I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.
Virginia WoolfRead
Human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People often act in ways that prioritize their immediate pleasure over genuine qualities like kindness and charity.
Virginia Woolf's quote reflects a cynical view of human nature, suggesting that acts of kindness, faith, and charity are often self-serving and are performed only to enhance one's own immediate happiness. This perspective raises questions about the motivations behind human behavior and the authenticity of our actions, implying that self-interest may overshadow altruism in our interactions with one another.
Themes
Human NatureSelfishnessPleasureKindnessCharity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the motivations behind charitable actions during an ethics class.
More from Virginia Woolf
All quotes βDeath is woven in with the violets,β said Louis. βDeath and again death.β)
Virginia WoolfRead
He began to search among the infinite series of impressions which time had laid down, leaf upon leaf, fold upon fold softly, incessantly upon his brain; among scents, sounds; voices, harsh, hollow, sweet; and lights passing, and brooms tapping; and the wash and hush of the sea.
Virginia WoolfRead
I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts.
Virginia WoolfRead
I do think all good and evil comes from words. I have to tune myself into a good temper with something musical, and I run to a book as a child to its mother.
Virginia WoolfRead
London perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play and a story and a poem, without any trouble, save that of moving my legs through the streets... To walk alone through London is the greatest rest.
Virginia WoolfRead
Similar quotes
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, old people in America had prayed, "Please God, don't let me look poor." In the year 2000, they prayed, "Please God, don't let me look old." Sexiness was equated with youth, and youth ruled. The most widespread age-related disease was not senility but juvenility.
Tom WolfeRead
Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.
Thomas AquinasRead
I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west.
Orhan PamukRead
I always liked the idea that America is a big facade. We are all insects crawling across on the shiny hood of a Cadillac. We're all looking at the wrapping. But we won't tear the wrapping to see what lies beneath.
Tom WaitsRead
I suffer from life and from other people. I canβt look at reality face to face. Even the sun discourages and depresses me. Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful β only then do I find myself and feel comforted.
Fernando PessoaRead
No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.
Herbert SpencerRead