Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Alexander PopeRead
Fly, dotard, fly! With thy wise dreams and fables of the sky.
Interpretation
This quote suggests the folly of clinging to unrealistic ideals and fantasies.
In this quote, Alexander Pope addresses a foolish or aging person ('dotard') who is caught up in idealistic dreams and imaginative tales. Pope encourages this individual to abandon these lofty fantasies and instead confront the reality of life, suggesting a tension between idealism and realism in human experience.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of facing reality, I might say, 'Fly, dotard, fly! With thy wise dreams and fables of the sky.'
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things.
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare; And beauty draws us with a single hair.
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight;_x000D_ _x000D_ Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.
Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?
It is indeed a singular thing that people wish to pass laws to nullify the disagreeable consequences that the law of responsibility entails. Will they never realize that they do not eliminate these consequences but merely pass them along to other people? The result is one injustice the more and one moral the less.
I felt myself in a solitude so frightful that I contemplated suicide. What held me back was the idea that no one, absolutely no one, would be moved by my death, that I would be even more alone in death than in life.
I would not question the sincerity of vegetarians who take little interest in Animal Liberation because they give priority to other causes; but when nonvegetarians say that "human problems come first" I cannot help wondering what exactly it is that they are doing for human beings that compels them to continue to support the wasteful, ruthless exploitation of farm animals.
A “collective” mind does not exist. It is merely the sum of endless numbers of individual minds. If we have an endless number of individual minds who are weak, meek, submissive and impotent – who renounce their creative supremacy for the sake of the “whole” and accept humbly that the “whole’s” verdict – we don’t get a collective super-brain. We get only the weak, meek, submissive and impotent collective mind.
For this world that men have made, none of us is bad enough. For the world that made us, none is good enough.
Why should I fear death?_x000D_ If I am, then death is not._x000D_ If Death is, then I am not._x000D_ Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?_x000D_ Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear._x000D_ Religious tyranny did domineer._x000D_ At length the mighty one of Greece_x000D_ Began to assent the liberty of man.
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