A good man can be stupid and still be good. But a bad man must have brains.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that goodness doesn't necessarily require intelligence, while being bad often demands cunning or cleverness.
Maxim Gorky's quote highlights a profound insight into human nature: it implies that a person can be inherently good and simple-minded, yet their goodness remains valid and impactful. Conversely, it indicates that a person with malicious intent often relies on their intelligence and cunning to navigate the world, suggesting a deeper complexity in evil compared to good. This perspective raises questions about morality, intelligence, and the nature of both virtue and vice.
In practice
In a discussion about morality and ethics, referencing this quote can help illustrate the complexities of good and bad behaviors.
If it is true that only misfortune can awaken a man's soul, it is a bitter truth, one that is hard to hear and accept, and it is only natural that many people deny it and say it is better for a man to live on in a trance than to wake up to torture.
What I'd like is to meet a man I could take off my hat to and say: "Thank you for having got born, and the longer you live the better.
To speak the truth is the most difficult of all arts, for in its "pure" form, not connected with the interests of individuals, groups, classes, or nations, truth is almost completely unsuitable for use by the Philistine and is unacceptable to him.
Be good, be kind, be humane, and charitable; love your fellows; console the afflicted; pardon those who have done you wrong.
Truth doesn't always heal a wounded soul.
Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.
I dream of a world where the truth is what shapes people's politics, rather than politics shaping what people think is true.
Having faith in the plan of salvation includes steadfastly refusing to be diverted from our true identities and responsibilities. In the brief season of our existence on earth we may serve as a plumber, professor, farmer, physician, mechanic, bookkeeper, or teacher. These are useful activities and honorable designations; but a temporary vocation is not reflective of our true identities. Matthew was a tax collector, Luke a physician, and Peter a fisherman. In a salvational sense, 'so what!'
It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man's nature -- the connection between his survival and his use of reason -- that capitalism recognizes and protects.
I consider the doctrines of Jesus as delivered by himself to contain the outlines of the sublimest system of morality that has ever been taught but I hold in the most profound detestation and execration the corruptions of it which have been invented.
Peace and not war is the father of all things.
The most vulnerable and yet most unconquerable of things is human vanity; nay, through being wounded its strength increases and can grow to giant proportions.
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