For us lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress -- to the future.
Erich Maria RemarqueRead
They are more human and more brotherly towards one another, it seems to me, than we are. But perhaps that is merely because they feel themselves to be more unfortunate than us.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on human empathy, suggesting that those who suffer may connect with each other more deeply than those who do not.
Erich Maria Remarque's quote highlights a profound observation about human relationships and empathy. It suggests that individuals who experience misfortune often forge stronger bonds with one another because they share a common understanding of suffering. This perspective prompts the reader to reflect on their own relationships and the nature of compassion, as it raises the question of whether comfort and privilege can sometimes lead to emotional detachment.
Themes
EmpathySufferingHuman ConnectionBrotherhoodMisfortune
In practice
Example use cases
This quote would be ideal for a discussion on the importance of empathy in social justice movements.
More from Erich Maria Remarque
All quotes →Anyway the war is over so far as they are concerned. But to wait for dysentery is not much of a life either.
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We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out…we creep in upon ourselves and with big eyes stare into the night…and thus we wait for morning.
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There was only the broad square with the scattered dim moons of the street lamps and with the monumental stone arch which receded into the mist as though it would prop up the melancholy sky and protect beneath itself the faint lonely flame on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which looked like the last grave of mankind in the midst of night and loneliness.
Erich Maria RemarqueRead
(Ravic speaking of a butterfly caught in the Louvre) In the morning it would search for flowers and life and the light honey of blossoms and would not find them and later it would fall asleep on millennial marble, weakened by then, until the grip of the delicate, tenacious feet loosened and it fell, a thin leaf of premature autumn.
Erich Maria RemarqueRead
He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.
Erich Maria RemarqueRead
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