Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.
Jean De La FontaineRead
Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our beliefs are often influenced by our fears and desires.
This quote suggests that humans have a tendency to readily accept beliefs that align with their emotions, particularly fear and desire. It highlights the psychological influence of these powerful feelings on our perception of reality, indicating that we are more likely to embrace ideas and narratives that resonate with what we wish to be true or what we dread, rather than seeking objective truth.
Themes
BeliefFearDesirePsychologyTruth
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used to start a discussion on how people's beliefs can be manipulated in advertising.
More from Jean De La Fontaine
All quotes βIn everything one must consider the end.
Jean De La FontaineRead
Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.
Jean De La FontaineRead
It is good to be charitable; but to whom? That is the point. As to the ungrateful, there is not one who does not at last die miserable.
Jean De La FontaineRead
Let ignorance talk as it will, learning has its value.
Jean De La FontaineRead
Death never takes the wise man by surprise, he is always ready to go.
Jean De La FontaineRead
Similar quotes
Acceptance means: For now, this is what this situation, this moment, requires me to do, and so I do it willingly.
Eckhart TolleRead
Tragedy is formed 'round ideas it does not expound, and to understand its history is, in some part, to understand those ideas and their place in the society that produced it.
Bernard WilliamsRead
I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death, and something else I'd rather not recall just now.
Anna AkhmatovaRead
The wisest man would be the one richest in contradictions, who has, as it were, antennae for all types of men---as well as his great moments of grand harmony---a rare accident even in us! A sort of planetary motion---
Friedrich NietzscheRead
As long as I live under the capitalistic system I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp. This, sir, is my resignation.
William FaulknerRead
Our waking life's desire to shape the world to our convenience invites all manner of paradox and difficulty.
Cormac MccarthyRead