousy, all that is malignant in human character is nourished by the system. Possession, money, property--on such corrupt standards as these do you people measure happiness and success.
I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.
Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself
When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it.
It isn't that you subordinate your ideas to the force of the facts in autobiography but that you construct a sequence of stories to bind up the facts with a persuasive hypothesis that unravels your history's meaning.
That's what you're looking for as a writer when you're working. You're looking for your own freedom. To lose your inhibition to delve deep into your memory and experiences and life and then to find the prose that will persuade the reader.
Goodness in words creates trust, goodness in thinking creates depth, goodness in giving creates love.
Many of us do not believe in any form of idolatry; but they have no right to object when others do it.
There are many in this old world of ours who hold that things break about even for all of us. I have observed, for example, that we all get the same amount of ice. The rich get it in the summertime and the poor get it in the winter.
I am the escaped one, After I was born They locked me up inside me But I left. My soul seeks me, Through hills and valley, I hope my soul Never finds me.
Every state begins in compulsion; but the habits of obedience become the content of conscience, and soon every citizen thrills with loyalty to the flag. The citizen is right; for however the state begins, it soon becomes an indispensable prop to order.
The interior of our skulls contains a portal to infinity.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.