Love consists in leaving the loved one space to be themselves while providing the security within which that self may flourish.
Tony JudtRead
I'm not sure I've learned anything new about life; but I've had to think harder about death and what comes after for other people.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the insights gained from contemplating death and its impact on understanding life.
In this quote, Tony Judt expresses a profound realization that while he may not have discovered new facts about life, the experience of contemplating death and its implications for others has deepened his understanding. This reflection prompts a more profound engagement with the themes of existence, mortality, and the value of life itself, suggesting that the awareness of death can lead to a richer appreciation of lifeβs complexities.
In practice
In a discussion about life's challenges, this quote can highlight the importance of reflecting on mortality.
Love consists in leaving the loved one space to be themselves while providing the security within which that self may flourish.
If active or concerned citizens forfeit politics, they thereby abandon their society to its most mediocre and venal public servants
Obviously a primary liberal conviction is that we should be tolerant of other peoples' convictions. But if we believe in something, we had better find ways to say so convincingly.
Social democracy does not represent an ideal future; it does not even represent the ideal past.
What I am against is false optimism: the notion either that things have to go well, or else that they tend to, or else that the default condition of historical trajectories is characteristically beneficial in the long-run.
We are not merely historians but also and always citizens.
But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?
Nothing forces us to know What we do not want to know Except pain
Freedom is not a reward or a decoration that you toast in champagne. On the contrary, it's hard graft and a long-distance run, all alone, very exhausting. Alone in a dreary room, alone in the dock before the judges, and alone to make up your mind, before yourself and before the judgement of others. At the end of every freedom there is a sentence, which is why freedom is too heavy to bear.
You are the light of the world. You are the _x000D_ consciousness that illuminates the world. Know yourself as that, and that's _x000D_ freedom, liberation, awakening, the end of suffering and madness. And it's _x000D_ happening right here.
A reactionary is fixed on the past and wanting to return to it; a conservative wishes to adapt what is best in the past to the changing circumstances of the present.
To conquer oneself is the best and noblest victory; to be vanquished by one's own nature is the worst and most ignoble defeat.
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