We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it.
Jose MartiRead
An insatiable appetite for glory leads to sacrifice and death, but innate instinct leads to self-preservation and life.
Interpretation
The desire for fame can result in severe consequences, while natural instincts prioritize survival and well-being.
The quote by Jose Marti highlights a fundamental conflict between the pursuit of glory and the instinctual drive for self-preservation. It suggests that an overwhelming desire for recognition and success can lead individuals to make significant sacrifices, often at great personal cost, including risking their lives. In contrast, innate instincts, which prioritize survival and life, should guide individuals towards more meaningful and sustainable choices.
In practice
In a motivational speech about following one's true path and avoiding unnecessary risks.
We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it.
Like bones to the human body, the axle to the wheel, the wing to the bird, and the air to the wing, so is liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect.
Men have no special right because they belong to one race or another: the word man defines all rights.
Other famous men, those of much talk and few deeds, soon evaporate. Action is the dignity of greatness.
Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state. Man is a wing.
Like stones rolling down hills, fair ideas reach their objectives despite all obstacles and barriers. It may be possible to speed or hinder them, but impossible to stop them.
Our kindness may be the most persuasive argument for that which we believe.
The most important things must be said simply, for they are spoiled by bombast; whereas trivial things must be described grandly, for they are supported only by aptness of expression, tone and manner.
A buddha laughs too, but his laughter has the quality of a smile. His laughter has the feminine quality of grace. When an ignorant person laughs, his laughter is very aggressive, egoistic. The ignorant person always laughs at others. The contented person, the person who knows life a little, laughs at himself - at the whole play of life itself. It is not addressed to anybody in particular. He just laughs at the absurdity of it all... the impossibility of it all.
My favorite three words in the English language are: βI donβt knowβ, because every time I say them, I learn something new.
Thoughts are fine when you don't confuse them with who you are, and then thoughts are not a problem. Thinking is a wonderful tool to create things in this world. It only becomes problematic and a source of suffering when you confuse thinking with who you are.
If you must say yes, say it with an open heart. If you must say no, say it without fear.
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