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
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.
In practice
This quote can be used to start a discussion on how people's beliefs can be manipulated in advertising.
Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.
In everything one must consider the end.
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.
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.
Let ignorance talk as it will, learning has its value.
Death never takes the wise man by surprise, he is always ready to go.
May we look upon our treasure, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try to discover whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions.
Any woman who has a great deal to offer the world is in trouble. And if she's a black woman, seh's in deep trouble.
Whatever the reason, for most of the present century, the literature and publicity of the old established [animal welfare] groups made a significant contribution to the prevailing attitude that dogs and cats and wild animals need protection, but other animals do not. Thus people came to think of "animal welfare" as something for kindly ladies who are dotty about cats, and not as a cause founded on basic principles of justice and morality.
Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.
The scripture in times of disputes is like an open town in times of war, which serves in differently the occasions of both parties.
I see anarchism as the theoretical ideal to which we are all gradually evolving to a point where everybody can tell the truth to everybody else and nobody can get punished for it. That can only happen without hierarchy and without people having the authority to punish other people.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.