The trouble with righting some wrongs is that it makes the remaining ones seem even more unbearable.
A. A. GillRead
Trying to learn to be a good man is like learning to play tennis against a wall. You are only a good man - a competent, capable, interesting and lovable man - when you're doing it for, or with, other people.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Being a good person means engaging with others, not just self-improvement.
A. A. Gill suggests that the journey of personal development, such as becoming a good man, cannot be undertaken in solitude. Just as tennis requires a partner to play against, character and virtue are cultivated through our interactions and relationships with others. It is in these connections that we truly grow and learn what it means to be a good and effective person.
Themes
GoodnessRelationshipsPersonal GrowthCommunityConnection
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about community service, one might say, 'As A. A. Gill expresses, trying to become a good person is truly a collective journey.'
More from A. A. Gill
All quotes →If the world were to end tomorrow and we could choose to save only one thing as the explanation and memorial to who we were, then we couldn't do better than the Natural History Museum, although it wouldn't contain a single human. The systematic Linnean order, the vast inquisitiveness and range of collated knowledge and beauty would tell all that is the best of us.
A. A. GillRead
Sport is how poor kids from poor countries pass through the eye of the needle to riches and recognition.
A. A. GillRead
Being able to afford everything you desire is not, by any means, the worst thing that can happen to you. But, depressingly, and more profoundly, neither is it the best.
A. A. GillRead
America didn’t bypass or escape civilization. It did something far more profound, far cleverer: it simply changed what civilization could be.
A. A. GillRead
Celebrity is a national drama whose characters' parts and plots are written by the tabloids, gossip columnists, websites and interactive buttons. The famous don't actually have to turn up to their own lives at all.
A. A. GillRead
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