QuoteProject
Thats how we survive infinity - we kill it by breaking it up into small bits.
Terry Pratchett
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

To cope with the vastness of life, we should focus on manageable parts rather than the entirety.

This quote by Terry Pratchett suggests that the overwhelming nature of infinity can be tamed by breaking it down into smaller, more digestible pieces. Instead of being daunted by the endless possibilities and challenges that life presents, we can find peace and survive by addressing them bit by bit, allowing us to navigate through existence with greater ease and understanding.

Themes

InfinitySurvivalLifeManagePieces

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about tackling large projects, one could say, 'That's how we survive infinity - we kill it by breaking it up into small bits.'

More from Terry Pratchett

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.
Terry PratchettRead
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.
Terry PratchettRead
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
Terry PratchettRead
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Terry PratchettRead
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
Terry PratchettRead
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.
Terry PratchettRead

Similar quotes

Solitary confinement is too terrible a punishment to inflict on any human being, no matter what his crime. Hardened criminals in the men's prisons, it is said, often beg for the lash instead.
Emmeline PankhurstRead
The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals.
Richard DawkinsRead
Men are not born saints with special gifts and privileges. They fight against the world, the flesh and the devil, and as they conquer, the spirit of Jesus begins to shine through with more clarity.
Mother AngelicaRead
Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.
Thorstein VeblenRead
Bridge-players tell me that there must be some money on the game 'or else people won't take it seriously'. Apparently it's like that. Your bid - for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity - will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world.
C. S. LewisRead
Just beyond the ticket booth Father had painted on a wall in bright red letters the question: DO YOU KNOW WHICH IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN THE ZOO? An arrow pointed to a small curtain. There were so many eager, curious hands that pulled at the curtain that we had to replace it regularly. Behind it was a mirror.
Yann MartelRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Terry Pratchett | QuoteProject