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 have sinned against my brother the ass.
...if we know God our knowledge of... everything will be brought to perfection, and, in so far as is possible, the infinite, divine and ineffable dwelling place (cf. Jn. 14:2) will be ours to enjoy. For this is what our sainted teacher said in his famous philosophical aphorism: 'Then we shall know as we are known' (I Cor. 13:12), when we mingle our god-formed mind and divine reason to what is properly its own and the image returns to the archetype for which it now longs.
If I have not been exposed and am not in any danger of pursuit. But I have been exposed, I am pursued - by myself! That is a pursuer that does not readily let go.
...I will not allow books to prove any thing." "But how shall we prove any thing?" "We never shall.
The perfection of Tawheed is found when there remains nothing in the heart except Allaah
It is only by enlarging the scope of one’s tastes and one’s fantasies, by sacrificing everything to pleasure, that the unfortunate individual called Man, thrown despite himself into this sad world, can succeed in gathering a few roses among life’s thorns
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.