Flaubert was right when he said that our use of language is like a cracked kettle on which we bang out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we need to move the very stars to pity.
Interpretation
Our language often fails to express the depth of our emotions and aspirations, making communication a challenging endeavor.
This quote by Christopher Hitchens reflects on the limitations of language and how it often inadequately conveys our true needs and desires. It highlights the struggle of trying to communicate complex feelings while being constrained by the imperfections of our expressive tools, likening our attempts at meaningful communication to producing music from a flawed instrument, thereby pointing to the need for a deeper understanding and empathy in our interactions with others.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the importance of effective communication in relationships.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
the costume of the nineteenth century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colour-element left in modern life.
You can share your testimony in many ways, by the words you speak, by the example you set, by the manner in which you live your life.
If all of this, all the life of a stream of water, can be nothing but a pile of atoms, how much more is possible?
The dangers is that every religion, including the Catholic one, says "I have the ultimate truth." Then you start to rely on the priest, the mullah, the rabbi, or whoever, to be responsible for your acts. In fact, you are the only one who is responsible.
By a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with us.
If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will...then we may take it it is worth paying.
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