Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.
Interpretation
The quote illustrates the idea that contrasting experiences enhance our appreciation of positive moments.
In this quote, John Steinbeck emphasizes the importance of contrasts in our experiences. The warmth of summer symbolizes the enjoyable and fulfilling aspects of life, while the cold of winter represents the hardships and challenges we face. Together, these opposing forces create a deeper appreciation for each other. Without experiencing difficulties, we might take the good times for granted. The quote invites us to recognize that struggles can enhance the beauty of joy and well-being.
In practice
This quote could be used in a motivational speech about resilience.
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
Unlike the Tea Party, who see themselves as the customers of government, people in the Occupy Wall Street movement understand that we are the government. Stated most simply, we are trying to run a 21st-century society on a 13th-century economic operating system. It just doesn't work.
After all, you put a lot into creating a universe and everything that goes with it, and it seems a shame to use it only once.
What gets in our way is history and culture and religion and economic conditions. It is part of the hypnosis of our social conditioning.
To insult someone we call him 'bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, 'human' might be the greater insult.
The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.
A small revenge is more human than no revenge at all.
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