Haven't you got any romance in your soul?" said Magrat plaintively. "No," said Granny. "I ain't. And stars don't care what you wish, and magic don't make things better, and no one doesn't get burned who sticks their hand in a fire. If you want to amount to anything as a witch, Magrat Garlick, you got to learn three things. What's real, what's not real, and what's the difference.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of understanding reality and the consequences of one's actions rather than relying on wishes or magic.
In this quote, Granny expresses a pragmatic view of life, telling Magrat that wishful thinking and magic are futile if one does not recognize the difference between reality and illusion. The lesson highlights the necessity of facing the truth and understanding the real world to grow and succeed, especially in the context of being a witch. It serves as a reminder that actions have consequences and that knowledge is essential for personal development.
In practice
In a motivational speech about facing challenges, one could say, 'As Granny advises, we must learn what's real and what's not if we want to succeed.'
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
If we did not have a sense of who we were, how we got here, why we want to achieve something - which, on the face of it, on the logic of it, is probably not worth trying - and prove that logic wrong, then you wouldn't succeed; then you would just evaporate.
A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue.
My thing is this; if I'm sick enough to think it, then I'm sick enough to say it.
Be moderate in eating and drinking. Mindful of the passing of time, engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.
The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.
When you blame yourself, you learn from it. If you blame someone else, you don't learn nothing, cause hey, it's not your fault, it's his fault, over there.
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