Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the paradox of loving humanity while struggling to connect with individual human beings.
Dostoevsky's quote reflects the complexity of human relationships and the inherent contradictions in our feelings toward society as a whole and individuals within it. While one may feel a profound love for humanity and its potential, the flaws and failings of individuals can create a sense of disillusionment or disappointment, illustrating a conflict between idealism and reality.
In practice
During a speech about social justice, one might reference the quote to illustrate the tension between broad ideals and specific interactions.
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
What if, when this fog scatters and flies upward, the whole rotten, slimey city goes with it, rises with the fog and vanishes like smoke.
Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
But do you understand, I cry to him, do you understand that if you have the guillotine in the forefront, and with such glee, it's for the sole reason that cutting heads off is the easiest thing, and having an idea is difficult!
...to return to their 'native soil,' as they say, to the bosom, so to speak, of their mother earth, like frightened children, yearning to fall asleep on the withered bosom of their decrepit mother, and to sleep there for ever, only to escape the horrors that terrify them.
During Lent, let us find concrete ways to overcome our indifference.
In China, the problem is that with the system of censorship that's now in place, the user doesn't know to what extent, why, and under what authority there's been censorship. There's no way of appealing. There's no due process.
Sports is to war as pornography is to sex. We get to exercise some ancient, ancient drives.
When the calamity we feared is already arrived, or when the expectation of it is so certain as to shut out hope, there seems to be a principle within us by which we look with misanthropic composure on the state to which we are reduced, and the heart sullenly contracts and accommodates itself to what it most abhorred.
The purpose of prayer is emphatically not to bend God's will to ours, but rather to align our will to his.
A person who is fundamentally honest doesn't need a code of ethics. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are all the ethical code anybody needs.
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